Is there a difference between anxiety and excitement?

Photo by Ben Mullins on Unsplash

Researchers in a 2010 study (Jamieson et al., 2010) broke some university students who were going to take the Graduate Records Exam (GRE) to get into grad school into two groups.

Both groups took a mock GRE exam

The first group was told nothing

Members of the second group were told that their elevated heart rate and other physical signs associated with anxiety actually predicted that they would do better on the test, not worse.

The second group not only did better on the mock GRE than the first group, they also did better on their real GRE. They said the physical feelings that they might otherwise see as anxiety actually helped them do better on the test.

Having an opportunity to reframe their interpretation of the experience of taking the test and then being able to try out that new perspective in a mock exam made a difference in how these students experienced the actual exam. One of the things I’m hoping to explore in my study is whether improv can help people who suffer from public speaking anxiety shift their experience in a similar way.

Jamieson, J. P., Mendes, W. B., Blackstock, E., & Schmader, T. (2010). Turning the knots in your stomach into bows: Reappraising arousal improves performance on the GRE. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 46(1), 208–212. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jesp.2009.08.015