Mw. Eysenck et N. Derakshan, COGNITIVE BIASES FOR FUTURE NEGATIVE EVENTS AS A FUNCTION OF TRAIT ANXIETY AND SOCIAL DESIRABILITY, Personality and individual differences, 22(5), 1997, pp. 597-605
Predicted and actual examination performance, beliefs in various possi
ble examination outcomes and events, and worrying about examinations w
ere assessed in four groups of students (low-anxious, repressor, high-
anxious, and defensive high-anxious). The evidence indicated that the
high-anxious and defensive high-anxious groups were unrealistically pe
ssimistic about some examination-related events (they possessed an int
erpretive bias for such events), whereas the repressor groups were unr
ealistically optimistic about some examination related events, showing
an opposite interpretive bias. The findings were interpreted in the l
ight of a new theory of trait anxiety proposed by Eysenck (Anxiety and
cognition: A unified theory. Hove: Psychology Press, 1977). (C) 1977
Elsevier Science Ltd.