WORD-ASSOCIATION AND THE DRIVE HYPOTHESIS OF ANXIETY.

The article reports on word-association and the drive hypothesis of anxiety. The word association technique has been widely used in clinical practice but there have been few attempts to explore the general determinants of the responses. Recent research on verbal behavior indicates that in addition to S's unique association patterns, his current anxiety may also become a determinant of his verbal output. The study investigated the relationship between MAS scores and performance on the Word-Association Test. Specifically, it was predicted from J.A.Taylor's formulation that high-anxious (HA) Ss would yield more common responses when the word stimulus has a single highly probable response and fewer common responses when many equally probable responses are available, than low-anxious (LA) Ss.