The Effects of Manipulating Expectations in a Gratitude Intervention
Public ClinicalTrials.gov record NCT03784001. Field values are reproduced from the official study page; the official ClinicalTrials.gov record remains the source of truth for eligibility, enrollment, and contact information.
Data is sourced from official ClinicalTrials.gov public API records. Always review the official ClinicalTrials.gov record for the latest information.
Official title
Cultivating Gratitude: Does Manipulating Expectations Improve the Efficacy of a Gratitude Intervention?
Brief summary
Reproduced verbatim from the official ClinicalTrials.gov record. Not medical advice.
Gratitude - an emotion felt when an individual receives something beneficial from other people or entities - has been shown to positively affect well-being. Beginning in 2003, "count your blessings" interventions - in which participants list items they are grateful for, and gratitude letter writing interventions were designed to cultivate gratitude. Gratitude interventions have many positive outcomes; they can increase well-being and life satisfaction (Froh, Sefick, \& Emmons, 2008) and increase self-esteem (Rash, Matsuba, \& Prkachin, 2011) to name a few. Knowing the benefits of gratitude prior to an intervention could affect participant behavior and health outcomes. Past studies have illustrated that sharing information about treatments changes expectations and improves outcomes (Zion \& Crum, 2018). For instance, overt medical treatments are more effective than hidden ones (Colloca, Lopiano, Lanotte, \& Benedetti, 2004). The proposed study is designed to evaluate whether expectations about intervention efficacy can enhance the benefits of a brief gratitude intervention. Specifically, the investigators will test if providing information on the benefits of gratitude will enhance intervention outcomes. This 3-armed randomized controlled trial will have the following conditions: gratitude + expectation, gratitude, and events control. Participants will be undergraduate college students and the online intervention will last two weeks. Participants in the two gratitude conditions will login to an online form three times a week for two weeks and make entries of up to five things they are grateful for. The form for participants in the gratitude + expectation condition will also provide information about benefits of gratitude. An everyday events control will be used to provide a neutral comparison condition. This group will be instructed to type up to five things or events of note from their day on their form. Outcome measures will be collected via an online survey before and immediately after the intervention. The primary outcome is well-being and the secondary outcomes are sleep quality and quantity, state gratitude, positive affect, healthcare self-efficacy, stress, and depressive symptoms. The investigators predict that participants in the gratitude + expectation condition will have enhanced intervention outcomes compared to participants in comparison conditions.
Study identification
- NCT ID
- NCT03784001
- Recruitment status
- Completed
- Study type
- Interventional
- Phase
- Not applicable
- Enrollment
- 125 participants
Conditions and interventions
Interventions
- Gratitude + No Expectations Intervention Behavioral
- Gratitude + Expectations Intervention Behavioral
- Events Control Intervention Behavioral
Behavioral
Eligibility (public fields only)
- Age range
- 18 Years and older
- Sex
- All
- Healthy volunteers
- Accepts healthy volunteers
This page does not interpret eligibility. Detailed inclusion and exclusion criteria are on the official ClinicalTrials.gov record.
Study timeline
- Start date
- Feb 4, 2019
- Primary completion
- Feb 27, 2019
- Completion
- Feb 27, 2019
- Last update posted
- Jun 8, 2020
2019
United States locations
- U.S. sites
- 1
- U.S. states
- 1
- U.S. cities
- 1
| Facility | City | State | ZIP | Site status |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| UCLA | Los Angeles | California | 90024 | — |
Site contact phone numbers, emails, and investigator names are intentionally not displayed here. Open the official ClinicalTrials.gov record for site contact information.
About this trial record page
- What this page shows
- Public field values for ClinicalTrials.gov record NCT03784001, including study identification, conditions, interventions, eligibility (age, sex, healthy volunteer), timeline, and U.S. site list.
- What this page does not do
- No medical advice, eligibility judgments, treatment recommendations, study quality scoring, or AI-generated medical summaries. No site contact phone numbers, emails, or investigator names.
- Where the data comes from
- Sourced from the official ClinicalTrials.gov public API. The official record is the source of truth.
- Last refresh
- Last update posted Jun 8, 2020 · Synced Sep 2, 2026
Related: full search, browse by condition, browse by drug or therapy, browse by sponsor, browse by U.S. city.
Open the official record
The complete protocol, eligibility criteria, and contact information for NCT03784001 live on ClinicalTrials.gov.