240 first year Teachers' College students were allocated to one of three groups, high anxiety (HA), moderate anxiety (MA), low anxiety (LA), on the basis of their scores on the Taylor Manifest Anxiety Scale (MAS). Members of each group were randomly assigned to either a stress or a non‐stress experimental condition. Under both conditions, subjects were asked to learn the order in which fourteen coloured geometric forms were presented to them. Five trials were given. Results supported the hypothesis that the MAS is a measure of emotional reactivity, and not a measure of chronic anxiety as is often suppose