The role of trait anxiety in induction of state anxiety

Abstract

The reported study had the following goals: to determine psychometric characteristics of a new instrument purpoting to measure trait anxiety - AT29, to explore the effectiveness of a mood induction procedure in eliciting state anxiety, and to determine the role of trait anxiety, as measured by AT29, in responding to mood induction. AT29 was administered as a part of a larger test battery to 232 psychology students during a mass testing session. After three weeks, 90 students were randomly selected to participate in the second, experimental phase of the study. These selected participants were randomly assigned to two groups: experimental (mood-induction group) in which participants watched a video clip with a fear-inducing content and control group in which participants watched a neutral video clip of the same duration as the fear-inducing clip. State anxiety was measured in both groups using the STAI-S questionnaire right before and after mood induction. It was demonstrated that there is a significant association between trait anxiety as measured by AT29 and state anxiety obtained at both measurement occasions before and after mood induction. Following fear induction, the experimental group demonstrated higher state anxiety scores. However, the interaction between group membership and trait anxiety was not significant. Potential explanations regarding the lack of effect of trait anxiety on state anxiety in this mood induction experiment were discussed as well as some recommendations for future research. Additionally, the results suggested that AT29 has very good psychometric characteristics: high internal consistency and test-retest reliability (.96 and.86 respectively), as well as good divergent and convergent validity.