Meditation and cognitive restructuring showed no clear overall benefit after virtual stress
A randomized student study found no significant overall reductions in stress or anxiety versus control, while responses differed according to participants' trait anxiety.
Based on the published abstract. The full paper may contain additional methods, results and limitations.
The 30-second takeaway
Neither intervention significantly reduced stress or anxiety compared with control in the overall study. Participants with higher trait anxiety showed greater reductions following the interventions than those with lower trait anxiety. That difference is worth investigating, but it does not overturn the overall null result or establish effectiveness for people with anxiety disorders.
The abstract supplies no effect estimates, confidence intervals, follow-up timing or details of the control condition. It also does not report a high-trait-anxiety intervention-versus-control estimate.
What researchers found
Stress and anxiety reductions
Cognitive restructuring and mindfulness-based meditation each failed to show a significant reduction versus control after the virtual stress task; exact assessment timing and measurement scales are not reported.
The task increased stress
Researchers used a social virtual-reality stress test on their StressMeta platform. It increased stress, but anxiety did not rise significantly. This distinction matters because the experiment did not create the same response across both intended outcomes.
Trait anxiety changed the pattern
The authors reported that trait anxiety moderated responses to the interventions. Their description compares people with higher and lower trait anxiety; it does not provide enough detail to quantify a treatment benefit within either subgroup.
The original publication
Mitigating stress and anxiety in a social VR-based Trier Social Stress Test: The role of trait anxiety in cognitive and mindfulness interventions.
Kim E, Laine TH, Lee Y
Acta Psychol (Amst) · 2025
- PubMed ID
- 40779951
- Record checked
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