Essay about High Anxiety, Increased Sexual Attraction

The experiment discussed in this article set out to determine if conditions of high anxiety, increased sexual attraction. They hypothesized that males who come across an attractive female while experiencing a strong emotion such as fear will find the female more attractive than by males not experiencing a strong emotion, which is also the alternative hypothesis. The independent variable is a strong emotion such as fear. This was operationalized by participants being on an unsteady bridge that would tilt and sway causing a fear of falling. The bridge had very low handrails made of cable and was 230 feet above rocks and shallow rapids. The control group was on a steady bridge that did not tilt and sway, made of wood. It was wider and was only 10 above the river and had high handrails. The dependent variable is how attractive the female or male interviewer was to the male participants. To measure this, the participants were either on the control or experimental bridge and the female interviewer approached them. She told them she was doing a psychology experiment about how scenic attraction can effect creative expression. Participants were asked to fill out a 6 question survey with questions such as their age and education level. They were then asked to write a dramatic story based on a picture of a woman covering her face with one hand and reaching out with the other, and the stories were later scored on a scale of 1-5 based on sexual content. At the end, the interviewer gave…