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Biomedical subjects

W N Morris

Publications and source records attributed to W N Morris.

4 recordsLinked to original sources
PubMed1976

Collective coping with stress: group reactions to fear, anxiety, and ambiguity.

A review of studies examining the fear-affiliation relationship revealed that none had ever observed groups in interaction while awaiting a fearful event. It was predicted that such groups would, consistent with individual member's previously studied affiliative preferences, spend more time interacting in the service of social comparison needs than would groups facing anxiety or ambiguity. This prediction was strongly supported, and in addition, it was found, as expected, that groups in the fear condition developed a relatively high degree of cohesiveness as measured by intragroup attraction ratings. The implication of these results for the interpretation of the functional relationship between stress and cohesiveness was discussed.

Adaptation, Psychological↗
PubMed1975

Effects of stress and commonality of fate on helping behavior.

An experiment was performed in order to examine the joint effects of stress and commonality of fate on helping behavior. In a 2 times 2 factorial design, subjects were randomly assigned to one of four conditions in which (a) the subject and a confederate are both awaiting an experiment involving electric shock (high stress-common fate); (b) the subject is awaiting an experiment involving electric shock while the confederate is awaiting an innocuous word association experiment (high stress-dissimilar fate); (c) the subject is awaiting the word association experiment while the confederate awaits shock (low stress-dissimilar fate); and (d) the subject and the confederate are both awaiting an innocuous word association experiment (low stress-common fate). As predicted, a significant interaction, p less than .01, was obtained, indicating that high stress, as compared to low stress, facilitates helping if the potential recipient is in the same stressful situation but inhibits helping if the potential recipient is in a dissimilar and less stressful situation.

Adolescent↗