Perceptualand Motor Skills, 1992, 7 5 , 1067-1073. O Perceptual and Motor Skills 1992
POSITIVE THINKING REDUCES HEART RATE AND FEAR
RESPONSES TO SPEECH-PHOBIC IMAGERY ' SENQI HU, TASHA R. BOSTOW, DANIEL A. LIPMAN, SHAWNA K. BELL, AND SCOTT KLEIN
Humboldt State Universily Summary.-30 speech-anxious subjects imagined a phobic speech scene 10 times. The experimental conditions varied according to whether the subjects engaged in positive, neutral, or negative thinking prior to each scene presentation. Heart rate and selfreports of fear were measured during the imagery periods. Posirive thinking just before visualization of the phobic images reduced both subjective anxiety about speech and cardiovascular responses.
Several studies (Daly & Lawrence, 1985; Drily, Vagelisti, Neel, & Cavanaugh, 1987; Ayres, 1988) have reported that speech anxiety is highly correlated with the subject's internal state prior to the speech. Negative thoughts prior to delivery of a speech result in higher anxiety about the speech, whereas positive thoughts prior to delivery lead to lower anxiety. Borkovec and Hu (1990) found that visualization of a speech-phobic image led to heightened cardiovascular responses and subjective fear responses in subjects suffering from speech phobias, but that these responses could be reduced by repeated exposure to the phobic images. Further, they observed that negative thinking just before each visualization lessened the heart-rate reduction and slowed the decrease in fear responses. The negative correlation between positive thinking and subjective reports of anxiety has also been confirmed among subjects who used visualization to increase posirive thoughts prior to delivery of a speech (Ayres, 1988). However, it remains unclear whether there is a correspondence between the subjective report and a physiological response (heart rate) among subjects. I t has been proposed that fear assessments should cover affective, physiological, and motoric components (Lang, 1979). Several laboratories (Grossberg & Wilson, 1968; Lang, Kozak, Miller, Levin, & McLean, 1980; Lang, Melamed, & Hart, 1970) have verified that patterns of autonomic activity to emotional stimuli are similar both when people are visuahzing an emotional image and when they are in a real situation. Since speech anxiety is related to negative or positive thinking prior to giving a speech, we expected that positive thinking just before visualization of a speech-phobic image would reduce both the subjective reports of speech
'This study was supported by funds from the Humboldt State University. Requests for reprints should be sent to Senqi Hu, Department of Psychology, Humboldt State University, Arcata, CA 95521.
1068
S. HU, ETAL.
anxiety and somatic-visceral responses (heart rate). The purpose of this study was to investigate this hypothesis. Speech-anxious subjects imagined a phobic speech scene 10 times. Conditions varied according to whether subjects also engaged in positive, neutral, or negative thinking just prior to the presentation of each scene. Heart rate and self-reported fear were then assessed. METHOD Thirty undergraduate students from two introductory psychology classes participated in the study in return for additional credit in the course. Ages ranged from 18 to 20 years, with a median of 20. All subjects indicated strong fear or terror on the public speaking item of a fear survey given during a group screening session. Subjects were randomly assigned to three groups given positive, neutral, and negative thinlung, with 10 subjects in each condition. Fifteen subjects were women and 15 were men. The sex distribution in each group was balanced. The procedure used was approved by the Committee for the Protection of Human Subjects of Humboldt State University, and informed written consent was obtained from each subject. Each subject participated in the experiment on two consecutive days. Subjects were seated in a reclined chair in the private room adjacent to the central equipment room, and two silver-silver chloride cutaneous electrodes (UFI, Model 1081 Biode, Morro Bay, California) were attached to the right and left rib cages of each subject. I n the first session, subjects in the neutral group were asked to read a list of 10 sentences that characterized common, neutral activities (see Appendix, p. 1073) into a tape recorder for use in the next session. Subjects in the positive-thinking group were asked to read a list of 10 sentences that characterized positive attitudes toward a speech (see Appendix, p. 1073). Subjects in the negative-thinking group were asked to read a list of 10 sentences that characterized negative attitudes about giving a public speech (see Appendix, p. 1073). Heart rate was not recorded on the first day; however, the electrode attachment was performed to reduce the novel effects of the electrode placement. O n the following day the second session was conducted. Each subject sat in the private room after electrodes were attached. The subject was asked to read a description of the speech scene several times, briefly to imagine the scene, to read the description again, and to continue doing this until the subject was sure that he could turn on this particular image with each and every detail in exactly the same way each time. The scene was described as Imagine that you are about to present an important speech to a large audience in an auditorium. on the stage just before you begin speaking, you look out and see As you stand at the all of the faces in the audience looking at you, waiting for you to begin. As you stand there, you feel your legs are wobbly and your mouth and throat are dry.
Subjects were told that, during the imagery periods later in the session, they were immediately to visualize the speech scene when instructed to d o so
CORRELATES OF SPEECH-PHOBIC IMAGERY
1069
and to imagine the scene as if they were really in the situation with all details that the scene presented. They were asked to keep it vivid until the experimenter instructed them to turn the speech image off. After the subject learned the image, the experimenter showed the subject a 9-point scale for rating fear. Thereafter, all instructions were transmitted via an intercom system from the central room to the subject. The electrodes were connected to a Physiograph (Narco Bio-Systems, Inc., Model Four-A, Houston, Texas) which provided a written record of heart rate (chart speed: 5 mmlsec. during the baseline period and thlnking periods; 25 mm/sec. during the imagery periods). The heart-rate recording began with a 5-min. baseline resting period. At the end of baseline, the experimental procedures began. The first sentence of the subject's own voice was played through a tape recorder. As soon as the subject heard the sentence, he was asked to spend 30 sec. thinking about the situation presented in the sentence. The subject was then instructed to turn on the speech image for 15 sec. After the imagery period, the experimenter asked the subject to rate the image in terms of how much fear he felt while imagining it. After this another cycle followed (listening to a statement and thinking about it, imagining the same speech scene, and reporting fear) until 10 presentations of the thinking image were completed. Heart rate was scored by hand from the paper record. The initial baseline sample was taken from the last minute of the 5-min. baseline period. Ten-second samples of heart rate were taken during each imagery period beginning at the offset of instructions to turn on the speech scene. The heartrate data were converted to beats per minute (bpm).
RESULTS A one-way analysis of variance on the baseline heart-rate sample indicated no significant differences among the three conditions. Repeated-measures analysis of variance (condition by presentation number) on the heartrate changes during the 10 imagery periods indicated a significant condition effect (F,,,, = 3.98, p < 0.03). Tukey post hoc comparisons indicated that subjects in the positive condition produced a significantly smaller heart-rate increase in response to image presentation than did subjects in the neutral condition and the negative condition. There was no significant main effect of presentation for each condition. Table 1 presents the above results in terms of heart-rate change scores from baseline period to each imagery period over the 10 presentations. Repeated-measures analysis of variance (condition by presentation number) on the fear ratings indicated a significant condition effect (F,,,, = 4.86, ~ ~ 0 . 0 2Tukey ) . post hoc comparisons indicated that subjects in the positive condition reported significantly less fear in response to the image presentations than did subjects in the negative condition; subjects in the neutral condition did not differ significantly from subjects in either of the other two
TABLE 1 MEANSA N D STANDARD DEVIATIONS FORHEART-RATE CHANGE (BPM)FROMBASELINE PERIODTO IMAGERY PERIOD A N D FORFEARRATMGSDURING10 ~ O B I C SCENEPRESENTATIONS, FOR P o s m ~ NEUTRAL, , AND NEGATIVE THINKING CONDITIONS
Conditions of Thinking
M
SD
M
SD
M
SD
M
SD
Presentations 5 6 M SD M
Positive Neutral Negative
3.6 8.1 8.0
2.2 4.7 5.0
2.9 5.7 5.4
3.0 3.1 5.5
2.9 7.8 7.2
2.2 4.3 4.6
1.6 6.0 6.0
1.9 4.2 5.6
Positive Neutral Negative
3.6 3.9 4.8
1.7 1.8 1.3
3.3 4.2 4.5
1.4 1.7 1.7
3.6 4.3 4.9
1.7 1.3 1.1
3.6 3.7 5.4
1.7 1.8 1.6
3.7 3.7 5.5
2
1
3
4
7
SD
8
9
10
?
M
SD
M
SD
M
SD
M
SD
Heart-rate Change 1.7 3.0 2.1 2.3 4.7 3.9 4.1 2.3 5.0 4.2 5.8 4.6
1.8 4.8 5.4
2.0 3.6 5.5
2.9 5.5 4.8
2.2 2.9 5.4
1.7 3.6 4.0
3.0 4.2 3.6
2.1 4.3 4.5
2.6 3.6 4.6
Fear Rating 1.5 3.6 2.0 3.6 5.1 1.7
3.0 4.1 5.4
1.4 2.1 1.4
2.9 4.1 5.4
1.2 2.2 1.8
3.4 3.7 6.1
1.6 2.2 1.5
2.9 3.7 5.7
1.3 2.3 1.7
1.7 1.7 1.7
Z
C
m Y
b
p
CORRELATES OF SPEECH-PHOBIC IMAGERY
1071
conditions. There was no significant main effect of presentation for each condition; however, the negative group showed their fear rating gradually increased with the time (see Table 1).
DISCUSSION The results of this study confirmed the hypothesis that engaging in positive thinking just before visualization of a phobic image was associated with reduction of both subjective speech anxiety and cardiovascular responses to that image. Conversely, it was also true that negative thinking just before visualization of a phobic image increased fear responses and somatic responses. Assuming that negative self-evaluation is the central aspect of speech anxiety (Ayres, 1988), we believe that thinlung positively can limit the possibility of negative thoughts emerging in the cognitive system, therefore, fewer subjective fear responses can be generated at the moment of visualization of a speech scene. As a result of decreased fear perception, associated heart-rate responses were also reduced. Even though it has been acknowledged that behavioral, cognitive, and physiological response systems of anxiety often d o not covary (Hodgson & Rachman, 1974; Lang, 1968), recent studies from several research groups (Beatty, 1984; Borkovec & Hu, 1990; Tardy, Allen, Thompson, & Leary, 1991) have shown that responses indicating physiological arousal and accompanying speech closely correlate with subjective fear perceptions. Our study again supports this occurrence in the situation of visualizing speech scenes. Over-all, the findings from this study that positive thinking reduced heart-rate and fear responses to phobic imagery suggest that practicing a positive attitude toward an upcoming real public speech can also be a useful cognitive approach to reduce speech anxiety for speech phobics. The clinical application of this approach depends upon subsequent studies which can verify that the technique of positive thought also reduces heart-rate and fear responses during actual speech-making. This approach is in addition to the other cognitive techniques, such as, rational emotive therapy (Ellis, 1963), cognitive restructuring (Meichenbaum, 1977), and visualization (Ayres, 1988). Some of these cognitive approaches combat speech anxiety by reconstructing the rational thought process and reducing the negative components in the cognitive system ( E h s , 1963; Meichenbaum, 1977). We believe that the approach used in this study mainly distracts anxiety-prone peo.ple from their negative thinhng. We expect to see the combination of positive thinking and other cognitive approaches in treating phobic disorders in the future. REFERENCES
AYRES,J. (1988) Coping with speech anxiety: the power of positive thinking. Communication Education, 37, 289-296. BEATIT, M. (1984) Physiological assessment. In J. A. Daly & J. C. McCmskey (Eds.), Avoiding communication: shyness, reticence, and communication apprehension. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage. Pp. 95-105.
1072
S. HU, ETAL.
BORKOVEC, T. D., & H u , S. (1990) The effect of worry on cardiovascular response to phobic imagery. Behaviour Research and Therapy, 28, 69-73. DALY, J. A,, & LAWRENCE, S. (1985) Self-focused cognitions and public speaking anxiety. Paper presented at the Annual Convention of the International Communication Association, Honolulu, HI. DALY,J. A,, VAGELISTI, A. L., NEEL, H. L., & CAVANAUGH, P. D. (1987) Pre-performance concerns associated with public speaking anxiety. Paper presented at the Annual Convention of the Speech Communication Association, Boston, MA. ELLIS,A. (1963) Reason and emotion in pxychotherapy. New York: Stuart. Guosssmc, J. M., & W u s o ~ H , . K. (1968) Physiological changes accompanying the visualization of fearful and neutral situations. Jorlrnal of Personalily and Social Psychology, 10, 124-133. HODGSON, R., & RACHMAN, S. (1974) 11. Desynchrony in measures of fear. Behauiour Research and Therapy, 12, 319-326. LANG,P. J. (1968) Fear reduction and fear behavior: problems in treating a construct. In J. M. Shlien (Ed.), Research in psychotherapy. Vol. 3. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association. Pp. 90-102. LANG,P. J. (1979) A bio-informational theory of emotional imagery. Psychophysiology, 16, 495-512. LANG,P. J., KOZAK,M. J., ~ E RG . A,, , LEW, D. N., & MCLEAN,A. (1980) Emotional imagery: conceprual structure and pattern of somatic-visceral response. Pxychophysiology, 17, 179-192. LANG,P. J., MEWED, B. G., & HART,J. (1970) A psychophysiological analysis of fear modification using an automated desensitization procedure. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 76, 220-234. MEICHENBAUM, D. H. (1977) Cognitive behavior modification. New York: Plenum. W. R., & LEAKY,M. R. (1991) Social anxiety and TARDY,C. H . , ALLEN,M. T., THOMI'SON, cardiovascular responses to interpersonal communication. The Southern Communication Journal, 57, 25-34. Accepted September 1 7, 1992.
CORRELATES O F SPEECH-PHOBIC IMAGERY APPENDIX
TENNEUTRAL THINKING STAT~ENTS 1. I watch the news on television in the evening after I come home from work. 2. I sit at my desk and study a textbook. 3. I prepare my dinner using as few pots and pans as possible. 4. I wash the mound of dishes that have been piling up in the sink. 5. I wake up and get ready for my day. 6. I write a letter to a friend of mine. 7. A friend stops by and we talk about our class schedule. 8. I go to the post office to get my mail. 9. I walk to class and discuss the lesson of the day with a classmate. 10. I sit in class and listen to the teacher lecture. 1. I am a good public speaker. 2. The audience will appreciate my speech. 3 . I feel very self-confident. 4. I don't feel any difficulties while speaking in public. 5. I always feel comfortable while giving a speech in public. 6. I always speak very well. 7. The audience will like my speech because I speak well. 8. My speech is well written so it will be successful. 9. I am never nervous before giving a speech. 10. I enjoy speaking in public.
-
1. The audience rnieht see how nervous and anxious I am. 2. The audience might be bored and uninterested in my speech. 3. The audience might think that my speech is terrible. 4. I might stumble on the words of my speech. 5. I might say something that is wrong or stupid. 6. I am terrified at the thought of speaking before a group of people. 7. I am in constant fear of forgetting my speech. 8. I might turn red and I'll be so embarrassed. 9. My breaching will be short and rapid, and it will be difficult to speak. 10. I might lose my place in the speech or forget what I want to say.
POSITIVE THINKING REDUCES HEART RATE AND FEAR
RESPONSES TO SPEECH-PHOBIC IMAGERY ' SENQI HU, TASHA R. BOSTOW, DANIEL A. LIPMAN, SHAWNA K. BELL, AND SCOTT KLEIN
Humboldt State Universily Summary.-30 speech-anxious subjects imagined a phobic speech scene 10 times. The experimental conditions varied according to whether the subjects engaged in positive, neutral, or negative thinking prior to each scene presentation. Heart rate and selfreports of fear were measured during the imagery periods. Posirive thinking just before visualization of the phobic images reduced both subjective anxiety about speech and cardiovascular responses.
Several studies (Daly & Lawrence, 1985; Drily, Vagelisti, Neel, & Cavanaugh, 1987; Ayres, 1988) have reported that speech anxiety is highly correlated with the subject's internal state prior to the speech. Negative thoughts prior to delivery of a speech result in higher anxiety about the speech, whereas positive thoughts prior to delivery lead to lower anxiety. Borkovec and Hu (1990) found that visualization of a speech-phobic image led to heightened cardiovascular responses and subjective fear responses in subjects suffering from speech phobias, but that these responses could be reduced by repeated exposure to the phobic images. Further, they observed that negative thinking just before each visualization lessened the heart-rate reduction and slowed the decrease in fear responses. The negative correlation between positive thinking and subjective reports of anxiety has also been confirmed among subjects who used visualization to increase posirive thoughts prior to delivery of a speech (Ayres, 1988). However, it remains unclear whether there is a correspondence between the subjective report and a physiological response (heart rate) among subjects. I t has been proposed that fear assessments should cover affective, physiological, and motoric components (Lang, 1979). Several laboratories (Grossberg & Wilson, 1968; Lang, Kozak, Miller, Levin, & McLean, 1980; Lang, Melamed, & Hart, 1970) have verified that patterns of autonomic activity to emotional stimuli are similar both when people are visuahzing an emotional image and when they are in a real situation. Since speech anxiety is related to negative or positive thinking prior to giving a speech, we expected that positive thinking just before visualization of a speech-phobic image would reduce both the subjective reports of speech
'This study was supported by funds from the Humboldt State University. Requests for reprints should be sent to Senqi Hu, Department of Psychology, Humboldt State University, Arcata, CA 95521.
1068
S. HU, ETAL.
anxiety and somatic-visceral responses (heart rate). The purpose of this study was to investigate this hypothesis. Speech-anxious subjects imagined a phobic speech scene 10 times. Conditions varied according to whether subjects also engaged in positive, neutral, or negative thinking just prior to the presentation of each scene. Heart rate and self-reported fear were then assessed. METHOD Thirty undergraduate students from two introductory psychology classes participated in the study in return for additional credit in the course. Ages ranged from 18 to 20 years, with a median of 20. All subjects indicated strong fear or terror on the public speaking item of a fear survey given during a group screening session. Subjects were randomly assigned to three groups given positive, neutral, and negative thinlung, with 10 subjects in each condition. Fifteen subjects were women and 15 were men. The sex distribution in each group was balanced. The procedure used was approved by the Committee for the Protection of Human Subjects of Humboldt State University, and informed written consent was obtained from each subject. Each subject participated in the experiment on two consecutive days. Subjects were seated in a reclined chair in the private room adjacent to the central equipment room, and two silver-silver chloride cutaneous electrodes (UFI, Model 1081 Biode, Morro Bay, California) were attached to the right and left rib cages of each subject. I n the first session, subjects in the neutral group were asked to read a list of 10 sentences that characterized common, neutral activities (see Appendix, p. 1073) into a tape recorder for use in the next session. Subjects in the positive-thinking group were asked to read a list of 10 sentences that characterized positive attitudes toward a speech (see Appendix, p. 1073). Subjects in the negative-thinking group were asked to read a list of 10 sentences that characterized negative attitudes about giving a public speech (see Appendix, p. 1073). Heart rate was not recorded on the first day; however, the electrode attachment was performed to reduce the novel effects of the electrode placement. O n the following day the second session was conducted. Each subject sat in the private room after electrodes were attached. The subject was asked to read a description of the speech scene several times, briefly to imagine the scene, to read the description again, and to continue doing this until the subject was sure that he could turn on this particular image with each and every detail in exactly the same way each time. The scene was described as Imagine that you are about to present an important speech to a large audience in an auditorium. on the stage just before you begin speaking, you look out and see As you stand at the all of the faces in the audience looking at you, waiting for you to begin. As you stand there, you feel your legs are wobbly and your mouth and throat are dry.
Subjects were told that, during the imagery periods later in the session, they were immediately to visualize the speech scene when instructed to d o so
CORRELATES OF SPEECH-PHOBIC IMAGERY
1069
and to imagine the scene as if they were really in the situation with all details that the scene presented. They were asked to keep it vivid until the experimenter instructed them to turn the speech image off. After the subject learned the image, the experimenter showed the subject a 9-point scale for rating fear. Thereafter, all instructions were transmitted via an intercom system from the central room to the subject. The electrodes were connected to a Physiograph (Narco Bio-Systems, Inc., Model Four-A, Houston, Texas) which provided a written record of heart rate (chart speed: 5 mmlsec. during the baseline period and thlnking periods; 25 mm/sec. during the imagery periods). The heart-rate recording began with a 5-min. baseline resting period. At the end of baseline, the experimental procedures began. The first sentence of the subject's own voice was played through a tape recorder. As soon as the subject heard the sentence, he was asked to spend 30 sec. thinking about the situation presented in the sentence. The subject was then instructed to turn on the speech image for 15 sec. After the imagery period, the experimenter asked the subject to rate the image in terms of how much fear he felt while imagining it. After this another cycle followed (listening to a statement and thinking about it, imagining the same speech scene, and reporting fear) until 10 presentations of the thinking image were completed. Heart rate was scored by hand from the paper record. The initial baseline sample was taken from the last minute of the 5-min. baseline period. Ten-second samples of heart rate were taken during each imagery period beginning at the offset of instructions to turn on the speech scene. The heartrate data were converted to beats per minute (bpm).
RESULTS A one-way analysis of variance on the baseline heart-rate sample indicated no significant differences among the three conditions. Repeated-measures analysis of variance (condition by presentation number) on the heartrate changes during the 10 imagery periods indicated a significant condition effect (F,,,, = 3.98, p < 0.03). Tukey post hoc comparisons indicated that subjects in the positive condition produced a significantly smaller heart-rate increase in response to image presentation than did subjects in the neutral condition and the negative condition. There was no significant main effect of presentation for each condition. Table 1 presents the above results in terms of heart-rate change scores from baseline period to each imagery period over the 10 presentations. Repeated-measures analysis of variance (condition by presentation number) on the fear ratings indicated a significant condition effect (F,,,, = 4.86, ~ ~ 0 . 0 2Tukey ) . post hoc comparisons indicated that subjects in the positive condition reported significantly less fear in response to the image presentations than did subjects in the negative condition; subjects in the neutral condition did not differ significantly from subjects in either of the other two
TABLE 1 MEANSA N D STANDARD DEVIATIONS FORHEART-RATE CHANGE (BPM)FROMBASELINE PERIODTO IMAGERY PERIOD A N D FORFEARRATMGSDURING10 ~ O B I C SCENEPRESENTATIONS, FOR P o s m ~ NEUTRAL, , AND NEGATIVE THINKING CONDITIONS
Conditions of Thinking
M
SD
M
SD
M
SD
M
SD
Presentations 5 6 M SD M
Positive Neutral Negative
3.6 8.1 8.0
2.2 4.7 5.0
2.9 5.7 5.4
3.0 3.1 5.5
2.9 7.8 7.2
2.2 4.3 4.6
1.6 6.0 6.0
1.9 4.2 5.6
Positive Neutral Negative
3.6 3.9 4.8
1.7 1.8 1.3
3.3 4.2 4.5
1.4 1.7 1.7
3.6 4.3 4.9
1.7 1.3 1.1
3.6 3.7 5.4
1.7 1.8 1.6
3.7 3.7 5.5
2
1
3
4
7
SD
8
9
10
?
M
SD
M
SD
M
SD
M
SD
Heart-rate Change 1.7 3.0 2.1 2.3 4.7 3.9 4.1 2.3 5.0 4.2 5.8 4.6
1.8 4.8 5.4
2.0 3.6 5.5
2.9 5.5 4.8
2.2 2.9 5.4
1.7 3.6 4.0
3.0 4.2 3.6
2.1 4.3 4.5
2.6 3.6 4.6
Fear Rating 1.5 3.6 2.0 3.6 5.1 1.7
3.0 4.1 5.4
1.4 2.1 1.4
2.9 4.1 5.4
1.2 2.2 1.8
3.4 3.7 6.1
1.6 2.2 1.5
2.9 3.7 5.7
1.3 2.3 1.7
1.7 1.7 1.7
Z
C
m Y
b
p
CORRELATES OF SPEECH-PHOBIC IMAGERY
1071
conditions. There was no significant main effect of presentation for each condition; however, the negative group showed their fear rating gradually increased with the time (see Table 1).
DISCUSSION The results of this study confirmed the hypothesis that engaging in positive thinking just before visualization of a phobic image was associated with reduction of both subjective speech anxiety and cardiovascular responses to that image. Conversely, it was also true that negative thinking just before visualization of a phobic image increased fear responses and somatic responses. Assuming that negative self-evaluation is the central aspect of speech anxiety (Ayres, 1988), we believe that thinlung positively can limit the possibility of negative thoughts emerging in the cognitive system, therefore, fewer subjective fear responses can be generated at the moment of visualization of a speech scene. As a result of decreased fear perception, associated heart-rate responses were also reduced. Even though it has been acknowledged that behavioral, cognitive, and physiological response systems of anxiety often d o not covary (Hodgson & Rachman, 1974; Lang, 1968), recent studies from several research groups (Beatty, 1984; Borkovec & Hu, 1990; Tardy, Allen, Thompson, & Leary, 1991) have shown that responses indicating physiological arousal and accompanying speech closely correlate with subjective fear perceptions. Our study again supports this occurrence in the situation of visualizing speech scenes. Over-all, the findings from this study that positive thinking reduced heart-rate and fear responses to phobic imagery suggest that practicing a positive attitude toward an upcoming real public speech can also be a useful cognitive approach to reduce speech anxiety for speech phobics. The clinical application of this approach depends upon subsequent studies which can verify that the technique of positive thought also reduces heart-rate and fear responses during actual speech-making. This approach is in addition to the other cognitive techniques, such as, rational emotive therapy (Ellis, 1963), cognitive restructuring (Meichenbaum, 1977), and visualization (Ayres, 1988). Some of these cognitive approaches combat speech anxiety by reconstructing the rational thought process and reducing the negative components in the cognitive system ( E h s , 1963; Meichenbaum, 1977). We believe that the approach used in this study mainly distracts anxiety-prone peo.ple from their negative thinhng. We expect to see the combination of positive thinking and other cognitive approaches in treating phobic disorders in the future. REFERENCES
AYRES,J. (1988) Coping with speech anxiety: the power of positive thinking. Communication Education, 37, 289-296. BEATIT, M. (1984) Physiological assessment. In J. A. Daly & J. C. McCmskey (Eds.), Avoiding communication: shyness, reticence, and communication apprehension. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage. Pp. 95-105.
1072
S. HU, ETAL.
BORKOVEC, T. D., & H u , S. (1990) The effect of worry on cardiovascular response to phobic imagery. Behaviour Research and Therapy, 28, 69-73. DALY, J. A,, & LAWRENCE, S. (1985) Self-focused cognitions and public speaking anxiety. Paper presented at the Annual Convention of the International Communication Association, Honolulu, HI. DALY,J. A,, VAGELISTI, A. L., NEEL, H. L., & CAVANAUGH, P. D. (1987) Pre-performance concerns associated with public speaking anxiety. Paper presented at the Annual Convention of the Speech Communication Association, Boston, MA. ELLIS,A. (1963) Reason and emotion in pxychotherapy. New York: Stuart. Guosssmc, J. M., & W u s o ~ H , . K. (1968) Physiological changes accompanying the visualization of fearful and neutral situations. Jorlrnal of Personalily and Social Psychology, 10, 124-133. HODGSON, R., & RACHMAN, S. (1974) 11. Desynchrony in measures of fear. Behauiour Research and Therapy, 12, 319-326. LANG,P. J. (1968) Fear reduction and fear behavior: problems in treating a construct. In J. M. Shlien (Ed.), Research in psychotherapy. Vol. 3. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association. Pp. 90-102. LANG,P. J. (1979) A bio-informational theory of emotional imagery. Psychophysiology, 16, 495-512. LANG,P. J., KOZAK,M. J., ~ E RG . A,, , LEW, D. N., & MCLEAN,A. (1980) Emotional imagery: conceprual structure and pattern of somatic-visceral response. Pxychophysiology, 17, 179-192. LANG,P. J., MEWED, B. G., & HART,J. (1970) A psychophysiological analysis of fear modification using an automated desensitization procedure. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 76, 220-234. MEICHENBAUM, D. H. (1977) Cognitive behavior modification. New York: Plenum. W. R., & LEAKY,M. R. (1991) Social anxiety and TARDY,C. H . , ALLEN,M. T., THOMI'SON, cardiovascular responses to interpersonal communication. The Southern Communication Journal, 57, 25-34. Accepted September 1 7, 1992.
CORRELATES O F SPEECH-PHOBIC IMAGERY APPENDIX
TENNEUTRAL THINKING STAT~ENTS 1. I watch the news on television in the evening after I come home from work. 2. I sit at my desk and study a textbook. 3. I prepare my dinner using as few pots and pans as possible. 4. I wash the mound of dishes that have been piling up in the sink. 5. I wake up and get ready for my day. 6. I write a letter to a friend of mine. 7. A friend stops by and we talk about our class schedule. 8. I go to the post office to get my mail. 9. I walk to class and discuss the lesson of the day with a classmate. 10. I sit in class and listen to the teacher lecture. 1. I am a good public speaker. 2. The audience will appreciate my speech. 3 . I feel very self-confident. 4. I don't feel any difficulties while speaking in public. 5. I always feel comfortable while giving a speech in public. 6. I always speak very well. 7. The audience will like my speech because I speak well. 8. My speech is well written so it will be successful. 9. I am never nervous before giving a speech. 10. I enjoy speaking in public.
-
1. The audience rnieht see how nervous and anxious I am. 2. The audience might be bored and uninterested in my speech. 3. The audience might think that my speech is terrible. 4. I might stumble on the words of my speech. 5. I might say something that is wrong or stupid. 6. I am terrified at the thought of speaking before a group of people. 7. I am in constant fear of forgetting my speech. 8. I might turn red and I'll be so embarrassed. 9. My breaching will be short and rapid, and it will be difficult to speak. 10. I might lose my place in the speech or forget what I want to say.
