CAUSES OF EMOTIONAL STRESS 



449 



seen) as well as the effectiveness of his ag- 

 gressive measures (e.g., whether the torpedo 

 will find its target, or perhaps even circle 

 back upon the boat). The average subma- 

 riner's need for cognitive structure is great, 

 because in effect he has yielded all possibility 

 of developing it himself, since those func- 

 tions are consigned to the officers (28). Fur- 

 thermore, anyone engaged in combat always 

 fears that the dreaded unexpected will hap- 

 pen, even after long experience (39, 69). 



During the recent war, there were oppor- 

 tunities to appraise the effect of cognitive 

 structure on emotional stress. When en- 

 listed men were told the purpose and risk 

 involved in a particular operation, there was 

 both an improvement in performance and 

 a corresponding decrease in breakdo\vns and 

 general friction among the men (7, 16, 17).^ 

 This was also found to be true in industry 

 during the war. In one case, a general orien- 

 tation course about the plant was used to 

 show the importance of the man's job in 

 relation to the total war effort, and brought 

 about a rise in morale and work output and 

 a drop in absenteeism. 



An additional aspect of cognitive structure 

 is concerned with the individual's available 

 skills and techniques for acting effectively 

 in a situation. For maximal protection 

 against emotional stress, the individual 

 should have experienced all the possible con- 

 tingencies that might arise, and should have 

 learned how to handle them. It is not 

 enough just to have read or heard about 



^ In interviews, submariners reported that on a 

 war patrol, they had a strong need to know as 

 much as possible about everything that was going 

 on. For example, if a sister boat had been sunk 

 nearby, they wanted to know about it, so as to be 

 on guard all the more; or if one had had successes, 

 they wanted to rejoice with her. The unnecessary 

 withholding of information by officers made the 

 men feel isolated, anxious, and in a sense rejected, 

 and they assumed that the officers did not think 

 their interests or feelings worth considering. This 

 necessarily hindered their identification with the 

 oflBcers as interested, benevolent father figures, 

 and the resulting anxieties tended to interfere 

 with their morale and efficient performance. 



what to do in a crisis — the person should 

 have experienced a less extreme version of 

 the situation in training, and learned what 

 to do. This ideal may be impossible to 

 achieve in practice, but in any case the 

 individual should be so instructed during 

 training that he will not be at a complete 

 loss as to what to do, and have to fall back 

 on his imagination. To have been through 

 such experiences, and to have developed 

 responses which are quickly and automat- 

 ically executed makes the individual both 

 more self-confident and more efficient in his 

 work — at a time when seconds may be of 

 vital importance (18, 24, 27, 38). 



A sense of helplessness results, on the other 

 hand, when an individual is caught off guard, 

 or untrained to act effectively in the situa- 

 tion (24, 39, 41). Panic frequently follows. 

 This inability to act as a result of lack of 

 cognitive structure is illustrated by the avia- 

 tor's anxiety over the unpredictable and 

 uncontrollable, such as flak, and was dreaded 

 much more than enemy fighters, which could 

 be seen and shot at. Another example is 

 the submariner's anxiety when having to 

 wait in suspense for depth charges without 

 being able to escape or retaliate. 



Several experimental studies are relevant 

 to the problem of the effect of lack of cogni- 

 tive structure on the sense of helplessness. 

 In one (52), cats were trained to master a 

 conflict situation by learning how to control 

 the feeding signals. These subjects over- 

 came their neurotic inhibitions and other 

 symptomatic behaviors in the situation. 

 With such mastery, normal, adaptive be- 

 havior was resumed under the same physical 

 conditions which had previously produced 

 neurotic behavior. Similarly, in a related 

 study (62), two groups of rats were given 

 the same amount of physical punishment 

 (electric shock), with only one group having 

 mastery over its duration. By several in- 

 dices, the various behavior disturbances 

 manifest by the helpless subjects did not 

 diminish as the experiment progressed from 

 day to day, whereas the others apparently 



