Positive rehearsal showed no detected extra reduction in public speaking anxiety
UCLA students became less anxious after speaking practice with either rehearsal approach. Positive rehearsal had no detected advantage, while some learning measures differed.
Based on the published abstract. The full paper may contain additional methods, results and limitations.
The 30-second takeaway
Students became less anxious about public speaking over the study, but positive rehearsal showed no detected advantage over neutral rehearsal. Changes in expectations about feared outcomes were associated with later anxiety. These associations help describe the learning process, but they do not establish that changing expectations caused the improvement.
The abstract gives no anxiety effect estimates or confidence intervals. An undetected group difference does not establish equivalence, and the student sample limits conclusions about other populations.
What researchers found
Public speaking anxiety
Anxiety declined from baseline to follow-up one week later; positive versus neutral rehearsal had no detected difference. The abstract gives no group effect estimate.
What the learning measures meant
Expectancy meant anticipating a feared outcome, such as social rejection. Students' direct ratings of these expectations fell faster with neutral rehearsal, but mathematical estimates of learning speed did not detect a difference between groups.
Relief remained harder to interpret
Relief meant the feeling when an expected feared outcome did not happen. Its modeled starting level predicted later anxiety, whereas its modeled rate of change did not. Direct ratings and modeling also gave different patterns.
The original publication
Changes in feared outcome expectancy and relief during exposure for public speaking anxiety.
Barnes-Horowitz NM, Zbozinek TD, Craske MG
Behav Res Ther · 2025
- PubMed ID
- 40663838
- Record checked
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