A Randomized Controlled Study of Writing Interventions on College Women’s Positive Body Image

Translating online positive psychology interventions to sexual and gender minorities: A systematic review.

“…Twelve articles (9.23%) included self-compassion interventions. Eight studies (Eriksson, Germundsjö, Åström & Rönnlund, 2018; Kelman, Evare, Barrera, Muñoz, & Gilbert, 2018; Krieger et al, 2019; Shapira & Mongrain, 2010; Sherman et al, 2018; Stern & Engeln, 2018; Stevenson, Mattiske, & Nixon, 2019; Ziemer, Lamphere, Raque-Bogdan, & Schmidt, 2018) were randomized control trials with baseline data, whereas four studies (Finlay-Jones, Kane, & Rees, 2017; Krieger, Martig, van den Brink, & Berger, 2016; Mak et al, 2018; Mitchell, Whittingham, Steindl, & Kirby, 2018) had pretest/posttest designs with no control group. Longest length of follow-up ranged from immediately postintervention only (Kelman et al, 2018; Stern & Engeln, 2018) to six months (Shapira & Mongrain, 2010).…”

“…Only one article (Kelman et al, 2018) reported sexual orientation, though this sample was predominantly heterosexual and reported sexual minorities as LGBTQ, rather than individual orientations. Three studies (Shapira & Mongrain, 2010; Stern & Engeln, 2018; Ziemer et al, 2018) that reported race for the whole sample had predominately white samples, and one study (Kelman et al, 2018) was more racially diverse (28.6% Asian, 8.3% African American, 6.0% Latina).…”

“…Four articles featured self-compassion writing interventions (Shapira & Mongrain, 2010; Sherman et al, 2018; Stern & Engeln, 2018; Stevenson et al, 2019; Ziemer et al, 2018), finding small effects for outcomes such as depression, anxiety, happiness, positive affect, and body-image-related distress, and a medium effect for negative affect and social anxiety. Four articles (Finlay-Jones et al, 2017; Krieger et al, 2016, 2019; Mak et al, 2018) included longer module-based online interventions, which had small effects on happiness, well-being, and distress, and small and medium effects on depression, stress, life satisfaction, and anxiety.…”

“…Interventions with larger effects often included tasks eliciting the following strengths: love, humor, optimism, and spirituality. Additionally some of the interventions that elicited self-compassion (e.g., Ziemer et al, 2018), gratitude (e.g., Kreitzer et al, 2019), and managing positive affect (e.g., Ayers et al, 2015) had medium or large effects. Furthermore, interventions with multiple components or more types of positive psychology often were more effective than interventions with one component.…”

“…Additionally, this could be particularly relevant to individuals with higher levels of internalized stigma because these individuals hold negative attitudes toward themselves because of their sexual orientation or gender identity. Furthermore, interventions that asked participants to write with self-compassion generally had small effects (Shapira & Mongrain, 2010; Sherman et al, 2018; Ziemer et al, 2018); however, a six-module self-compassion intervention was more effective (Finlay-Jones et al, 2017). Therefore, researchers may want to consider interventions that required more time or incorporate self-compassion into a more time-intensive multicomponent intervention.…”