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Getting to the Heart of the Matter: Written Disclosure, Gender, and Heart Rate

From the Department of Psychology, Temple University, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

Address correspondence and reprint requests to Denise Sloan, Temple University, Department of Psychology, Weiss Hall, Philadelphia, PA 19122. E-mail: dsloan{at}temple.edu

Objective: The present study examined gender differences in the psychologic and physical symptom changes associated with written disclosure.

Methods: Male (n = 48) and female (n = 46) college students were assigned to either a written disclosure condition or a control writing condition. Participants in each condition wrote on 3 consecutive days for 20 minutes each session. Heart rate was recorded during each writing session and the narratives were examined for linguistic content. Participants completed measures of psychologic and physical health at baseline and again 1 month later.

Results: Participants assigned to the written disclosure condition reported significantly greater psychological and physical health benefits at follow up compared with the control group participants. No significant gender differences were found among those participants assigned to the written disclosure condition. Additionally, although heart rate reactivity and changes in the use of words denoting positive emotion, negative emotion, and cognitive appraisal significantly differed between the writing conditions, no significant gender differences in these variables were found among individuals assigned to the written disclosure condition.

Conclusions: Written disclosure is associated with significant improvements in both psychologic and physical health for men and women. There was no support for the notion that men may derive greater benefits than women from written disclosure. Furthermore, the results of this study indicate that changes in physiological reactivity and word use associated with written disclosure do not differ between men and women.

Key Words: written disclosure • gender • heart rate • emotional expression

Abbreviations: DASS₂₁ = Depression Anxiety and Stress Scale; HR = heart rate; LIWC2001 = Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count; PDS = Posttraumatic Stress Diagnostic Scale; PILL = Pennebaker Inventory of Limbic Languidness.

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