Reappraising stress arousal improves affective, neuroendocrine, and academic performance outcomes in community college classrooms.

Abstract

The field experiment presented here applied a stress regulation technique to optimize affective and neuroendocrine responses and improve academic and psychological outcomes in an evaluative academic context. Community college students (N = 339) were randomly assigned to stress reappraisal or active control conditions immediately before taking their second in-class exam. Whereas stress is typically perceived as having negative effects, stress reappraisal informs individuals about the functional benefits of stress and is hypothesized to reduce threat appraisals, and subsequently, improve downstream outcomes. Multilevel models indicated that compared with controls, reappraising stress led to less math evaluation anxiety, lower threat appraisals, more adaptive neuroendocrine responses (lower cortisol and higher testosterone levels on testing days relative to baseline), and higher scores on Exam 2 and on a subsequent Exam 3. Reappraisal students also persisted in their courses at a higher rate than controls. Targeted mediation models suggested stress appraisals partially mediated effects of reappraisal. Notably, procrastination and performance approach goals (measured between exams) partially mediated lagged effects of reappraisal on subsequent performance. Implications for the stress, emotion regulation, and mindsets literatures are discussed. Moreover, alleviating negative effects of acute stress in community college students, a substantial but understudied population, has potentially important applied implications.

State Anxiety and Procrastination: The Moderating Role of Neuroendocrine Factors

“…In a recent experimental study, Jamieson and colleagues [ 26 ] revealed an association between test anxiety, procrastination, and neuroendocrine responses. Participants were randomly assigned to one of two experimental conditions—stress reappraisal and control condition—before taking an exam.…”

“…There is little research on the involvement of neuroendocrine measures in procrastination; however, recently, Jamieson and colleagues [ 26 ] applied a stress regulation technique to assess psychophysiological outcomes in evaluative academic contexts. Specifically, they tested the effects of stress reappraisal (the acquired information about the functional benefits of stress) on psychological, biological, and performance outcomes.…”

“…We tested state anxiety rather than trait anxiety due to previous suggestions that the relationship between anxiety and procrastination may be bidirectional [ 10 ]. In addition, given the association recently found between anxiety, neuroendocrine measures, and procrastination [ 26 ], and based on previous studies regarding the role of T and C in various social behaviors, we tested the moderating effect of T and C on the association between anxiety and procrastination. T levels have been found to differ between men and women.…”

Brain development and maturation in the context of learning

“…Exercise and yoga reduce stress (Lane and Lovejoy, 2001;Williamson, Dewey and Steinberg, 2001;Gothe, Keswani and McAuley, 2016;WG1-ch3;WG3-ch4). e representation of stress is also important: students educated on the positive, adaptive bene ts of stress arousal improve academic performance and evaluation anxiety in classroom exam situations is reduced (Jamieson et al, 2018;Jamieson et al, 2021).…”

Motivating Personal Growth by Seeking Discomfort

“…This emotion-regulation strategy alters the meaning applied to negative experiences before they occur to reduce their emotional impact (Gross, 1998, 1999). Reappraisal has a long history (for a review, see McRae, 2016; Uusberg et al, 2019) and has proven beneficial in managing emotions in lab studies (Gross, 1998; Jamieson et al, 2012), field studies (Jamieson et al, 2022), and clinical trials of affective disorders (e.g., cognitive behavioral therapy; Butler et al, 2006; Cuijpers et al, 2013; early models were developed by Beck, 1963, and Ellis, 1955). Through reappraisal, people may reinterpret discomfort as a positive experience.…”