The benefits of psychological displacement in diary writing when using different pronouns
Authors: Seih, Y. T.1; Lin, Y. C.1; Huang, C. L.2; Peng, C. W.1; Huang, S. P.3
Source: British Journal of Health Psychology, Volume 13, Number 1, February 2008 , pp. 39-41(3)
Publisher: British Psychological Society
Abstract:
This study examined a new emotional writing paradigm, that is PDDP. PDDP instructs participants to write diary in first-person pronoun first, and then narrate the same event from a different perspective using second-person pronoun. Finally, the participants write it again with third-person pronoun from yet another perspective. These three narrations were to be written in a consecutive sequential order. Results demonstrated that diary writers indeed benefited from features of PDDP. It also showed that highly anxious people received most long-term therapeutic effect from PDDP. We argue that PDDP enacts the needed mechanism to balance psychological distance prolonging and self-disclosure making in emotional writing.Document Type: Research article
DOI: 10.1348/135910707X250875
Affiliations: 1: National Taiwan University, Taipei, Taiwan 2: National Taiwan University of Science and Technology, Taipei, Taiwan 3: National Taiwan Normal University, Taipei, Taiwan

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