Zajonc's (1965) hypothesis was combined with a postulate of general drive theory to predict that the effects of anxiety and an audience would summate to increase the level of drive. Eighty Ss were used in a 2 by 2 by 2 design that had audience, anxiety, and list as factors. For one list competitive responses were high, and for the other they were low. Analysis of variance results and the order of the mean trials to criterion were consistent with the prediction based on the summation hypo thesis, e.g., of the eight conditions, the presence of an audience produced the best learning of the noncompetitive list and the poorest learning of the competitive list by high-anxious Ss. However, the lack of significant differences in the learning of the noncompetitive list did not support the summation hypothesis for this task.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.