Nostalgia Therapy Project

Olga Lopez

Co-Presenters: Individual Presentation

College: College of Liberal Arts

Major: BA.PSYCHOLOGY

Faculty Research Mentor: Alexa Angster

Abstract:

It is no surprise that being an adult is stressful. What if revisiting the things that use to bring us joy in our childhood could reduce our stress now as adults. This study investigates if revisiting childhood media (specifically television shows) could reduce levels of stress in adults. This study took a group of participants (N=21) ranging from different generations of X, Z and millennials. Each participant was given a pre-test that was the Perceived Stress Test (PSS). The PSS measures stress from the past month of the applicant's life which was later used to help ruled out current stress after the media was shown. They were then asked to watch an episode (ranging from 25-30 minutes) of a childhood show of their choosing. The shows consisted of early childhood or early adolescent. After they took a posttest that was the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory Test (STAI-1). This was used to measure the stress levels immediately after consuming the media. The raw scores were later transcribed into percentages as both these tests use different measurement scales. A paired t-test was used to analyze the data. The findings conclude a strong positive correlation between consuming childhood media and stress reduction (P< .001). The null hypothesis was rejected, proving that consuming childhood media does lower stress in adults.