Anxiety Reduction, Assertive Training, and Enactment of Consequences

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Abstract
The relative effectiveness of assertive training and anxiety reduction in the treatment of unassertiveness and social fear was evaluated. Subjects were inmates at a medium-security federal penitentiary and were selected on the basis of their scores on behavioral and self-report measures of assertion and level of expressed social fear. Contrary to predictions made from the Social Fear Hypothesis, it was found that the effects of treatment were specific and nonoverlapping. Assertive training led to increased assertion but did not decrease social fear, while for inmates in the anxiety reduction group, social fear, but not assertion, was modified. In addition, the value of enactment of consequences during role playing was assessed. This component of assertive training was not found to enhance treatment effects. The problems in conducting assertive training in a penitentiary were discussed.

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