TY - CONF T1 - 45. Stress, Anxiety, and Resident Assistants AU - Dycus, Hannah M. AU - Mcmahan, Allison K. AB - Stress, Anxiety, and Resident Assistants The purpose of this study was to explore the anxiety and stress associated with being a Resident Assistant (RA). To study the levels of anxiety and stress, surveys were given out to all RAs at the University of North Georgia Dahlonega campus. They included the questions from the General Anxiety Disorder index, the Perceived Stress Index, and additional items such as the use of anonymous social media to exam how external influences correlated with the RAs’ stress and anxiety scores. Online bullying has become very prevalent issue in today’s society. Because anonymous social media applications provide ways in which people can express their opinions without fearing the consequences of putting a name to their words, this has become the leading platform for online bullying. Because of the RA’s job they are more susceptible to pressures from anonymous social media. Our results showed significance between GAD-Q scores and if the RAs used anonymous social media (n= 10, M = 12.00, SD = 4.50, SEM = 1.42) or did not use anonymous social media ( n= 14, M = 5.64, SD = 5.42, SEM = 1.45) (t = 3.035, p = 0.006). This shows that those that used anonymous social media had significantly higher anxiety scores than those who did not. This correlation is between the RAs that use these applications and anxiety levels being higher than in those that do not. Even though we can not show any causation through this study, it is significant because it suggests several possibilities involving anonymous social media: that because RAs have a job that involves leading students, those that participate in these applications can lead to more anxiety (they see negative statements of themselves or of their coworkers), or that more anxious people tend to utilize such apps (comorbid). More research is needed to understand if this is relevant to specific RA populations, because they do have demanding job that places them in a position of power, or if this correlation can be found in a normal college sample. DA - 2016-3-25 PY - 2024 PB - unav N1 -

Acknowledgements:

Dr. Michele Hill

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