Nicolas Mendibles, Katy Takumi, Lauren Anderson, Qianxi Xu

Sponsor or Client: 

Title:

Stress Prevention and Mood Induction.

Abstract:

This study will investigate the relationship between mood and stress. Stress is a natural part of life and an inevitability for college students. It is no surprise that exams are a stressful part of college life. There is also a connection between mood and stress, mostly that bad moods and stress are positively correlated with each other. Thus, for this study, the goal was to investigate whether mood is able to affect the prevention of stress. Undergraduate students from Northern Arizona University were recruited for the study. Participants were exposed to either positive, neutral, or negative stimulus in order to induce a positive, or negative mood, and the neutral stimulus acted as a control. They were then asked to complete questions from a practice GRE test, a stressful college-level exam required by many graduate schools. Afterward, participant stress was recorded using an event-based stress index questionnaire. This study aims to determine if mood induction prior to a stressful event can prevent or increase stress levels, and an analysis of variance will be used to compare groups and determine whether or not there is a significant result.