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Drawing to Distract: Examining the Psychological Benefits of Drawing Over Time
Abstract
Individuals gravitate toward the arts during times of emotional stress. We examined the benefits of drawing over several sessions to determine whether drawing improves mood and, if so, whether it does so because it allows for emotional expression or distraction. After inducing a sad mood, we asked participants (n = 40) to draw over 4 consecutive days. Half of the participants were instructed to draw as a way to express their feelings (express condition) and half were instructed to draw as a way to focus and observe (distract condition). Mood was measured after the first and final testing session and a life satisfaction scale was administered at the beginning of the first testing session and after the final session. We found that drawing to distract improved mood more than drawing to express, both after a single drawing session and after 4 sessions. These findings are consistent with previous findings on drawing, but run counter to reports on the relative health benefits of expressive writing. We suggest drawing and writing may affect mood through different mechanisms.
... In general, creative leisure activities are highly intrinsically motivated, as they provide pleasurable and challenging experiences. Yet, self-expression and coping with troublesome experiences are stronger motives to engage in writing, drawing, or creating music than for creative cooking or handicrafts (Drake, Hastedt, & James, 2016). The latter creative activities were often motivated by altruistic motives of bringing pleasure to others in the form of self-devised gifts or dishes. ...
... The correlation pattern provided further evidence for the domain specificity of certain motives. As in Study 1, the expression motive was most strongly related to visual arts, literature, and music (Drake et al., 2016), whereas prosocial motives were more strongly associated with handicrafts and creative cooking compared to other creative motives. The social motive, as could be expected, was most strongly related to social creativity. ...
... While enjoyment seems to be a strong, universal motive for all creative activities, a few motives were found to be more relevant to some creative domains compared to others. For example, people striving to express themselves or to cope with distressing events more often turn to visual arts, literature, and music than to other forms of creative activity (Drake et al., 2016). In contrast, creative cooking or handicrafts are more often driven by altruistic motives and expected recognition. ...
People spend a lot of time on creative activities in their leisure time, but we still know little about what these activities are and what drives them. The literature suggests that several specific motives may be relevant for everyday creative behavior, including enjoyment, expression, challenge, coping, prosocial, social, material, recognition, and duty motives. Across two online studies totaling 750 participants, enjoyment was the strongest motive for everyday creativity, consistent with previous research linking creativity to intrinsic motivation and positive affect. Importantly, however, the relevance of motives differed across creative domains: visual arts, literature, and music were more strongly motivated by expression and coping motives, whereas handicrafts and creative cooking were more strongly motivated by prosocial and recognition motives. Intrinsic motives for creative activities were substantially related to high openness to experience, but explained incremental variance in the prediction of self‐reported creativity as well as rated creative achievements. Together, these findings provide new insights into the motivational basis and function of everyday creativity.
... Then participants make a drawing (different drawing conditions can be used) and they are finally asked to assess their emotional state one more time, so as to examine whether the drawing activity led to a significant improvement. Two types of induction procedures are consistently used in these studies: Participants are asked either to recall a personal sad event (Drake, Hastedt, & James, 2016;Drake & Winner, 2012;Forkosh & Drake, 2017;Pizarro, 2004;Smolarski, Leone, & Robbins, 2015) or to watch a short movie inducing a negative mood (Dalebroux, Goldstein, & Winner, 2008;De Petrillo & Winner, 2005;Diliberto-Macaluso & Stubblefield, 2015;Drake, Coleman, & Winner, 2011;Drake & Hodge, 2015). ...
... Moreover, drawing has been shown to improve adults' mood regardless of their drawing frequency, appreciation, perceived competence (Drake & Hodge, 2015), and even for those with no special interest or ability in art (De Petrillo & Winner, 2005). Drawing has both short-term (after one session) and long-term (after four sessions) beneficial effects on negative affects (Drake et al., 2016), regardless of the level of cognitive demand (Forkosh & Drake, 2017). Some of these studies also aimed to examine whether this beneficial effect of drawing depended on the drawing condition. ...
... This study was conducted to investigate the effectiveness of drawing as an emotion regulation technique with 7-and 10-yearold children. Our results confirm that drawing can be used with children to regulate negative emotions, consistently with previous studies on children (Drake & Winner, 2013) and on adults (Dalebroux et al., 2008;De Petrillo & Winner, 2005;Diliberto-Macaluso & Stubblefield, 2015;Drake et al., 2011;Drake et al., 2016;Drake & Hodge, 2015;Drake & Winner, 2012;Forkosh & Drake, 2017;Smolarski et al., 2015). Indeed, we found a significant improvement in children's mood ratings, whatever the drawing condition and whatever the age. ...
... Many studies that investigated how art affects mood also gave explicit instructions to participants to express positive emotions in their art (Dalebroux, Goldstein, & Winner, 2008;Diliberto-Macaluso & Stubblefield, 2015;Drake et al., 2011;Drake, Hastedt, & James, 2016;Drake & Winner, 2012). For instance, Smolarski et al. (2008) asked participants to make a brief list of personal stressors in order to induce a negative mood. ...
... There are, in fact, five facets of mindfulness: non-judging of experience, non-reactivity to inner experience, observing, describing, and acting with awareness (Baer, Smith, & Allen, 2004). When examining how art affects mood, there is evidence that the effects are obtained through distraction and not necessarily mindfulness (Dalebroux et al., 2008;Diliberto-Macaluso & Stubblefield, 2015;Drake & Winner, 2012;Drake et al., 2011;Drake et al., 2016;Smolarski et al., 2015). A previous study examined how drawing affected the mood of participants when the instructions for drawing were varied. ...
... Several studies support the theory that producing art is a way to distract people from stressful thoughts or events (i.e. emotion based coping) in their lives (Dalebroux et al., 2008;Drake & Winner, 2012;Drake et al., 2016), and it is possible that coloring is a 'mindless' activity rather than a mindful one (Manztios & Giannou, 2018), and may provide support for past findings about these activities being distractions rather than special interventions (Drake & Winner, 2012), at least in the long-term. While our focus here was to determine short versus long-term effects of coloring on mood rather than answer the question of whether coloring serves as a mere distraction, this could be an important question for future research to address. ...
Manufacturers of adult coloring books often make the claim that coloring is a technique that can decrease stress and negative emotions and enhance relaxation and mindfulness. This technique has not been explored, with high external validity, in psychological research. Participants included 66 college students (63.6% females; 86.4% Caucasian). Study 1 examined the short-term effects (20 minutes) of coloring on mood and mindfulness. In Study 2, we examined the week-long effects of coloring on mood and mindfulness after asking the same participants to color for 20 minutes daily for seven consecutive days. Significant short-term effects of coloring were present, as stress decreased and relaxation increased. However, effects of coloring on mood, psychological symptoms and mindfulness over a one-week period were not found. Our findings provide support only for short-term benefits to coloring. .
... The relative benefits of drawing to distract over drawing to express persist over four sessions of drawing. After inducing a sad mood, Drake, Hastedt, and James (2016) asked participants to draw over 4 consecutive days. Half were instructed to draw as a way to express their feelings (express condition) and half were instructed to draw as a way to focus and observe something in the world (distract condition). ...
... It was hypothesized that the distract condition would lead to greater mood improvement after a single session of drawing than the express condition because the distract condition should shift attention away from negative thoughts and feelings. Such a finding would be consistent with previous research on the benefits of drawing after a single session (Dalebroux, Goldstein, & Winner, 2008;Drake et al., 2016;Drake & Winner, 2012). Because this study examined the benefits of engaging in an emotion regulation activity (drawing), I examined RSA reactivity and not resting RSA. ...
... It was hypothesized that the distract condition would lead to a lower heart rate and greater increases in RSA after a single session of drawing than the express condition. Previous research (Dalebroux, Goldstein, & Winner, 2008;Drake et al., 2016;Drake & Winner, 2012) has demonstrated that drawing induces positive emotions (as indicated by increases in positive affect after drawing) and therefore should result in increases (rather than decreases) in RSA after a single session of drawing. ...
This study investigated the effects of drawing over 1 month to test whether the benefits are due to expression or distraction. After a sad mood induction, participants (n = 66) were randomly assigned to use drawing to express, drawing to distract, or to a control condition in which they did not draw at all. Mood, overall life satisfaction, heart rate, and respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA) were assessed at the first testing session and 1 month later. Drawing to distract improved mood more than drawing to express after a single drawing session and after 1 month. Whereas RSA increased after a single session for both drawing conditions, drawing to distract increased RSA marginally more after 1 month than the control condition. This study suggests that the psychological benefits of drawing may be both immediate and over time but that the psychophysiological benefits occur only over time.
... Recent research has demonstrated that a single session of drawing is an effective way to regulate sadness (Dalebroux, Goldstein, & Winner, 2008;De Petrillo & Winner, 2005;Drake & Winner, 2012, as are multiple sessions over drawing spanning several days (Drake, Hastedt, & James, 2016) and one month (Drake, 2018). In these studies, participants engage in a sad mood induction (e.g., viewing tragic photographs, watching a sad film, or thinking about the saddest event that has ever happened to them) and are then randomly assigned to engage in an activity. ...
... Previous research has demonstrated that drawing to distract improves sadness after a single session of drawing (e.g., Drake & Winner, 2012) as well as after multiple sessions of drawing (e.g., Drake, 2018;Drake et al., 2016). However, less is known about the effectiveness of drawing for regulating other emotions. ...
... Finally, future research should examine the long-term benefits of drawing for children by examining whether drawing to distract or express is more beneficial. Work on drawing with adults, has shown that drawing to distract improves mood more after several days (Drake et al., 2016) and 1 month (Drake, 2019). It is unclear whether drawing on a regular basis has more of an effect on mood than just making a drawing in a single session. ...
Previous research has shown that drawing improves short-term mood in children when used to distract from rather than express negative thoughts and feelings. The current study sought to examine (a) how drawing might elevate mood in children ages 6–12 by examining the role played by absorption, enjoyment, and perceived competence as well as entering an imaginary world; and (b) whether children spontaneously use drawing to distract from a sad mood. Across three studies, children were asked to think of a disappointing event. After a sad mood induction, they drew for 5 min. Mood was measured before and after the mood induction and after drawing. Three main findings emerged. First, drawing to distract led to greater absorption and enjoyment than did drawing to express. Second, children’s mood improved equally when drawing imaginary and real scenes showing that the key ingredient is that the content of the drawings be distracting in nature. Third, drawing improved mood even when children were given no instructions on the content of their drawings and children were more likely to use drawing as a way to distract themselves from a sad mood. These studies help to define the characteristics of drawing activities that foster mood improvement in children and highlight the important role of the arts in emotion regulation.
... Can DFO assist adolescents in negotiating these challenges to their emotional well-being? Only a few accounts describing the significance of DFO for adolescents exist, mainly in the educational field (Drake et al., 2016;Duncum, 2018). These accounts demonstrate how therapists who use DFO during their sessions consider adolescents to be a target group that stands to gain significantly from its use (e.g., Albert, 2010). ...
Drawing from observation (DFO) is an art therapy method that entails drawing an object, along with guided reflections on process and outcome. In this qualitative study, we explored adolescents’ perspectives on their DFO experience, and how they perceive it as having influenced their emotional well-being.
We interviewed 10 adolescents who participated in a DFO group, regarding their perspectives on DFO. Participants were asked to refer to their experience, as well as to provide examples of their drawings. Through a thematic analysis we integrated data from interviews and drawings.ResultsAdolescents experienced three lines of tension in DFO: Between self-acceptance and self-judgment, between merging and separation, and between similarities and differences. Processing these tensions has the potential to increase their emotional well-being.
DFO could make a meaningful contribution to adolescents’ emotional well-being. The unique intersection between object, observation, and drawing in art-therapy addresses adolescents’ emotional-developmental challenges.
... In contrast, when investigators have subjects maintain a positive focus during their art making (and ignore the negative mood induction), participants have reported more effective mood repair, that is, mood is more positive (e.g., Dalebroux et al., 2008;Diliberto-Macaluso & Stubblefield, 2015;Drake & Hodge, 2015;Drake & Winner, 2012). Some investigators have attributed the positive mood to "distraction" from woes, and not from the art-making itself (Dalebroux et al., 2008;Drake, Hastedt, & James, 2016;Drake & Winner, 2012). This is a reasonable conjecture given that researchers have reported attentional control tasks can be used as a distraction from negative feelings, and in the end, are associated with elevated mood (Van Dillen & Koole, 2007). ...
... Jensen & Bonde, 2018;Zarobe & Bungay, 2017). Art therapy supports the process of acceptance and change and has proved to be helpful in the treatment of psychosocial difficulties (Bone, 2019;Drake, Hastedt, & James, 2016;Eaton, Doherty, & Widrick, 2007;Slayton, D'Archer, & Kaplan, 2010). Creativity provides space for expression and healing during or after the experiences of total devastation, such a genocide and war (Kalmanowitz & Lloyd, 2005). ...
Background: We examine the experience of participating in creative arts groups for Palestinians living under the shadow of military conflict.
Methods: 14 men and women aged 17–50 were recruited from community creative arts groups to participate in one of three semi-structured group interviews. Interviews explored participants’ perceptions of the creative arts groups, including how they came to participate in the group and how they felt about their involvement.
Results: An inductive thematic analysis identified three central themes: “An emptying”, “Growth in the face of challenge”, and “A rare freedom”. The themes capture the extreme challenges participants faced and the protective effects of the creative arts groups on wellbeing. Participating in creative arts activities, such as writing, drawing, and music, encourages self-expression and release, personal exploration and escapism.
Conclusions: In the face of traumatic experiences, restrictions, and poverty associated with living in an occupied land, creative arts groups can be liberating and support wellbeing.
A growing body of scholarship suggests that art-making provides symptom relief as well as short-term mood benefits. However, more research is needed to explore how artistic activities may lead to mood improvements within the course of sessions conducted in clinical contexts.
To this end, we examined short-term outcomes of participation in an art group offered within a brief partial hospital program in which intensive day treatment is delivered. In a preliminary study (Study 1) conducted on Amazon MTurk (N = 193), we validated the use of a brief 7-item self-assessment scale to capture potential outcomes of art-making identified based on a review of the literature: positive/negative mood, general self-efficacy, creative self-efficacy, activation, mindfulness, and social connectedness. In our main study (Study 2), 175 patients in a partial hospital program completed the brief instrument validated in Study 1 at the beginning and end of a 50-minute unstructured art group. All psychological outcomes improved over the course of the group. Changes in general self-efficacy and mindfulness were associated with improvements in mood over and above changes in other outcomes. Results are limited by the naturalistic, uncontrolled, design of the group, which was not led by art therapists. These findings suggest that further studies examining patients’ experiences during art-making in clinical settings may provide useful insights into how this activity enhances mood.
In the large literature on creativity and mental illness, relatively few studies have explored anhedonia—impairments in anticipating, seeking, and experiencing rewards. This project explored self‐reported creativity in a sample of adults who differed in depressive anhedonia, determined via face‐to‐face structured clinical interviews. Participants completed measures of everyday creativity (engaging in common creative behaviors and hobbies), creative self‐concepts (creative self‐efficacy, creative personal identity, and self‐rated creativity in different domains), and creative achievements. Compared to the control group (n = 52), people in the anhedonia group (n = 22) had significantly higher engagement in little‐c creative activities (medium effect size). Effect sizes for self‐rated creativity and creative achievement were either small or near‐zero. Taken together, the findings suggest that anhedonia deserves more attention in future research on motivational aspects of creativity.
Children’s drawings are implicated in their emotional, cognitive, artistic, and semiotic development, raising the question of how early educators may best facilitate drawing development. This study compared three activities to determine their relative efficacy in promoting children’s drawing. Seventy-seven preschoolers from a Head Start program were randomly assigned to one of three conditions: storybook reading, block building, or dramatic pretend play games (DPPG). Interventions were conducted over 8 weeks, and children’s free drawings during each session were rated on five dimensions: creativity, talent, spatial complexity, color, and human content. Taken together, the interventions produced significant growth in overall drawing, particularly for children who were initially more skilled at drawing. Comparisons indicated that storybook reading and block building generated significantly better overall drawing than DPPG. Story time was more beneficial than DPPG for creativity, talent, and spatial complexity, while block building was more beneficial than DPPG for children’s use of color.
The editors introduce this issue of Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity, and the Arts. This issue focuses on imagination, creativity, innovation, visual arts and social sciences, cognitive flexibility and more.
In a pilot study we investigated whether the most effective medium for regulating short-term affect depends on one's preference for drawing or writing, and also investigated the emotion regulation strategy (distraction versus expression) spontaneously chosen when drawing and writing. Eighty undergraduates indicated their preference for drawing or writing. After a sad mood induction, half were assigned to their preferred activity and half to their non-preferred activity. Positive and negative affect was assessed before and after the activity, and participants reported whether they used the activity to express or to distract themselves. Negative affect was significantly lower after drawing than after writing, even when the preferred activity indicated was writing. Participants were more likely to use drawing to distract and writing to express.
We examined two ways in which art-making may function to elevate mood—venting (expressing negative feelings) and distraction (expressing something unrelated to the negative feelings). In Study 1 we induced a negative mood in participants by showing them a sad film clip and then assigned them to one of two conditions. In the venting condition they were asked to draw something related to the film; in the distraction condition they were asked to draw an image unrelated to the film (a house). In Study 2 we induced a negative mood by asking participants to think of the saddest event they had experienced and then assigned them to one of three conditions: venting, distraction, and sitting - a new condition in which participants just sat quietly. This latter condition allowed us to assess the effect of passage of time. In both studies, positive and negative affect were measured before and after the assigned activity. In both studies, mood improved significantly more in the distraction than in the venting or sitting condition. We argue that the mood elevating effects of art-making are stronger when art is used to distract than when used to vent. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
The experience of motion sickness in a virtual environment may be measured through pre-and post-experiment self-reported questionnaires such as the Simulator Sickness Questionnaire (SSQ). Although research provides converging evidence that us-ers of virtual environments can experience motion sickness, there have been no controlled studies to determine to what extent the user's subjective response is a demand characteristic resulting from pre-and post-test measures. In this study, subjects were given either SSQ's both pre and post virtual environment immer-sion, or only post immersion. This technique was used to test for contrast effects due to demand characteristics in which admini-stration of the questionnaire itself suggests to the participant that the virtual environment may produce motion sickness. Results indicate that reports of motion sickness after immersion in a vir-tual environment are much greater when both pre and post ques-tionnaires are given than when only a post test questionnaire is used. The implications for assessments of motion sickness in virtual environments are discussed.
We examined two mechanisms by which creating visual art may serve as a form of short-term mood repair. After viewing a film
that induced a negatively valenced mood, participants were given a self-report affect grid that assessed mood valence and
arousal. Participants then engaged in one of three tasks: creating a drawing expressing their current mood (venting), creating
a drawing depicting something happy (positive emotion), or scanning a sheet for specific symbols (distraction control). Mood
valence and arousal were then reassessed. Arousal remained unchanged after the interventions in all conditions. Valence became
more positive in all three conditions, but the greatest improvement occurred after the positive emotion intervention. Valence
improved no more after venting than after the control task. Results show that in the short-term, attending to and venting
one’s negative feelings through art-making is a less effective means of improving mood than is turning away from a negative
mood to something more positive. These findings are consistent with research on the beneficial effects of positive emotions
and cast doubt on the often assumed view that artists improve their well being by expressing suffering.
Clinical and health psychology research has shown that expressive writing interventions-expressing one's experience through writing-can have physical and psychological benefits for individuals dealing with traumatic experiences. In the present study, the authors examined whether these benefits generalize to experiences of workplace injustice. Participants (N = 100) were randomly assigned to write on 4 consecutive days about (a) their emotions, (b) their thoughts, (c) both their emotions and their thoughts surrounding an injustice, or (d) a trivial topic (control). Post-intervention, participants in the emotions and thoughts condition reported higher psychological well-being, fewer intentions to retaliate, and higher levels of personal resolution than did participants in the other conditions. Participants in the emotions and thoughts condition also reported less anger than did participants who wrote only about their emotions.
The effect of emotional disclosure through expressive writing on available working memory (WM) capacity was examined in 2 semester-long experiments. In the first study, 35 freshmen assigned to write about their thoughts and feelings about coming to college demonstrated larger working memory gains 7 weeks later compared with 36 writers assigned to a trivial topic. Increased use of cause and insight words was associated with greater WM improvements. In the second study, students (n = 34) who wrote about a negative personal experience enjoyed greater WM improvements and declines in intrusive thinking compared with students who wrote about a positive experience (n = 33) or a trivial topic (n = 34). The results are discussed in terms of a model grounded in cognitive and social psychological theory in which expressive writing reduces intrusive and avoidant thinking about a stressful experience, thus freeing WM resources.
This article reports the development and validation of a scale to measure global life satisfaction, the Satisfaction With Life Scale (SWLS). Among the various components of subjective well-being, the SWLS is narrowly focused to assess global life satisfaction and does not tap related constructs such as positive affect or loneliness. The SWLS is shown to have favorable psychometric properties, including high internal consistency and high temporal reliability. Scores on the SWLS correlate moderately to highly with other measures of subjective well-being, and correlate predictably with specific personality characteristics. It is noted that the SWLS is Suited for use with different age groups, and other potential uses of the scale are discussed.
Three studies considered the consequences of writing, talking, and thinking about significant events. In Studies 1 and 2, students wrote, talked into a tape recorder, or thought privately about their worst (N = 96) or happiest experience (N = 111) for 15 min each during 3 consecutive days. In Study 3 (N = 112), students wrote or thought about their happiest day; half systematically analyzed, and half repetitively replayed this day. Well-being and health measures were administered before each study's manipulation and 4 weeks after. As predicted, in Study 1, participants who processed a negative experience through writing or talking reported improved life satisfaction and enhanced mental and physical health relative to those who thought about it. The reverse effect for life satisfaction was observed in Study 2, which focused on positive experiences. Study 3 examined possible mechanisms underlying these effects. Students who wrote about their happiest moments--especially when analyzing them--experienced reduced well-being and physical health relative to those who replayed these moments. Results are discussed in light of current understanding of the effects of processing life events.
Positive emotions include pleasant or desirable situational responses, ranging from interest and contentment to love and joy, but are distinct from pleasurable sensation and undifferentiated positive affect. These emotions are markers of people's overall well-being or happiness, but they also enhance future growth and success. This has been demonstrated in work, school, relationships, mental and physical health, and longevity. The broaden-andbuild theory of positive emotions suggests that all positive emotions lead to broadened repertoires of thoughts and actions and that broadening helps build resources that contribute to future success. Unlike negative emotions, which are adapted to provide a rapid response to a focal threat, positive emotions occur in safe or controllable situations and lead more diffusely to seeking new resources or consolidating gains. These resources outlast the temporary emotional state and contribute to later success and survival. This chapter discusses the nature of positive emotions both as evolutionary adaptations to build resources and as appraisals of a situation as desirable or rich in resources. We discuss the methodological challenges of evoking positive emotions for study both in the lab and in the field and issues in observing both short-term ("broaden") and long-term ("build") effects. We then review the evidence that positive emotions broaden perception, attention, motivation, reasoning, and social cognition and ways in which these may be linked to positive emotions' effects on important life outcomes. We also discuss and contextualize evidence that positive emotions may be detrimental at very high levels or in certain situations. We close by discussing ways in which positive emotions theory can be harnessed by both basic and applied positive psychology research.
Art psychotherapy has been found to be particularly helpful for those patients who have difficulty expressing or identifying feelings, those uncomfortable with verbal communication, or conversely those adept at using words to hide their thoughts and feelings. The use of art in therapy provides an alternate, less threatening means of expression that enriches therapeutic communication. The purpose of this chapter is to illustrate how art psychotherapy delivered by the author helped an adolescent female who was experiencing self-harming behavior. Research and a case study are presented.
Previous studies have found that writing about upsetting experiences can improve physical health. In an attempt to explain this phenomenon, 72 first-year college students were randomly assigned to write about either their thoughts and feelings about coming to college or about superficial topics for three consecutive days. Measures of language use within the writing samples and cognitive measures of accessibility and schematic organisation were collected in the weeks before and after writing. As in previous studies, writing about college was found to reduce health centre visits for illness and to improve subjects' grade point average. Text analyses indicated that the use of positive emotion words and changes in words suggestive of causal and insightful thinking were linked to health change. Improved grades, although not linked to these language dimensions, were found to correlate with measures of schematic organisation of college-relevant themes. Implications for using written language to understand cognitive and health processes are discussed.
This study uses linguistic analysis to investigate psychological changes associated with an emotion regulation strategy integrating psychological acceptance and positive reappraisal, as compared to two established strategies. Two hundred and sixty-nine undergraduate participants wrote for 4 consecutive days, 20 minutes each day, about the biggest problem in their lives and were randomly assigned to use one of three emotion regulation strategies: (a) acceptance + positive reappraisal, (2) emotional disclosure, or (3) positive reappraisal. Linguistic analyses were conducted to examine changes in attentional focus and insightful and causal thinking in the writings. Results indicated that participants who integrated acceptance and positive reappraisal wrote less about the past and more about the future, and used more insight words, over the course of writing relative to the other two conditions. In addition, they used a decreasing amount of first-person singular pronouns (e.g., “I”) and increased more in their use of first-person plural pronouns (e.g., “we”). Implications of these language findings for understanding underlying psychological changes are discussed.
We investigated whether artmaking improves mood, and if so, whether this effect is best explained by "catharsis" or "redirection." In Experiment 1, participants viewed tragic images and then either drew a picture based on their feelings or copied shapes. Those who drew exhibited more positive mood after drawing; those who copied shapes did not. Mood improved equally for those who drew negative and nonnegative images, suggesting that for some, catharsis led to improved mood and that for others, redirection led to improved mood. In Experiment 2, to test whether artmaking improved mood simply because people were distracted by making a drawing, we gave participants a word puzzle to complete, a task that does not allow expression of feeling through symbolic content. Completion of a word puzzle did not improve mood. These results suggest that artmaking increases the pleasure dimension of mood and does so via either catharsis or redirection.
Research has shown that traumatic stress has negative effects on overall health and well-being. Traumatic exposure has been linked to higher rates of psychological and physical health problems. Writing about trauma or stress has been shown to improve health and reduce stress, but can negatively affect mood. The purpose of this study was to examine whether art therapy is as effective as writing therapy in improving psychological and health outcomes. Participants in the writing condition, but not the art therapy condition, showed a decrease in social dysfunction. However, participants who completed artwork reported more enjoyment, were more likely to continue with the study, and were more likely to recommend the study to family and friends. Future research could combine writing and art therapy to determine whether a mixed design would both improve health and maximize participant retention.
In recent studies of the structure of affect, positive and negative affect have consistently emerged as two dominant and relatively independent dimensions. A number of mood scales have been created to measure these factors; however, many existing measures are inadequate, showing low reliability or poor convergent or discriminant validity. To fill the need for reliable and valid Positive Affect and Negative Affect scales that are also brief and easy to administer, we developed two 10-item mood scales that comprise the Positive and Negative Affect Schedule (PANAS). The scales are shown to be highly internally consistent, largely uncorrelated, and stable at appropriate levels over a 2-month time period. Normative data and factorial and external evidence of convergent and discriminant validity for the scales are also presented. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)
This article reports the outcome of a four-year follow-up of a pilot study using a combination of art therapy, cognitive behavioral therapy, and group process to address the therapeutic issues related to childhood sexual abuse. All group participants were evaluated using the Trauma Symptom Checklist for Children (Briere, 1995), commonly used in trauma centers, before and after their participation in an 8-week group cycle. The results of this extended study support the combined use of art therapy (AT) and cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) as an effective intervention to reduce symptoms most often associated with childhood sexual abuse. (Contains 3 tables.)
Anyone who has ever entrusted a troubling secret to a journal, or mourned a broken heart with a friend, knows the feeling of relief that expressing painful emotions can bring. This book presents evidence that personal self-disclosure is not only good for our emotional health, but boosts our
physical health as well.
The author has conducted controlled clinical research that sheds light on the mind–body connection. This book interweaves his findings with case studies on secret-keeping, confession, and the hidden price of silence. "Opening Up" explains: How writing about your problems can improve your health; How long-buried trauma affects the immune system; Why it's never too late to heal old emotional wounds; and When self-disclosure may be risky—and how to know whom to trust. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
Two studies tested the hypothesis that certain positive emotions speed recovery from the cardiovascular sequelae of negative emotions. In Study 1, 60 subjects (Ss) viewed an initial fear-eliciting film, and were randomly assigned to view a secondary film that elicited: (a) contentment; (b) amusement; (c) neutrality; or (d) sadness. Compared to Ss who viewed the neutral and sad secondary films, those who viewed the positive films exhibited more rapid returns to pre-film levels of cardiovascular activation. In Study 2, 72 Ss viewed a film known to elicit sadness. Fifty Ss spontaneously smiled at least once while viewing this film. Compared to Ss who did not smile, those who smiled exhibited more rapid returns to pre-film levels of cardiovascular activation. We discuss these findings in terms of emotion theory and possible health-promoting functions of positive emotions.
Previous research has found that self-focused rumination maintains or increases depressed mood, whereas distraction decreases depressed mood (S. Nolen-Hoeksema & J. Morrow, 1993; S. Nolen-Hoeksema, J. Morrow, & B. L. Fredrickson, 1993). The present series of experiments examined these mood regulation strategies in the context of an angry mood. In Experiments 1 and 3, rumination increased anger, whereas distraction decreased or had no effect on anger. In Experiments 2 and 4, women were more likely to choose to ruminate when in a neutral mood but to distract themselves following induction of an angry mood. Men were equally likely to choose rumination or distraction, regardless of mood condition. The results are interpreted and discussed within the framework of an associative-network model of anger.
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Disclosing information, thoughts, and feelings about personal and meaningful topics (experimental disclosure) is purported to have various health and psychological consequences (e.g., J. W. Pennebaker, 1993). Although the results of 2 small meta-analyses (P. G. Frisina, J. C. Borod, & S. J. Lepore, 2004; J. M. Smyth, 1998) suggest that experimental disclosure has a positive and significant effect, both used a fixed effects approach, limiting generalizability. Also, a plethora of studies on experimental disclosure have been completed that were not included in the previous analyses. One hundred forty-six randomized studies of experimental disclosure were collected and included in the present meta-analysis. Results of random effects analyses indicate that experimental disclosure is effective, with a positive and significant average r-effect size of .075. In addition, a number of moderators were identified.
The present research examined whether and how loading working memory can attenuate negative mood. In three experiments, participants were exposed to neutral, weakly negative, or strongly negative pictures followed by a task and a mood scale. Working memory demands were varied by manipulating task presence (Study 1), complexity (Study 2), and predictability (Study 3). Participants in all three experiments reported less negative moods in negative trials with high compared to low working memory demand. Working memory demands did not affect mood in the neutral trials. When working memory demands were high, participants no longer reported more negative moods in response to strongly negative pictures than to weakly negative pictures. These findings suggest that loading working memory prevents mood-congruent processing, and thereby promotes distraction from negative moods.
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