Date of Award

12-1990

Degree Name

Doctor of Education

Department

Counselor Education and Counseling Psychology

First Advisor

Dr. Joseph R. Morris

Second Advisor

Dr. Robert Betz

Third Advisor

Dr. David Lyon

Fourth Advisor

Dr. Charles Warfield

Abstract

Seventy-four employees at an internationally based Fortune 500 corporation participated in a comparative biofeedback study. The study was designed to determine whether there is a difference in the way African-Americans and white Americans respond to biofeedback-assisted stress management treatment. The study also serves as a springboard for increasing the quantity of empirical literature in the area of biofeedback in general and biofeedback using African-Americans as subjects, in particular. The researcher randomly assigned the employees to one of three groups (biofeedback, traditional, control). Each subject was assessed on six variables: state anxiety, trait anxiety, heart rate, skin temperature, blood pulse height, and electromyography across the frontalis (EMG). A within-group analysis of the results suggested that these two groups did not respond statistically differently under biofeedback conditions, except for one variable (blood pulse height). While these groups showed no statistical differences in response to biofeedback-assisted stress management treatment, the results tend to suggest trends that are important for clinicians who conduct biofeedback treatment with African-American patients. The largest trend was that white Americans in the biofeedback group showed a greater rate of improvement than the African-Americans on every variable.

Access Setting

Dissertation-Open Access

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Counseling Commons

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