Greenberg J, Pyszczynski T, Paisley C
J Pers Soc Psychol. 1984 Nov;47(5):1136-45. doi: 10.1037//0022-3514.47.5.1136.
We conducted an experiment to assess the effect of extrinsic incentives on the use of test anxiety as a self-handicapping strategy. We hypothesized that although reports of anxiety may be greater when such symptoms can serve a defensive function, this effect occurs only when extrinsic incentives are low and not under conditions of high extrinsic incentive. Eighty-four male undergraduates anticipated taking a test of intellectual abilities and either were led to believe that test anxiety has no effect on test performance or were given no particular information about the relation between test anxiety and performance. Subjects were offered either +5 or +25 for obtaining the highest score on the test. Consistent with predictions, no-information subjects reported greater test anxiety before the test than did those who believed that test anxiety was unrelated to performance, but only when the extrinsic incentive for performance was low. However, these subjects did not report greater cognitive interference or exhibit lower test scores than did subjects in other conditions. It is tentatively suggested that the defensive strategy used by these subjects consisted of altering perceptions of anxiety, rather than anxiety itself. The implications of the absence of self-handicapping under high incentive conditions are discussed.
我们进行了一项实验，以评估外部激励对将考试焦虑作为一种自我妨碍策略的使用的影响。我们假设，尽管当这些症状能起到防御作用时，焦虑报告可能会更多，但这种效应仅在外部激励较低时出现，而在外部激励较高的情况下则不会出现。八十四名男性本科生预计要参加一项智力能力测试，他们要么被引导相信考试焦虑对考试成绩没有影响，要么没有得到关于考试焦虑与成绩之间关系的特定信息。根据在测试中获得最高分的情况，受试者会得到5分或25分的奖励。与预测一致，在测试前，没有得到信息的受试者比那些认为考试焦虑与成绩无关的受试者报告了更多的考试焦虑，但这仅在表现的外部激励较低时才出现。然而，与其他条件下的受试者相比，这些受试者并没有报告更多的认知干扰或表现出更低的考试分数。初步认为，这些受试者所采用的防御策略包括改变对焦虑的认知，而非焦虑本身。讨论了在高激励条件下缺乏自我妨碍的影响。
