The Benefits of Writing
Jordan B Peterson and Raymond Mar
[See their web site at
http://SelfAuthoring.com .
Jordan B. Peterson et al. have a
program for sale that involves numerous timed writing exercises.
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Write Your Book With Me]
Abstract
Careful writing about traumatic or uncertain events, past, present or future, appears to produce a variety
of benefits, physiological and psychological. Written accounts of trauma positively influence health. Recent
investigations have shown that the explicit written description of an ideal future produces similar results.
A large body of research conducted in the industrial and business domains also demonstrates that future
authoring or goal-setting results in improved productivity and performance.
Writing and Health
A fascinating body of research, pioneered by James W. Pennebaker in 1986,1 has linked written narrative
to enhanced mental and physical health. Studies of this effect typically employ written output, although
variations such as verbal expression do exist. Participants are asked to describe a traumatic personal
event in writing (or, in the control condition, to write about a trivial topic), during 15 to 30 minute
sessions. These sessions range in frequency, from a single instance to multiple sittings, spread out over a
number of weeks. During each session, individuals are instructed to write continually for the allotted time,
without regard for grammar or spelling.
In conjunction with this manipulation, a number of health-related variables are assessed, beginning
during the writing period, and continuing for several weeks afterwards.
Individuals assigned to write about a stressful occurrence in their own life typically experience
improvements in general physical health, compared to those who write about trivial events. These
improvements include fewer consultations with physicians,2 greater long-term psychological health3 and
improved immune function. 4
Other benefits include faster re-employment for recently dismissed professionals, 5 and higher grade-point
averages for students. 6 Kitty Klein and Adriel Boals recently demonstrated, as well, significant increases in
working memory among participants in two well-controlled studies, attributable to a decrease in anxiety
and depression-related intrusive thoughts. 7 These results appear robust, and have been demonstrated in
over two-dozen studies, using a number of populations around the world.8
The health benefits of trauma narration have been replicated using a very different sort of content. Laura
King 9 explored the potential ramifications of writing about life goals and ideals, as opposed to past
6
traumatic experiences. After reading a set of general instructions,1 a group of participants engaged in a
writing task, using methods similar to those described previously. Individuals in the control condition were
asked to write about their plans for the day.
Three weeks later, those who wrote about their best possible selves scored significantly higher on
measures of psychological well-being (which included such concepts as personal happiness and life
satisfaction). Health records were also obtained and analysed for all participants. Although the two groups
did not differ in average healthcare use prior to the experiment, people who wrote about their ideal future
visited medical professionals less often than those in the control condition in the five months following the
study.
Pennebaker demonstrated that such positive consequences appears related to the development of a
coherent narrative (rather than as a consequence of reduction of repression or inhibition or emotional
catharsis).
10 11 Harber and Pennebaker12 suggested, as well, that careful writing may help in the
production of organized, structured memories, and in the analysis of cause/effect relationships in the past
and their application to the present and future.
Written Visions of the Future and Health
The formation and pursuit of goals can be a valuable tool in coping with loss or trauma. The ability to “get
on with life” following a traumatic incident appears closely allied with recovery. Failure to do so appears
associated with depression, motivated by the apparent hopelessness of all activity. A number of
researchers have found support for the psychological benefits of forming plans following a traumatic loss.
Stein, Folkman, Trabasso and Richards,
13 who studied a population of caregivers who had lost their
partners to AIDS, found that well-explicated goals were related to better well-being at the time of
bereavement, and better recovery in the following year.
14
Elovainio and Kivimäki,15 who examined a population of Finnish nurses, found that the degree to which
goals were clearly stated and well-comprehended by staff moderated the amount of strain experienced
individually. This applied to goals associated with each job or work unit, and to the more general goals of
the entire organization.
1 Think about your life in the future. Imagine that everything has gone as well as it possibly could. You have
worked hard and succeeded at accomplishing all of your life goals. Think of this as the realization of all of your
life dreams. Now, write about what you have imagined. 7
Outcome-oriented thinking and behaviour is clearly useful in times of emotional upset. It also appears to
aid day-to-day well-being. Researchers interested in human emotion have found that the pursuit of goals,
as well as their attainment, are associated with happiness, by adults and children.16 As psychologists have
become increasingly well-informed about the biochemical nature of emotional responses, it has become
obvious that much of the positive emotion that human beings feel is a consequence of the release of the
neurotransmitter dopamine, in response to evidence that satisfactory progress is being made towards
desired goals.17 This means that it is difficult for people to experience hope and interest and engagement
in the absence of well-specified goals.
Self-defined, intrinsically important goals also seem more effective than externally defined goals, which
are often motivated by sources of negative emotion, such as pressure from relatives or guilt. Kennon M.
Sheldon and Linda Houser-Marko18 asked first-year students to describe eight future goals, and to rate
their reasons for pursuing them, demonstrating that attainment of internally-motivated goals was much
more likely than attainment of those fuelled by external sources,
19 and that the advantages to intrinsic
motivation tended to become self-reinforcing and to last. The most stunning outcome of this extended
study, however, was related to academic performance. Scores for the American College Test were
compared with each student’s final grade-point average. Individuals in the process of pursuing goals for
intrinsic, personal reasons had grade point averages higher than those predicted by their American
College Test scores. Remarkably, however, the majority of their goals were not at all course- or grade-related.
In the words of the authors: “This finding suggests that those people who can identify sets of
goals that well represent their implicit interests and values are indeed able to function more efficiently,
flexibly, and integratively across all areas of their lives.” 20 Similar results obtained by Morisano, Hirsh,
Peterson, Shore and Pihl were obtained at McGill University, and provide part of the scientific groundwork
for the programs available at
www.selfauthoring.com.
Written Goals and a Productive Life
Decades of empirical research has supported the proposition that setting goals and pursuing them can
lead to significant improvements in task performance. 21 The majority of this work has been explored in a
business context. Locke and Latham laid the base for the initial theoretical work on the benefits of goalsetting.22
The model they constructed collaboratively has four major tenets:
• Goals that are specific and difficult lead to better performance than vague exhortations to “do your
best” (and, of course, than no specified goals whatsoever). 8
• The relationship between goal difficulty and performance is linear and positive.
• Other factors such as competition, provision of feedback, and participation in decision-making do
not affect performance beyond their function in establishing and adjusting the commitment to
specific and difficult goals.
• Direction, effort and persistence are three primary motivational mediators of the goal-setting/performance
relationship.
Task strategy constitutes a fourth, cognitive mediator. Ability,
commitment, feedback, task complexity, and situational constraints are all possible moderators of
the goal-setting/performance relationship.
Locke and Latham erected their theory on a foundation of important empirical work, conducted in realworld
workplaces and the laboratory.23 Latham and Kinne 24 found, for example, that logging crews
assigned a specific and difficult goal were significantly more productive (and had better job attendance)
than a similar crew who were merely urged to do their best. Such improvement remained even when
workers were paid by the hour, and not on a piecework basis.25 These findings also held true in the case
of more abstract occupations, such as research and development 26 and managerial planning.27
Laboratory research has replicated these findings in such basic domains as memory,28 mathematical
ability,29 and reaction time.30 Further investigation revealed that participation in goal-setting clearly
bolsters understanding of strategy.31 Pham and Taylor have begun to decompose the process of goal attainment
(through proximal goals), and to study its causal structure.32 University students were asked to
imagine either the goal of doing well on an upcoming midterm, or to focus on imagining the details of the
process required to attain a good mark. Following this mental simulation, participants wrote down the
contents of their imaginings. Students who engaged in process-simulation performed significantly better
on the test than those who merely imagined the positive outcome. This improvement appeared to be a
consequence of study-plan formation and execution on the part of the successful group, as well as a
decrease in exam-related anxiety.
Additional basic research has helped establish that fantasizing about a desired future (compared to a less
valuable present) helps tag desired future states with positive affect, mediated as they are by
expectations of success.33 The importance of nearer or proximal goals has also been investigated. Such
goals appear particularly important in uncertain circumstances, where many variables must be considered,
and where longer-term goals have to be constantly evaluated, because of rapidly changing circumstances.
Success at near or proximal goals also seems capable of enhancing distant or long-term goal
commitment. 34 9
Conclusions
Writing about uncertainty, past, present, and future, has multiple benefits. Such benefits do not appear
bound by conventional categorical domains, as they encompass psychological well-being, physical health,
cognitive ability and task performance. Furthermore, the process by which such goal-setting exerts its
effects appears broadly generalized. Establishing difficult, specific goals can facilitate performance in an
unrelated domain (such as academic achievement). Likewise, comprehension of larger organizational
goals (relatively removed from individual task aims) reduces the personal strain suffered by workers.
It appears possible that writing, which is a formalized form of thinking, helps people derive information
from their experiences that helps them guide their perceptions, actions, thoughts and emotions in the
present. Drawing specific, causal conclusions about life’s important events may also help reduce the
burden of uncertainty and threat that may remain active, emotionally, even years after a traumatic event
occurred. Clarifying purpose and meaning into the future helps improve positive emotion, which is
associated with movement towards important goals, and reduces threat, which is associated with
uncertainty and doubt, and which may be experienced as hopelessness, despair, and lack of meaning.
10
References
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11
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