Somatic Experience in the Anxiety State: Some Sex and Personality Correlates of "Autonomic Feedback".

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Abstract
One facet of the anxiety state is the experienced alteration of somatic functioning. Recent work by Mandler and his associates (Mandler & Kremen, 1958; Mandler, Mandler, & Uviller, 1958) has again called attention to this aspect of anxiety, termed by them "autonomic feedback." An Autonomic Perception Questionnaire (APQ) was developed for the self-description of somatic symptoms characteristic of subjects' anxiety experience. They have investigated whether and how the number and/or intensity of such symptoms is related to other measures of anxiety and to autonomic reactivity under stress as measured directly. In their first study, which compared selected high and low APQ scorers, high subjects more commonly reported somatic sensations during intellectually stressful tasks, and generally showed greater autonomic reactivity in terms of polygraphic measurements (Mandler et al., 1958). While generally replicating these findings, a second study of unselected subjects found less distinct relationships between APQ scores and either somatic report or autonomic reactivity under the same stress (Mandler & Kremen, 1958). Correlations between the APQ and both the Taylor Manifest Anxiety scale and a newly developed Body Perception Scale were positive in both studies, though considerably lower in the second. The present study is designed to replicate and extend these findings, and generally to explore further the personality correlates of autonomic feedback. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2006 APA, all rights reserved)

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