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LEVELS OF
SCHOOL
ANXIETY
IN
RELATION TO
CHILD PERSONALITY VARIABLES IN SCHOOL’
EDWARD
EARL GOTTS
Indiana
University
Anxiety is a construct of undisputed importance to personality theory.
It
has
however, been used to mean many things. The scope of meaning extends from
anxiety
as
contributor to generalized drive (Spence,
1956)
through anxiety
as
unpleasant affective experience
or,
alternatively, defensiveness against anxiety
(Freud,
1936)
to
special situational manifestations such
as
test anxiety (Sarason,
Davidson, Lighthall, Waite,
&
Ruebush,
1960).
A recent conceptual emphasis has
been upon school anxiety as
a
result of in-school experiences and their interaction
with child personality (Phillips,
1966).
The present report concerns itself principally
with this last conception, school anxiety, but looks beyond to other theoretical
formulations for basic understanding about the nature of anxiety.
CONCEPTIONS
AND
FUNCTION6
OF
ANXIETY
The drive conception suggests that anxiety scores, such
as
those obtained on
the Manifest Anxiety Scale (MAS), are related to emotional responsiveness,
re,
which
contributes to overall drive level (Taylor,
1956).
Primary emphasis is given to the
motivational rather than the cue properties of anxiety (Ruebush,
1963).
Evidence
from classical defense conditioning studies has generally supported the drive con-
ception by demonstrating that
Ss
with higher manifest anxiety condition more
readily than do those of low anxiety. Some other useful propositions have been
derived from this position, e.g., (a) generalized drive
(D)
activates all habit struc-
tures, which are potentially present
via
existing cues, irrespective of need state;
(b) high
D
will be associated with higher performance, except in certain complex
learning situations where the emitting of incorrect responses by high anxious per-
sons may interfere with learning; and (c) pre-trial adaptation to the UCS can lead
to
decrements in drive level
at
the
time
of
conditioning (Spence,
1956).
With respect
to
school anxiety (SA), simultaneous activation of habit structures
suggests that among high anxious children, those of middle class background
should emit less school-incompatible responses than those of lower class back-
ground
or
those who are culturally different, since the school functions
as
a
middle
class institution; this should be true even if high anxiety acts as a common, dif-
ferentiated need state among these diverse groups
of
children. Since the criteria
of complex situations are not readily specifiable for school situations in general,
we will decline comment on the second derivation, except to note that test taking
has been found, in general, to be adversely affected by test anxiety (Ruebush,
1963).
The third proposition suggests that overall length of exposure to the kinde
of
stressors which evoke school anxiety should lead to some decline of their power to
do so. Because middle class children are exposed
at
earlier ages in their homes to
performance demands which may be presumed to resemble the stress evokers of the
school situation, they might be expected to show lower manifest school anxiety.
‘Preseitted
at
American
Ps
chological
Awochtion
Symposium
on
“Anxiety
and
School
Be-
havior,”
(Janet
Taylor
Spence,
&airman)
Washington,
September 1967.
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