Effects of acceptance-based self-instructions on the speech anxiety of undergraduate students

Abstract

The present study investigated effects of acceptance-based self-instructions on alleviating undergraduates' experiential avoidance and speech anxiety. The participants, 12 men and 18 women with high speech anxiety as assessed by the Fear of Negative Evaluation Scale and the Audience Anxiety Scale, were assigned to the acceptance-based self-instruction group,the coping self-instruction group,or the control group. Each student participated in baseline, treatment, and follow-up speech sessions. Those in the experimental groups received self-instruction training in the treatment speech sessions,whereas those in the control group received no particular training. The results indicated that the participants in the acceptance-based self-instruction group scored higher on the Japanese-language version of the Acceptance and Action Questionnaire (AAQ-J) in post-test and follow-up assessments than did the participants in the other 2 groups. Moreover, at post-test and follow-up, the state and trait speech anxiety indices of the participants in the 2 experimental groups decreased compared to the baseline session and to the scores of the participants in the control group. The present results suggest that acceptance-based self-instructions may be effective for increasing acceptance and alleviating speech anxiety.