Mood Study

Past research suggest that expressive writing can improve the mood of college students. The study done may reveal otherwise. Keeping a journal of daily stressful events or just writing at all, could prove to aid some worthy befits to college students. The effects of what the students were asked to write about may persuade the mood though into either a good or bad mood. Research has shown that expressive writing has curved improvement of overall mood in college students.

 

The study looks at expressive writing and mood improvement in college students under two conditions. First condition: Write about a stressful event giving just the facts of events. Second condition: Write about a stressful event giving the facts and emotions of the event. The measures used for the conditions the researcher will use Mood Questionnaire (Pennebaker and Beall, 1986). Many college students find that stress, anxiety, depression and traumatic life events seem to play a major role in their moods and everyday life. It could include anything ranging from test overload to loss of a job or a friend in desperate need of help. Could expressive writing play a major role into the improvement of mood in likely situations?

 

Writing instructions could be manipulated to increase the likelihood that participants write in a way that is suggested to be therapeutic and, therefore, increase the likelihood that they obtain benefits from task (Guastella and Dadds, 2007). This methodology avoids confounds of self-selection and may be used to test casual pathways (Guastella and Dadds, 2007). This proves with manipulation of the study the participants may improve substantially in mood. It was predicted that unstructured emotion writing participants would obtain general psychological health benefits as indicated by a measure of depression, anxiety, and stress in comparison to control participants (Guastella and Dadds, 2007). Stress is a major issue for students as they cope with a variety of academic, social, and personal challenges (Lin and Huang, 2013). The pressure to do great in school so they make their parents proud. Also maintaining all their friends can seem just as stressful, now with social media outlets such as Facebook. By identifying specific life stresses associated with academics among students, it may be possible to prevent, or at least diminish, stress, and thus improve students overall academic achievement (Lin and Huang, 2013). Expressive writing could be the tool to help alleviate students stress and anxiety due to college and social life pressures. Research has shown that verbalizing thoughts feelings and images into language has been conceptualized by many to be the core component in recovering from traumatic events (Pennebaker, 1999; Robinson, 2000; Koning, Lating, and Kirkhart, 2007).  Writing your thoughts and ideas do seem to prove to be somewhat beneficial. It is unclear whether discussing the facts combined with the emotions of a traumatic event is more beneficial (Koning, Lating, and Kirkhart, 2007). With the work of Pennebaker and Beall, it was expected that there would be a relation between content of disclosure on mood, such that the participants in a combined condition would report a significant increase in negative mood after disclosure compared to before disclosure. Maybe this is due to the fact of opening a wound. Thus further more stating that not all expressive writing may be good for mood and health. The term let sleeping dogs lie might hold some truth to the theory. What about other emotional stressors a college student might face such as job loss. Trauma such as job loss provoke serious emotions, like anger, and fear, that are often difficult to comprehend. A study was conducted specifically to address the emotional effects of job loss by testing the impact of disclosure writing on subsequent reemployment activity and success (Spera, Morin, Buhrfeind, and Pennebaker, 1994). Job loss and expressive could really boost good mood in college students. The self-disclosure through writing about thoughts and feelings surrounding job loss influenced reemployment success is promising and corroborates earlier work with adjustment to college freshman undergraduates (Spera, Morin, Buhrfeind, and Pennebaker, 1994). Either way expressive writing is a powerful tool whether good or bad into mood change. From a cognitive perspective, talking about, or in some way confronting a traumatic event, may help the individual to organize, assimilate, or give meaning to a trauma (Pennebaker and Beall, 1996). Could the effects of just writing expressively about facts of the events without emotion change moods for the better or for the worse; or is there any real distinction at all? The past studies have given insight into just a small aspect of the theory. More research is needed to conclude whether there is a factual point to the study. The participants will be writing expressively based on the researchers’ two conditions. There could be an even weigh out on the effects it has in the participants’ mood.

 

 

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Methods

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Participants

Participants were 40 from experimental methods labs at UNT in Denton, TX. Participants for the current study were recruited from classrooms at UNT. The group consisted of 25 female and 15 male participants. . Ages ranging from 18-34. Ethnicity was 90% Caucasian, 8% African American, 2% Other. Participants were not compensated.

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Measures

The Mood Questionnaire adapted from Pennebaker & Beall (1986) was administered after the participants completed the writing interview. The Mood Questionnaire is 50-item measure of five facets of mood which include sad, depressed, calm, hopeful and happy. Happy is the feeling of complete success and gleefulness. Sad is the feeling of unhappy but still being able to carry on. Depressed being the feeling of complete solitude, not wanting to do anything or be seen by anyone. Calm being the feeling of understanding and willing to move on. Lastly, hopeful being the mood of positive change soon to come. Items are rated on a 5 point Likert-type scale (0=highly unlikely, 4= highly likely). Each facet of mood shows: sad=.84, depressed.90, calm=.82, hopeful=.92, and happy=.78. 

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Procedure

The participants were randomly assigned to write for 30 minutes every day for 4 weeks. We made groups of two, 20 participants in each group. One group to write about a stressful event giving just the facts of the event (n=20). The other group to write about a stressful event giving both facts and emotions about the event (n=20). After the 4 weeks the participants were administered the Mood Questionnaire.

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Results

We conducted an independent samples t-test to determine if a significant difference in DV exist between group 1 and group 2. A t-test determines if two means are significantly different from one another. Independent means is two groups who have different manipulations (control and experiment).

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The results of homogeneity of variance in our test was not significant. So our groups are about the same with the Levene’s test. Group 1 and group 2 have homogeneity variance, F = .65, P = .43.

           

The results of our independent t-test means indicates there was a significant difference between group 1( M = 16.7, SD = 2.45 ), and group 2( M = 28.6, SD = 3.19 ), t(38) = -13.24, p < .05.

 

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Discussion

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Interpretation of results

Results indicated our research hypothesis was rejected. Our theory was that there would be no significant change in mood or between group 1 (facts) and group 2 (emotions) means. Our results found that there was a significant difference in mood between group 1 and group 2. It was predicted that unstructured emotion writing participants would obtain general psychological health benefits as indicated by a measure of depression, anxiety, and stress in comparison to control participants (Guastella and Dadds, 2007).

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Limitations   

Findings support this study. However, several factors may limit our findings. For example, we only tested one time, which limits us the findings of moods before the test. Also, participants wrote only one time, which limits our results across a time interval and cannot compare scores. However previous research indicates writing in an expressive way does improve mood.

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Implication

Results of the study suggest that writing about facts had low negative in mood and about emotions higher negative mood. As a result, writing only about facts may shut out the emotional aspect of writing. This finding is important for future studies to rule out further theories of emotional writing. Due to a conflict with previous research and limitations of our study, future research should seek clarify information on this topic in a larger sample size. Also, administering a questionnaire before and after. To get more information also using more than one measure.

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Abstract

Expressive writing seems to help with mood in certain areas of writing. We predicted no significant difference in mood from expressive writing about facts and emotions. Participants wrote about facts (group 1) and emotions (group 2). Following a mood questionnaire was administered. A higher score means higher in negative mood and a lower score means lower in negative mood. Results found that participants who wrote about facts had significantly lower negative mood ( N =20, M = 16.7, SD = 2.45 ) than participants who wrote about emotions ( N = 20, M = 28.6, SD = 3.19 ), t(38) = -13.24, p < .05. These findings suggest that people who write about facts tend to have lower negative emotions than to people who write about emotions alone.

 

 

 

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Refrences

Guastella, A., & Dadds, M. (2007). Cognitive-behavioral emotion writing tasks: A contolled trial           of multiple processes. Journal of Behavior Therapy and Experimental Psychiatry, 39,            558-566.

Konig, A., Lating, J., & Kirkhart, M. (2007). Content of Disclosure and Health: Autonomic          Response to Talking About a Stressful Event. Brief Treatment and Crisis Intervention,        7(3), 176-183.

Lin, S., & Huang, Y. (2013). Life stress and academic burnout. Active Learning in Higher     Education.

Pennebaker, J., & Beall, S. (n.d.). Confronting a traumatic Event: Toward an Understanding of Inhibition and Disease. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 95(3), 274-281.

Spera, S., Buhrfriend, E., & Pennebaker, J. (1994). Expressive writting and Coping With Job            Loss. Acadamey of Managment Journal, 37(3), 722-733.