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Handbook of Social and Evaluation Anxiety pp 475–495Cite as

Test Anxiety

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Abstract

Test anxiety is a situation-specific personality trait generally regarded as having two psychological components: worry and emotional arousal. People vary with regard to the disposition to experience these components in academic settings. Test anxiety is an important personal and social problem for several reasons, not the least of which is the ubiquitousness of taking tests. It is a decidedly unpleasant experience, plays an important role in the personal phenomenology of many people, and influences performance and personal development. Indices of test anxiety reflect the personal salience of situations in which people perform tasks and their work is evaluated.

Keywords

  • Social Anxiety
  • Cognitive Therapy
  • Test Anxiety
  • Attributional Style
  • Worry Scale

These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychology, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, 98195, USA

    Irwin G. Sarason & Barbara R. Sarason

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  1. Irwin G. Sarason
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  2. Barbara R. Sarason
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  1. University of Vermont, Burlington, Vermont, USA

    Harold Leitenberg

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Sarason, I.G., Sarason, B.R. (1990). Test Anxiety. In: Leitenberg, H. (eds) Handbook of Social and Evaluation Anxiety. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4899-2504-6_16

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