Anxiety and confidence in using a library by college freshmen and seniors.

The first study using a measure of library anxiety showed that 180 college freshmen have significantly higher scores than college seniors. A second study found that among freshmen students, those with high scores on Library Anxiety reported less confidence in using the library than those with low scores, even though the students were equal on several indices of academic ability and performance.

The effect of duration of eye contact on American college students' attributions of state, trait, and test anxiety.

Male and female US college students were randomly assigned to one of six groups, in which they viewed a 60-s videotape. The content of the tape was derived from the factorial combination of sex of model on the tape and duration of eye contact (5 s, 30 s or 50 s) maintained by the model with an interviewer. After viewing the tape, participants completed three inventories as they thought the model in the tape had viewed would. The inventories measured state, trait, and test anxiety. The results showed that, as eye contact maintained by the model increased, the model was judged to have less state anxiety, less trait anxiety, and less test anxiety. This effect was more pronounced for the female model than for the male model. The data extended previous experimental and correlational findings that, as eye contact increases, an individual is judged more positively. Also, the results show that these positive attributions are made with respect to both situational and dispositional personality characteristics.

Acquaintance rape: attributions of victim blame by college students and prison inmates as a function of relationship status of victim and assailant.

53 male college students and 37 male prison inmates completed a questionnaire evaluating an hypothetical rape scenario with a male perpetrator and a female victim. The college students assigned equal blame to the victim regardless of whether the assailant was a stranger or an acquaintance, but the inmates assigned more blame to the victim when the assailant was a stranger than an acquaintance. The results may be interpreted as showing a greater awareness of date or acquaintance rape among the college population than among the prison population.

Attributions of self-esteem as a function of duration of eye contact.

American male and female college students who were randomly assigned to one of six groups viewed a 60-s videotape. The content of the tape was derived from the factorial combination of sex of model (both American and White) on the tape with duration of eye contact (5 s, 30 s, or 50 s) maintained by the model with an interviewer. After viewing the tape, the subjects completed the Multidimensional Self-Esteem Inventory (O'Brien & Epstein, 1988) as they thought the model in the tape would. For all 10 self-esteem component scales, scores significantly increased as amount of eye contact increased. For 7 of the 10 scales, self-esteem scores for the female model were higher than those for the male model. The data generally extend and support previous research demonstrating that, as eye contact increases between Americans, American observers rate them more favorably.

Judged brightness as a function of dark, intermediate, and light adaptation.

33 subjects were randomly assigned to a dark-, intermediate-, or light-adapted condition. They were then presented with two lighted surfaces of different brightness and asked to adjust the comparison stimulus to apparent equality with that of the standard stimulus. Results showed a significant interaction between adaptation level and stimulus intensity. The dark-adapted group showed greater accuracy at low stimulus intensities than at medium or high, while the intermediate- and light-adapted groups were more accurate in judging brightness at medium and high stimulus intensities. Differences in perceived brightness were cited as contributing to this finding.