Previous research demonstrates that writing about life’s difficult moments benefits the writer cognitively and emotionally. However, it is unclear whether the benefits of writing are specific to the event written about or whether the benefits are global. This study was designed to address this issue. Participants were 120 undergraduate students who had experienced at least two difficult life events. Participants were randomly assigned into experimental and control groups. Experimental participants wrote about one of these difficult events and control participants wrote about an interesting life event of their choosing. Experimental participants reported their positive and negative emotions as well as their cognitive avoidance and intrusion concerning the event written about and another event not written about. Control participants reported their emotions and cognitions concerning two difficult life events. All participants also reported their general distress. These assessments were done immediately after writing and one week later. The results indicated that experimental participants were emotionally stronger, less upset, and less cognitively avoidant about the particular difficult life event they wrote about compared to an event they did not write about. Similar comparisons between ratings of a written-about and a not-written-about event were not significant for passion, fear, and cognitive intrusion. There was evidence for a possible indirect effect of writing on general distress through changes in event-specific cognitions and emotions. Discussion of these results focuses on how writing may specifically help change a writer’s feelings and thoughts about a particular situation.
When facing difficult life experiences, such as natural disasters, health problems, violence, or emotional struggles, people find writing to be a beneficial tool to cope with difficulties. Individuals who write about difficult life experiences often report emotional and cognitive benefits from the writing (
Just as therapists are trained to target a specific problem and evaluate progress, there is a practical need to evaluate how writing changes emotions and cognitions related to a particular experience. It is common that individuals are influenced by multiple difficult life experiences (
Expressive writing refers to the procedure of writing freely to express emotions about an experience without focusing on grammar or spelling (
Many studies evaluating the effect of writing about life’s difficulties have used an experimental design like the one used by
Previous research has supported that expressive writing is a beneficial tool for writers’ mental and physical health. While consistent benefits of expressive writing on individuals’ physical health outcomes (e.g., illness-related visits to doctor) have been found in previous research, the psychological benefits of writing are not as consistent (
Some researchers have found immediate cognitive and emotional changes after writing. For example, some have documented an increase in negative mood and a decrease in positive mood immediately after writing about a life experience (
Several mechanisms may be responsible for the benefits of writing about life’s ups and downs. Writing about life’s problems allows for the disclosure of the secret and often hurtful places in our lives. Early on,
Writing about a difficult event may encourage individuals to use more
Writing strengthens
Writing can be the mechanism through which the self-regulated learning process transpires (
All the theories about expressive writing partially account for the psychological changes observed after writing. There is evidence in support of and against each mechanism (
There is a need to address three issues related to the specificity regarding the benefits of expressive writing. First, the benefits of writing may be associated with specific life experiences. In the expressive writing research, participants are asked to write about specific events. However, it is common for individuals to experience multiple difficult life experiences (
It might also be the case that writing about a difficult event produces a global improvement for both the event written about and other events not written about. For example,
Second, we should consider the specificity of the emotions and thoughts changed by writing. Our emotions and cognitions are contextual and directed toward particular people, events, and objects. This has been called the intentional structure (i.e.,
Related to their intentional structure, emotions can be classified both broadly and narrowly according to the types of social problems they help solve (
However, emotions can be classified in other ways according to more narrow functions (
Similarly, there are different facets of negative emotions with distinct social functions (
Cognitions also have an intentional pattern (i.e.,
Third, we should consider the specificity of the writing context. In expressive writing research, participants are often asked to write about a difficult life event for 3–5 sessions, for 15–20 minutes in a laboratory (
Based on the literature and the previous three considerations concerning specificity, we hypothesized that:
Immediately after writing, those who wrote about a difficult life experience would feel (a) more strength-related positive emotions and (b) less upsetting negative emotions about the experience they wrote about in comparison to another difficult experience they did not write about.
Immediately after writing, those who wrote about a difficult life experience would report (a) less cognitive avoidance and (b) less cognitive intrusion concerning the experience they wrote about in comparison to another difficult experience they did not write about.
Given the brevity of our writing intervention, we did not expect that the writing topic (a difficult life event vs. an interesting life event) would have a direct impact on general distress either immediately after writing or one week later.
However, we do believe that writing about a difficult experience influences the writer’s general distress indirectly. Based on the self-regulated learning perspective, we propose that writing about a difficulty leads first to changes in the cognitions and emotions related to that particular difficulty, and then those specific changes are transferred to other similar situations producing a global change in distress. Thus, we were interested in exploring whether the event-specific emotions and cognitions immediately after writing were associated longitudinally with general distress reported one week later.
To address these hypotheses, we asked participants to write about either a difficult life experience or an interesting life experience. Experimental participants wrote about a difficult life experience and reported their general distress in addition to cognitions and emotions for both the event written about and another difficult event not written about. Control participants wrote about an interesting event and reported their general distress in addition to cognitions and emotions for two difficult life events. For all groups of participants, cognitive and emotional changes as well as general distress were assessed again one week later.
The participants were 120 college students (65% female) recruited from undergraduate psychology courses at a large urban university in the United States. The mean age of participants was 20.84 years (
Although the procedures of the study are fully described here, readers should consult the online supplement for ancillary material and information. At the beginning of two academic terms, students were administered a prescreening questionnaire. To maintain confidentiality, we divided this questionnaire into two parts. The first part asked students to provide their names and contact information. The second asked students to list three difficult or emotionally painful life events they had gone through or were currently going through. Individuals were also asked to indicate how much distress each event was currently causing them using a 10-point scale with verbal labels of
Students who met the selection criteria were contacted and given the opportunity to take part in the study. When participants reported to the lab, they were told as part of the informed consent procedure that participation in the study would require them to write about their life experience. Identifying information was collected separately from the writing samples, making the identity of any writing sample confidential.
Before coming to the lab, each participant was randomly assigned to one of two experimental groups or a control group. Participants in the first experimental group (
Individuals participated in the study one at a time. After giving consent, the participant was presented with the writing instructions (see
The IES (
The PANAS (
As researchers we are more interested in discrete subgroups of positive and negative emotions (e.g., emotions related to threat, strength of self-concept, loss, and activity) than broad classifications of emotions (e.g., positive and negative emotions). Therefore, during the analysis phase of this study, it was decided that our presentation of the results would reflect this interest. It has been suggested that the positive affect subscale may be divided into separate facets (
The HSCL-25 (
The analysis proceeded in two steps. The purpose of the first step was to understand the event-specific effects of writing about a difficult life experience. In the first step, the focus was on only those who wrote about a difficult life event (
The purpose of the second step was to assess the direct effect of writing on general distress and to probe for the indirect effect of writing on general distress through the event-specific emotions and cognitions. In this step, those who wrote about a distressing experience (
The issue addressed by the first step of the analysis was whether the effect of writing about a difficult life event was specific to the event written about. To test our hypotheses (1a-b) and (2a-b), we conducted separate 2 (Time: Immediate vs. 1-Week) × 2 (Event: Written-About vs. Not-Written-About) Repeated Measures Analyses of Variance for the strength, passion, upset, and fear emotion subscales and for the avoidance and intrusion cognitive subscales. The results of the analyses for the positive emotions are contained in
Time (T) | Event (E) |
ANOVAs |
||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Written | Not-written | Total | Effect | |||
Strength | ||||||
Immediate | 2.69 (0.11) | |||||
1-Week | 2.45 (0.11) | |||||
Total | 2.66 (0.12) | 2.48 (0.12) | ||||
T | 9.54** | .11 | ||||
E | 2.56 | .03 | ||||
T × E | 6.19* | .07 | ||||
Passion | ||||||
Immediate | 2.56 (0.10) | |||||
1-Week | 2.35 (0.10) | |||||
Total | 2.48 (0.11) | 2.43 (0.10) | ||||
T | 12.49*** | .14 | ||||
E | 0.20 | .01 | ||||
T × E | 0.57 | .01 |
*
Time (T) | Event (E) |
ANOVAs |
||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Written | Not-written | Total | Effect | |||
Upset | ||||||
Immediate | 2.69 (0.10) | |||||
1-Week | 2.32 (0.10) | |||||
Total | 2.45 (0.09) | 2.56 (0.10) | ||||
T | 11.71*** | .13 | ||||
E | 1.44 | .02 | ||||
T × E | 4.30* | .05 | ||||
Fear | ||||||
Immediate | 2.17 (0.08) | |||||
1-Week | 1.98 (0.08) | |||||
Total | 2.06 (0.09) | 2.09 (0.09) | ||||
T | 7.32** | .09 | ||||
E | 0.10 | .01 | ||||
T × E | 0.10 | .01 |
*
Time (T) | Event (E) |
ANOVAs |
||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Written | Not-Written | Total | Effect | |||
Avoidance | ||||||
Immediate | 2.32 (0.06) | |||||
1-Week | 2.13 (0.07) | |||||
Total | 2.13 (0.07) | 2.31 (0.08) | ||||
T | 17.57*** | .18 | ||||
E | 5.25* | .06 | ||||
T × E | 5.12* | .06 | ||||
Intrusion | ||||||
Immediate | 2.66 (0.07) | |||||
1-Week | 2.34 (0.07) | |||||
Total | 2.49 (0.08) | 2.51 (0.08) | ||||
T | 28.67*** | .27 | ||||
E | 0.11 | .01 | ||||
T × E | 0.60 | .01 |
*
For the strength subscale, there was a significant Time × Event interaction (see
For the passion subscale, the main effect for Time was significant (see
Our Hypothesis (1a) was supported for the positive emotions. Experimental participants reported more intense positive emotions for an event that they wrote about than an event that they did not write about. This was only true for positive emotions related to strength but not for positive emotions related to passion. The specificity effect for positive emotions related to strength was only found immediately after writing but not one week later.
For the upset subscale, there was a significant Time × Event interaction (
For the fear subscale, the main effect for Time was significant (
Our Hypothesis (1b) concerning negative emotions was supported. Experimental participants reported less intense negative emotions for an event that they wrote about than an event that they did not write about. This was only true for negative emotions related to being upset and not for negative emotions related to fear. The specificity effect for negative emotions related to being upset was only found immediately after writing and not one week later.
For the cognitive avoidance subscale, there was a significant Time × Event interaction (
For the cognitive intrusion subscale, the main effect for Time was significant (
Our Hypothesis (2) concerning event-specific cognitions was partially supported. Consistent with our Hypothesis (2a), experimental participants reported avoiding their thoughts less for an event that they wrote about than an event that they did not write about. However, inconsistent with our Hypothesis (2b), there were no significant differences between ratings of intrusive thoughts for an event written about versus ratings of an event not written about.
To test our Hypothesis (3), the second step of the analysis compared the effect of writing topic on participants’ general distress. To do this, we conducted a 2 (Writing Topic: Difficult Experience vs. Interesting Experience) × 2 (Time: Immediate vs. 1-Week) Mixed Analysis of Variance on the ratings of the HSCL-25. There was a significant main effect for Time,
We also investigated whether ratings of emotions and cognitions made immediately after writing were associated with general distress one week later (Hypothesis 4). In this analysis, we focused on the experimental participants. To do this, we calculated correlations between emotions and cognitions immediately after writing and the 1-week general distress score (HSCL-25). We used
Subscale | Written T1 with Not Written T1 ( |
Written T1 with HSCL T2 ( |
Not Written T1 with HSCL T2 ( |
|
---|---|---|---|---|
Positive emotions | ||||
Strength | .534** | .002 | -.016 | 0.16 |
Passion | .436*** | .071 | .080 | -0.08 |
Negative emotions | ||||
Upset | .494*** | .327** | .110 | 1.97* |
Fear | .409*** | .239* | .238* | 0.01 |
Cognitions | ||||
Avoidance | .295** | .222* | .091 | 0.99 |
Intrusion | .259* | .355*** | .221* | 1.03 |
*
Examining the comparisons between the written-about and not-written-about conditions, the
Writing is a powerful tool for helping people heal from difficult life experiences (
Most importantly, the results of this study showed that participants in the experimental groups felt stronger, less upset, and less avoidant of the difficult life event that they just wrote about compared to another difficult life event they did not write about. First, the most significant result relates to strength immediately after writing. Based on research concerning the social functions of emotions (
Similarly, following previous research, we distinguished two facets of negative emotions: upset and fear (
Consistent with our Hypothesis (2a), immediately after writing, participants in the experimental group reported fewer avoidant thoughts regarding the experience they wrote about. However, our Hypothesis (2b) was not supported: Participants in the experimental group did not report any difference in intrusive thoughts between the event written about and the event not written about. Previous studies have found that writing reduces both intrusion and avoidance symptoms (
One possible explanation for the significant difference in avoidant thoughts but not intrusive thoughts is that the writing intervention forced the writers to think about one of the distressing experiences of their lives. The writing intervention helped the writers face, confront, and not avoid the hurtful places in their lives. But it may be that being reminded of these hurtful experiences was perceived as intrusive. Therefore, we did not find differences in intrusive thoughts concerning an experience written about and another experience not written about.
Consistent with our expectation (Hypothesis 3), the writing intervention did not directly translate into a reduction in general distress. While writers’ emotions and cognitions are about specific events, people, or objects, their general distress is less contextualized and less specific. The self-regulation perspective may help us understand this. People learn how to regulate their emotions by reflecting on successful experiences in emotion regulation. When children are young, a teacher or parent may guide them through the steps necessary to regulate their emotions successfully. Eventually, the child has enough experience, and they try what worked previously in new situations. This process involves a transfer of specific knowledge about what worked in one situation and applying that knowledge to another new situation.
We can expect that writers go through a similar self-regulation process when participating in a writing experiment. Although it is not the main function of these experiments, writing experiments teach participants how to regulate their emotions by writing. The participant is guided by following the writing instructions given in the experiment to regulate their emotions. Initially, there is no transfer of knowledge. The writer just follows the instructions. But if they repeat the instructions often enough and reflect on the experience, they may learn how to use these newfound skills with other difficult situations. This may be one reason why we did not observe differences in general distress as a direct outcome of the writing topic. Perhaps the skills learned in the writing experiment had not been repeated often enough to be applied to new situations and every situation generally. But it might be the case that we can see the early stages in this transference of knowledge. Consistent with our expectation (Hypothesis 4), the context specific negative emotions (upset and fear) and cognitions (avoidance and intrusion) were associated with general distress one week later. Additionally, feelings of being upset immediately after writing concerning the written-about event and the event not written about were differentially related to general distress one-week later. There is some evidence for an indirect connection: The writing intervention led to a reduction in being upset about a particular event. This decrease in being upset was associated with less general distress one week later.
One implication of this study is that some of the cognitive and emotional benefits of writing about difficult life experiences are specific to the event written about. This means that targeting specific memories when writing or journaling may translate, at least in the short term, into benefits related to those memories. Moreover, the specific effects that one is most likely to experience include greater emotional strength, being less upset, and being less avoidant. These effects are likely to support writers’ self-concept, emotional stability, and coping with stressful events. Writing about difficult life experiences can be a therapeutic intervention carried out by practitioners or an easy self-help tool for individuals to improve social and emotional functioning. This study also outlines a methodology for studying the event-specific benefits of writing that should be replicated and extended.
A potential limitation of this study is the length, number, and spacing of sessions given to write. It could be argued that we did not ask the writers to write several times and for lengthy periods of time, and that consequently we did not find differences between the experimental and control groups comparable to those found in other studies. We take the argument. The length of writing time in previous writing studies has varied, with some asking participants to write as long as 30 min in one sitting (
Future research could examine whether these event-specific emotions and cognitions are associated with actions taken in the days immediately following the writing. It might be that writers find that they can channel their newfound strength and pride into their daily activities. Writers may also find that they are less avoidant of the people and places associated with their memories.
For this article the following Supplementary Materials are available (
Writing instructions for participants.
This research was supported by a Centers of Excellence grant awarded to the Department of Psychology at the University of Memphis by the state of Tennessee.
The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.
The authors have no support to report.