Cognitive biases for future negative events as a function of trait anxiety and social desirability

Abstract

Predicted and actual examination performance, beliefs in various possible examination outcomes and events, and worrying about examinations were assessed in four groups of students (low-anxious, repressor, high-anxious, and defensive high-anxious). The evidence indicated that the high-anxious and defensive high-anxious groups were unrealistically pessimistic about some examination-related events (they possessed an interpretive bias for such events), whereas the repressor groups were unrealistically optimistic about some examination related events, showing an opposite interpretive bias. The findings were interpreted in the light of a new theory of trait anxiety proposed by Eysenck ( Anxiety and cognition: A unified theory. Hove: Psychology Press, 1977).