DIFFERENTIAL VALIDITY OF THE GOTTSCHALK-GLESER ANXIETY SCALES - IS GENDER A MODERATOR VARIABLE

It can be hypothesized that affects like anxiety can be measured by co ntent analysis of speech due to the phenomenon of mood congruent memor y, which is found predominantly in females. To assess the effect of ge nder on the validity of the Gottschalk-Gleser Anxiety Scales, the stan dard procedure for obtaining verbal samples was followed and self-repo rt measurements of comparable emotional constructs were applied concur rently. Measures of state and trait emotions were administered to 25 f emale and 25 male university students. In the female group 18 signific ant convergent validity coefficients were found. For males, content an alytic anxiety scores showed four significant correlations with concur rent self-report scales. These results suggest that content analytic a nxiety scores from female subjects may allow a more accurate predictio n of state and trait emotions than anxiety scores from male subjects. Thus, gender might have a differential effect on the validity of the G ottschalk-Gleser Anxiety Scales.