The Effects of Achievement Self Discrepancy and Evaluative Threat Stress on Performance Anxiety.
- Author:
Kyung Sik PYO
1
;
Yong Rae CHO
;
Moo Suk LEE
;
Hack Ryul KIM
;
Sang Hag PARK
;
Sang Hoon KIM
Author Information
1. Department of Neuropsychiatry, College of Medicine, Chosun University, Kwangju, Korea.
- Publication Type:Original Article ; Randomized Controlled Trial
- Keywords:
Achievement-related self discrepancy;
Evaluative threat stress;
Performance anxiety;
Vulnerability-stress model
- MeSH:
Anxiety;
Humans;
Performance Anxiety*
- From:Journal of Korean Neuropsychiatric Association
1998;37(6):1174-1185
- CountryRepublic of Korea
- Language:Korean
-
Abstract:
OBJECTIVES: The purpose of this study to examine if the levels of anxiety(emotional, cognitive, and behavioral measures) during performance are influenced by interaction of both achievement related self discrepancy(=psychological vulnerability variable) and evaluative threat stress(=stressor) based on vulnerabilitystress model in order to identify the mechanism of development of performance anxiety and furthermore to suggest psychological intervention strategies to reduce and prevent it effectively. METHOD: High and low self discrepancy subjects consisted of students from the upper(n=40) and lower 15%(n=40) on achievement related self discrepancy scale, respectively. They were randomly assigned to either evaluative threat condition or neutral condition, and then all subjects took intellective task(verbal reasoning test and digit symbol test). RESULTS: The results were as follows; 1) High self discrepancy subjects under evaluative threat reported significantly higher level of state anxiety during performance than low self discrepancy subjects under any condition and also experienced higher degreee of state anxiety with marginal significance than high self discrepancy subjects under neutral condition, whereas there were no significant effects on the anxiety level of group variable under neutral condition or of stress variable in low self discrepancy subjects. 2) High self discrepancy subjects reported more cognitive interference during performance than low self discrepancy subjects regardless of the level of stress. 3) High self discrepancy subjects performed marginally significantly more poorly in digit symbol test than low self discrepancy subjects regardless of the level of stress, whereas there were no significant effects on verbal reasoning test. CONCLUSION: The hypothesis that performance anxiety could be affected by achievement related self discrepancy and stress, and specially by interaction between self discrepancy and stress was relatively strongly supported by the results on emotional measure of performance anxiety. In addition, this hypothesis received partial support by the results on cognitive and behavioral measures. We might conclude that it is important to consider achievement-related self discrepancy and evaluative threat stress together to understand the mechanism of development of performance anxiety and to reduce or prevent this anxiety effectively.
