Abstract
This chapter examines the influence of noise and related environmental stressors on human behavior. It is concerned with the cognitive context in which stressful stimulation occurs and with the behavioral aftereffects that such stimulation produces. The presentation deals, in large part, with relatively immediate aftereffects of exposure to uncontrollable and unpredictable aversive events. The demonstration of these aftereffects is primarily confined to performance deficits and only minimal attention is given to physiological processes. However, a final section presents more recent findings that have direct implications for the understanding of long-term effects of uncontrollable stressors on physiology, specifically cardiovascular functioning. This research, though also behavioral, has as its principal focus psychological antecedents of coronary heart disease (CHD). We shall begin with the line of thought leading to the noise aftereffect studies and later introduce the rationale for the CHD research.
Dr. Singer was involved in the stress-aftereffect research discussed in the first part of the chapter. Mr. Pennebaker was involved in the research on uncontrollability and the coronary-prone variable described in the last section of this chapter. The research was made possible by grants from the National Science Foundation (GS-2405, GS-2412 and GS-34329), Russell Sage Foundation, and The Hogg Foundation for Mental Health. A modified version of this chapter appeared in Representative Research in Social Psychology, 1973, 4, 165–183.
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Glass, D.C., Singer, J.E., Pennebaker, J.W. (1977). Behavioral and Physiological Effects of Uncontrollable Environmental Events. In: Stokols, D. (eds) Perspectives on Environment and Behavior. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4684-2277-1_5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4684-2277-1_5
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