Effects of Induced Stress - Research Paper Example

Effects of Induced Stress Stress is an over-used word which most people associate with situations that cause the surfacing of negative emotions such as anger or anxiety. Anxiety among individuals cause variable effects ranging from physiological changes such as increased heart rates and nausea to emotional changes such as panic attacks (Cassady & Johnson, 2002). Mental processes are also affected by stress caused by anxieties, with some initial researches suggesting that learning processes become delayed or negated under stress (Lupien, et al., 2007; MacIntyre & Gardner, 1994). More often than not, stress decreases the mental capacities of people due to the ability of stress hormones to affect memory and cognition by binding to receptors in various regions of the brain (Lupien, et al., 2007). While stress may initially be effective in memory retention, chronic stress produces hormones that block the creation of neurological processes due to the increase in the secretion of adrenal or stress hormones such as glucocorticoids, causing uncontrolled or instinctive avoidance training to relieve stress through selective memory loss (Roozendaal, 2002). These lapses in memory can be prevented early on by reducing stress as much as possible using various methods of intervention to promote better memory retention and overall perception of quality of life (Shapiro, Schwartz, & Bonner, 1998). With various reports suggesting that any kind of stress could have negative effects to a person’s actions and judgments resulting to unwanted situations or circumstances, there is a need to further validate this claim by focusing on the effects of short-term stress in individuals performing simple tasks. Purpose of the Study Among students, stressors such as accumulated test anxieties and the feeling of being pressured were found to be related to lower test scores in semester-long courses (Cassady & Johnson, 2002). Such studies show how long-term stressors such as test anxieties could directly affect memory and cognition among college students. This research is also considering studying the effects of stressors such as additional test anxiety on students’ test results, although this will be done in a much shorter duration. The experiment aims to find out if short-term heightened stress levels in a testing environment are sufficient enough to affect cognitive processes between two groups and if this would be reflected on the test results. An experiment on induced short-term stress among test-takers is to be done in order to further establish the fact that stress levels of any kind and duration have significant effects, which may be positive or negative on the cognitive abilities of people. Literature Review Many researches have already established the relationship of induced stress to people and how these could affect cognitive ability and memory retention (Lupien, et al., 2007; McEwen; 1998). While emotions are also other factors that could induce stress among individuals, more often than not emotions alone could initiate stress directly but not the other way around, however the intermixing of emotions and mental processes could variably initiate stressful conditions among individuals (Lupien, et al., 2007). Children during the early learning stages experience stress through various activities such as taking tests while being pressured to perform as well as or better than peers (Hill & Wigfield, 1984). Also, they are easily affected by anxiety-induced stress when facing a difficult subject due to their perceived weakness and the fear of being punished or humiliated, thus pressuring themselves to get over these problematic subject areas (Ashcraft, 2002). This kind of academic pressure causes problems in memory retention, resulting to low grades, subsequently becoming emotionally affected by not living up to standards. Other researches in adult learning have also shown that added stress due to anxieties could also affect learning and memory retention and recall (MacIntyre & Gardner, 1994). While it is expected that not all adults would pass through this stage of adult-age learning, the anxiety from the pressure of living up to society standards could still affect them, causing memory losses or other decreases in cognitive functions under chronic stress conditions, apart from physiological problems arising from such cases (McEwen, 1998). Such observations put the word “stress” in a negative light despite its original function of regulating the body’s heart rate and hormones under perceived harmful conditions. Stress may be something which would have a hard time becoming something positive from the perspective of the society however some kinds of stresses are actually beneficial in short-term conditions, allowing individuals to avoid the recurrence of certain situations. For example, it was found out that short-term stress could help in memory-retention and retrieval due to the positive effects of glucocorticoids in local receptors in the brain through post-training activation of glucocorticoid-sensitive pathways (Lupien, et al., 2007; Roozendaal, 2002). This is most effective when dealing with short-term emotionally-related anxieties or stress by identifying mistakes and how these came up about, helping individuals to prevent committing similar mistakes or avoiding erroneous choices in the future. However, if the stress hormones are constantly being released due to chronic stress, the glucocorticoids would have degenerative effects on neurological activity such as blocking inter-neuron connections, resulting to either a gradual memory loss or instances of poor judgment. Study Design and Hypothesis This experiment will use test administration with a fixed time limit as method to gather primary data. Participants will be put into two groups: group A and group B. Both groups will be given a sheet with 50-100 simple math questions and will be told that they will have 60 seconds to answer correctly as many questions as they can. They will be informed that the results of the study will depend on how many questions they can answer correctly within the allotted time. The gauge for test performance will be based on number of questions answered correctly within the 60-second period in both groups. Participants in the experimental group, Group A will be given cues at the 45 second, 30 second and 10 second mark to help induce stress. Participants in the control, Group B will be told that the test is merely a warm-up exercise and there will be no given time-limit cues within the 60-second time period. The independent variables for the study would be the presence of applied stress onto the test-takers, which would be the 45, 30, and 10-second time-limit cues. The dependent variables would be the test performance results of the participants, using the results in Group B as the gauge for measurement. It is expected that participants from Group A would feel more agitated and thus would have less correct answers in comparison with Group B results, since previous conducted studies have shown that people become agitated or anxious when facing situations which they feel the pressure to performing well, or those wherein they have fears or apprehensions due to perceived strong weaknesses in the subject or topic (Ashcraft, 2002; Cassady & Johnson, 2002). In this study’s case, answering as many correct answers in 50-100 items of math questions within a span of 60 seconds is already enough to cause anxiety from time pressure, but by using an independent factor such as cueing how many seconds remain before the test is over, it is expected to create differences between the test results of the control and experimental group. The study thus aims to test the working hypothesis that: People induced with additional stressors in a testing environment would likely show worse test results compared to people having minimal induced stress. References Ashcraft, M. H. (2002). Math anxiety: personal, educational, and cognitive consequences. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 11(5):181-185. Cassady, J. C., & Johnson, R. E. (2002). Cognitive test anxiety and academic performance. Contemporary Educational Psychology, 27:270-295 doi:10.1006/ceps.2001.1094. Hill, K. T., & Wigfield, A. (1984). Test anxiety: a major educational problem and what can be done about it. The Elementary School Journal, 85(1):105-126. Lupien, S. J., Maheu, F., Tu, M., Fiocco, A., & Schramek, T. E. (2007). The effects of stress and stress hormones on human cognition: implications for the field of brain and cognition. Brain and Cognition, 65:209-237 doi:10.1016/j.bandc.2007.02.007. MacIntyre, P. D., & Gardner, R. C. (1994). The effects of induced anxiety on three stages of cognitive processing in computerized vocabulary learning. SSLA, 16:1-17. McEwen, B. S. (1998). Protective and damanging effects of stress mediators. The New England Journal of Medicine, 388(3):171-179. Roozendaal, B. (2002). Stress and memory: opposing effects of glucocorticoids on memory consolidation and memory retrieval. Neurobiology of Learning and Memory, 78:578-595 doi:10.1006/nlme.2002.4080. Shapiro, S. L., Schwartz, G. E., & Bonner, G. (1998). Effects of mindfulness-based stress reduction on medical and premedical students. Journal of Behavioral Medicine, 21(6):581-599. Read More