Week 7 - Reappraising Stress Arousal PSYCH 133F

Jamieson et al. (2016) “Reappraising Stress Arousal Improves Performance and Reduces Evaluation Anxiety in Classroom Exam Situations”

What is Stress Appraisal?

Instead of viewing stress as harmful, students are taught to view stress arousal as:

• Adaptive

• Functional

• Helpful for performance

Ex: Racing Heart = Body preparing to perform better

NOT: “Stay calm”

What is Biopsychosocial (BPS) Model of Challenge vs Threat

Challenge State: Perceived Resources > (Greater than) Perceived Demands

When a student says “I can handle this” —> it is associated with: Better performance & more adaptive physiological response

Threat State: Perceived demands > (Greater than) perceived resources

When a student says, “This exam is too much for me.” —> it is associated with: Anxiety, poor performance, maladaptive stress response

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Demand: Uncertainty if you’ll do well, feeling pressure

Resources: Exam prepping, reviewing lectures, I can mentally

What is Resource Appraisals?

How capable students feel

Ex:

• “I have the skills to do well.”

• “I can handle this test.”

What is Demand Appraisals?

How stressful/difficult the situation feels.

Ex:

• uncertainty

• effort

• pressure

What is Math Evaluation Anxiety?

Anxiety specifically related to:

• being tested

• evaluated

• judged during math exams

What is Math Learning Anxiety?

Anxiety during:

• lectures

• learning material

• studying

What questions did the authors set to answer?

Main research question:

Can teaching students to reinterpret stress as helpful improve exam performance and reduce anxiety?

More specifically:

• Can stress reappraisal increase challenge/resource appraisals?

• Can it reduce math evaluation anxiety?

• Can it improve classroom exam performance?

How did the authors study their research question?

Participants

• 93 developmental math students

• community college students (In a developmental math course)

• randomized experiment

Important:
—> academically at-risk students, not high-achieving students

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Experimental Design

Students were randomly assigned to:

• Reappraisal Condition

Students learned:

• stress is adaptive

• arousal helps performance

• stress responses evolved to help us cope

Example:

• increased heart rate helps deliver oxygen to brain

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Placebo Control Condition

Students were told:

• ignore stress

• suppress negative thoughts

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Procedure

Students completed:

• anxiety measures

• stress appraisal questionnaires (scale 1-7)

• math exams (2 exams)

Researchers compared:

• Exam 1 vs Exam 2

• intervention vs control group

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Measures

Researchers measured:

• 3 things: Stress appraisals (How do you feel about the exam scale), Math anxiety (Questionnaire, tested their learning + Evaluation), Exam performance (Final Grade)

What did they find?

1. Stress reappraisal improved exam performance.

   Students taught to reinterpret stress:

   • performed better on Exam 2

   • improved relative to controls

2. Stress reappraisal reduced evaluation anxiety.

Students felt:

• less anxious during testing situations

BUT:

• learning anxiety did NOT significantly change

3. Stress reappraisal increased resource appraisals.

Students felt:

• more capable

• more able to cope

This supports the BPS challenge/threat model.

4. Resource appraisals mediated performance improvement

5. Students in the reappraisal condition:

   • showed marginally higher final grades

(All of this is stress reappraisal)

Why should we care?

Testing is stressful for almost all students.

• stress itself is not always harmful

• how students INTERPRET stress matters

→ Low cost, easy to implement, show all stress isn’t bad but some is adaptive (Interpretation of stress)