Transfer and Manifest Anxiety in Paired-Associate Learning

Abstract

This investigation studied the relationship between anxiety level and transfer of training in a paired-associate learning situation. On the basis of conventional anxiety theory, it was predicted that high-anxiety Ss would show greater positive and greater negative transfer than low-anxiety Ss. To test this prediction 84 undergraduates were selected from the extremes of the anxiety continuum as measured by the Taylor Scale of Manifest Anxiety. These Ss were divided into six groups of 14 each. The major high- and low-anxiety groups were divided into sub-groups which served in a positive transfer, negative transfer, and control condition. Each group, containing an equal number of men and women, learned two paired-associate nonsense syllable lists which differed in stimulus and response terms or both, in order to produce, theoretically, positive, negative, or no transfer. The results of the experiment yielded no statistically significant differences among the groups in terms of initial learning. In the transfer task the results conformed to the usual transfer of training paradigm. However, when the results were analyzed in terms of sex difference and anxiety level, high-anxiety male Ss behaved according to the original prediction while women behaved in an almost opposite manner. The low-anxiety female Ss performed similarly to the high-anxiety men. These results, therefore, did confirm the traditional conception of transfer, while the differences in performance between high-anxiety men and high-anxiety women indicated possible shortcomings inherent either in the methodology of the experiment, or in the theoretical assumptions underlying anxiety as a motivational variable. Several possibilities were considered.