Empirical findings and theoretical problems in the use of anxiety scales.

Anxiety and encoding strategy

“…When limited to 3 sec for responding, high-anxious subjects were apparently unable to take full advantage of the more effective encoding. Conceivably, anxious subjects are more likely to divide their attention between internal and external cues; consequently, their performance is more likely to suffer when time or other constraints are imposed (e.g., Marlett & Watson, 1968;Sarason, 1960;Wine, 1971). Thus, if the present interpretation is correct, the performance deficits normally associated with high anxiety can be eliminated if subjects are pretrained in using an effective encoding strategy.…”

Test Dimensions, Test Anxiety, and Test Performance1

“…Anxiety is thought to be greater on a subjectively important test than on an unimportant test. In construct validation studies, anxiety is detrimental to performance in highly motivating conditions only (Sarason, 1960). A factor analytic item analysis of a test anxiety questionnaire (Sassenrath, 1964) yielded different factors for items about course exams, items about group IQ tests, and items about individual IQ tests.…”

“…These have been conducted within a variety of frames of reference, ranging from construct validation studies (~eviewed by Sarason, 1960) to developmental studies (Sarason, Davidson, Lighthall, Waite, & Ruebush, 1960) to factor analytic studies (Feld & Lewis, 1967;Sassenrath, 1964) to desensitization therapy studies (Cohen, 1967; Katahn, strenger, & Cherry, 1966). Perhaps it is appropriate to consider integrating some of these frames of reference by examining variables which they have in common and by combining variables which are specific to different points of viffi<.…”

Attraction, test anxiety, and similarity-dissimilarity of test performance

“…On the basis of a suggestion by Sarason (1960) that highly anxious individuals are more sensitive to reinforccments than nonanxious individuals, test anxiety was expected to interact wlth performance similarity to produce attraction. Specifically, it was predicted that anxiety would be positively related to attraction toward similar strangers and negatively related to attraction toward dissimilar strangers.…”