The UTC Graduate School is pleased to announce that Samantha Dean will present Master’s research titled, Anxiety or Advantage? Detecting Malingered Symptoms in College Students Seeking Academic Accommodations on 02/27/2026 at 10am in 540 McCallie, Room 394. Everyone is invited to attend.
Psychology
Chair: Dr. Amanda Clark
Co-Chair:
Abstract:
Academic accommodations support equitable access to education for students whose mental health conditions meaningfully impair academic performance. Concerns exist regarding the potential to exaggerate or fabricate anxiety symptoms. This study examined whether cognitive tasks can differentiate genuine generalized anxiety from malingered anxiety among college students. Participants were classified into genuine anxiety, malingering anxiety, or non-anxiety control groups using a structured diagnostic interview and self-report measure. Participants completed working memory tasks (1-back and 3-back), a modified emotional Stroop task, and symptom validity tests. Malingering and genuine anxiety groups reported comparable anxiety symptom endorsement and severity. Working memory accuracy did not reliably distinguish groups, although malingerers demonstrated slower response times on the 1-back. In contrast, the modified Stroop task differentiated malingerers, who showed reduced accuracy and slower response times. These findings suggest that performance on cognitive tasks may aid in identifying exaggerated anxiety presentations in academic accommodation evaluations.