Temporal distancing during the COVID-19 pandemic: Letter writing with future self can mitigate negative affect.

ABSTRACT: Novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) is spreading across the world, threatening not only physical health but also psychological well-being. We reasoned that a broadened temporal perspective may attenuate current mental distress and tested a letter-writing manipulation designed to connect people to their post-COVID-19 future selves. We conducted an online experiment with 738 Japanese participants recruited from two common survey platforms. They were randomly assigned to either send a letter to their future self (letter-to-future) condition, send a letter to present self from the perspective of future self (letter-from-future) condition, or a control condition. Participants in both letter-writing conditions showed immediate decrease in negative affect and increase in positive affect relative

SUBMITTER: Chishima Y 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8013690 | biostudies-literature | 2021 May

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature