A STUDY OF STATE ANXIETY SCORES IN A PROBLEM-SOLVING SITUATION

The present investigation was designed to study the anxiety scores of high, above average, and average intelligence groups, in introverts and extraverts under verbally induced stress and no-stress groups in 240 under-graduated males and females assigned to meet the requirement of 3x2x2x2x(3) mixed factoral design in a problem solving session. The state-anxiety scores were studied before the problem solving session began and after the stress/no-stress instructions and after the problem solving session was over. The findings are: a) Average intelligence group, extraverts, verbally induced stressed group and females had significantly higher state-anxiety than their counterparts; b) The main effect of state-anxiety is also highly significant indicating substantial increment in state-anxiety scores after the stress on stress instructions; c) A triple interaction between intelligence x personality x sex on composite state-anxiety scores was significant at .05 level. The interaction depicts that males and females at the introverted end in high intelligence group had significantly lower state-anxiety than other groups. Under repeated treatments triple interactions between intelligence x stress x state-anxiety and between intelligence x sex and state-anxiety are significant at .05 and .01 level respectively. The interaction clearly reveals that in the after instruction condition stress leads to significantly higher increment in state-anxiety in higher levels of intelligence than the no-stress condition. The intelligence x sex x anxiety interaction denotes that in after instruction group at the lower levels of intelligence females tend to have higher anxiety - which probably explains their poorer efficiency in problem solving.