Effects And Mechanism Of Expressive Writing Intervention On Test Anxiety

As a kind of psychological intervention,expressive writing was used to disclose one’s deepest thoughts and feelings about the important life experience through writing.Expressive writing which operates easily can improve physical and mental health significantly.The present studies examined that whether expressive writing can produce positive effects on mental health,working memory capacity,physiological arousal levels and test scores in high test anxiety college students.The mechanism and moderators of expressive writing were also tested.The main conclusions obtained in the series of experiments were as the following:1.Both of the interventions,a brief expressive writing assignment that occurred30 mins or 9 days before taking CET-6,significantly improved high test anxiety college students’ exam scores,and their effects were not different significantly.2.Working memory capacity of high test anxiety subjects were decreased significantly in high pressure test situation.3.Expressive writing can produce beneficial effects on test anxiety by eliminating choking under pressure effect in high working memory capacity participants.4.Expressive writing can help high test anxiety subjects to adapt to high pressure test environment more easily by attenuating physiological responses to evaluative stress.5.High test anxiety participants with lower emotional expressivity and higher working memory capacity were more likely to benefit from expressive writing.6.The effects of expressive writing intervention were positively related with the frequency of emotion and cognitive words in writing.Expressive writing intervention was useful for test anxiety through the mechanism of emotional disclosure and cognitive regulation.