黑料视频

December 23, 2024
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Flipping the script on stress

黑料视频 researchers help students use stress to their advantage

Can college students change how they react to stress and use it as a motivator? 黑料视频 researchers are exploring the connection between personality and Can college students change how they react to stress and use it as a motivator? 黑料视频 researchers are exploring the connection between personality and
Can college students change how they react to stress and use it as a motivator? 黑料视频 researchers are exploring the connection between personality and "stress mindset." Image Credit: Jonathan Cohen.

Jennifer Wegmann 鈥94, MA 鈥01, PHD 鈥18, is a bit apologetic when she recalls a stress management course she used to teach.

As a lecturer in the Health and Wellness Studies Division of Decker College of Nursing and Health Sciences, she鈥檇 accepted the teaching assignment at the last minute. The overarching message of the textbook was a commonly accepted admonishment: 鈥淓radicate stress or it will make you sick!鈥

A TED Talk by Kelly McGonigal, author of The Upside of Stress, changed her thinking, her teaching 鈥 and her dissertation topic. But that was later.

鈥淚 was old school. I feel bad about those early years,鈥 she says.

Today, Wegmann has a different outlook on stress, starting with the understanding that our reaction to it is rooted in our individual stress mindset, which is the belief that stress can lead to either enhancing or debilitating outcomes.

鈥淚f you believe stress is going to kill you, that belief may contribute to negative outcomes. If you believe stress has the potential to make you more productive or more resilient, you may experience positive outcomes,鈥 she explains.

But can people, particularly students, change what they believe?

Wegmann wanted to know, and that became the basis of research that asks two questions:

  • Can improving your well-being through health and wellness classes change your stress mindset?
  • How does your personality influence that process?

The two questions reflect gaps in previous research, Wegmann says. 鈥淭here was no literature examining the relationship between personality and stress mindset. To date, all the interventions for eliciting changes in stress mindset have been targeted to changing stress mindset, not on broadly improving wellness.鈥

HOW STRESSED ARE YOU?

At the beginning of the fall 2017 semester, students in health and wellness classes 鈥 such as yoga, weight training and nutrition 鈥 completed a questionnaire about their personality traits based on the five characteristics often used in psychology: openness, conscientiousness, extroversion, agreeableness and neuroticism.

A person who鈥檚 high in openness is more curious than cautious. A high score in agreeableness means the person is more friendly than detached. And a high score in neuroticism indicates a likelihood to be nervous rather than secure.

Students were also asked about their stress mindset. Then, at the end of the semester, they were resurveyed about their stress mindset (changes in personality traits happen slowly, usually over a lifetime).

Wegmann鈥檚 collaborators on the research project are from the School of Management: Shelley Dionne, associate dean and professor of leadership; Chou-Yu Tsai, assistant professor; and doctoral student Jason Marshall.

Their hypothesis was that individuals with higher scores in neuroticism and lower scores in the other four traits and who participate in health and wellness education would experience positive changes in stress mindset over time.

But, Wegmann says, they found that there were just three personality characteristics that most benefited from wellness education.

鈥淪tudents who were high on the neuroticism scale, low on the conscientious scale and low on the openness scale were the ones in whom we saw significant changes in stress mindset over the course of the semester through wellness education,鈥 she says.

鈥淲hy?鈥 is a question the group is discussing as they prepare to submit a paper for publication. But Wegmann is already sharing what she鈥檚 learned with the students she鈥檚 teaching.

鈥淭he take-home message, and this is what I tell my students, is that your personality is not an obstacle. So many people think, 鈥楾his is how I am and I can鈥檛 change.鈥

鈥淏ut what I do know is that over the course of the past three years, my research is showing me that your personality is not a roadblock to changing your beliefs about stress,鈥 she says.

And students like what she鈥檚 saying.

鈥淭he feedback we get from students is phenomenal. They say it changes the way they think about stress,鈥 Wegmann says. 鈥淭his means we have the opportunity to help students change their negative relationship with stress, which may help them experience more positive outcomes.鈥

Posted in: Health, Decker