This literature review focuses on the confirmed, suspected, and speculative effects of violent and non-violent video game exposure on negative and positive outcomes. Negative outcomes include aggressive feelings, aggressive thoughts, aggressive behavior, physiological arousal, and desensitization, whereas positive outcomes include various types of…

Successful techniques for reducing tension and anxiety in athletes are described. (JD)

The purpose of this study was to investigate the function of positive attentional cues as cognitive factors in the modification of fear responses in a desensitization-like treatment procedure. Positive attentional cues are defined as positively-valenced descriptors of the feared stimulus. Two groups of two subjects each were assessed as to the…

A group cognitive modification treatment was effective in significantly reducing test anxiety as assessed by (a) test performance, (b) self-reports and (c) grade point average. (Author)

This study assessed the comparative effectiveness of cognitive, arousal reduction, and combined cognitive and arousal reduction treatments for test anxiety. Results indicated cognitive therapy was more effective in reducing anxiety in the analogue testing situation and improving grade point average than other treatment and control procedures.…

College students with difficulty falling asleep were treated with either progressive relaxation, systematic desensitization, or a thought control procedure. All three treatment groups showed significant lower latency to sleep onset times than a waiting-list control group at the end of the three-week treatment period. A three-week followup revealed…

To investigate whether there are 2 types of test-anxious students, those with poor study skills and those with difficulties in retrieving material, study skills training or anxiety desensitization were provided to 84 high test-anxious university students in Israel. Results support the theory of two types of test-anxious students. (SLD)

An automated program for the reduction of test anxiety in a computer-based learning situation has been developed. Its main components are: 1) a self-study manual containing information and written exercises dealing with coping with test anxiety; 2) a videotape of modeled effective and ineffective coping with anxiety on tests; 3) a brief, modified…

This paper discusses current developments in neuroscience and cognitive psychology that have significance for education and learning, and considers the effects of violent and emotion-laden media messages. Topics include: (1) the developing brain, including the roles of genetics, experience, metaphorical imagination, and culture; (2) the links…