Method

COVID-19 AND RESILIENCE 2

Method

Sample

The current investigation will be an archival study that will be part of a larger-scale study. The participants will be college students from Northwestern State University of Louisiana. The estimated sample size will be approximately 200 participants. Those participants will consist of males and females who will be at least 18 years of age. They will provide their informed consent to participate in the study.

Instrumentation

The Resilience Scale is a 25-item scale that measures resilience (Myers et al., 2000). Scale items are in Likert scale format with response options that range from “Strongly disagree” to “Strongly agree on a zero to five scale. Examples of items on the scale are “I find myself able to overcome many obstacles,” and “I find myself able to bounce back from incidences of adversity.” Test-retest reliability was .85, and convergent validity was .90. Comment by Wendy Kyei: This is based on past research. You can also indicate the internal consistency which is usually called Cronbach α.

Design & Procedure

The current investigation will be part of a larger-scale archival study. That larger-scale study will be submitted to the Institutional Review Board (IRB) prior to collecting data. Data will be collected using Survey Monkey. Responses will be anonymous because the participants will not be asked to provide any personally identifiable information. They will be offered to e-mail the principal investigator if they are interested in learning about the results of the study. Those results will be provided in aggregate form with no way of identifying the participants. The students will complete the informed consent before being directed to complete the questionnaires. Following the participants’ completion of the questionnaires, the principal investigator will debrief the participants about the study.

Proposed Analysis

The quantitative research design for the current investigation will use SPSS Version 23 for data analysis. It will be an independent samples t test that will include a group of college students who are majoring in nursing and a quasi-experimental control group of college students who are in other majors. All participants will be at the junior, senior, or graduate student level. The data will be part of a larger study that will include 1195 students. The current investigation thus will randomly select 110 students for the control group in order to match the number of participants in the control group to the number of participants in the group of college students who will be majoring in nursing at the junior, senior, or graduate student level. Consequently, the total number of participants in the analysis will be 220. The dependent variable will be scores on the Resilience Scale.

PERCEIVED SUSCEPTIBILITY AND HEALTH PROMOTING BEHAVIORS 2

Method Comment by Wendy Kyei: Level 1 Heading

Sample/Participants Comment by Wendy Kyei: Level 2 Heading

At least 200 participants for this study will include college students aged 18 and above, males and females who are currently attending Northwestern State University of Louisiana.

Instrumentation

Demographic information will be collected using the demographic questionnaire.

Health-promoting behaviors will be measured using the Health Promoting Lifestyle Profile II ([HPLP-II] Walker & Hill-Polerecky, 1996). Perceived susceptibility to cancer and depression will be measured using the perceived susceptibility subscale of Champion’s Health Belief Model Questionnaire ([CHBMQ] Champion, 1993).

Demographic Information Comment by Wendy Kyei: Level 3 Heading

The researcher will use a self-report demographics questionnaire to collect demographic data. The questionnaire was developed for the purpose of this study to collect information regarding age, gender, race, city of residence, education level, and family history of cancer and depression. Comment by Wendy Kyei: Add other demographic information as it pertains to your study.

The Health Promoting Lifestyle Profile II (HPLP-II)

The HPLP-II is a 52-item scale developed by Walker and Hill-Polerecky (1996) to assess self-initiated health promoting behaviors individuals engage in to improve their overall well-being. The scale consists of six subscales measuring the components of health-promoting behaviors from the HPM. The subscales include health responsibility, spiritual growth, interpersonal relationships, nutrition, physical activity, and stress management. The health responsibility (HR) subscale has nine items. Some of the items in this subscale include, “Report any unusual signs or symptoms to a physician or other health professional” and “Read or watch TV programs about improving health.” The spiritual growth (SG) dimension also has nine items. Sample items in this subscale include, “Feel I am growing and changing in positive ways” and “Believe that my life has purpose.” Interpersonal relationship (IR) has nine items such as “Discuss my problems and concerns with people close to me” and “Praise other people easily for their achievements.” The nutrition (N) subscale has nine items and sample items in this subscale include “Choose a diet low in fat, saturated fat, and cholesterol” and “Limit use of sugars and food containing sugar (sweets).” The physical activity (PA) subscale has eight items. Examples are, “Follow a planned exercise program” and “Exercise vigorously for 20 or more minutes at least three times a week (such as brisk walking, bicycling, aerobic dancing, using a stair climber).” Finally, the stress management (SM) subscale has eight items including, “Get enough sleep” and “Take some time for relaxation each day.”

The responses will be given on a 4-point Likert scale of 1 (never), 2 (sometimes), 3 (often), and 4 (routinely). An overall health-promoting lifestyle score will be obtained by calculating the mean of the responses to all 52 items. The overall instrument has high internal consistency with a Cronbach’s alpha of .94 (Walker and Hill-Polerecky, 1996) and .91 (Alzarhani et al., 2019). Internal consistency for subscales ranged from .79 to .87 (Walker and Hill-Polerecky, 1996).

Champion’s Health Belief Model Questionnaire (CHBMQ)

The revised Champion’s Health Belief Model Questionnaire (CHBMQ) by Champion (1993) is a 57-item scale that measures the HBM psychological variables associated with breast cancer, breast self-examination (BSE), and the use of mammograms. The HBM psychological variables are perceived severity and susceptibility to breast cancer, the benefits and barriers of BSE and mammography. For this study, susceptibility is the variable of interest.

Perceived Susceptibility to Cancer and Depression. Comment by Wendy Kyei: Level 4 Heading

The researcher will use the CHBMQ Perceived Susceptibility Subscale to measure perceived susceptibility to cancer and depression. The researcher modified the subscale that was originally measuring susceptibility to breast cancer to measure susceptibility to cancer and susceptibility to depression (S. Moynihan, personal communication, April 12, 2023).

The subscale has five items with responses on a five-point Likert scale ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree). Some of the questions include “It is likely that I will get cancer,” and “My chances of getting depression in the next few years is great.” Scores on the five items are summed and range from five to 25, with higher scores indicating higher perceived susceptibility to either cancer or depression. The reported internal consistency/reliability or Cronbach alpha for the susceptibility subscale was .93 (Champion, 1993).

Design & Procedures Comment by Wendy Kyei: Level 2 Heading

The current investigation will be a cross-sectional study. The researcher will seek approval from the Northwestern State University Human Subjects Internal Review Board (IRB) committee before data collection. After approval, the researcher will request permission from undergraduate professors to advertise the study to students at Northwestern State University of Louisiana (NSU) for bonus or course credit. The researcher will provide a brief description with a link to the study for instructors and ask them to advertise the survey on Moodle (a learning platform) to recruit participants.

Self-reported data will be collected using Survey Monkey. Firstly, the students will access the Informed Consent form. The form will require participants to electronically consent that they want to participate in the study. The consent form will include the purpose and procedures of the study and assurance of participants’ privacy and confidentiality. Participants who consent to the study will be directed to complete the measures. Those interested in receiving a summary of the study will also be asked to provide their email address. Before exiting the study, participants will be directed to a debriefing form. Only the members of the research team (principal investigator and supervisor) will have access to the data to download and enter information for analysis.

Proposed Analysis

The independent variables for this study are perceived susceptibility to cancer and perceived susceptibility to depression and family history of depression and cancer. The dependent variable is overall health-promoting behavior (physical activity, nutrition, self-management, spiritual growth, health responsibility, and interpersonal relationships). The data will be analyzed using SPSS Version 23. Statistical analyses for the current study include correlations and independent t-tests.

First, descriptive statistics will be calculated on demographics and each variable to characterize the sample. The planned analyses include a correlation and an independent t-test analysis. The correlation (Pearson Product Moment correlation) will be computed to test the first hypothesis which states that perceived susceptibility to cancer and perceived susceptibility to depression will significantly and positively correlate with overall health-promoting behaviors.

Two separate independent t-test will be computed to test hypothesis two and determine whether individuals with a family history of cancer and depression will report significantly higher perceived susceptibility to the respective illness than those with no family history.

2

A Study of the Relationship between Generalized Anxiety Disorder Using the GAD-7 and Shyness Using the Expanded Revised Shyness Scale in College Students

1

Running head: A Study of the Relationship between Generalized Anxiety Disorder Using the GAD-7 and Shyness Using the Expanded Revised Shyness Scale in College Students

A Study of the Relationship between Generalized Anxiety Disorder Using the GAD-7 and Shyness Using the Expanded Revised Shyness Scale in College Students

Candi Jackson

Northwestern State University

PSYC 4490 Senior Research Seminar

Dr. Jennifer Hodges-Crowder

September 25, 2026

A Study of the Relationship between Generalized Anxiety Disorder Using the GAD-7 and Shyness Using the Expanded Revised Shyness Scale in College Students

Anxiety and Shyness Among College Students

Psychological constructs like shyness and anxiety may arise in college students and could impact their social, academic, and interpersonal experiences. This study will see whether there is a relationship between generalized anxiety and shyness among college students of 18 and above. The Generalized Anxiety Disorder-7 (GAD-7) will be used to assess generalized anxiety, and the Expanded Revised Shyness Scale (ERSS) will be used to assess shyness. The hypothesis is that the more anxious college students are, the more susceptible they are to shyness. Some previous studies have laid the groundwork for understanding the variables and suggested that variables such as anxiety-related experiences and shyness could be meaningfully associated among college students.

The GAD-7 was designed to be a short screening instrument to detect generalized anxiety disorder and the level of anxiety symptoms. Spitzer et al. (2006) reported good reliability and criterion, construct, factorial, and procedural validity for the GAD-7. Higher GAD-7 scores were also found to support the validity of the GAD-7 as a tool for measuring symptoms of generalized anxiety. The data presented are relevant for the use of college students but rather adults receiving primary care.

Byrd-Bredbenner et al. (2020) examined the psychometrics of the GAD-7 in young adults at U.S. universities. They concluded that the GAD-7 had a stable single-factor structure across three studies, high item loadings, high reliabilities, and good construct and convergent validities. The results are useful because the subjects involved were a university population close to the population to be studied in the proposed research. Byrd-Bredbenner et al. directly supported the use of the GAD-7 as a measure of anxiety in college students. The present study will examine whether generalized anxiety is related to shyness.

Understanding Shyness Among College Students

The measurement and properties of shyness in college students have also been researched. Crozier (2005) tested the Revised Cheek and Buss Shyness Scale on a sample of 741 college students, and the scale was shown to have good psychometric characteristics. Confirmatory factor analysis confirmed a two-factor model, which took into account the difference between items in terms of wording. The results offer a baseline for measuring shyness in the university population to serve as a basis for my study, in which the Expanded Revised Shyness Scale will be used to operationalize shyness.

Shyness in college students has been the subject of further study. Yu and Sun (2023) explored the decision-making and withdrawal process of Chinese college students and made comparisons between the shy and non-shy groups. The findings of Yu and Sun (2023) showed that shy students made risk-averse decisions when losses occurred. The study did not specifically attempt to look at generalized anxiety but rather showed that patterns of behavior can be related to shyness in college students. It supports the need to study shyness as a separate variable from anxiety in my study.

Ramadhani et al. (2024) investigated the relationship between shyness and interpersonal communication anxiety among first-year college students. The results obtained by Ramadhani et al. (2024) showed that there was a significant correlation between shyness and interpersonal communication anxiety, meaning that students with a high shyness level tend to suffer from a high level of interpersonal communication anxiety also. The study is relevant to my research because it offers recent evidence that associate between shyness and anxiety-related constructs exists among college students. The difference between interpersonal communication anxiety and generalized anxiety is a justification for my research to investigate the specific relationship of shyness to a measurement of generalized anxiety using the GAD-7.

Relationship Between Shyness and Anxiety

In recent studies, the relationship between shyness and anxiety has been examined in college students. Wang and Zhao (2026) examined 1,012 college students in China, and their findings showed a positive correlation between social anxiety and shyness. They also discovered that this relationship was significantly mediated by resilience and regulatory emotional self-efficacy, which mediated the relationship indirectly through resilience. Wang and Zhao studied social anxiety, and my study will focus on generalized anxiety. Even though social anxiety and generalized anxiety are two different constructs, the results in this article will show evidence that shyness may be linked with the experience of anxiety in college students.

Li et al. (2025) also studied the correlation between shyness and social anxiety among emerging adult students. The study by Li et al. (2025) examined 5,173 students aged 18 to 25 and concluded that social anxiety was positively correlated with shyness. The researchers also discovered that shyness was a mediator between parental phubbing and social anxiety and that there was sequential mediation between shyness and fear of negative evaluation. The findings are important because they offer a recent source of data that shyness relates to the anxiety construct in a large group of college-aged students. The study was conducted on social anxiety so therefore, there is a need to conduct studies that examine whether shyness is associated with generalized anxiety as measured by the GAD-7.

The literature together supports separate measurement of generalized anxiety and shyness and suggests that shyness is correlated with a number of college students’ anxiety related experiences. The reviewed studies do not directly address whether there will be a relationship between generalized anxiety as measured by the GAD-7 and shyness as measured by the Expanded Revised Shyness Scale among college students ages 18 years and older. The study represents an important gap that my research will address. While the psychometric properties of the GAD-7 have been investigated, and the relationship between shyness and social anxiety or interpersonal anxiety has been explored, this study will examine generalized anxiety and shyness together in the same sample of college students.

Purpose of this Study

The main purpose of this study is to ascertain if there is a relationship between anxiety and shyness among college students (18 years and above). The question of research will be: Is there a relationship between anxiety and shyness among college students? The hypothesis will state that an increase in anxiety will correspond with an increase in shyness in college students. Anxiety will be measured using participants’ GAD-7 scores, and shyness will be measured using their scores on the Expanded Revised Shyness Scale. This study will consider the two variables within the same sample, help to fill the identified gap, and provide more evidence on the relationship between generalized anxiety and shyness among college students.

References

Byrd-Bredbenner, C., Eck, K., & Quick, V. (2020). Psychometric properties of the generalized anxiety Disorder-7 and generalized anxiety disorder-mini in United States university students. Frontiers in Psychology, 11, 550533. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2020.550533

Crozier, W. R. (2005). Measuring shyness: Analysis of the revised cheek and buss shyness scale. Personality and Individual Differences, 38(8), 1947–1956. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2004.12.002

Li, J., Tang, F., Yin, H., & Liu, S. (2025). The relationship between parental phubbing and social anxiety in emerging adulthood students: A serial mediation model. BMC Psychology, 13, 413. https://doi.org/10.1186/s40359-025-02748-3

Ramadhani, A., Widyastuti, W., & Ridfah, A. (2024). The influence of shyness on interpersonal communication anxiety among first-year psychology students from Outside Makassar. Socius: Jurnal Penelitian Ilmu-Ilmu Sosial, 2(1). https://www.ojs.daarulhuda.or.id/index.php/Socius/article/view/757

Spitzer, R. L., Kroenke, K., Williams, J. B. W., & Löwe, B. (2006). A brief measure for assessing generalized anxiety disorder: The GAD-7. Archives of Internal Medicine, 166(10), 1092–1097. https://doi.org/10.1001/archinte.166.10.1092

Wang, Y., & Zhao, Y. (2026). The impact of shyness on social anxiety among college students: Mediating role of regulatory emotional self-efficacy and resilience. PLOS One, 21(3), e0344809. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0344809

Yu, Y., & Sun, H. (2023). Decision-making style explains the withdrawal behavior of shy individuals: Evidence from Chinese college students. Frontiers in Psychology, 14, 1292096. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2023.1292096