Investigating the Physiological Response of Anxiety Through General Knowledge and Math Questionnaires, with a Focus of Inducing Anxiety Through Music.
Investigating the physiological response of anxiety through general knowledge and math questionnaires, with a focus of inducing anxiety through music.
The aim of this study was to investigate the physiological effects associated with math anxiety, with a further aim to explore this in relation to tense music exposure. It was hypothesised that a maths questionnaire would produce a significantly higher anxiety response than a general knowledge questionnaire. It was also hypothesised that exposure to tense music would produce a significantly greater anxiety response than silence. Furthermore, it would be expected to observe a significant interaction between the music condition and question type. The results of a mixed subject’s factorial ANOVA revealed that participants’ heart rate was significantly higher when presented with the math questionnaire over the general knowledge questionnaire. The presence of tense music did not significantly influence the level of physiological arousal. The only conclusion drawn therefore is that math questions elicit greater physiological arousal than general knowledge questions.
Anxiety, like fear, is an emotion. It is a normal and totally necessary biological survival mechanism which everybody experiences. It tells us that something is a threat to our survival and motivates us to confront or avoid that threat. (Simmons & Daw, 1994). Fear can be distinguished from anxiety in that fear focuses on specific situations or objects and occurs in their proximity, whereas anxiety occurs in anticipation of such. The amount of anxiety we feel should be proportionate to the reality of the threat posed by the situation, however, sometimes this is not the case.
It is important to realise that this biological response is in essence the same as that experienced by other animals. However, in humans who have the power of thought or conceptualisation, the ability to anticipate fear or anxiety itself becomes part of the cycle of
The aim of this study was to investigate the physiological effects associated with math anxiety, with a further aim to explore this in relation to tense music exposure. It was hypothesised that a maths questionnaire would produce a significantly higher anxiety response than a general knowledge questionnaire. It was also hypothesised that exposure to tense music would produce a significantly greater anxiety response than silence. Furthermore, it would be expected to observe a significant interaction between the music condition and question type. The results of a mixed subject’s factorial ANOVA revealed that participants’ heart rate was significantly higher when presented with the math questionnaire over the general knowledge questionnaire. The presence of tense music did not significantly influence the level of physiological arousal. The only conclusion drawn therefore is that math questions elicit greater physiological arousal than general knowledge questions.
Anxiety, like fear, is an emotion. It is a normal and totally necessary biological survival mechanism which everybody experiences. It tells us that something is a threat to our survival and motivates us to confront or avoid that threat. (Simmons & Daw, 1994). Fear can be distinguished from anxiety in that fear focuses on specific situations or objects and occurs in their proximity, whereas anxiety occurs in anticipation of such. The amount of anxiety we feel should be proportionate to the reality of the threat posed by the situation, however, sometimes this is not the case.
It is important to realise that this biological response is in essence the same as that experienced by other animals. However, in humans who have the power of thought or conceptualisation, the ability to anticipate fear or anxiety itself becomes part of the cycle of
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