High Anxious Subjects Research Articles

Temporal patterns of stress appraisals for high- and low-anxious individuals

Abstract According to the cognitive-relational theory of stress, emotions, and coping (Lazarus & Folkman, 1984, 1987), cognitive appraisals are seen as mediating processes that refer to the stakes a person has in a stressful encounter and to the coping options. They result in either challenge, threat, or harm/loss. It is undetermined, however, how these appraisals are interrelated over time and whether they can occur simultaneously. An idealized motivation model has been established to stimulate research on this issue. The present experiment has been set up to assess the dynamic pattern of cognitive appraisals at nine points in time under stress, defined as continuous failure at demanding academic tasks. Trait anxiety is considered to represent a personal vulnerability component among other antecedents of appraisals. Therefore, anxiety was used as a between-groups factor. Very different patterns of appraisals emerged for low- and high-anxious subjects, indicating that low trait anxiety buffers the experie...

Psychophysiological response patterns to positive and negative film stimuli

The aim of the present study was to investigate differential emotional response patterns to film stimuli by multimodal assessment of mood ratings, perception of bodily sensations, salivary cortisol, autonomic variables and facial electromyogram (EMG). Film stimuli, chosen to elicit positive and negative emotional states, were presented to 12 subjects with general anxiety disorder and 12 controls. Changes in mood, bodily sensations, autonomic activity (heart rate, respiration rate and skin conductance), facial EMG activity (corrugator and zygomatic muscle region) and salivary cortisol were measured. Analyses revealed differential changes in all response systems except for respiration rate and salivary cortisol. Although high-anxious subjects did not differ from controls in their average responses to the negative film stimuli, there is a tendency of a greater coherence of emotional response components in generalized anxiety subjects. However, spontaneous facial expressions to positive and negative film stimuli were associated with augmented electrodermal activity within both groups. Results are interpreted in light of directional response fractionation, dimensional approaches of emotion, and the facial feedback literature.

The effects of test anxiety and task variables on predecisional information search

This study examined high and low test anxious subjects' search for information prior to making a decision. Task variables were high and low performance evaluation pressure; high, medium, and low task complexity; and important versus unimportant decisions. In general it was found that high anxious subjects inspected more information, and that more of it was redundant, than did low anxious subjects. The amount of information inspected was influenced by all three task variables in addition to anxiety; task complexity and decision importance, but not evaluation pressure, as well as anxiety influenced the amount of reinspection (redundancy) of information. The implications for future research are discussed in terms of further laboratory studies and of linking laboratory and nonlaboratory studies in which decision making effectiveness plays an important role.

The impact of trait anxiety and situational stress on the categorization of natural objects

The current series of studies assesses the impact of trait anxiety and situational stress on mental categorization. Subjects' trait anxiety was measured and they were exposed to different sources of situational stress while they performed categorization tasks. Results showed that both high trait anxiety subjects in control conditions and low trait anxiety subjects in stress conditions (a) reject more nonprototype members from a category, (b) set more narrow boundaries to categories, and (c) sort semantic material into more categories than low trait anxiety subjects in control conditions and high trait anxiety subjects in stress conditions. In addition, high anxiety subjects in stress conditions perceive less family resemblance among semantic stimuli than either low anxiety subjects or those exposed to control condition. Results were discussed in terms of Geen's theory of cognitive cautiousness and Eysenck's theory of limited working memory capacity.

Anxiety and categorization—2. Hierarchical levels of mental categories

Assessed the relationship between anxiety and the hierarchical level at which semantic stimuli are categorized. Study 1 examines whether trait anxiety is associated with proneness to use less inclusive levels of categorization instead of more inclusive ones. The other two studies examine whether trait anxiety is related to the sorting of semantic stimuli. Results show that high trait anxiety subjects gave more examples corresponding to a less inclusive level of categorization than low trait anxiety subjects (Study 1), and tend to sort basic level stimuli into a larger number of categories (Studies 2–3). Results were discussed in terms of the cognitive effects of anxiety.

Effects of stress and anxiety on the processing of threat stimuli.

Two experiments extended the work of MacLeod and Mathews (1988) and examined whether a cognitive bias for threat information is a function of state or trait anxiety. Color-naming and attention deployment tasks were used to assess the effects of a stress manipulation procedure on attentional responses in high and low trait anxious subjects. Subjects under high stress selectively allocated processing resources toward threat stimuli, irrespective of their trait anxiety level. There was no consistent evidence of a cognitive bias associated with trait anxiety, and the effect of the stress manipulation did not appear to be mediated by state anxiety. It was suggested that trait factors do not modify attentional biases associated with acute stress, but may influence such biases when stress is prolonged.

Differential effects of reward and punishment cues on response speed in anxious and impulsive individuals

Four groups of subjects—neurotic extraverts, stable extraverts, neurotic introverts, and stable introverts—were instructed to trace a circle template as slowly as possible. The tracing task was performed under one of three conditions: Condition Rw entailed the presence of reward cues, Condition Pn entailed the presence of punishment cues, and Condition G(while involving the presence of goal stimulus) entailed neither type of conditioned stimulus. As predicted, high impulsive (neurotic extravert) subjects exhibited inappropriately rapid tracing speeds (i.e. behaved impulsively) to a greater extent than did low impulsive (stable introvert) subjects in Conditions Rw. Although, as expected, high anxious (neurotic introvert) subjects manifested the fastest tracing speeds among the four subject groups in the presence of punishment cues (i.e. in Condition Pn), they did not trace significantly faster than low anxious (stable extravert) subjects. Finally, replicating earlier research in which the presence of a salient goal stimulus was sufficient to engender rapid responding, high impulsive subjects traced significantly faster than did low impulsives in Condition G. These results are discussed in the context of a model of impulsive behavior that is primarily a synthesis of Eysenck's ( The biological basis of personality, 1967) personality theory and Gray's ( Elements of a two-process theory of learning, 1975) three arousal model. This synthesis maps the extraversion dimension onto the relative strengths of Gray's behavioral activation and inhibition systems, and identifies the neuroticism dimension with Gray's nonspecific arousal system.

対人不安と対自他認知体系 Ｓｅｌｆ‐ｉｄｅｎｔｉｔｙ Ｓｙｓｔｅｍの検討

This study examined the self-others cognitive systems of anthropophobia in terms of the (an) object relationship disorder. The Self-identity Systems of 259 students were measured to clarify visually the relationship between self and others in terms of self and others cognition and interpersonal anxiety. Cluster analysis and principal components analysis of the Self-identity Systems led to the appearance of five Self-identity System types for each sex. Low anxiety level subjects tended more toward the "self convergence type" while high anxiety subjects tended more toward the "self alienation type". These results suggest that disorder in the self-others cognitive system and the problem of self-identity relate to anthropophobia.

Anxiety and individual differences in event-related potentials during the recognition of sense and nonsense words

Event-related potentials (ERPs) to binaurally presented tone pips were elicited while male and female subjects with high and low level of anxiety were engaged in sense and nonsense word recognition tasks. ERPs were recorded from left and right frontal and temporo-parieto-occipital scalp locations. Peak latencies and amplitudes of N2 and P3 components were obtained for each subject during sense and nonsense word recognition tasks. High anxiety subjects exhibited a smaller N2 peak amplitude as compared with the lows. These subjects also showed smaller N2 and P3 peak amplitudes on the left hemisphere with respect to the right in the recognition of sense words and no hemisphere differences in the recognition of nonsense ones. Low subjects, in contrast, did not exhibit a hemisphere difference for sense words, while they, for nonsense words, showed smaller N2 and P3 amplitudes on the left hemisphere as compared with the right. Word recognition time was longer for nonsense words as compared with that obtained for sense ones. P3 amplitude and word recognition time were parallel among male and female subjects and across task conditions. An interpretation of these findings according to information arousal models is given.

Electrodermal asymmetry and vigilance in negative emotion, anxiety and stress

Bilateral electrodermal levels and responses were recorded during an emotional and neutral slide projection in high and low trait anxiety subjects. Half of the subjects of each group received reassuring instructions the other half received stressful instructions. Levels were more symmetrical in anxious subjects but asymmetry was not influenced by instruction type. In contrast, responses were more symmetrical in anxious subjects, were more symmetrical under stressful instructions but were more asymmetrical to the emotional than the neutral slides.

Effects of anxiety on inferential reasoning task performance.

Three experiments were conducted in which high anxiety and low anxiety subjects were required to construct inferences. In Experiment 1 there was no anxiety-related performance deficit when inferring a necessary anaphoric relation, a process argued to be automatic. Experiments 2 and 3 involved the verification of unnecessary inferences, a process argued to involve the utilization of the working memory system. In both Experiments 2 and 3 there was an anxiety-related performance deficit. The results are consistent with a working memory-oriented account of anxiety-related performance effects, as deficits were restricted to capacity-demanding tasks.

Repression and the inaccessibility of affective memories.

The fundamental assumption that repression involves an inaccessibility to affective memories has not been directly addressed in empirical research. In the present study we examined three groups of subjects (repressors, low anxious, and high anxious) under six conditions of recall (general, happy, sad, anger, fear, and wonder). Subjects were asked to recall personal experiences from childhood and to rate their current mood and the affective intensity of the memories. The results indicated that repressors recalled significantly fewer negative memories than did low-anxious and high-anxious subjects and, furthermore, that they were substantially older at the time of the earliest negative memory recalled. Compared with low-anxious subjects, repressors also recalled fewer positive affective memories as well. This pattern of findings is consistent with the hypothesis that repression involves an inaccessibility to negative emotional memories and indicates further that repression is associated in some way with the suppression or inhibition of emotional experiences in general. The concept of repression as a process involving limited access to negative affective memories appears to be valid.

Information seeking of high- and low-anxiety subjects after receiving positive and negative self-relevant feedback.

The present paper reports an experiment in which subjects received fictitious intelligence test feedback that was either negatively or positively discrepant with their self-evaluation. They were then given an opportunity to choose among several articles containing information that either derogated intelligence tests (test-disparaging information) or argued for their validity (test-supporting information). The main finding of this study consists of an interaction between the personality factor anxiety and the feedback variable: High-anxiety subjects prefer test-disparaging information significantly more in the negative feedback condition than in the positive feedback condition, whereas low-anxiety subjects show no difference in preference for test-related information as a function of the feedback condition. These results are in line with past theoretical reasoning and experimental findings showing that high-anxiety subjects feel more threatened by negative self-relevant feedback than do low-anxiety subjects.

Cognitive and physiological components of test anxiety in real-life exams

In two experiments, students completed indices of worry, emotionality, and task-generated interference immediately after a midterm exam. Pulse rate was also assessed in the second experiment. Worry, emotionality, and task-generated interference correlated positively with each other and negatively with performance. Heart rate correlated positively with worry and emotionality but was unrelated to task-generated interference and performance. In both experiments, two-way (High-low subject general test level ×Sex) MANOVAs revealed a consistent effect for Anxiety level, but not for Sex or the Sex ×Anxiety interaction. High-anxious subjects performed poorer, had higher pulse rates, and reported more worry, emotionality, and task-generated interference than low-anxious subjects. The high-anxious subjects also reported more worry than either emotionality or task-generated interference, which did not differ. Regressions of state anxiety measures on performance demonstrated that only worry regressed upon performance. Thus, comparisons among means and regression analyses suggested that worry was the most important source of anxiety interference.

The Interaction between Anxiety and Perceived Difficulty of Task in Assessment Situations

The study of interactions between anxiety and other performance related variables was first carefully documented with the Manifest Anxiety Scale (Taylor, 1951) used in paired associate learning tasks. Reviews of this literature have shown that high anxious subjects usually perform significantly better on easy tasks, and worse on difficult tasks, than low anxious subjects (Taylor, 1958).Later research workers concerned with anxiety in education broadly adopted interactionist approaches when confronted by consistently low negative relationships between anxiety and attainment (Cronbach & Snow, 1977; Gaudry, 1977).

Effects of scene manipulation on role-play test behavior

A number of investigations have demonstrated that by manipulating components of the role-play test procedure, subjects' behavior is differentially affected. An area that has not been widely studied using role-play paradigms is the effect of outcome expectancy on interpersonal behavior. This study evaluated the relationship between expectancy and behavior by manipulating role-play test scene descriptions. Specifically, additional information was added to descriptions portraying the confederate as easily approachable (positive expectancy) or difficult to approach (negative expectancy). Role-played interactions were subsequently rated on a variety of verbal and nonverbal indices of social skill. Data indicated that subjects were less socially effective in responding during negative expectancy scenes. Likewise, subjects were rated as somewhat more socially effective during positive expectancy scenes. In addition, high-anxious subjects (as determined through self-report inventories) appeared to be more responsive to manipulation than their low-anxious peers. Results are discussed in terms of (1) the role of outcome expectancy in interpersonal behavior and (2) the need for further refinement of role-play tests.

Effect of experimentally induced stress on vocal parameters.

In a factorially designed experiment the factors Mode of Stress (cognitive vs. emotional) and Degree of Stress (low vs. high) were studied in their effect on phonatory and articulatory processes during speech production in groups of male and female students (factor Sex) selected to represent three types of personality (factor Coping Style: low anxiety, high anxiety, anxiety denying). Using digital speech analysis procedures, mean F0, F0 floor, formant location, and spectral energy distribution were extracted from the experimental speech samples. Although mean F0 did not covary with stress manipulation, F0 floor of high-anxious and anxiety-denying subjects increased with stress, probably due to physiologically based changes in muscle tension. For articulatory processes, as measured through formant location and spectral composition, significant changes were found for females. For anxiety-denying female subjects, precision of articulation increased under cognitive stress and decreased under emotional stress. The results are interpreted in terms of differential susceptibility to stress.

Effects of emotion on perceptual asymmetry: Interactions with personality

Perceptual asymmetry on a series of four specially constructed dichotic word tests was found to change as a function of the emotional quality of the words in the tests ( P=0.05). This was most pronounced in the case of positively valued words which produced an increase in asymmetry consistent with facilitated left-hemisphere function ( P<0.004). Changes in asymmetry with emotion differed as a function of personality characteristics of the subjects, with repressors and high anxious subjects showing an increase with emotion while true low anxious subjects showed a decrease ( P<0.02). Personality groups also differed in asymmetry on an emotionally neutral test ( P<0.04) and in changes in asymmetry over time independent of emotion ( P<0.001). These data suggest that emotion mediated activation of the left hemisphere may facilitate information processing within that hemisphere. Moreover, they indicate that dichotic listening tests may provide a non-invasive and inexpensive method for assessing emotion mediated changes in brain state that are clinically relevant.

Cognitive, emotional, and physiological components of Test Anxiety

This study investigated sources of interference in highly test-anxious subjects performing under evaluative stress. Students from the upper and lower quartiles of the Test Anxiety Scale (Sarason, 1972) distribution took a short intellective test under either the usual test instructions or reassuring instructions. A multivariate analysis of variance revealed no effects for sex of subject, type of instructions for testing, or any of the interactions involving sex of subject, testing condition, and subject anxiety level. Subject anxiety level, however, was significant and yielded a consistent main effect on every variable except pulse rate, for which there was no effect either pretesting or posttesting. High-anxious subjects performed more poorly; felt less positive about themselves, their abilities, and the task; experienced more anxiety and felt it interfered more with performance; estimated spending less time on task; and rated themselves engaging in more worry, emotionality, and task-generated interference than did low-anxious subjects. Comparisons among the means for the high-anxious group revealed that worry and task-generated interference levels were not significantly different, but that both were higher than emotionality level. Regression analyses, however, suggested that worry was the primary source of interference, as only it consistently predicted performance and estimated time on task when common variance was controlled.

The use of electrophotographic techniques in differentiating state depression and state anxiety.

The ability of electrophotographic techniques to differentiate levels of state anxiety and state depression were investigated. Forty male and female undergraduate students, who were screened with the DACL, STAI, and Mini-Mult and who met certain dietary and medicinal restrictions, had the index finger of their left hand electrophotographed. In addition, the skin resistance level of these subjects was assessed. The discharge patterns produced by these electrophotographs were rated by two volunteer judges using a seven-point scoring system. The differences in discharge pattern ratings and skin resistance levels between high and low anxious subjects were significant, with high anxious subjects having lower-rated discharge patterns and higher skin resistance levels. No significant differences were obtained with either measure for the depression variable or the interaction effect. Interestingly, there was no significant relationship between skin resistance and discharge ratings. Regression analyses indicated that each measure accounted for unique sources of variance, with skin resistance being the best predictor of anxiety.