Computer-based written emotional disclosure: the effects of advance or real-time guidance and moderation by Big 5 personality traits

Abstract

Standard written emotional disclosure (WED) about stress, which is private and unguided, yields small health benefits. The effect of providing individualized guidance to writers may enhance WED, but has not been tested. This trial of computer-based WED compared two novel therapist-guided forms of WED - advance guidance (before sessions) and real-time guidance (during sessions, through instant messaging) - to both standard WED and control writing; it also tested Big 5 personality traits as moderators of guided WED. Young adult participants (n = 163) with unresolved stressful experiences were randomized to conditions, had three, 30-min computer-based writing sessions, and were reassessed six weeks later. Contrary to hypotheses, real-time guidance WED had poorer outcomes than the other conditions on several measures, and advance guidance WED also showed some poorer outcomes. Moderator analyses revealed that participants with low baseline agreeableness, low extraversion, or high conscientiousness had relatively poor responses to guidance. We conclude that providing guidance for WED, especially in real-time, may interfere with emotional processing of unresolved stress, particularly for people whose personalities have poor fit with this interactive form of WED.

Keywords: Big 5 personality; computer; expressive writing; guidance; stress; written emotional disclosure.

Figure 1

Flow of participants through the study.

Figure 2

Graphs of all significant interactions between writing condition and baseline levels of each of the Big 5 personality traits. Only conditions that were involved in significant interactions are included for each personality moderator / outcome pair. See Table 3 for slopes and significant differences.