The impact of writing interventions on wellbeing in healthy adults.

All components of this study are web-delivered, completed in participants’ homes and in their own time. The study is divided into 4 parts, which participants complete (individually) at four separate time-points (i.e., pretest survey; writing activity [intervention]; follow-up 1 [7 days postintervention]; follow-up 2 [4 weeks postintervention]). Total participation time is around 90 minutes or less, divided into shorter intervals and delivered over the span of 5 weeks. At pretest, participants read an instructions page detailing the general aims of this study as well as requirements for participating. They must then provide their consent before moving on to the survey. The self-report questionnaires ask about participants’ demographic details, emotions, behaviour patterns, values, sense of meaning/purpose, and life satisfaction. This survey takes approximately 20 minutes to complete. Within 48 hours of submitting their responses, participants are then randomised to one of three conditions (Intervention 1, Intervention 2, or Control) and emailed a link providing them access to their allocated writing activity, as well as instructions that this task must be completed within 7 days from completion of the pretest survey. All participants receive web-delivered written instructions prior to beginning their activity, and all 3 conditions require participants to reflect on aspects of their personal experience and write down their thoughts. All participants are asked to please spend a minimum of 20 minutes on their activity. Directly after the writing task, participants complete a brief post-test survey (less than 5 minutes) requiring them to rate their present emotional state and to evaluate the writing activity along several indices. After completing the intervention, all participants receive a copy of their work (Word document emailed to them). The email also encourages them to continue working on the activity in their own time. Lastly, At 2 follow-up points (1 week and 1 month postintervention), participants are emailed a link to the same set of surveys delivered at pretest. These follow-up surveys require roughly 15 minutes of participants' time at each sitting. Intervention 1: after reading an instructions page in which personal values and values-consistent activities are defined, participants complete an online procedure whereby they: (1) select the Life Area they would like to work on (Life Areas consist of “Relationships”, “Education/Career”, “Mind/Body/Spirituality”, “Recreation/Interests”, and “Daily Responsibilities”); (2) participants specify their values (up to 3) in their chosen Life Area; (3) participants identify particular activities (1-3 per each value) which would work toward or be consistent with one of their specified values. Participants have the option of working through up to 3 different Life Areas, or they may opt out after exploring one. (4) after electing to “submit” their written work, participants complete the brief post-test survey. Intervention 2: after reading an instructions page in which the concept of one’s “best possible future self” is defined, participants complete an online procedure wherein they: (1) write about their individual conception of their ideal self in the future, detailing how they imagine their lives would look once all dreams and aspirations have been met; (2) after electing to “submit” their written work, participants complete the brief post-test survey. Self-reported engagement with intervention: A 12-item self-report questionnaire will be administered immediately post-intervention asking participants to evaluate their assigned writing activity along several dimensions. Participants will rate these items from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree). To ascertain whether the interventions were evaluated positively or negatively, participants will rate how enjoyable, important, emotional, difficult and upsetting they found the task. Two items will additionally assess mental imagery elicited by the task. Motivation, effort and engagement in the activity will each be measured by one item. Finally, two items will ask participants to rate (1) the extent to which they feel able to control important outcomes in their lives, and (2) the confidence they feel in their ability to take steps toward valued goals. Within 48 hours of completing the intervention, participants will be emailed a copy of the instructions for their assigned intervention in addition to a copy of their work (Word Document). The email will contain a reminder message in which participants are encouraged to continue building on their activity in their own time. It also states that this additional performance is optional and does not need to be submitted. At both follow-up times, 1-week postintervention and 4-weeks post-intervention, one item will examine the extent to which participants reflected on/continued working on their assigned activity following the initial intervention. Participants will be asked to quantify the number of times they performed the activity (a) in the past week (at 1-week follow-up) and (b) over the past month (at 4-weeks follow-up).