Krivoshchekova,
Yulia (5/09) Progressive self-disclosure and its impact on psychological,
physical, and trauma-related functioning in two age and gender groups:
Extending Pennebaker (Carol Magai, Ph.D.; Philip Wong, Ph.D.; Lisa Samstag, Ph.D.)
A large body of work provides empirical
support for relations between expressive writing about traumatic or stressful
events and positive adaptive outcomes. However, research has focused on younger
samples, despite the fact that older adults systematically differ from younger
adults in ways that are directly relevant to self-disclosure and coping with
trauma. In addition, prior studies of the processes and mechanism underlying
the benefits of the self-disclosure paradigm have only intermittently
incorporated aspects of clinical theory. The aims of the current study were
twofold: to directly examine the age generalizability of previous findings by
contrasting men and women from older (51-75 years) and younger (18-34 years) cohorts
and to evaluate the possibility that writing in a sequentially-integrative
manner would produce better results than traditionally expressive writing.
Older ( n = 49) and younger (n = 61) men and women (N = 110) were randomly
assigned to write for 15 minutes across four consecutive days about the most
stressful and/or traumatic experience encountered in the previous five years.
Participants wrote about either their daily activities (Controls), about their
deep emotions and thoughts (Pennebaker Condition) or followed
sequentially-structured instructions that integrated affective, cognitive and
metaphorical aspects of their experience (Sequential-Integration Condition).
Effects were assessed with self-report measures of physical, psychological and
trauma-related health at baseline and 5-week follow-up. As predicted, older
adults reported differential improvement in physical and psychological health
in both experimental conditions. Inconsistent with expectations, however,
younger adults failed to demonstrate benefits from the intervention. Gender
moderational effects revealed that men differentially improved in the
Pennebaker condition and women in the Sequential-Integration condition. Results
are discussed in light of age and gender differences in characteristics
relevant to self-disclosure with the salient characteristics of the two
experimental conditions as a backdrop. It is suggested that various writing
instructions may allow men and women to fill gaps in their normative coping
repertoire. In total, these data support the utility of self-disclosure
interventions among older adults, offers new promising pathways by which to
examine the mechanisms underlying self-disclosure, and reinforces the notion
that interventions should be tailored to the individual.
