Turn the Knots Into Bows: How Reframing Nerves Raised Real Test Scores

One paragraph, real results

Before a practice exam, Harvard researchers gave students one extra paragraph to read. Nothing else. Months later, those students' real scores on the actual exam were higher.

That's the power of cognitive reappraisal: changing what a feeling means instead of trying to make it go away. And what it did to their bodies is the most interesting part.

The study

In 2010, Jeremy Jamieson, Wendy Berry Mendes, and colleagues at Harvard published a study in the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology. They recruited 60 students who were planning to take the GRE, the standardized exam for graduate school, within the next three months.

Students came to the lab to take a practice GRE under realistic test conditions. Before the test, everyone got the same standard instructions. Then they were split into two groups:

• The control group got only the standard instructions.
• The reappraisal group got one extra paragraph.

Here's the gist of what it said: People think feeling anxious during a test will make them do poorly. But research suggests arousal doesn't hurt performance, and can even help. So if you feel anxious, don't worry about it. The paragraph ended by telling students to simply remind themselves that their arousal "could be helping you do well."

That's it.

The results

On the practice test, the same day: the reappraisal group scored about 55 points higher on the math section (an average of about 739 vs. 684).

On the real GRE, one to three months later: students brought in their official score reports. The gap held. The reappraisal group scored about 64 points higher on math (770 vs. 706). The researchers checked SAT scores, GPA, prior coursework, and study time, and the effect remained.

The reappraisal group also said, after the real exam, that they felt their arousal had helped them, and they felt more sure of themselves during the test. The paragraph seemed to stick with them for months.

One important detail: the effect showed up on math only. Verbal scores didn't change in either group. The researchers suggest that math problems lean more on active, effortful thinking, which is the kind of performance arousal can fuel.

What happened in their bodies

You might expect a message like this to calm students down. It didn't.

The researchers took saliva samples before and after the instructions and measured salivary alpha-amylase, a marker of the body's fight-or-flight (sympathetic) stress system. In the reappraisal group, that stress system revved up more. The control group showed no real change.

And in the reappraisal group, the more it revved, the better students did on math. In the control group, there was no link between stress levels and scores.

The nerves didn't go away. The meaning changed. Instead of reading their racing heart as a threat ("I'm going to fail"), students could read it as a challenge ("my body is getting ready"). Research on challenge vs. threat responses shows that the same surge of arousal can help or hurt performance depending on how you interpret it.

How to use cognitive reappraisal

Before a match, a tournament, a recital, a test, or a job interview:

What to do:

1. Notice it. Racing heart. Knots in your stomach. Sweaty palms. Don't pretend it isn't there.
2. Reframe it. Not "I'm so nervous, I'm going to choke," but "My body is getting energized. I'm getting ready."
3. Aim it. Use the energy. Hype yourself up and point it at the next point, the next note, the next question.

The goal isn't to feel calm. It's to stop treating the feeling as a warning sign.

Your nerves aren't the enemy

This was a small study. Sixty students started, but only 28 took the real GRE within the three-month window, so the main results are based on those 28. The effect appeared on math but not verbal scores. And because the real exam happened outside the lab, the researchers can't say exactly how the paragraph helped. It may have changed how students felt on test day, or how they approached studying. Later research has built on this idea, but these specific results come from one study.

Still, the message is simple and costs nothing: your nerves aren't the enemy. Your interpretation might be.

As the researchers put it in their paper's title: turn the knots in your stomach into bows.

References

This post is for educational purposes only and is not medical advice.

1. Jamieson JP, Mendes WB, Blackstock E, Schmader T. Turning the knots in your stomach into bows: Reappraising arousal improves performance on the GRE. J Exp Soc Psychol. 2010;46(1):208–212. doi:10.1016/j.jesp.2009.08.015