Comparison of Relaxation- and Acceptance-Based Interventions as Coping Strategies for Task Anxiety.

The study of psychological acceptance has attracted increasing attention in clinical outcome research in recent years, but experimental studies have been relatively small in number. The current paper presents an experimental study that sought to compare the effectiveness of acceptance versus relaxation as strategies for coping with a stress-inducing academic task. The study measures both performance on the task and subjective measures of arousal before, during, and after the task is complete. The results have implications for understanding the verbal behavioral processes involved in acceptance- and relaxation-based interventions in clinical settings.