Anxiety

“Do not be anxious about anything. Instead, in every situation, through prayer and petition with thanksgiving, tell your requests to God” (Philippians 4:6). Anxiety is one of the most common emotions in people. This emotion causes the body to change and react to circumstances in different ways. This is what our group decided to test; the anxiety levels of people. We thought it would be interesting to see how subconsciously anxious people would get when different people would come into the room and sit beside them.

For our group’s project we chose to test people’s anxiety levels. People get anxious about almost anything and we decided to look at how anxious a person got when the same gender, opposite gender, and an authority figure came into the room and sat beside the person we tested. We thought that it would be interesting to see when a person got the most anxious. Our idea was that a person would get the most anxious when the opposite gender walked in and/or the authority figure walked in.

To distract the people we were testing, we made them take a personality test on a computer. We used a Galvanic Skin Response (GSR) meter to measure their anxiety levels while the person took the test. Before taking the test, we put the GSR receptors on the index and middle finger of the test taker. These receptors pick up the skin conductivity and send it to the box they are connected to, to be translated into numbers. When a person’s anxiety goes up the numbers on the GSR fluctuate showing that the person has become more anxious. While they were taking the test, we sent in people in to sit beside them, acting like they were also working on the computer. We sent in the same gender, the opposite gender, and an authority figure each at different times. Every time one of those people would come in, we wrote down each number, and every time it changed. Also, we recorded the starting level and the ending level of the person we were testing. When the test was over we told the person what was actually going on and what the test was for.

The results of our test showed us what we were expecting to see. We expected higher anxiety responses when the subject was put in close contact with a person of the opposite gender or an authority figure while taking the personality test. Generally, we saw the subject becoming most anxious after a person of opposite gender sat down next to them and started working on a computer. An authority figure sitting next to the testing subject showed the next highest anxiety levels, and often a person of the same gender sitting next to them produced only slight anxiety levels. We detected anxiety in a person not only when the numbers spiked but most often when they fluctuated very quickly. With most of our test subject’s high anxiety was shown by extreme fluctuation, especially when the opposite gender and authority figure came in. The fluctuating numbers may have been lower than the original starting number however this does not mena a lack of anxiety but rather a lot of anxiety due to the fluctuation. Occasionally, other factors caused the testing subject to become anxious, such as waiting for the test results, or noticing that we were writing down readings from the GSR.

            The test resulted in this way because, as we predicted, teenagers become anxious around people of the opposite gender and around authority figures. They were more anxious around these groups than their own gender because teenagers tend to feel more comfortable around this group of people. They were still a little anxious around anyone no matter what because they were taking a test, which would make them a little more on edge. But naturally, not all of the test subjects fell into this pattern. Some subjects’ anxiety levels went down around authority figures and the opposite gender, or did not change drastically. This could be because they were either too absorbed in the test to notice, or they were comfortable anyway around these groups of people.

            These test results prove our original idea more than change it. We saw in the results what we had predicted to see when we designed the test. Though we did expect to see greater increases than we did in anxiety levels when authority figures and the opposite gender came in the room, the increase was still usually there, in some cases very pronounced. If we did the test again, we might have the people interact with the subject in different ways rather than just sitting still to see if more anxiety is produced. Overall, though, the test went very well.

I believe we got the results we did for several reasons. First of all, the people we tested were all adolescents. Adolescents are extremely susceptible to the opinion and presence of others, especially those of the opposite sex. At the ages of thirteen to eighteen (which was the age range within which we tested) teenagers are perceived as often times very nervous around their peers of the opposite sex and we proved this to be true. Teens are almost crippled by self awareness at this age, especially around the opposite sex which they are subtly trying to attract or please at this age. So, this showed up very prominently in our experiment because we proved that teens are more nervous around peers of the opposite sex.

Additionally we suspected that teens would be quite anxious around an authority figure who was in a close proximity to them. This was another true aspect of our experiment because during high school teachers are often seen as mean or intimidating and both of these views produce and anxious reaction. I think that the teens were most nervous around the authority figure because they expected to be told they were doing something wrong or to be judged by them. Not to mention they were doing an online quiz and so they had no idea if the teacher would correct them or tell them to get off the computer because that was a non school related quiz. These were all thoughts that we believe were going on in the students head consciously or subconsciously which made them anxious

A new aspect to our experiment that we discovered was that when the kids got confused, their anxiety levels went up. Sometimes we did not know why they were spiking but one girl provided an interesting theory. All of the sudden she said “Oh I’m so confused!” and her anxiety spiked. This led us to believe that student’s anxiety may have gone up when they were confused. This is just a theory however, and we did not officially test for it.

Through this project we saw that people’s anxiety levels go up when someone of authority came and sat beside them and a person of the opposite gender. Before we even did the test, our theory was that this would happen. This test showed us how people react to other people subconsciously, without even thinking that they are anxious. It was very interesting to see how the body reacts to different situations. This project showed the greatness of God in how our bodies react to situations without us even knowing it. God designed our bodies so perfectly, to do everything we needed them to, to survive, and his glory is revealed through something so small as this project.