W T Melnyk | PubMed Health

PubMed1994

A controlled comparison of eye movements and finger tapping in the treatment of test anxiety.

Fifteen pairs of introductory statistics students, matched on initial test anxiety, were randomly assigned to eye movement desensitization (EMD) or control (finger tapping) conditions to test whether EMD effectively treats test anxiety and, if so, whether eye movement is the critical factor. Both groups had significant decreases in subjective units of disturbance during treatment, suggesting that another source of attenuation of elicited anxiety may be as effective as eye movement in reducing anxiety. There was a significant decrease in Test Anxiety Inventory Emotionality Scale scores from pretest to follow up for both groups, but mixed results on the Worry Scale and total anxiety scores.

Adult↗

PubMed1983

Effects of creative and noncreative problem-solving on anxiety.

This study has investigated whether the type of problem in creative performance increases anxiety more than the type of problem in noncreative performance. Subjects were 9 male and 48 female undergraduate students in psychology, selected from a voluntary pool and assigned (3 males, 16 females) nonsystematically to either a divergent creative problem-solving condition, a convergent noncreative problem-solving condition, or a control condition involving a neutral problem-solving condition. The Spielberger State-Trait Anxiety Inventory was administered to each group before and after the experimental conditions. It was hypothesized: (a) that divergent creative problem-solving would increase state anxiety significantly more than both the convergent noncreative problem-solving task and the neutral problem-solving task and (b) that trait anxiety would not be significantly affected by any of the conditions. Only the latter hypothesis was confirmed. Divergent creative problem-solving did not significantly increase state anxiety, perhaps because the employed subjects were students and may have felt more comfortable with divergent problems than the average population.

Anxiety↗