Td. Blumenthal et al., EFFECTS OF SOCIAL ANXIETY, ATTENTION, AND EXTROVERSION ON THE ACOUSTIC STARTLE EYEBLINK RESPONSE, Personality and individual differences, 19(6), 1995, pp. 797-807
Konorski's (Conditioned Reflexes and Neuron Organization, 1948) biphas
ic theory of emotion suggests that emotions are organized into two opp
ositional motivational systems, one of which is responsible for hunger
, sexual drive, and curiosity (approach), while the opposing system is
responsible for fear (avoidance). Lang and colleagues have proposed t
hat this model explains the pattern of acoustic startle eyeblink respo
nses seen when subjects are probed during the processing of differenti
ally emotionally valenced slides. The two studies presented here sugge
st that, in the case of negative affect involving social anxiety, the
response pattern may be more complex. Experiment 1 replicated earlier
findings that a social encounter attenuates the startle response, and
provided evidence that this effect is independent of habituation. Expe
riment 2 found a significant interaction of extraversion and social en
counter for startle response amplitude, suggesting that the effect of
a social encounter on the startle response is personality dependent. O
hman's (1986, Psychophysiology, 23, 123-145) model of intraspecific vs
interspecific fears seems to be an appropriate framework in which to
view the effect of social situations on emotional responding.