The Influence Of Reappraising Anxiety On Risk-Taking

Individuals with higher anxiety tend to take fewer risks. Reappraising anxiety as beneficial increases subsequent performance on a variety of tasks. This study examined whether having participants reappraise their anxiety as beneficial would influence their willingness to take more risks. Participants were randomly assigned to either a reappraisal condition or a control condition. Participants in the reappraisal condition were given instructions to view their anxiety as beneficial. Participants in the control condition were given neutral instructions. Anxiety was measured using the State Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI) and the Depression Anxiety Stress Scale (DASS-21). The Balloon Analogue Risk Task (BART) measured risk-taking. It was hypothesized that 1) higher levels of anxiety would be associated with lower levels of risk-taking, 2) participants in the reappraisal condition would take more risks than participants in the control condition, 3) the reappraisal instructions would have a greater influence on participants with higher anxiety and, 4) the reappraisal group would better learn the differences in the explosion probabilities for the three balloons. Higher levels of anxiety were associated with lower levels of risk-taking. However, participants’ risk-taking did not differ across the reappraisal and control conditions.