EFFECTS OF SOCIAL SUPPORT AND SUBLIMINAL STIMULATION ON ANXIETY REDUCTION
Abstract
This research project was intended to examine the potential separate and joint effects of social support and psychodynamic subliminal stimulation in reducing test anxiety and facilitating performance on a cognitive task. 200 male and 200 female Fordham undergraduates were asked to complete the Test Anxiety Scale (Sarason, 1976). High test-anxious students were then assigned randomly to one of five experimental conditions: social support, subliminal stimulation, social support and subliminal stimulation, subliminal stimulation control group and a no-treatment control group. Equal numbers of males and females were assigned to each group to control for sex differences. Outcome indices included self-reported anxiety and performance on a cognitive task. A multivariate analysis of variance was performed on the number of correct anagram solutions and on State Anxiety scores; the results were statistically nonsignificant, F(2,43) = 1.46, p > .05. A second multivariate analysis of variance indicated no statistically significant effects associated with the sex of the subjects, F(2,43) = 1.02, p > .05. Although the results were not statistically significant, there is some indication that the treatments were somewhat effective in terms of reducing anxiety and facilitating performance. What the results do seem to indicate is a lack of robustness of the effects obtained with either psychodynamic subliminal stimulation or social support.
Subject Area
Psychotherapy
Recommended Citation
CLARK, MATTHEW MARTIN, "EFFECTS OF SOCIAL SUPPORT AND SUBLIMINAL STIMULATION ON ANXIETY REDUCTION" (1986). ETD Collection for Fordham University. AAI8709236.
https://research.library.fordham.edu/dissertations/AAI8709236
