Expressive Writing & the Perceived Other: An Analysis on Intervention Efficacy and Mechanisms For Positive Emotional Change

Abstract

Two distinct channels for emotion-based research, social support and expressive writing (EW), have been shown to promote emotion regulation and support mental health (Sen Chu et al., 2010, Hogan et al., 2002, Pennebaker et al., 1997). The former refers to everyday behavior communicating to an individual that they are valued or cared for by others in their social network (Barnes & Duck 1994), while the latter refers to a type of journaling therapy in which individuals are instructed to write about traumatic or salient emotional experiences (Pennebaker & Beall, 1986). Although well studied separately, few studies investigate the intersection between these processes, posing the question of whether affect may be influenced by whether an individual imagines writing to someone close to them when expressive writing; does doing so benefit wellbeing? This study seeks to analyze mental health outcomes by manipulating expressive writing to a social target as a tool for emotion regulation in emerging adults. Here, we report on a pre-registered randomized control trial (https://osf.io/fw36x, currently embargoed) of N = 21 adult participants ages 18-25 modeled after a classic expressive writing paradigm exploring changes in anxiety and depression pre to post intervention. Analyses of this preliminary sample produced results in line with pre-registered hypotheses: expressive writing to a perceived other showed trends for improved mental health more strongly than self reflection. Additionally, those writing to a ‘perceived other’ used more valenced emotion words than controls in line with exploratory hypotheses. We posit that sharing deep, negative inner thoughts in an explicitly social setting may augment the preexisting benefits of emotional expression by supplementing the recall of negative emotional experiences with a positive, receptive social outlet.