Date of Award

2018

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Bachelors

Department

Social Sciences

First Advisor

Harley, Heidi

Area of Concentration

Biopsychology

Abstract

As humans continue to push ourselves in new ways to overcome the challenges and demands that the modern world throws at us, methods of managing our stress responses become increasingly important. In the current study, dance is explored as a viable option for stress management, as tested through resilience to stress. Three groups of people were evaluated based on their habitual sedentary, dance, and exercise habits. The stress responses of these three groups were measured through the Perceived Stress Scale, the State Trait Anxiety Inventory, and salivary cortisol (a hormone often associated with the stress response) samples before and after completing the Trier Social Stress Test. The state (short term) anxiety scores before and after the test varied significantly among groups; in addition, trait (long term) anxiety scores showed that trait anxiety was lower in dancers. Overall, these results suggest that dance is an effective method of managing stress in a comparable way to other forms of exercise.

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