Discrimination Reaction Performance as a Function of Anxiety and Sex Parameters

Abstract

From a sample of 681 college undergraduates 4 groups of 20 Ss of each sex (M, F), comparable in age and reasoning ability, were selected for low (L = 3 to 9) and high (H = 27 to 41) anxiety on the basis of Taylor MAS scores. All 80 Ss received 320 trials on the Air Force Discrimination Reaction Timer with nonspecific instructions designed to produce a high degree of task complexity. The results were as follows: (1) Group HF was slightly inferior in reaction speed ( R_a) to Group LF initially, superior later; (2) Group HM remained markedly inferior to Group LM throughout; (3) men were generally faster than women; (4) women were significantly more anxious pre-experimentally than men; (5) the main effects of Practice, Sex, and their interaction were significant, as predicted, but Anxiety was a clear decremental factor only among males; (6) mean acquisition curves for 4 augmented groups of 50 Ss each were exponential and also revealed a marginal Practice × Sex × Anxiety interaction. The equations fitted the R_a data with an average error of less than 1%, which is in excellent agreement with the Hull-Spence theory. Implications for prior research by Grice, Noble, Spence, and Taylor were discussed.