Trait anxiety and the cognitive representation of significant life events: Some correlates of situation-specific traits

Abstract

This paper describes an exploratory investigation of Endler's person X situation model of trait anxiety using multidimensional scaling and related methods. The aim was to discover whether individual differences in “situation-specific” trait anxiety were related to differences in the way individuals cognitively represent significant life events. Thirty-four respondents provided brief descriptions of important personal experiences. These events were used as items in a pair-wise matching task to generate individual multidimensional scaling (MDS) solutions, and descriptive constructs for event similarity and dissimilarity. The dimensions and descriptors emerging from these analyses were correlated with five dimensions of trait anxiety, interpersonal, physical danger, ambiguous/novel, daily routines, and death. The findings provided some limited evidence for concordance between situation-specific traits and cognitive organisation. The ambiguous and physical danger scales were associated with affective organisation. Daily routines anxiety was associated with the salience of perceived control. Death anxiety was associated with temporal organisation. However, the amounts of explained variance in these relationships were modest, and there was evidence of confounds, particularly between ambiguous trait anxiety and the physical danger and interpersonal scales. It is suggested that refinement of the methods used here could provide an avenue for further exploring relationships between person-situation traits and information processing activities.