Disclosure Writing with the Use of Manipulating Writing Instructions: A Disclosure Writing Study

Abstract

It is well known that writing about traumatic life events has both physical and psychological long term benefits. James Pennebaker and his colleagues (Pennebaker, Mayne, & Francis, 1997; Pennebaker & Seagal, 1999) suggested that both negative and positive disclosure writing instructions could be useful in understanding positive life events, not only the negative life events. The purpose of this study is to experimentally investigate the order in which participants write about their positive or negative perspectives of life events through an expressive writing paradigm and manipulate the order of instructions that includes negative-only expression, negative to positive expression, positive negative expression, and neutral writing expression. It is hypothesized that writing about negative events then positive events could allow for a greater increase in positive affect, in contrast to writing about strictly negative events or strictly positive events. Once individuals have written about a negative topic then a positive topic, it could help make individuals gain an understanding about a negative event and view positive events with great meaning, without allowing for rumination and negative mood. Undergraduate students were instructed to complete a writing task for fifteen minutes for two days. Follow up evaluations were administered two weeks after the second writing task, asking participants to rate their meaning in life, their health and wellbeing, and positive and negative effectiveness (PANAS). This experiment could determine that the order in which participants write could change the writing paradigm from the completely separating life experiences into strictly negative expression and strictly positive expression. In conclusion, results showed that writing about negative and positive events created further benefits of writing allowing individuals to put negative events in perspective while focusing on the presence of positive life events.