The authors wish to express their apprecia-

Eighteen asthmatic and 21 nonasthmatic children 10-16 years of age were tested for psychological responses to criticism and psychophysiological reactivity to tone, shock, and problem-solving tasks. The asthmatic children reacted with more negative affect to criticism by self-report measures. Psychophysiological responses provided indications of abnormal heart rate and respiration responses in the asthmatic group that are apparently related to the physiological changes associ-ated with the asthmatic syndrome and may be related to the physiological changes that accompany the asthma attack itself. XlfARLiER WORK from this laboratory and others has revealed differences in certain autonomic nervous system (ANS) func-tions specific to asthmatic patients.3 ' "•12 Despite the fact that, in susceptible in-dividuals, an attack can be induced by acetylcholine and relieved by adrenaline, the asthmatic at rest or under mildly stressful conditions is not characterized by parasympathetic dominance. Our pre-vious work did suggest, however, that asthma may be associated with a mal