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In 2011 experiments, anxious students who spent ten minutes writing about their worries just before an important exam did better than similar students who did not.

Psychology (Ramirez & Beilock, 2011)

MindScience

The story behind the card

The psychologists Gerardo Ramirez and Sian Beilock reported the results in the journal Science. In the laboratory, college students took a maths test under pressure, told they would be filmed and their work reviewed by teachers. Those who sat quietly beforehand did worse than on an earlier test, while those who first wrote about their feelings for ten minutes did better. In a school, ninth-graders facing their first high-school biology final exam did the same. Among the most anxious pupils, writers averaged a B+ and non-writers a B−. The likely reason is that worry uses up working memory, the small mental space for holding and handling information; writing seems to clear some of it.

Türkçe oku
2011'de yapılan deneylerde, önemli bir sınavdan hemen önce on dakika boyunca kaygılarını yazan kaygılı öğrenciler, yazmayan benzerlerinden daha başarılı oldu.

Psikologlar Gerardo Ramirez ve Sian Beilock, bulgularını Science dergisinde yayımladı. Laboratuvarda üniversite öğrencileri baskı altında bir matematik sınavına girdi; çalışmalarının kameraya alınacağı ve öğretmenlerce inceleneceği söylenmişti. Sınavdan önce sessizce oturanlar, önceki denemeye göre daha kötü sonuç aldı; önce on dakika duygularını yazanlar ise daha iyi. Bir okulda da lisedeki ilk biyoloji dönem sonu sınavına girecek dokuzuncu sınıf öğrencileri aynısını yaptı. En kaygılı öğrenciler arasında yazanların not ortalaması B+, yazmayanlarınki B− oldu. Olası açıklama şu: Kaygı, bilgiyi akılda tutup üzerinde çalıştığımız küçük zihinsel alanı, yani çalışma belleğini işgal eder. Yazmak bu alanın bir kısmını boşaltıyor gibi görünüyor.

Sources and further reading

Background reading: Writing therapy
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