Underrepresented populations (e.g., women in engineering majors) often report higher levels of test anxiety, which has been related to the use of surface study strategies, procrastination, and poor exam performance. The purpose of this study is to gain a better understanding of the relationship between test anxiety and first semester performance and first year retention among engineering studen...

Under anxiety, people sometimes perform poorly. This concerns cognitive performance (e.g., taking an important exam) as well as perceptual-motor performance (e.g., picking up a cup from a table). There is still much debate about how anxiety affects perceptual-motor performance. In the current paper we review the experimental literature on anxiety and perceptual-motor performance, thereby focusi...

Awaiting uncertain news is stressful, but is it more stressful than receiving bad news? We compared these emotional experiences in two studies. Participants in Study 1 reflected on a personal experience awaiting news that ultimately turned out badly, and participants in Study 2 were law graduates awaiting their results on the bar exam who ultimately failed the exam. In Study 1, participants wer...

The current report aimed to document individual differences that predict the trajectory of post-event rumination following an evaluative event. In this study, 127 undergraduate students were assessed over a 5-day period preceding and following a mid-term exam. Participants completed measures of anticipatory processing, trait test anxiety, trait tendency to ruminate, negative affect, and post-ev...

BACKGROUND Based on Iranian traditional medicine, the root cause of anxiety is due to the heart and brain diseases. The use of aromatic substances is one of the basic treatments for the heart and brain diseases in Iranian traditional medicine. Concerning the prevalence of test anxiety among students, this study was conducted to determine the effect of inhalation of essential oils of Polianthes ...