Brady et al., 2018: Reappraising anxiety and stress as positive emotions improved grades and decreased negative reactions among first-year college students
Reference:
Brady, S. T., Hard, B. M., & Gross, J. J. (2018). Reappraising test anxiety increases academic performance of first-year college students. Journal of Educational Psychology, 110(3), 395-406
Download PDFSummary:
Adding a short paragraph to a logistics email sent the night before the first midterm exam in an introductory psychology course telling students that stress and anxiety “generally do not hurt performance and can even help performance” (adapted from Jamieson et al., 2010) led first-year students to report less negative reactions to anxiety and improved their test scores and final course grades. Upper-year students, who showed lower levels of anxiety and less negative responses to anxiety did not benefit.
Psychological Process:
What Desired Meaning is At Stake?
What is the Person Trying to Understand?
Selves (My Own and Others')Approach to Desired Meaning
What about it?
Changing beliefs about emotions, states, and the valence of the self-conceptHow?
Psychological Question Addressed
Are current or upcoming emotions, states, and experiences negative and undermining?Are current or upcoming emotions, states, and experiences negative and undermining?Psychological Question Addressed
Are current or upcoming emotions, states, and experiences negative and undermining?Psychological Process 2:
Psychological Process 3:
Social Area:
Education
Intervention Technique:
Prompting with information