The current cross national study investigates the potential buffering role of socio-motivational relationships for the association of achievement drive (AD) and test anxiety (TX) in secondary school students from Canada and Germany. One thousand and eightyeight students (54% girls, M-age = 13.71, SD = 0.53, age span 12-15 years) from the state of Brandenburg and 389 students from Quebec (55.9% girls, M-age = 13.43, SD = 0.82, age span 12-16 years) were asked about their socio-motivational relationships with their teachers and peers, their drive for achievement, and TX. Multigroup latent moderated structural equations were conducted to test for the moderator role of socio-motivational relationships that would buffer feelings of TX related to the drive for achievement. The analyses revealed the two-sided role socio-motivational relationships can have for students with different levels of AD: intensifying or mitigating feelings of TX. Thereby, the results of this study extend the buffering hypothesis by Cohen and Wills (1985). Crossnational differences between Canada and Germany were found concerning the studied moderators on the association of AD and TX: While for German students teacher student relationships acted as moderator, for Canadian students student student relationships and teachers acting as positive motivators displayed a moderator role.
