ABSTRACT
The stage in which the investigation of individual differences becomes most appropriate in any research program is a continual dilemma in behavioral re-search. On the one hand, there are scholars who argue that individual differences are not only a legitimate venue of research in all stages of an attempt to solve a particular problem, but that neglecting them would probably result in misleading conclusions. More specifically, it is often argued that certain components of lawfulness cannot be discovered precisely because individual-differences variables are neglected. On the other hand, there are many proponents of the two-stages strategy of research, which first attempts to discover the main effects and then studies individual differences. Although it would be presumptuous to make a clear-cut choice between these two points of view, the logic of the experimental effort described in this volume goes hand in hand with the second approach. In other words, the sequence of experiments reported here attempts to investigate the false alarm effect in a progressively complex context starting from a rather simple “basic threat” situation all the way to the complex interaction between fear reaction, protective behavior, task performance, and so forth. The intensity of the manipulation itself plays a major role in our attempt to discover the underlying main effects, which account for much of the variance in the false alarm situation. As Lazarus (1966) pointed out, the stronger the situational demand of a particular stress situation, the greater are the chances that individual differences will not play a major role. Thus, we have clearly followed the second approach by first trying to explicate some of the reliable main effects concerning the FAE. Only now, after some of these have been clearly demonstrated, are we ready to look into some of the individual-differences variables. Our approach appears to be vindicated in view of the relatively strong and reliable effects that have been found so far. It is on this foundation that we proceed to look into personality characteristics that may play a role in the false alarm situation.
