Anxiety and stress can have debilitating effects on our physical and mental health. The purpose of the current study was to examine a way to buffer, or protect, people with anxious symptoms from the negative affect produced by a stressor. I examined if co-occurring laughter and amusement, elicited by an amusing video and instructions to act amused, has a stress buffering effect for people with elevated symptoms of anxiety. The study employed a between-subject design with two conditions. Participants were randomly assigned to either the control condition (boring video/boring instructions) or amusing condition (amusing video/amusing instructions). Results did not show evidence of a stress buffering effect of co-occurring laughter and amusement in this specific population of people with symptoms of anxiety. Negative affect post-stressor task significantly increased, rather than decreased (t(27) = - 2.995; p < 0.01). The current study reveals that a stress buffering manipulation that was effective in a sample of the general population was not effective in a sample of people with anxious symptoms. Potential reasons for these results, as well as limitations and future directions, are discussed.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:VANDERBILT/oai:VANDERBILTETD:etd-03252016-113431 |
| Date | 08 April 2016 |
| Creators | Kline, Nora Katharine |
| Contributors | Leslie Kirby, Sohee Park |
| Publisher | VANDERBILT |
| Source Sets | Vanderbilt University Theses |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | http://etd.library.vanderbilt.edu/available/etd-03252016-113431/ |
| Rights | restrictsix, I hereby certify that, if appropriate, I have obtained and attached hereto a written permission statement from the owner(s) of each third party copyrighted matter to be included in my thesis, dissertation, or project report, allowing distribution as specified below. I certify that the version I submitted is the same as that approved by my advisory committee. I hereby grant to Vanderbilt University or its agents the non-exclusive license to archive and make accessible, under the conditions specified below, my thesis, dissertation, or project report in whole or in part in all forms of media, now or hereafter known. I retain all other ownership rights to the copyright of the thesis, dissertation or project report. I also retain the right to use in future works (such as articles or books) all or part of this thesis, dissertation, or project report. |
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