Stress inoculation training for smoke divers and free fall lifeboat passengers

The effects of 1 h stress inoculation training on subjective experience, performance, and physiological activation were studied in two fear-provoking situations. In the free fall lifeboat situation, the experimental group reported higher acceptance of the free fall lifeboat concept after the training course than the control group. In the smoke diving situation, the experimental group reported less need of success and reported learning self confidence instead of skills more often than the control group and received less help from the instructor during diving. However, the experimental group reported higher anxiety than the control group during training. There were no differences between groups in saliva cortisol values in either of the two experiments. Effects of stress inoculation training are explained in terms of expectancy theory.