Venting & Fidgeting Stress-Relief Toys: A Pilot Study on Positive Emotion Triggering and Stress-Relief Stability

Abstract

Emotional well-being (EWB) is closely associated with physical health and daily functioning; however, economic growth and income increases do not necessarily translate into improvements in EWB. As everyday emotion regulation artifacts, stress-relief toys are widely used to support self-regulation through physical interaction, yet the emotional effects of different behavioral toy types remain insufficiently understood. This pilot study comparatively examines the emotion regulation effects of venting and fidgeting stress-relief toys, with a focus on positive emotion elicitation and stress-reduction stability. A mixed-methods approach was employed, integrating the Self-Assessment Manikin (SAM), the Product Emotion Measurement Instrument (PrEMO), subjective evaluations, and statistical analysis. Thirty-six university students evaluated six stress-relief toys (three venting-type and three fidgeting-type) using a Latin square design to control for order effects. The results reveal a clear dual contrast between the two toy types. Venting stress-relief toys are associated with stronger positive emotion elicitation and higher user preference, but their stress-reduction effectiveness is highly sensitive to design conditions. In contrast, fidgeting stress-relief toys demonstrate stable and robust stress reduction through attentional diversion, despite eliciting comparatively weaker positive emotions. Building on these findings, this study interprets the observed differences through response-focused emotion regulation mechanisms and proposes differentiated design guidelines for venting and fidgeting stress-relief toys. Given the relatively small and homogeneous sample, the findings should be interpreted as exploratory; nevertheless, the proposed guidelines offer practical human-centered design insights for balancing emotional appeal and stress-reduction stability, contributing to the scientific design of emotion-regulation products.

Keywords: Stress-relief Toys, Emotion Regulation, Emotional Well-being, Design Guidelines, Stress-relief Stability

DOI: 10.54941/ahfe1007353