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Social-evaluative stressors—experiences in which people feel they could be judged negatively—pose a major threat to adolescent mental health 1 – 3 and can cause young people to disengage from stressful pursuits, resulting in missed opportunities to acquire valuable skills. Here we show that replicable benefits for the stress responses of adolescents can be achieved with a short (around 30-min), scalable 'synergistic mindsets' intervention. This intervention, which is a self-administered online training module, synergistically targets both growth mindsets 4 (the idea that intelligence can be developed) and stress-can-be-enhancing mindsets 5 (the idea that one’s physiological stress response can fuel optimal performance). In six double-blind, randomized, controlled experiments that were conducted with secondary and post-secondary students in the United States, the synergistic mindsets intervention improved stress-related cognitions (study 1, n  = 2,717; study 2, n  = 755), cardiovascular reactivity (study 3, n  = 160; study 4, n  = 200), daily cortisol levels (study 5, n  = 118 students, n  = 1,213 observations), psychological well-being (studies 4 and 5), academic success (study 5) and anxiety symptoms during the 2020 COVID-19 lockdowns (study 6, n  = 341). Heterogeneity analyses (studies 3, 5 and 6) and a four-cell experiment (study 4) showed that the benefits of the intervention depended on addressing both mindsets—growth and stress—synergistically. Confidence in these conclusions comes from a conservative, Bayesian machine-learning statistical method for detecting heterogeneous effects 6 . Thus, our research has identified a treatment for adolescent stress that could, in principle, be scaled nationally at low cost. An online training module that synergistically targets two different mindsets can reduce stress levels in adolescents in the context of social-evaluative stressors—stressful experiences in which individuals fear that others are judging them negatively.

Individuals embody various social identities that can impact how they interface with the social environment. Stigma theories suggest that members of low-status or marginalized groups possess devalued social identities, and therefore, experience more stress. While social identities can lead to increased stress, individuals’ appraisals of their identities are not necessarily perceived as harmful/demanding. Rather, social identities can also be appraised as resources or sources of strength bringing opportunities and facilitating goal attainment. Using the biopsychosocial (BPS) model of challenge and threat as a conceptual foundation, this research developed a novel measure to assess individuals’ appraisals of their social identities. In Study 1 (N = 575), confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) evaluated the theorized factor structure (i.e., resource and demand appraisals) and assessed the overall fit of the model. Structural equation modeling (SEM) tested for associations between the resource and demand latent factors. Individuals appraising their ethnic-racial identity as a resource exhibited improved self and intergroup outcomes, while those perceiving it as a demand reported worse self-based and intergroup outcomes, as well as more distress. Study 2 (N = 743 Black and White Americans), which was preregistered, examined group differences in appraisals of ethnic-racial identity. SEM revealed that Black participants were more likely than White participants to appraise their ethnic-racial identity as demanding, leading to worse social and intergroup outcomes. Even when Black participants perceived their ethnic-racial identity as a resource, they still reported higher levels of discrimination, intergroup anxiety, and behavioral avoidance compared to their White counterparts. Implications for theory development and application to the stress literature are discussed.

There remains a dearth of research on causal roles of perceived interracial competition on psychological outcomes. Towards this end, this research experimentally manipulated perceptions of group-level competition between Black and White individuals in the U.S. and tested for effects on negative psychological outcomes. In Study 1 ( N = 899), participants assigned to the high interracial competition condition (HRC) reported perceiving more discrimination, behavioral avoidance, intergroup anxiety, and interracial mistrust relative to low interracial competition (LRC) participants. Study 2 –a preregistered replication and extension—specifically recruited similar numbers of only Black and White participants ( N = 1,823). Consistent with Study 1, Black and White participants in the HRC condition reported more discrimination, avoidance, anxiety, and mistrust. Main effects for race also emerged: Black participants perceived more interracial competition and negative outcomes. Racial income inequality moderated effects; competition effects were stronger in areas with higher levels of inequality. Implications for theory development are discussed.

The biopsychosocial model (BPSM) of challenge and threat provides a framework for understanding stress responses in motivated performance situations, including how stress relates to performance. In this model, experiences of challenge - characterized by evaluations of personal coping resources matching or exceeding situational demands - elicit approach-oriented patterns of physiological responding and tend to facilitate performance, whereas threat - characterized by demands exceeding resources - elicit avoidance-oriented patterns of physiological responding and tend to impair performance. Extant systematic reviews and meta-analyses support the idea that challenge facilitates performance relative to threat (Behnke and Kaczmarek, 2018[8]; Hase et al., 2019[50]). The present systematic review and meta-analysis builds on this evidence base by examining whether conclusions replicate in recent research (post-2017), which is important given seismic cultural shifts tied to a worldwide pandemic, civil unrest, and skyrocketing mental health problems tied to stress. The analysis included 62 studies published between 2017 and 2024 (total = 7,418 participants). The meta-analytic findings indicate that individuals in a challenge state achieve better performance outcomes than those in a threat state across multiple domains (e.g., education, sport). While effect sizes were small, the risk of bias was generally low. These results reaffirm the utility of the BPSM and emphasize the importance of stress responses in influencing performance outcomes. These data also have the potential to inform future research on this topic by shedding light on expectable effect sizes and highlighting potential influences of publication bias and replicability issues.

Affective responses during stressful, high-stakes situations can play an important role in shaping performance. For example, feeling shaky and nervous at a job interview can undermine performance, whereas feeling excited during that same interview can optimize performance. Thus, affect regulation—the way people influence their affective responses—might play a key role in determining high-stakes outcomes. To test this idea, we adapted a synergistic mindsets intervention (SMI) (Yeager et al . 2022 Nature 607 , 512–520 (doi: 10.1038/s41586-022-04907-7 )) to a high-stakes esports context. Our approach was motivated by the idea that (i) mindsets both about situations and one’s stress responses to situations can be shaped to help optimize stress responses, and (ii) challenge versus threat stress responses will be associated with improved outcomes. After a baseline performance task, we randomly assigned gamers ( n = 300) either to SMI or a control condition in which they learned brain facts. After two weeks of daily gaming, gamers competed in a cash-prize tournament. We measured affective experiences before the matches and cardiovascular responses before and throughout the matches. Contrary to predictions, gamers did not experience negative affect (including feeling stressed), thus limiting the capacity for the intervention to regulate physiological responses and optimize performance. Compared with the control participants, synergistic mindsets participants did not show greater challenge responses or improved performance outcomes. Though our adaptation of Yeager et al .’s SMI did not optimize esports performance, our findings point to important considerations regarding the suitability of an intervention such as this to different performance contexts of varying degrees of stressfulness.

Background Single‐session interventions have the potential to address young people's mental health needs at scale, but their effects are heterogeneous. We tested whether the mindset + supportive context hypothesis could help explain when intervention effects persist or fade over time. The hypothesis posits that interventions are more effective in environments that support the intervention message. We tested this hypothesis using the synergistic mindsets intervention, a preventative treatment for stress‐related mental health symptoms that helps students appraise stress as a potential asset in the classroom (e.g., increasing oxygenated blood flow) rather than debilitating. In an introductory college course, we examined whether intervention‐consistent messages from instructors sustained changes in appraisals over time, as well as impacts on students' predisposition to try demanding academic tasks that could enhance learning. Methods We randomly assigned 1675 students in the course to receive the synergistic mindsets intervention (or a control activity) at the beginning of the semester, and subsequently, to receive intervention‐supportive messages from their instructor (or neutral messages) four times throughout the term. We collected weekly measures of students' appraisals of stress in the course and their predisposition to take on academic challenges. Trial‐registration: OSF.io; DOI: 10.17605/osf.io/fchyn. Results A conservative Bayesian analysis indicated that receiving both the intervention and supportive messages led to the greatest increases in positive stress appraisals (0.35 SD; 1.00 posterior probability) and challenge‐seeking predisposition (2.33 percentage points; 0.94 posterior probability), averaged over the course of the semester. In addition, intervention effects grew larger throughout the semester when complemented by supportive instructor messages, whereas without these messages, intervention effects shrank somewhat over time. Conclusions This study shows, for the first time, that supportive cues in local contexts can be the difference in whether a single‐session intervention's effects fade over time or persist and even amplify. Single‐session interventions hold promise as scalable treatments for young people, but their effects sometimes persist and sometimes fade out. We found that an established single‐session intervention's effects could be sustained and amplified over time in an introductory college course (n = 1675) by providing brief messages from instructors that supported the intervention message. This study provides evidence for a framework that can explain and predict heterogeneity in the effects of single‐session interventions, which will help future researchers and practitioners to shape local environments to sustain the beneficial effects of interventions over time.

The upscaling of wind turbines results in fewer units per installed MW reducing infrastructure and maintenance costs of offshore wind farms. Multi rotor systems (MRS), comprising many wind turbine rotors on a single support structure, are potentially a means to maximize the upscaling benefit in achieving larger unit capacities than is feasible or economic with the conventional, 3-bladed horizontal axis wind turbine (HAWT). The MRS has an inherent upscaling advantage which, for a system with many rotors compared to a single rotor, reduces the total weight and cost of rotor-nacelle assemblies by a large factor. An innovative MRS design is presented based on vertical axis wind turbine (VAWT) rotors of the 2-bladed, H-type. Many disadvantages of VAWT design compared to HAWT in a single rotor system (reduced power performance and higher drive train torque, for example) are resolved in the MRS configuration. In addition, reduced component number and simpler components is advantageous for reliability and O&M cost. This MRS concept has many synergies arising from the choice of VAWT rotors. Results comprise a high-level evaluation of system characteristics and the first stage of more detailed investigation of aerodynamics of the high aspect ratio VAWT.

This research integrated implicit theories of personality and the biopsychosocial model of challenge and threat, hypothesizing that adolescents would be more likely to conclude that they can meet the demands of an evaluative social situation when they were taught that people have the potential to change their socially relevant traits. In Study 1 (N = 60), high school students were assigned to an incremental-theory-of-personality or a control condition and then given a social-stress task. Relative to control participants, incremental-theory participants exhibited improved stress appraisals, more adaptive neuroendocrine and cardiovascular responses, and better performance outcomes. In Study 2 (N = 205), we used a daily-diary intervention to test high school students' stress reactivity outside the laboratory. Threat appraisals (Days 5–9 after intervention) and neuroendocrine responses (Days 8 and 9 after intervention only) were unrelated to the intensity of daily stressors when adolescents received the incremental-theory intervention. Students who received the intervention also had better grades over freshman year than those who did not. These findings offer new avenues for improving theories of adolescent stress and coping.

Esports refers to competitive video gaming where individuals compete against each other in organized tournaments for prize money. Here, we present the Competitive Esports Physiological, Affective, and Video (CEPAV) dataset, in which 300 male Counter Strike: Global Offensive gamers participated in a study aimed at optimizing affect during esports tournament 1 . The CEPAV dataset includes (1) physiological data, capturing the player’s cardiovascular responses from before, during, and after over 3000 CS: GO matches; (2) self-reported affective data, detailing the affective states experienced before gameplay; and (3) video data, providing a visual record of 552 in-laboratory gaming sessions. We also collected (affect-related) individual differences measures (e.g., well-being, ill-being) across six weeks in three waves. The self-reported affective data also includes gamers’ natural language descriptions of gaming affective situations. The CEPAV dataset provides a comprehensive resource for researchers and analysts seeking to understand the complex interplay of physiological, affective, and behavioral factors in esports and other performance contexts.

Contrary to lay beliefs, physiological changes that co-occur with stress are not necessarily bad. Much can be done during stressful experiences to promote adaptive responses. In this article, we review recent research on one method for improving acute stress responses: reappraising arousal. A growing body of research suggests that cognitive appraisals are powerful tools that help shift negative stress states to more positive ones. Arousal reappraisal instructs individuals to think of stress arousal as a tool that helps maximize performance. By reframing the meaning of the physiological signals that accompany stress, arousal reappraisal breaks the link between negative affective experiences and malignant physiological responses. We demonstrate how this approach can benefit physiological reactivity, attention, and performance and explore its potential applications.