Healing the wounds of organizational injustice: Examining the benefits of expressive writing.

Clinical and health psychology research has shown that expressive writing interventions—expressing one's experience through writing—can have physical and psychological benefits for individuals dealing with traumatic experiences. In the present study, the authors examined whether these benefits generalize to experiences of workplace injustice. Participants (N = 100) were randomly assigned to write on 4 consecutive days about (a) their emotions, (b) their thoughts, (c) both their emotions and their thoughts surrounding an injustice, or (d) a trivial topic (control). Post-intervention, participants in the emotions and thoughts condition reported higher psychological well-being, fewer intentions to retaliate, and higher levels of personal resolution than did participants in the other conditions. Participants in the emotions and thoughts condition also reported less anger than did participants who wrote only about their emotions. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Expression of stressful experiences through writing: Effects of a self-regulation manipulation for pessimists and optimists.

This study assessed the effectiveness of a writing task designed to foster self-regulatory coping with stressful experiences to reduce medical clinic visits and to promote adjustment. Students entering college (N?=?122) who were classified as optimists or pessimists by using a dispositional optimism measure participated in a self-regulation task (expressing thoughts and feelings about entering college and then formulating coping plans), a disclosure task (expressing thoughts and feelings only), or a control task (writing about trivial topics) for 3 weekly writing sessions. Among optimists, both the self-regulation task and the disclosure task reduced illness-related clinic visits during the following month; among pessimists, only the self-regulation task reduced clinic visits. In general, the self-regulation task beneficially affected mood state and college adjustment whereas the disclosure task increased grade point averages. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Emotional expression and physical heath: Revising traumatic memories or fostering self-regulation?

Health benefits derived from personal trauma disclosure are well established. This study examined whether disclosing emotions generated by imaginative immersion in a novel traumatic event would similarly enhance health and adjustment. College women, preselected for trauma presence, were randomly assigned to write about real traumas, imaginary traumas, or trivial events. Yoked real-trauma and imaginary-trauma participants wrote about real-trauma participants' experiences. Imaginary-trauma participants were significantly less depressed than real-trauma participants at immediate posttest, but they were similarly angry, fearful, and happy. Compared with control group participants, both trauma groups made significantly fewer illness visits at 1-month follow-up: however, real-trauma participants reported more fatigue and avoidance than did the other groups. Imaginary-trauma group effects could reflect catharsis, emotional regulation, or construction of resilient possible selves. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Expressive writing moderates the relation between intrusive thoughts and depressive symptoms.

The author investigated whether expressive writing enhances emotional adaptation to a stressful event (graduate entrance exams) by reducing event-related intrusive thoughts or by desensitizing people to such thoughts. Participants in the experimental group, who were instructed to write their deepest thoughts and feelings about the exam, exhibited a significant decline in depressive symptoms from 1 month (Time 1) to 3 days (Time 2) before the exam. Participants in the control group, who wrote about a trivial topic, maintained a relatively high level of depressive symptoms over this same period. Expressive writing did not affect the frequency of intrusive thoughts, but it moderated the impact of intrusive thoughts on depressive symptoms. Specifically, intrusive thoughts at Time 1 were positively related to depressive symptoms at Time 2 in the control group and were unrelated to symptoms in the expressive writing group. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Confronting traumatic experience and immunocompetence: A reply to Neale, Cox, Valdimarsdottir, and Stone.

In their comment, Neale, Cox, Valdimarsdottir, and Stone (1988) argued that one should not conclude, based on our findings, that there is any positive effect of a brief psychotherapeutic writing treatment on immunocompetence. We disagree. Our experimental technique of having subjects write about the most traumatic experiences of their lives has now been shown to reduce health center visits for illness in three studies in two laboratories. In the Pennebaker, Kiecolt-Glaser, and Glaser (1988) study, we found that those subjects who wrote about traumatic experiences showed an improvement in one immunological assay (blastogenesis with the mitogen phytohemagglutinin) relative to control subjects who wrote about trivial topics. Furthermore, theoretically meaningful internal analyses demonstrated similar effects with another mitogen, concanavalin A. Although it is not possible to pinpoint the exact physiological links, consideration of all of the data indicate that confronting traumatic experience is, in all probability, physically beneficial. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Accelerating the coping process.

On the basis of previous work, freshmen should evidence improved health after writing about their thoughts and feelings associated with entering college. One hundred thirty subjects were assigned to write either about coming to college or about superficial topics for 20 min on 3 days. One fourth of the subjects in each group wrote during the 1st, 5th, 9th, or 14th week of classes. Physician visits for illness in the months after writing were lower for the experimental than for the control subjects. Self-reports of homesickness and anxiety were higher in the experimental group 2–3 months after writing. By year's end, experimental subjects were either superior or similar to control subjects in grade average and in positive moods. No effects emerged as a function of when people wrote, suggesting that the coping process can be accelerated. Implications for comparing insight treatments with catharsis and for distinguishing between objective and self-report indicators of distress are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Emotional disclosure through writing or speaking modulates latent Epstein-Barr virus antibody titers.

57 healthy Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) seropositive undergraduates completed a personality inventory, provided blood samples, and were randomly assigned to write or talk about stressful events, or to write about trivial events, during 3 weekly 20-min sessions, after which they provided a final blood sample. Ss assigned to the verbal/stressful condition had significantly lower EBV antibody titers (suggesting better cellular immune control over the latent virus) after the intervention than those in the written/stressful group, who had significantly lower values than those in the written/trivial control group. Ss assigned to the written/stressful condition expressed more negative emotional words than the verbal/stressful and control groups and more positive emotional words than the verbal/stressful group at each time point. The verbal/stressful group expressed more negative emotional words compared with the control group at baseline. Content analysis indicated that the verbal/stressful group achieved the greatest improvements in cognitive change, self-esteem, and adaptive coping strategies. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Expressive writing can increase working memory capacity.

The effect of emotional disclosure through expressive writing on available working memory (WM) capacity was examined in 2 semester-long experiments. In the first study, 35 freshmen assigned to write about their thoughts and feelings about coming to college demonstrated larger working memory gains 7 weeks later compared with 36 writers assigned to a trivial topic. Increased use of cause and insight words was associated with greater WM improvements. In the second study, students (n?=?34) who wrote about a negative personal experience enjoyed greater WM improvements and declines in intrusive thinking compared with students who wrote about a positive experience (n?=?33) or a trivial topic (n?=?34). The results are discussed in terms of a model grounded in cognitive and social psychological theory in which expressive writing reduces intrusive and avoidant thinking about a stressful experience, thus freeing WM resources. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Further Examination of the Exposure Model Underlying the Efficacy of Written Emotional Disclosure.

In the current study, the authors examined the effects of systematically varying the writing instructions for the written emotional disclosure procedure. College undergraduates with a trauma history and at least moderate posttraumatic stress symptoms were asked to write about (a) the same traumatic experience, (b) different traumatic experiences, or (c) nontraumatic everyday events across 3 written disclosure sessions. Results show that participants who wrote about the same traumatic experience reported significant reductions in psychological and physical symptoms at follow-up assessments compared with other participants. These findings suggest that written emotional disclosure may be most effective when individuals are instructed to write about the same traumatic or stressful event at each writing session, a finding consistent with exposure-based treatments. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The effects of an elaborated goal on the persuasive writing of students with learning disabilities and their normally achieving peers.

Fourth- and sixth-grade students with and without learning disabilities (LD) wrote persuasive essays about controversial topics under 2 different conditions. Students in the general goal condition were asked to write a letter to persuade an audience to agree with their position. Students in the elaborated goal condition were given the same general goal plus explicit subgoals based on the elements of argumentative discourse. Sixth-grade students in the elaborated goal condition produced more persuasive essays and included a greater number of argumentative elements in their essays than did either 6th graders in the general goal condition or 4th graders in both goal conditions. In addition, students with LD wrote less persuasively than did their normally achieving peers. Implications for the study of argumentative writing are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Motivation and creativity: Effects of motivational orientation on creative writers.

72 members of the college community who identified themselves as actively involved in creative writing participated in individual laboratory sessions, in which they were asked to write 2 brief poems, to investigate the hypothesis that intrinsic motivation is conducive to creativity and extrinsic motivation is detrimental. In the present study, intrinsic motivation was defined as resulting from an S's interest in and enjoyment of writing for its own sake, while extrinsic motivation was defined as resulting from the external things obtained by writing (e.g., rewards, approval). Ss were divided into approximately equal groups that were designated as intrinsic-orientation, extrinsic-orientation, and control conditions. Before writing the 2nd poem, Ss in the intrinsic-orientation condition completed a questionnaire on intrinsic reasons for being involved in writing, and Ss in the extrinsic-orientation condition completed a questionnaire on extrinsic reasons. Ss in the control condition were not given a questionnaire on reasons for writing. Results indicate that, although there were no initial differences between conditions on prior involvement in writing or on creativity of the 1st poems written, there were significant differences in the creativity of the poems written after the experimental manipulations. Poems written under an extrinsic orientation were significantly less creative than those written in the other 2 conditions. Implications for social-psychological and individual-difference conceptions of creativity are discussed. (26 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Expressive writing for gay-related stress: Psychosocial benefits and mechanisms underlying improvement.

Objective: This study tested the effectiveness of an expressive writing intervention for gay men on outcomes related to psychosocial functioning. Method: Seventy-seven gay male college students (mean age = 20.19 years, SD = 1.99) were randomly assigned to write for 20 min a day for 3 consecutive days about either (a) the most stressful or traumatic gay-related event in their lives or (b) a neutral topic. We tested an exposure-based hypothesis of written emotional expression by asking half of the participants who were assigned to write about gay-related stress to read their previous day’s narrative before writing, whereas the other half did not. Posttest and 3-month follow-up outcomes were assessed with common measures of overall psychological distress, depression, physical health symptoms, and positive and negative affect. Gay-specific social functioning was assessed with measures of gay-related rejection sensitivity, gay-specific self-esteem, and items regarding openness and comfort with one’s sexual orientation. Results: Participants who wrote about gay-related stress, regardless of whether they read their previous day’s writing, reported significantly greater openness with their sexual orientation 3 months following writing than participants who wrote about a neutral topic, F(1, 74) = 6.66, p     

Opening up in the classroom: Effects of expressive writing on graduate school entrance exam performance.

Our study sought to determine whether experimental disclosure could improve exam performance and psychological health in students taking a graduate school entrance exam. Students preparing for the GRE, MCAT, LSAT, or PCAT were randomly assigned to write expressively about their upcoming exam or to a neutral writing condition. Participants completed measures of depressive symptoms and test anxiety before and after writing, and exam scores were collected. The experimental disclosure group had significantly higher test scores and significantly lower pre-exam depressive symptoms than the neutral writing group. Although benefits for depressive symptoms were found in expressive writers regardless of exam type, the advantage of expressive writing for test performance was only observed in students taking the MCAT or LSAT. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Written Emotional Expression as a Coping Method in Child Protective Services Officers.

This study evaluated a writing intervention (journaling) to reduce stress reactions in child protective services workers. The intervention group participants were asked to write about their stress reactions or emotions in a private journal for 15-20 min each day for 3 consecutive days. The control group members were not asked to carry out any intervention activities. Participants in the intervention group completed a distress measure before and after the period of journaling. For the intervention group, distress levels significantly decreased and job satisfaction significantly increased after the intervention compared with the control group. The findings suggest that providing employees with opportunities to express their emotions in writing may be helpful in reducing distress and increasing job satisfaction. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

A randomized controlled trial of emotionally expressive writing for women with metastatic breast cancer.

Objective: To test the effects of emotionally expressive writing in a randomized controlled trial of metastatic breast cancer patients and to determine whether effects of the intervention varied as a function of perceived social support or time since metastatic diagnosis. Design: Women (N = 62) living with Stage IV breast cancer were randomly assigned to write about cancer-related emotions (EMO; n = 31) or the facts of their diagnosis and treatment (CTL; n = 31). Participants wrote at home for four 20-min sessions within a 3-week interval. Main Outcome Measures: Depressive symptoms, cancer-related intrusive thoughts, somatic symptoms, and sleep quality at 3 months postintervention. Results: No significant main effects of experimental condition were observed. A significant condition × social support interaction emerged on intrusive thoughts; EMO writing was associated with reduced intrusive thoughts for women reporting low emotional support (η2 = .15). Significant condition × time since metastatic diagnosis interactions were also observed for somatic symptoms and sleep disturbances. Relative to CTL, EMO participants who were more recently diagnosed had fewer somatic symptoms (η2 = .10), whereas EMO participants with longer diagnosis duration exhibited increases in sleep disturbances (η2 = .09). Conclusion: Although there was no main effect of expressive writing on health among the current metastatic breast cancer sample, expressive writing may be beneficial for a subset of metastatic patients (including women with low levels of emotional support or who have been recently diagnosed) and contraindicated for others (i.e., those who have been living with the diagnosis for years). (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Is handwriting causally related to learning to write? Treatment of handwriting problems in beginning writers.

The contribution of handwriting to learning to write was examined in an experimental training study involving beginning writers with and without an identified disability. First-grade children experiencing handwriting and writing difficulties participated in 27 fifteen-min sessions designed to improve the accuracy and fluency of their handwriting. In comparison to their peers in a contact control condition receiving instruction in phonological awareness, students in the handwriting condition made greater gains in handwriting as well as compositional fluency immediately following instruction and 6 months later. The effects of instruction were similar for students with and without an identified disability. These findings indicate that handwriting is causally related to writing and that explicit and supplemental handwriting instruction is an important element in preventing writing difficulties in the primary grades. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Commitment and the prevention of adolescent cigarette smoking.

Tested the effects of commitment (CM) to nonsmoking on resistance to arguments favoring cigarette smoking. In Exp I, 37 7th graders were assigned to a public CM condition, in which they were audiotaped as they explained why they would not become smokers, or to information control or no-treatment conditions. In Exp II, 51 7th graders participated in conditions of (1) high CM, in which they were given high choice to write and publicly audiotape a speech about why smoking is bad; (2) low CM, in which they were given low choice to write an anonymous essay about why smoking is bad; or to (3) a no-treatment condition. Ss then listened to arguments favoring smoking. CM failed to enhance resistance to persuasion in either experiment. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Confronting a traumatic event: Toward an understanding of inhibition and disease.

Examined whether writing about traumatic events would influence long-term measures of health as well as short-term indicators of physiological arousal and reports of negative moods in 46 introductory psychology students. Also examined were aspects of writing about traumatic events (i.e., cognitive, affective, or both) that were most related to physiological and self-report variables. Ss wrote about either personally traumatic life events or trivial topics on 4 consecutive days. In addition to health center records, physiological measures and self-reported moods and physical symptoms were collected throughout the experiment. Findings indicate that, in general, writing about both the emotions and facts surrounding a traumatic event was associated with relatively higher blood pressure and negative moods following the essays, but fewer health center visits in the 6 mo following the experiment. It is concluded that, although findings should be considered preliminary, they bear directly on issues surrounding catharsis, self-disclosure, and a general theory of psychosomatics based on behavioral inhibition. (24 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The relationship between the discourse knowledge and the writing performance of elementary-grade students.

[Correction Notice: An erratum for this article was reported in Vol 101(2) of Journal of Educational Psychology (see record 2009-04640-012). The DOI published was incorrect. The correct DOI for this article is provided in the erratum.] This study examined whether discourse knowledge about various forms of writing predicted young developing writers' (Grade 2 and Grade 4 students) story writing performance once 4 writing (handwriting fluency, spelling, attitude toward writing, advanced planning) and 3 nonwriting (grade, gender, basic reading skills) variables were controlled. It also examined whether Grade 4 students (18 boys, 14 girls) possessed more discourse knowledge than Grade 2 students (18 boys, 14 girls). Students wrote a story and responded to a series of questions designed to elicit their declarative and procedural knowledge about the characteristics of good writing in general and stories in particular as well as their knowledge about how to write. Five aspects of this discourse knowledge (substantive, production, motivation, story elements, and irrelevant) together made a unique and significant contribution to the prediction of story quality, length, and vocabulary diversity beyond the 7 control variables. In addition, older students possessed greater knowledge about the role of substantive processes, motivation, and abilities in writing. Findings support the theoretical propositions that discourse knowledge is an important element in early writing development and that such knowledge is an integral part of the knowledge-telling approach to writing. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)