The present investigation examined the possibility that the explanation for the Stroop phenomenon lies in the hemispheric asymmetry of the human brain. Forty-eight male and 73 female students from freshman psychology classes served as subjects for this study. There were 37 males and 53 females who were right-handed and monolingual; 16 left-handers (five males, 11 females); and 13 bilingual subjects (four male, nine female) included in the sample. Only one person was both left-handed and bilingual. All subjects responded to color words printed in incongruent colors by reading the word or reporting the color in which the word was printed. Response latencies were recorded in hundredths of a second for each of the 36 trials for each subject. For all individuals, response latency was consistently shorter when reading the word than when reporting the color. Females demonstrated a shorter latency for the color stimuli than did males; however males demonstrated a shorter latency for the word stimuli. Evidence indicated that the Stroop phenomenon may best be explained by different modes of neural processing for symbolic and iconic stimuli for all individuals. It was further indicated that females have greater flexibility between hemispheres unless other intervening factors (i.e., hand preference or language differences) provide a symmetry in hemispheric functioning not ordinarily found in males.

The effects of a visual set, the Stroop phenomenon, and anxiety--as measured by the Spielberger State-Trait Anxiety Inventory--upon response latency were examined. Three variations of the set were presented, a color congruent with the response color, a color conflicting with the response color, or no color. Two response conditions were required, reading the color word or reporting the color in which the word was printed. "Reporting the color" had a significantly longer response latency than "reading the word" for all 60 subjects, female volunteers from freshman psychology classes. There was also a significant interaction between anxiety and the Stroop. The medium-anxiety group showed the least discrepancy between the response conditions of the Stroop, indicating the interference effect present in the Stroop phenomenon was least influential for this group. A consistent though not significant difference between the congruent set and conflicting set conditions for the color response as opposed to the word response indicated that, when the set is similar to the response, it is more influential than when it is unrelated.

The purpose of this research was to determine the perceived effects of running jogging on a regular basis. A mail-out structured questionnaire was sent to 984 members of three running clubs. The 454 regular runners who responded perceived changes relative to physical, emotional, and attitudinal factors. There was the perception of an increase in physical well-being, an increase in emotional well-being, a reduction in number of illnessess, an increase in criticism of those who are non-runners and those who are physically out-of-shape. The results varied when age, education, average miles of running per week, average hours of running per week, and average number of years of running were controlled. Age was positively associated with emotional improvement. Criticism of non-runners and the physically out-of-shape was correlated positively with number of miles and number of hours of running. However, the number of years of running produced an inverse relationship with criticism. These findings support some of the popular and scientific literature and contribute to the sociological concept of "social group".

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