Test anxiety levels of short and long sleeping college students.

Summasy.-To clarify the interpretation of a difference in anxiety level that Hidts and Pellegrini (1977) had reported as being incongruent with Hartmann's (1973) description of the personalities of short and long sleepers, groups of 20 short- and long-sleeping college students were tested using a battery of anxiety tests which featured two test anxiety scales. Congruent with Hartmann's hypothesis that short sleepers value work as a defense, our short sleepers showed significantly higher levels of test anxiety on both scales. These data were considered against Hicks and Pellegrini's earlier results with the conclusion that those data actually support Hartmann's conclusions. Based on data derived from psychiatric interviews and clinical observations, Hartmann (1973) has described consistent short sleepers as ambitious, energetic "non-worriers" who work hard and keep busy. These individuals tend to be somewhat conformist in their attitudes and wish to appear as very normal. It was Hartmann's impression that short sleepers use their high activity level as a means of denying or otherwise avoiding problems. In contrast, Hartmann described long sleepers as reflective and critical "worriers" who tend to be non-cooformisc in their attitudes. Recently we (Hicks & Pellegrini, 1977) reported the results of an attempt to provide a partial psychometric validation of Hartmann's clinical impressions of the personality differences between short and long sleepers. Focusing on the "non-worrier"-"worrier" dichotomy mentioned above, we reasoned that short sleepers should score significantly lower in anxiety than long sleepers on a shortened version of the Taylor Manifest Anxiety Scale. We found just the opposite and interpreted these data as questioning the validity of the clinical observations which were the basis for Hartmann's conclusions. However, we pointed out that while the Taylor scale is generally thought to measure general anxiety, the scores derived from this scale have been interpreted in a varietg of ways (e.g., see Khan, 1970). Thus, we cautioned that the question that had been raised concerning the validity of Hartmann's conclusions was based on a scale which provided equivocal data and required further clarification: An interpretation of the meaning of high scores on the Taylor scale that seems especially relevant to the issue raised here is Saltz's (1970) hypothesis that high scorers on the Taylor scale are individuals ". . . who show disrupted behavior under failureinduced stress . . ." (p. 568). This interpretation becomes important if, rather than focusing on Hartmann's "non-worrierw-"worrier" distinction as we did, attention is paid to the emphasis short sleepers place on work. As was mentioned, Hartmann implied that short sleepers seem to use their high activity levels as a defense against their problems. Thus, one could assume that any event which posed a threat to the stability of their work situation would evoke expressions of anxiety in short sleepers. Thus, given the validity of this argument, short sleepers score higher than long sleepers on scales which measure anxiety about achievement or evaluation in the particular work situation. It seems plausible, when viewed in the context of this discussion, that short sleepers should score higher on the Taylor scale than long sleepers, and, therefore, the data which we felt questioned the validity of Hartmann's conclusions may actually support them. How