No abstract

No abstract

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the appropriateness of two competing hypotheses concerning reflective and impulsive behavior: anxiety-over-errors or anxiety-over-competence. Eighty-five 8-to 10-year-old children were classified as reflective or impulsive on the basis of their performance on one form of the Matching Familiar Figures Test (MFFT). Half of each cognitive style group was randomly assigned to a failure or control group. Subjects in the former group were given failure feedback concerning their performance on the first 10 items of an alternate form of the MFFT, and then they were tested on the second 10 items. Control group subjects were given a short rest period between the two 10-item test administrations. All subjects rated their expectancy of success and completed the Test Anxiety Scale for Children. Teacher ratings of the children's reflection-impulsivity, confidence, and concern over errors were also obtained. The data provided support for the anxiety-over-errors hypothesis, because the impulsives in the failure group showed a significant decrease in errors from pretest to posttest, whereas the control group subjects did not differ in this respect. The reflectives in the failure group did not differ from those in the control group in their pre-post error rates. In addition, MFFT performance measures were significantly correlated with teacher ratings of concern over errors but not with confidence ratings. It was concluded that impulsive behavior may stem from a lack of motivation to perform well.This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers.This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly.

No abstract