McGoogan, Jodie (2016) Fast and Slow Emotional Stroop Effects in a Trait-Anxious Population. Honours thesis, University of Southern Queensland. (Unpublished)
Abstract
Attentional bias (AB) is the tendency to selectively attend to specific recurring thinking or stimuli. AB toward detecting threat is a notable feature of trait-anxious thinking and is central in the maintenance and aetiology of anxiety. The emotional Stroop task (EST) has examined AB by measuring participants’ reaction time (RT) differences in identifying the coloured-ink of affect words compared with neutral words. Traditional EST literature reports the emotional Stroop effect (ESE) as intra-trial disruption latency. Recent findings indicate the ESE is comprised of two components: an intra-trial, fast effect and an inter-trial, slow effect. This exploratory study investigates ESE components in a trait-anxious population partially replicating McKenna and Sharma’s (2004) research. A computerised EST was administered with pseudorandom trials in five position sequences to measure disruption of negative, neutral, and positive-affect words. A convenience sample of 104 participants aged between 18-55 years were divided into low and high-trait-anxious groupings. Fast effects, in response to negative-affect words were hypothesised among the high-trait-anxious population only. Slow effects to negative-affect words were predicted for both trait-anxious groupings; although it was expected the high-trait-anxious group would show significantly greater slow effects than the low-trait-anxious group. A mixed factorial ANOVA analysed RTs to the three-word types. Contrary to expectations, no fast effect was found. Interestingly, irrespective of group, the total sample showed a slow effect to negative-affect words; means indicated however, this latency predominantly came from the high-trait-anxious group. The findings provide a preliminary examination into fast and slow components of ESEs in high-trait-anxious populations.
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| Item Type: | Thesis (Non-Research) (Honours) |
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| Item Status: | Live Archive |
| Additional Information: | Current UniSQ staff and students can request access to this thesis. Please email research.repository@unisq.edu.au with a subject line of SEAR thesis request and provide: Name of the thesis requested and Your name and UniSQ email address |
| Faculty/School / Institute/Centre: | Historic - Faculty of Health, Engineering and Sciences - School of Psychology and Counselling (1 Jan 2015 - 31 Dec 2021) |
| Supervisors: | Jessica Marrington |
| Qualification: | Bachelor of Science (Honours) |
| Date Deposited: | 08 Sep 2025 22:42 |
| Last Modified: | 08 Sep 2025 22:42 |
| Uncontrolled Keywords: | emotional Stroop ; fast effect ; slow effect ; trait-anxiety ; attentional bias ; carry-over effect |
| Fields of Research (2008): | 17 Psychology and Cognitive Sciences > 1799 Other Psychology and Cognitive Sciences > 179999 Psychology and Cognitive Sciences not elsewhere classified |
| Fields of Research (2020): | 52 PSYCHOLOGY > 5299 Other psychology > 529999 Other psychology not elsewhere classified |
| URI: | https://sear.unisq.edu.au/id/eprint/52559 |
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