title: Trait anxiety among undergraduates according to the Implicit Association Test.
abstract: Trait anxiety, which includes stress and anxiety, affects mental health. However, early studies using the Implicit Association Test-Anxiety (IAT-Anxiety) did not consider the participants' trait anxiety. In the present study, the hypothesis that trait anxiety would influence the results of the IAT-Anxiety was tested. A total of 148 healthy undergraduates were assessed with the Profile of Mood State (POMS) test and the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI) to test explicit anxiety; they were then assessed for implicit anxiety with the IAT-Anxiety. High trait anxiety was positively correlated with negative mood; low trait anxiety tended to be associated with greater vigor and higher self-esteem. Significant main effects were found for both critical block and group among participants who received the IAT-Anxiety. Future studies of the IAT-Anxiety should consider trait anxiety as a within-subject factor for group matching to enhance the persuasiveness of the results.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, School of Aerospace Medicine, Fourth Military Medical University, Xi'an, China.
authors.forename: Peng
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Huang
authors.forename: Zhibing
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Yang
authors.forename: Danmin
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Miao
authors.forename: Huijie
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Lu
authors.forename: Xia
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Zhu
mesh_terms: D000339:Affect; D001007:Anxiety / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000523:psychology*; D002605:Character; D002681:China; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D010555:Personality Inventory / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D011594:Psychometrics / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D013334:Students / Q000523:psychology*; D055815:Young Adult