Campus Life Study: Harnessing Generativity Among Young Adults

Study Summary

Recent research suggests that short, online interventions can enhance well-being, which is beneficial to both physical and mental health outcomes. Further, growing evidence suggests that prosocial behavior-a behavior that can be reliably manipulated through a short online intervention-may have beneficial effects on well-being and physical health. Giving support to others appears to be just as beneficial as receiving support, and asking people to perform kind acts for others over the course of several weeks, for example, has been shown to both increase well-being and reduce the inflammatory potential of immune cells. The purpose of the current study is to test a novel 3-week, online prosocial writing-based intervention in a sample of young adults. Previous intervention studies have manipulated prosocial behavior by asking participants to perform tangible acts of kindness for others, such as writing a note to a coworker or helping a neighbor. However, providing this type of direct support can be logistically challenging and may contribute to increased feelings of distress in certain contexts. Writing interventions designed to elicit feelings of generativity offer one alternative approach, though they have yet to be tested among young adults. Participants (n = 200) will be randomized to one of two conditions--peer helping or a facts-only control--and instructed to write about their experiences in their first-year at UCLA (freshman or first-year after transfer). Those in the peer helping will be asked to write for the benefit of a student who is about to begin their first year, whereas those in the facts-only control will not. In total, participants will complete 4 writing assignments, each on a separate day over the course of one week. Valid self-report measures will be assessed at pre-intervention, each writing session, post-intervention, and at the 2-week follow-up. The investigators expect participants in the peer helping condition to experience a greater increase

Primary Outcome

Well-being within the past week will be measured at baseline, post-intervention, and the 2-week follow-up via the 14-item Mental Health Continuum-Short Form (MHC-SF). The MHC-SF is comprised of three empirically derived subscales: the 3-item Emotional Well-Being Subscale, the 6-item Psychological Well-Being Subscale, and the 5-item Social Well-Being Subscale. Higher scores on each subscale, and the total score overall (range: 0-56), indicate greater well-being.

Conditions Studied

Interventions

• BEHAVIORAL Writing

Study Locations (1)