Fig. 3. Psychological stress parameters. (A) The mean state
anxiety scores in the stress and control groups. (B) The mean negative
affect scores in the stress and control groups. (C) The mean positive
affect scores in the stress and control groups.*p < .05,***p < .001.
Q1
A mixed-measures ANOVA for the negative affect scores (see Figure 3B),
showed that there were significant main effects of Group, F (1,
61) = 6.05, p = .017, \(\eta_{p}^{2}\) = 0.09, and Time,F (4, 244) = 13.07, p < .001, \(\eta_{p}^{2}\) =
0.18. The interaction of Time and Group was also significant,F (4, 244) =8.59, p < .001, \(\eta_{p}^{2}\) =
0.12. Comparing the stress group to the control group using simple
effects analyses (Bonferroni corrected), revealed that the MIST task
significantly increased negative affect at the time points of S3
(p = .005), S4 (p = .008), and S5 (p = .004). A
mixed-measures ANOVA for the positive affect scores (see Figure 3C),
showed significant main effects of Time, F (4, 244) = 21.85,p < .001, \(\eta_{p}^{2}\) = 0.26, and Group,F (1, 61) = 4.73, p = .034, \(\eta_{p}^{2}\) = 0.07. The
interaction of Time and Group was also significant, F (4, 244) =
4.81, p = .003, \(\eta_{p}^{2}\)= 0.07. Simple effect tests
(Bonferroni corrected) revealed that positive affect in the stress group
was significantly lower than that in the control group at S3 (p =
.001), S4 (p = .049), and S5 (p = .005).