Struggling with Mental Health? One Remedy Might be Self-Organizing Behavior!

Emma R. Lewis
Dr. Katrina Schmerold, Faculty Mentor

Every day, people are negatively affected by anxiety and depression symptoms (WHO, 2024). However, relief may come from using self-organizing behavior (Kaftan, 2018). Self-organizing behavior is defined as actions intending to easily access ideas and objects through coordination and structure. The Self-Rated Organizing Scale (SOS) was used to measure disorganization in 168 participants(Takeda, Tsuji, & Ando, 2016). Responses were analyzed for correlations to long-term anxiety and depression symptom scales, including the State-Trait Anxiety-Depression Inventory (STADI (T)), Self-Rating Anxiety Scale (SAS), and the Beck Depression Scale II (BDI-II) (Renner, 2018; Zung, 1971; Beck, 1961). Results from all measures except the STADI (T) (r=.183) supported the study’s hypothesis that disorganization would be positively correlated with anxiety and depression symptoms.  Additionally, participants’ scores for the STADI (S) were taken before and after a self-organizing task and then compared (n=167) but were not found to go down, as the second hypothesis suggests.

 

Keywords: anxiety, depression, self-organizing behavior, organizing, mental health , psychology, clinical psychology, counseling psychology

Topic(s):Psychology

Presentation Type: Oral Presentation

Session: TBA
Location: TBA
Time: TBA