Cognitive, Emotional, and Language Processes in Disclosure

Abstract

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.