The effects of emotional arousal, manipulated both psychologically and physiologically, on vicarious conditioning processes were investigated. 5 groups of Os underwent procedures designed to induce differential degrees of arousal. The Os then participated in a vicarious aversive conditioning paradigm in which a model exhibited pain cues in conjunction with an auditory stimulus, and the acquisition and extinction of Os' emotional responses to the conditioned stimulus were studied. The results disclosed that vicarious conditioning is positively related to degree of psychological stress; a monotonic decreasing function is obtained when, in addition to situational stress, Ss experience increasing physiologically induced arousal. There is also some suggestive evidence that the disruptive effects of high levels of arousal may be mediated by self-generated competing responses designed to neutralize the aversiveness of the vicarious instigation situation. (18 ref.) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved)