Gratitude Journaling as a Student Well-Being Intervention

Introduction

Initially, for our project we wanted to persuade Warwick SU to implement reusable plastic cups for a refundable deposit fee instead of single use plastic cups, to help tackle plastic waste during SU nights out. 

 

However, after contacting the Democracy & Development Officer, we were told that currently it would not be possible, due to a lack of space and resources. 

Following this unsuccessful request, we instead decided to address the ongrowing issue of students’ mental health by encouraging them to practice gratitude journaling. 


The problem

Mental health issues are an increasing problem for young people, especially in students. Aronin and Smith (2016) state that one in four students suffer from mental health problems. University students have a higher prevalence rate of depression than the general population, even though universities provide services for wellbeing. University-related stress can spill over to other areas of students’ life, causing more issues and troubles like a domino effect. Thawabieh (2012) identified some major factors that make students the most vulnerable to mental health issues. For example, the transition from school to university has been found to increase stress in first year students. As well as that, academic progress leaves students stressed and worried. These can lead to negative consequences, such as physical problems, which includes lack of sleep or feeling tired and pain. 

Our main project idea was to introduce gratitude journaling to Warwick university students as a tool for combating stress, promoting positive self-esteem and increasing life satisfaction. Gratitude journaling involves individuals regularly identifying specific aspects of their recent life experiences for which they are thankful, such as events, people, things - virtually anything. Bryant (1989) explained that the ability to notice, appreciate, and savour the elements of one’s life has been viewed as a crucial determinant of well-being, which served as an inspiration for our project idea. 


Why the problem is important

The immediate answer is quite simple – because good mental health is critical for every aspect of life. 

The nature of a prestigious university setting creates an environment where we, Warwick students, constantly face challenges and pressures to meet deadlines and maintain high performance. On top of trying to maintain good levels of academic achievement, there are other stressors such as social adjustment, social comparison, lack of sleep, financial and external pressures…the list goes on. When a healthy balance between all those factors is disrupted, it can negatively impact students’ well-being and easily lead to exhaustion. 

There is a vast amount of research indicating that exercising gratitude and practising gratitude journaling can help combat negative effects of stress and improve well-being. 
Research has shown there are a variety of benefits associated with gratitude, particularly to mental health. For example, gratitude has been found to positively correlate with life satisfaction, as well as personality traits associated with social functioning and well-being (Wood, Joseph, & Maltby, 2008). 

Studies of students counting their blessings through journaling have shown a positive relationship between such gratitude and satisfaction with their academic achievement over time, as well as positive effect and domain-specific life satisfaction (Froh, Sefick & Emmons, 2008). This form of expressing gratitude has also been associated with heightened levels of individuals’ well-being and improved interpersonal relationships (Emmons & McCullough, 2003). Upon discovering these findings during the development stage of our project, we realised that they provide substantial support to our idea of implementing gratitude journaling as a student well-being intervention.


The target audience and how your project is tailored to them

Our intervention was aimed at Warwick University students. We hoped that targeting this group would be successful in our intervention, as young adults under the age of 25 are most susceptible to persuasion and behaviour change (Krosnick & Alwin, 1989). 

A more specific Warwick University group that we chose to target was religious students.
Previous theory and research have highlighted that gratitude and religion are closely connected (Emmons & Crumpler, 2000; Schimmel, 2004). In fact, gratitude has been found to be positively correlated with religious commitment (Rosmarin et al., 2011). Furthermore, considering that gratitude is a highly prized human disposition in Jewish, Christian, Buddhist and Hindu thought (Carman & Streng, 1989), we had good reasons to believe that students who regularly attend Chaplaincy on University campus will be more likely to be persuaded to start practising gratitude journaling. 

The intervention

1. Our Website; https://wtyrrell.wixsite.com/showgratitude

We began by creating a website about gratitude journaling, which included three blog posts written specifically for our student target group. The first post was tailored to Warwick students and highlighted the stressors related to university experience, as well as gave examples of what can be written down in the journal.

The second post used aspirational reference groups, whereby we provided examples of successful people such as Oprah Winfrey and Chris Pratt, who have openly talked about engaging in gratitude journaling and praised its benefits. We thought it would be an effective technique to use as young people want to be like those who they look up to.

The third post addressed the benefits and research behind gratitude journaling with many references for its credibility. We provided a great deal of research which indicated its positive effects. 

Overall, the articles had between 21 and 26 views. By providing advice, role models and supporting research, we wanted to encourage students to actively change their behaviour with regards to stress management by implementing gratitude journaling. However, we made the readers aware that although there are reported benefits to it, it's not a replacement for professional help. 

     2. Infographic

  We created an infographic that stated the “5 reasons why people should engage in gratitude journaling”, including research-supported facts. We then placed them around different places on campus, such as outside lecture halls, common rooms, lifts, halls of accommodation, around the humanities building - places that are visible and eye-catching to students. One location that we thought was important was the chaplaincy, as religious students were one of the target groups we wanted to approach. As well as that, we approached around 20 students on campus with the leaflets and encouraged them to start a gratitude journal. Most of the students expressed interest in what we are doing and seemed to not have heard of it before. Infographics are a powerful and widespread communication tool (Milovanovic & Ivanisevic, 2014) so it was an important and effective way to communicate with our target audiences. Therefore, we used this as a technique to try and implement behaviour change in students.

3. Social media

We used social media as a way to approach students via Facebook and Instagram, as research suggests that university students are known to be heavy users of social media (Lau, 2017). We shared our website on the Warwick University Freshers page (with 10k members) and Warwick subject group chats (e.g. Warwick Psychology with 151 members). Moreover, considering that 30% of people who use Instagram are between the ages of 18 and 24 (DataReportal, 2020), we reached out to students via Instagram by creating a poll. We asked students two questions (see below), one before seeing the infographic and one after. We found that of the 42 students who responded to the questions, 86% of the respondents said they would be more likely to start gratitude journaling after seeing the infographic, versus 40% who said yes before seeing the infographic.

 

Psychological and Persuasion Techniques used

We used the MINDSPACE model of persuasion (Dolan et al., 2012), with a particular focus on the Messenger and Salience aspects of this model, to inform our audience of the benefits of gratitude journaling. We also included relevant sections from additional models of behaviour change and persuasion.

The Messenger aspect of MINDSPACE indicates how people are influenced greatly by the characteristics of those who communicate the information with them (Dolan et al., 2012). As our target audience were students like ourselves, research suggests that this would make our message more convincing as similarity is reported to increase the credibility of a source and the likelihood of compliance with said source (Byrne, 1997). Additionally, research has found that young people between the ages of 18-25 are the most vulnerable to attitude change, which reinforces the importance of having students as our target audience (Hovland, Janis, & Kelley, 1953).

Furthermore, the infographic and the website represented the 2 different routes of processing from the Elaboration Likelihood Model of persuasion we used to influence our audience’s behaviour (Petty & Cacioppo, 1986). The website utilised the central route of processing as it expanded on the concept and benefits of gratitude journaling by providing a logical argument involving research with credible references as stronger arguments are associated with more positive responses (Cheung, Sia, & Kuan, 2012). It is important to appeal to the central route of processing as it is more likely to cause a change in behaviour and thus in this context lead people to start gratitude journaling (McNeil & Stoltenberg, 1989). 

The website included posts giving people instructions on how to begin gratitude journaling, emphasising how easy it is with all that is necessary is a pen and paper, as well as a post describing various successful celebrities who do it. These examples apply to the Behavioural Insight Team’s EAST framework, as we made it Easy through simplifying the message and reducing the effort needed to get started (Team, 2014). The inclusion of celebrities also made it Social by showing that other, well-respected people perform the behaviour (Team, 2014).

The infographic and the Instagram poll accessed the peripheral route of processing as they used superficial cues such as pictures and pretty colours to draw attention (Petty & Cacioppo, 1986), with a link to the website if people wanted to know more. The infographic then utilised the Salience aspect of MINDSPACE the most in this project which describes how our attention is drawn to novel items that are relevant to us (Dolan et al., 2012). The infographic uses very simple pictures, language and colours to draw attention, this was to apply the Attractiveness point from the EAST framework for behaviour change in that bright colours are more likely to attract attention (Team, 2014). Also, we handed out copies of the infographic to other students as well as placing the infographic in a variety of locations around campus. This included placing them outside lecture rooms, in the chaplaincy, above sinks, by water coolers, and in lifts, as marketing research shows that people are more likely to focus on items at eye level (Chandon, Hutchinson, Bradlow, & Young, 2009). At these areas specifically, people would be near the infographic and have the time to notice it and read it, especially if it is eye-catching (Woolston, 2016).

In our use of Salience, we attempted to maximise the exposure of our target audience to our project by using a range of informational channels to communicate. These included putting the infographic up around campus, posting links to the website in various social media groups, handing out the infographic in person, and the Instagram poll. Through this approach we hoped to take advantage of certain cognitive biases that involve repetition. The mere exposure effect shows that being consistently exposed to the same stimuli can reinforce pre-existing attitudes about that stimuli (Zajonc, 1968). Furthermore, repeated exposure to stimuli can lead to more positive interpretations of said stimuli, regardless of whether the audience recognise the stimuli as being the same or not (Weaver, Garcia, Schwarz, & Miller, 2007). According to the availability heuristic, the more someone is exposed to an item, the more likely that item will enter the mind of the students during relevant circumstances (Tversky & Kahneman, 1973). Therefore, through repetitive exposure of students to the concept of gratitude journaling and its benefits, they are more likely to think about it and more likely to have a positive opinion about it, and ultimately more likely to consider it when next feeling stressed or dissatisfied.

Future implications

Some people got in contact with us saying they were going to start gratitude journaling because of our intervention. As a follow up study next term, it would be interesting to get back in touch with people who we approached and see whether they started and have continued to gratitude journal and whether or not they have noticed any differences if they did start.

Furthermore, we could contact Warwick SU and discuss whether this technique could be implemented with the assistance of the Wellbeing Support Services to help improve student wellbeing and satisfaction.

References

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