Dr. Alia Crum

So you can imagine one set of films showed basically the messages that were out there in the public health context.

The other showed, hey, you know, stress has been linked to these things.

But in fact, the body stress response was designed to do this.

Did you know it could do that?

And we had empowering images like LeBron James making the free throw in the final minute versus missing it.

Exactly.

And our question was, does orienting people to different mindsets change how they respond to stress?

So this study was done in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis.

We worked with

UBS, a company, a financial service company that was undergoing pretty massive amounts of layoffs.

So these employees were stressed about being laid off.

They were taking on more pressure.

It was just a tough time.

And we randomized them into three conditions.

And this was all pre-work before getting a training on stress.

But the three different conditions, some watched no videos, some watched the

stress will crush you videos and some watched the stress could enhance you videos.

And what we found was that just, you know, it was a total of nine minutes of videos over the course of the week led to changes in their mindsets about stress, which led to changes in their physiological symptoms associated with stress.

So people who watch the enhancing films

had fewer back aches, muscle tension, insomnia, racing heart, and so forth.