The functions of worry and its relation to performance in controllable and uncontrollable situations

Abstract

The current study addressed the functions of worry in controllable and uncontrollable stressful situations, with the purpose of testing the “truth” behind positive beliefs about worry. All participants (N=72) were immersed in a stressful situation, that of delivering a speech in front of a camera, and they were randomly allocated to two experimental conditions; in the controllable situation, participants knew the topic in advance, whereas in the uncontrollable situation, they had to give an impromptu speech. Worry was negatively associated with performance in the controllable, r(36) = −.469, p=.002, but not in the uncontrollable condition, r(34) = −.106, p>.05, and, for the participants who believed in the benefits of worry, worrying was not positively related to performance, r(32) = −.196, p>.05. Therefore, it appears that in stressful situations, worrying is not associated with increased performance, even if people might believe in its benefits.

Keywords:

• Worry
• Control
• Performance
• Functions of worry

Acknowledgments

The authors are grateful for the financial support provided by programmes co-financed by The Sectoral Operational Programme Human Resources Development, Contract POS DRU 6/1.5/S/3 – “Doctoral Studies, A Major Factor in The Development of Socio-Economic and Humanistic Studies”. The authors have contributed to the article as follows: SS: Study design, conducting the study, analyses and results interpretation, writing the manuscript; DD: Study design, analyses and results interpretation, structure of the manuscript.

The authors wish to thank Diana Brumar, Doina Balmus, and Silviu Matu for their useful contribution to the process of data collection.