The relationship between expressed social fears and assertiveness and its treatment implications

Behavior therapists have speculated about the relationship between social fears or social anxieties and lack of assertive behavior. Wolpe (1958) perhaps most clearly suggested such a relationship. “If he [the patient] has been ineffectual in such situations—unable, for instance, to return a faulty garment—I explain how unadaptive fears are at the bottom of this ineffectualness. … p. 116.” Wolpe further assumed that engaging in assertive behavior reciprocally inhibited fear in these same social situations and that assertive responses can be programmed for use in overcoming these fears.In later writings (Wolpe. 1969; Wolpe and Lazarus, 1966) Wolpe seems to have broadened his position concerning the cause of non-assertive behavior. Specifically, he now allows that an individual also may be non-assertive, “… not because of anxiety but because they have never had the opportunity of acquiring the necessary habits. p. 40” (Wolpe and Lazarus, 1966). For these individuals direct efforts in assertive training such as behavior rehearsal, operant conditioning or direct instruction are in order. For these individuals whose lack of assertiveness is due to a ‘phobic reaction’ or strong extrinsic fears, systematic desensitization is recommended in addition to assertive training.Despite this apparent change in position, the intuitively appealing notion that the more socially fearful an individual is the more non-assertive he is likely to be has not received the empirical attention it deserves. Rathus (1973) seems to have provided some indirect evidence pertaining to the relationship between social fears and assertiveness. In the context of evaluating the efficacy of an assertive training method he administered both the 100-item Temple Fear Survey Inventory (TFSI) (Braun and Reynolds, 1969) and the Rathus Assertiveness Schedule (RAS) (Rathus, 1973) to groups of female students receiving either assertive training, a placebo treatment or no treatment. He found that at post-test the assertive training group scored significantly higher than either the placebo or no treatment groups on the RAS and that there were no significant differences in post-test Full Scale TSFI Scores. Fear of Social Criticism Factor Scores or Fear of Social Incompetence Factor Scores although in each case the mean changes toward less fear were greater for the group receiving assertive training. This finding gives little support to the reciprocal relationship between social fears and assertiveness. What is needed is a direct determination of the degree to which social fears and assertiveness are related in a sizeable sample of subjects.     

Dry-bed training: rapid elimination of childhood enuresis

Enuresis has been treated with moderate effectiveness by the urine-alarm method which requires many weeks of training. The present procedure used a urine-alarm apparatus but added such features as training in inhibiting urination, positive reinforcement for correct urinations, training in rapid awakening, increased fluid intake, increased social motivation to be nonenuretic, self-correction of accidents, and practice in toileting. After one all-night training session, the 24 enuretic children averaged only two bedwettings before achieving fourteen consecutive dry nights and had no major relapses. Little or no reduction in bedwetting occurred within the first two weeks for matched-control enuretics who were given the standard urine-alarm training. The results of a control-procedure showed that the new procedure did not involve Pavlovian conditioning. The new method appears to be a more rapid, effective and different type of treatment for enuresis.     

Alcoholic drinking: suppression by a brief time-out procedure

Volunteer chronic alcoholics were given daily access to substantial quantities of alcohol within a residential research setting. Drinking was suppressed to an average of approximately one-half of Baseline levels when 10 or 15 min of physical and social isolation was required as an immediate consequence to receiving each one-ounce drink of 95-proof ethanol. This time-out procedure suppressed the drinking of nine out of ten subjects. Drinking returned to high levels when brief contingent time-out was discontinued. The relevance of such reversible controlling relationships to the treatment of alcoholism is discussed.     

A rapid method of eliminating stuttering by a regulated breathing approach

The Habit Reversal Procedure for eliminating nervous habits was applied to the problem of stuttering. In the new procedure the speaker interrupted his speech at moments of actual or anticipated stuttering and at natural pause points, and resumed speaking immediately after breathing deeply during the pause. In addition to this regularized pausing and breathing, the program included other factors such as formulation of one's thoughts prior to speaking, identification of stutter-prone situations, identification of mannerisms associated with stuttering, speaking for short durations when tense or nervous, daily breathing exercises, relaxation procedures for anxiety, immediate display of improved speaking, and enlisting family support for progress. Fourteen stutterers were given training in the program during a single counseling session of about two hours duration. The next day, the average number of stuttering episodes decreased by 94 per cent, by 97 per cent at the end of one month, and by 99 per cent during the extended follow-up. Each of the clients was improved by at least 93 per cent. The new procedure appears to be more rapid and effective than alternative procedures.     

Heart rate conditioning in the newborn infant

In an attempt to condition heart rate in newborns, 21 infants were assigned to Conditioning, Random Control, and Backward Conditioning Groups. During training trials, the Conditioning Group received an eight-second tone (CS), a six-second ISI, and a ten-second presentation of glucose via nipple (UCS) that overlapped the last two seconds of tone. The Random Control Group received tones at the same intertrial intervals as the Conditioning Group, but glucose varied randomly. The Backward Conditioning Group received glucose during the ten seconds immediately preceding tone onset. The response to both CS and UCS during base trials was HR acceleration. The response to tone habituated in all groups, but the acceleration to glucose was maintained throughout conditioning. Although no conditioned response to the tone developed over trials, a large HR deceleration appeared during extinction to the absence of the UCS in the Conditioning Group only. This deceleration was interpreted as an orienting response to the absence of an expected event.     

Individual differences in speed of phonemic analysis, visual analysis, and reading.

College student subjects (Ss) classified phrases as making sense or not according to sound in one condition, according to visual appearance in another, and in abasic task in which either strategy would yield right answers. Ss who were relatively fast in the visual condition were faster at the basic task than Ss who were relatively fast in the sound condition. Other results suggested that the former Ss used a visual strategy in the basic task while the latter used a phonemic strategy.