No Evidence of Attentional Bias in Statistics Anxiety

Abstract

The role of attentional bias in statistics anxiety was explored through cognitive and affective tasks. Participants consisted of 76 (73.7% females) students in the James Cook University Psychology programs at the Australia (35.5%) and Singapore campuses (64.5%). Participants completed the emotional Stroop task and the dot probe task, and measures of statistics anxiety and social desirability. No evidence of attentional bias was found. This could be due several methodological reasons. Limitations and future research directions are discussed.