Do gains in working memory capacity explain the written self-disclosure effect?

Klein and Boals (2001) concluded that expressive writing about negative life events improves health by reducing intrusive thoughts, as measured by the Impact of Events Scale (IES), and thus freeing working memory (WM) capacity. We replicated their WM gain and rejected the possibility that it reflect...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Cognition and emotion 2010-01, Vol.24 (1), p.86-93
Main Authors: Kellogg, Ronald T., Mertz, Heather K., Morgan, Mark
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Biological and medical sciences
Cognition
Creative writing
Expressive writing
Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology
Health
Human
Intrusive thought
Intrusive thoughts
Language
Learning. Memory
Memory
Negative life events
Production and perception of written language
Psychology. Psychoanalysis. Psychiatry
Psychology. Psychophysiology
Self-disclosure
Selfdisclosure
Working memory
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Summary:Klein and Boals (2001) concluded that expressive writing about negative life events improves health by reducing intrusive thoughts, as measured by the Impact of Events Scale (IES), and thus freeing working memory (WM) capacity. We replicated their WM gain and rejected the possibility that it reflected task practice alone. We extended their work by showing that such WM effects and reductions in self-reported health symptoms can be observed within a short time frame of a week in a normal population of college students and can occur without reductions in IES scores. Two alternative explanations are discussed of how WM gains can be observed in the written self-disclosure effect without reductions in the frequency of intrusive thoughts and avoidance attempts.
ISSN:0269-9931
1464-0600
DOI:10.1080/02699930802571646