PELATIHAN KECEMASAN BERBICARA DI HADAPAN UMUM PADA SISWA SMU

Abstract

Students generally feel anxious when they are going to do or to anticipate an important task, i.e. speaking in public. Normally, students overcome the feeling of anxiety by trying to calm down, and they believe that this strategy was the best way to reduce anxiety before doing a task (pre-performance anxiety). Several previous studies show that the best alternative way for reducing anxiety is not by calming down, but by reappraising the physiological reaction of anxiety as a feeling of pleasure that arises from doing an enjoyable task as excitement. Individuals who reassess this experience, have better performance and lessen anxiety than individuals who try to calm down. In this study, participants will be trained to change their physical assessment of anxiety-provoking situations, by repeating the phrase "I'm excited", or by reading a short message "go for it!" which makes them feel excited (more excited) when they are about to start a task. The current research shows that there a slight decrease in participants anxiety after 1 week. This finding supports the previous research that anxious and excitement emotions are characterized by high arousal; therefore, it is better to change judgement of these emotion instead of trying to change arousal from high to low. Changing judgments is much easier for individuals, and consequently, this will also affect performance (public presentation).