Afraid of Taking That Test? Write About It

Emotional writing may alleviate post-traumatic stress, and stress interferes with working memory. Therefore, investigators performed a multipart study to examine the effect of expressive writing on anxiety before test taking.

First, 20 college students were given a math test in the laboratory, were presented with a high-risk scenario (e.g., a money award would be given, based on their performance within pairs, and their partners had already performed well), and were then assigned to 10 minutes of expressive writing about examination worries or sitting quietly (control) before retaking the test. Another trial involving 47 students used the same paradigm, but a third group was assigned to write about anything. Performance significantly improve…