Emotion beliefs, emotion regulation strategies, and test anxiety of Chinese adolescents in grade 8: Evidence from physiological recordings during an exam

Abstract Controllability beliefs and goodness beliefs about emotion are two fundamental emotion beliefs. The present study considered both controllability beliefs and goodness beliefs to examine whether and how the emotion beliefs of adolescents influence their test anxiety. Besides self‐reported test anxiety (sr‐TA), the present study measured heart rate (HR) and galvanic skin response (GSR) using custom‐designed wristbands during an exam as indicators of state test anxiety. The GSR was further decomposed into the tonic skin conductance level and the transient skin conductance response. The results revealed that, after controlling the goodness beliefs about anxiety, the controllability beliefs about emotion were negatively related to sr‐TA. This relationship was mediated by suppression. The controllability beliefs about emotion were directly related to the integration of transient skin conductance responses of 5 min before the exam. They were also indirectly related to the integration of transient skin conductance responses of the exam period, whether including the 5 min before the exam or not, and HR during certain periods through suppression. Therefore, adolescents' controllability beliefs about emotion may have important implications for their test anxiety.