Get Excited: Reappraising Pre-Performance Anxiety as Excitement
Brooks (2014) · Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 143(3)
Relied on in 1 place across the academy · 1 stated limit
What it found
In a lab study of 113 people about to sing karaoke to a stranger, those told to say “I am excited” scored 80% on the game's accuracy measure; those told to say “I am anxious” scored 53%; the other groups — calm, angry, sad, or nothing — sat around 69%. Reported anxiety did not fall; reported excitement rose.
What it does not show
Student samples performing under pressure — karaoke, a short speech, a maths test — not talking to somebody they like. It raised reported excitement and performance; reported anxiety did not fall.
And where we carry it further
Student samples doing performance tasks — singing, a short speech, a maths test — not conversation. The effect is on performance under arousal, not on being liked.
Where we rely on it
1 place in the academy. If this paper turned out to be wrong, this is the list that would have to change. Some of the instructions below are part of Gold; none of the findings are.
In the curriculum · 1
Cited alongside it
Papers that sit under the same topics and films. Not a claim that they agree with each other — only that the same exercises lean on both.
The Liking Gap in Conversations: Do People Like Us More Than We Think?
Boothby, Cooney, Sandstrom & Clark (2018)Beautiful Mess Effect: Self–Other Differences in Evaluation of Showing Vulnerability
Bruk, Scholl & Bless (2018)It Doesn't Hurt to Ask: Question-Asking Increases Liking
Huang, Yeomans, Brooks, Minson & Gino (2017)Duration Neglect in Retrospective Evaluations of Affective Episodes; When More Pain Is Preferred to Less
Fredrickson & Kahneman (1993); Kahneman, Fredrickson, Schreiber & Redelmeier (1993)Post-Event Processing in Social Anxiety
Rachman, Grüter-Andrew & Shafran (2000)Alcohol Myopia: Its Prized and Dangerous Effects
Steele & Josephs (1990)Research
A real study. We tell you what it found, how many people were in it, and what it can't prove.
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