Priming the trait category “hostility”: The moderating role of trait anxiety

Abstract

Recent studies on affective priming with the naming task have revealed an influence of trait anxiety on the direction of affective priming effects (e.g., Berner & Maier, 2004). This moderating role of trait anxiety was further investigated in a study employing a conceptual priming task. After masked presentation of either hostile or neutral primes, participants performed a person judgment task. As expected, the direction of the hostility rating difference score, defined as the difference between hostility ratings of a target person in the hostility priming condition and in the neutral priming condition, changed from positive to negative with increasing levels of self-reported trait anxiety. The findings are interpreted in terms of salience-dependent overcorrection processes (Glaser & Banaji, 1999). Implications for our understanding of the cognitive functioning in high trait anxiety are discussed.

Notes

¹Because trait anxiety was not distributed normally, we additionally tested the relation between the trait anxiety score and the hostility rating difference score with a non-parametric correlation. The Spearman correlation was significant, r(137) = −.23, p=.008, thus confirming the results of the parametric analysis.

²We also explored the correlations (Braivais–Pearson) among d’, trait anxiety and activation. All coefficients were around zero, ranging from −.10 <  r(137)<.06.