Abstract
Purpose of the Study. Recently, a considerable amount of interest has centered around the relationship between stress and cardiovascular disease. The purpose of this study was to investigate whether or not school administrators exhibited temperaments characteristic of stress and if these temperaments could be managed through a biofeedback temperature training program, including a relaxation response procedure. It was hypothesized that school administrators would exhibit these temperaments and that they could be managed through the biotemperature feedback training. Methodology. The forty subjects randomly selected from candidates in the Doctoral Program in School Management at the University of La Verne were randomly assigned to two groups, one experimental and the other a control. This is commonly called a pretest-posttest control group design with random assignment. The finger temperature feedback training (independent variable), coupled with a relaxation response procedure, was conducted over a period of six weeks, including four clinician-conducted training sessions and daily self-conducted sessions. The dependent variables were pretest and posttest scores on the Taylor-Johnson Temperament Analysis (T-JTA). Temperature sensors were placed on the fat pads of the middle finger of the dominant hand. Absolute temperature changes were measured on an Autogen 2000 Feedback Thermometer and on a J&J Thermal Model T-65. The control group received no treatment. A t-test was used to determine if the experimental and control groups were significantly different. T-tests were also used to determine significant differences between the experimental and control groups in each of the nine temperament areas of the T-JTA. The level of significance was established at .05. The Pearson r Product Moment correlation coefficient was used at the .05 level to determine correlation between temperature feedback training and each of the nine temperament areas. Results. The results indicated that the school administrators in the study did not exhibit stressful temperament with the exception of high hostility scores. Also apparent through this study was the fact that the temperature training method used did not significantly reduce stress-causing temperaments. Since most of the sessions were self-conducted the results may indicate the importance of close contact between the clinician and subject during feedback training programs. More direct measures of stress such as GSR, blood pressure, or epinephrine blood levels are suggested in place of psychological measures (T-JTA).