STATE ANXIETY IN IMAGINED SOCIAL THREAT SITUATIONS AS A FUNCTION OF JUNGIAN TYPE (INTERACTIONAL, SITUATIONAL ANXIETY)
Abstract
Spielberger (1966, 1970) claims that differences in trait anxiety lead to differences in state anxiety in response to ego-threatening situations. His predictions have not been adequately supported. The present study asks how Jungian psychological type and trait anxiety interact with the elements of a situation to affect state anxiety. Spielberger's State-Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI) was used to determine the trait anxiety level and the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator to determine the basic psychological type of 120 community college students (15 of each of 8 basic Jungian types). These subjects were asked to imagine themselves in ten different socially threatening situations and complete the STAI State Scale for each one. The situations included Zeno's (1976) high social-threat situation, a basic socially-threatening classroom situation, and eight variants designed to be anxiety-provoking for a particular psychological type, and judged to be so by four Jungian analysts. The results showed the following: Psychological type had a significant effect on trait anxiety (F 7, 112 = 2.84, p < .01). Trait anxiety had no effect on increments in state anxiety. Situations designed to make particular psychological types anxious elicited greater increments in state anxiety for five of the eight types (overall t < .05). The interaction between situation and trait anxiety was significant (F 9, 63 = 2.01, p < .05), but not the interaction between type and trait, nor that between type, trait, and situation.(,) When total state anxiety rather than the increment is the dependent variable, the main effect of trait anxiety on total state anxiety is highly significant (F 1, 118 = 13.47, p < .0005). Two separate hierarchical step-wise regression analyses were performed, with trait anxiety, Jungian type, and sex as the predictors and the increment in state anxiety and total state anxiety in response to the Zeno situation as dependent variables. In both analyses, the variance accounted for by Jungian type was higher than the variance due either to trait anxiety or sex, even with order of entry controlled so that trait anxiety and sex had higher inclusion values than psychological type.
Subject Area
Psychotherapy
Recommended Citation
PIRONE, JOSEPH MATTHEW, "STATE ANXIETY IN IMAGINED SOCIAL THREAT SITUATIONS AS A FUNCTION OF JUNGIAN TYPE (INTERACTIONAL, SITUATIONAL ANXIETY)" (1984). ETD Collection for Fordham University. AAI8506354.
https://research.library.fordham.edu/dissertations/AAI8506354
