Experimental disclosure and its moderators: A meta-analysis
Frattaroli meta-analysed a hundred and forty-six randomised studies of expressive writing and disclosure, the practice of writing or talking about personal and meaningful experiences. Earlier and smaller reviews had reported positive effects using an analytic approach that limits how far the conclusion generalises; this one uses a method that accounts properly for variation between studies, and includes a much larger body of work. The effect is positive, statistically reliable and small. That combination is the finding worth carrying: disclosure does something, and the something is modest rather than transformative, which is at odds with how the technique is usually described in popular accounts. The analysis also identifies conditions under which effects are larger or smaller, which is where the practical value lies for anyone designing an intervention. This vault cites it as the honest size estimate for expressive writing.
Frattaroli meta-analysed a hundred and forty-six randomised studies of expressive writing and disclosure, the practice of writing or talking about personal and meaningful experiences. Earlier and smaller reviews had reported positive effects using an analytic approach that limits how far the conclusion generalises; this one uses a method that accounts properly for variation between studies, and includes a much larger body of work. The effect is positive, statistically reliable and small. That combination is the finding worth carrying: disclosure does something, and the something is modest rather than transformative, which is at odds with how the technique is usually described in popular accounts. The analysis also identifies conditions under which effects are larger or smaller, which is where the practical value lies for anyone designing an intervention. This vault cites it as the honest size estimate for expressive writing.
Written from the abstract, OpenAlex.
What our sources record
Reproduced as it was written when this source was checked, figures and all.
Frattaroli, J. (2006). "Experimental disclosure and its moderators: a meta-analysis." Psychological Bulletin, 132(6), 823-865. 146 randomised studies of expressive writing, r ≈ 0.075. Held in reserve rather than used: expressive writing is extended narrative disclosure over days and is a different construct from single-word affect labelling, and this piece declines to let one borrow the other's evidence.
Where we use it
- Why Saying It Out Loud Makes It Feel Smaller, Why We Care
Reliability of this reference
The link below was matched against the publisher's record on title, first author and year, and all three agree.
The source
https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-2909.132.6.823
DOI: 10.1037/0033-2909.132.6.823