TAT performance as a function of anxiety and coping-avoiding behavior

This study hypothesized that anxious subjects will show greater preference for TAT themes involving accident, threat, or trauma than will nonanxious subjects when matched for tendency to evade or cope with threatening stimuli. Twenty-five female college students high on the Taylor anxiety scale and 25 low on that scale were administered a modified TAT and a special ISB (incomplete sentences blank), which measures coping-avoiding tendencies. Subjects rank ordered neutral and threatening themes which accompanied seven TAT cards in terms of how well they fitted the cards. With this procedure, 19 pairs of high and low anxiety female subjects matched for coping scores confirmed the hypothesis at a statistically significant level.