Psychosomatic Medicine. XVI, 1954: The Direction of Anger During a Laboratory Stress-Inducing Situation. Daniel H. Funkenstein, Stanley King, and Margaret Drolette. Pp. 404-413.

This experiment was devised to study the comparative response of physiological variables to psychological reactions. Healthy college students were subjected to a frustrating stress, and the resultant psychological reactions were scored to show whether the stress produced anger directed outward, anger directed inward, or anxiety. Concurrent determinations were made of blood pressure and ballistocardiogram. Those subjects whose chief reaction was outwardly directed anger showed a physiological response different from the response of those whose reaction was primarily either anxiety or inwardly directed anger. The responses of the latter two types were essentially similar. The authors believe that their results indicate the importance of the effect of specific emotions on physiological patterns. Evidence from animal experimentation and observation suggests that there is a significant relation between the habitual emotional response of a person and the predominant type of secretion from his adrenal medulla (epinephrine or norepinephrine). However, the authors are wary of ascribing these responses to physiological or anatomical causes alone. They point out that most of the subjects were capable of psychological reactions other than those they showed in this one experiment. It is suggested that the choice of reaction in a situation is related to the 'perception of family constellation' and 'early childhood experience'.