Assessing variations of the thought-listing technique: Effects of instructions, stimulus intensity, stimulus modality, and scoring procedures

Abstract

The effects of variations in procedures for the administration of the thought-listing technique were examined. Test-anxious subjects imagined themselves in test-taking situations of increasing stressfulness and participated in similarly designed behavioral test-taking tasks. Subjects were requested to list the self-statements that occurred to them after each stimulus, recording either all thoughts (general instructions) or only those specific thoughts that reflected what they were thinking and feeling in response to each stimulus (focused instructions). Anxiety elicited by each stimulus was also assessed, and the utility of scoring variations was examined. Behavioral test-taking stimuli failed to produce expected differences in stressfulness. However, in response to increasingly stressful imaginal stimuli, subjects reported more frequent negative self-statements and less frequent positive self-statements. Also, as stimulus intensity increased, the number of thoughts listed by subjects receiving focused instructions decreased. Frequency counts of specific thought categories and a scoring procedure incorporating ratings of thought salience produced nearly identical patterns of cognitive response. Limitations of the study are discussed, and implications of the results for the conduct of cognitive assessment are examined.