Felt Anxiety

Abstract

The current study sought to examine the relationship between the context in which a college student was raised and their level of felt anxiety, as well as the coping strategy adopted by these individuals. The researcher hypothesized that those college students who were raised in a rural context will have a greater level of felt anxiety and will utilize more maladaptive coping strategies. The Penn State Worry Questionnaire and the Brief COPE were used to collect data from a pool of 100 college students from a small, rural college. Two One-Way ANOVA analyses were utilized to examine the relationship between 1) context and felt anxiety and 2) context and coping strategies (adaptive and maladaptive). The researcher found that indeed there

First year students are faced with the enormous task of adapting to a new lifestyle and setting. This period is marked with a transition to an independent lifestyle, a higher standard of education, alterations in expectations of secondary education, academic focus, and alterations in support systems (Denovan & Macaskill, 2013). Role conflict is common among this population due to the various responsibilities that are thrust upon them. Conflict among the roles of school and family, along with additional roles such as work and peer relationships, creates stress on a student that may result in daily anxiety (Giancola, Grawitch, & Borchert, 2009). Students are faced with developing a skill that is often expected to be learned naturally, that of time management. While generally female students are better at time management, they still have higher levels of anxiety within the school setting. Academic stress is a strain on every student however, particularly affecting freshmen and sophomores (Misra & McKean, 2000). If anxiety were to accumulate on a daily basis, a student would begin to feel overwhelmed. If prolonged, negative psychological or physiological consequences could occur (American Psychological Association, 2013). Stress and anxiety are natural reactions to a stressor, yet to deal with the strain on the psyche and body humans have developed innate strategies to deal with the

This increase is indicative in the belief that coping plays a key role in the relationship between stressful events and outcomes such as psychological distress and physical illness (Folkman, Lazarus, Gruen, & DeLongis, 1986). Research continues due to the interest in examining stress in settings that allow for the examination of coping in context of stressors (Carver, 1997). Stress is generally seen as the relationship between the individual and their environment that is appraised as exceeding their resources and potentially endangering their well-being. Cognitive appraisal and coping are seen as mediators through which the individual deals with the possible threat (Folkman et al., 1986). Coping is the individual’s effort to manage the demands brought on by the potential threat and regulates the individual’s emotion. As such, two types of coping exist with subtypes: problem-focused coping, aimed at problem solving, and emotion-focused coping, aimed at managing the emotional distress associated with the stressor (Carver, Scheier, & Weintraub, 1989; Folkman & Lazarus, 1985; Folkman et al., 1986). Coping is subject to individual differences, much like every aspect of human behavior. People tend to utilize emotion-focused coping strategies more with women using emotion-focused coping more than men (Brougham, Zail, Mendoza, & Miller, 2009). Coping styles are not concrete concepts. Instead, they can be dependent