Differential effects of stress-inducing instructions on anxiety, learning and performance

Marton, F. I., Fransson, A., Jonsson, B., Klenell, A.-Ch. & Roos, B. Differential effects of stress-inducing instructions on anxiety, learning and performance. Scand. J. Psychol., 1973, 14, 213–219.-In an attempt to investigate the effects of induced stress on anxiety, learning and performance, the separate effects on the learning and performance phases were obtained by varying the timing of the introduction and the removal of stressinducing instructions. Stess-inducing instructions had a positive effect on learning but were not significantly related to the level of anxiety in the learning phase. In the performance phase the results were reversed, i.e. the stress-inducing instructions had a significantly positive effect on the level of anxiety but none on performance. The apparent paradox stemming from the significant negative relationship between anxiety and achievement within conditions could be resolved by considering the common confusion concerning statistical vs. causal relationship.     

On the relation between demographic variables and neuropsychological test performance

This paper reports a study of the relation between demographic variables and neuropsychological test performance in a sample of 141 normal subjects. A preliminary analysis demonstrated the importance of age, educational level, sex, and Verbal IQ for the prediction of neuropsychological test performance. The main study is a detailed analysis of the relation between these four variables and neuropsychological test performance. The results are presented in the form of standardized regression coefficients and are discussed in relation to the problem of predicting expected premorbid performance in neuropsychological tests.