Abstract
Individuals with high trait anxiety show a tendency toward spontaneous generation of negative events. This study evaluated the relationship between guessing bias and trait anxiety in a word-fragment completion task without a study phase. College students (N=96) were asked to complete the word fragments in the absence of the study phase. Their guessing bias was calculated by subtracting the proportion of completion of neutral words from the proportion of completion of negative words. The results showed that the guessing bias was affected by trait anxiety, but not by dysphoria. Students who were higher in trait anxiety completed more negative words than neutral words.
