The effects of anxiety on verbal productivity and vocabulary diversity

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dc.contributor.authorPflager, Marianne P.en_US
dc.date.accessioned2024-08-15T17:15:28Z
dc.date.available2024-08-15T17:15:28Z
dc.date.copyright1969en_US
dc.date.issued1969
dc.degree.departmentDepartment of Psychology
dc.degree.levelMaster of Science M.Sc.en
dc.description.abstractThis study was concerned with the extent to which certain psycholinguistic features in free speech samples would reflect differences in predispositional anxiety as measured by the Taylor Manifest Anxiety Scale as well as differences in situational anxiety manipulated by using two different interview conditions. The psycho­linguistic features which served as dependent variables were a measure of verbal productivity ( total number of words ) end measures of vocabulary diversity (number of types; the type-token ratio; the log type-token ratio; the mean segmental type-token ratio; skewness; kurtosis; Yule's K; Herdan's vₘ and vₘ2; and the mean of mean type length). Hypotheses were generated from Spence's (1958) theory of emotionally based drive and consequently the effect of anxiety was expected to be facilitory rather than debilitating. To control for the interference of personality factors related to intelligence, subjects (Ss) were given a test of their ability to handle abstractions and a test of their vocabulary knowledge. The Ss were also asked to define their reaction to the particular interview they were given to ensure that the differential impact of the two interviews was in the expected direction. Finally an intercorrelat1onal study was performed across all Ss between the measures of vocabulary diversity to see the extent to which these measures could be considered similar. Findings from the 2 X 2 analyses of variance were not significant for the measure of verbal productivity. Results were ambiguous for the measures of vocabulary diversity. The type-token ratio and the log type-token ratio were significantly sensitive (p < .05) to differences between High Anxious (HA) and Low Anxious (LA) Ss but not to differences between the interviews. The significant difference was the result of greater diversity 1n the vocabularies of the LA Ss. Skewness, kurtosis, vₘ and vₘ2, Yule's K and the mean of mean type length showed a statistically significant difference (p < .05) between interviews but not between Ss. The statistically significant difference was due to the greater vocabulary diversity in the speech samples of those Ss given the least anxiety arousing interview. The correlational studies between selected verbal indices and the additional personality variables did not produce clearcut results. For HA Ss there was a positive correlation between vocabulary knowledge and the mean segmental type-token ratio (p < .Ol) and a positive relation­ship between Ss' ability to handle abstractions and total number of words and mean of mean type length (p < .05). For LA Sa there were no statistically significant relationships. The intercorrelational study between measures of vocabulary diversity erased the naive assumption that these measures were un­equivocally the same. The lack of equivalence in these measures is partly explained in terms of their structural differences and offers some basis for explaining the unexpected results of the analyses of variance.en
dc.format.extent79 pages
dc.identifier.urihttps://hdl.handle.net/1828/19297
dc.rightsAvailable to the World Wide Weben_US
dc.titleThe effects of anxiety on verbal productivity and vocabulary diversityen_US
dc.typeThesisen_US

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