Campus Life Study: Harnessing Generativity Among Young Adults
Public ClinicalTrials.gov record NCT04207528. 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
The Effects of Prosocial Writing on Psychological Well-being: A Randomized Controlled Trial Among Young Adults
Brief summary
Reproduced verbatim from the official ClinicalTrials.gov record. Not medical advice.
Recent research suggests that short, online interventions can enhance well-being, which is beneficial to both physical and mental health outcomes. Further, growing evidence suggests that prosocial behavior-a behavior that can be reliably manipulated through a short online intervention-may have beneficial effects on well-being and physical health. Giving support to others appears to be just as beneficial as receiving support, and asking people to perform kind acts for others over the course of several weeks, for example, has been shown to both increase well-being and reduce the inflammatory potential of immune cells. The purpose of the current study is to test a novel 3-week, online prosocial writing-based intervention in a sample of young adults. Previous intervention studies have manipulated prosocial behavior by asking participants to perform tangible acts of kindness for others, such as writing a note to a coworker or helping a neighbor. However, providing this type of direct support can be logistically challenging and may contribute to increased feelings of distress in certain contexts. Writing interventions designed to elicit feelings of generativity offer one alternative approach, though they have yet to be tested among young adults. Participants (n = 200) will be randomized to one of two conditions--peer helping or a facts-only control--and instructed to write about their experiences in their first-year at UCLA (freshman or first-year after transfer). Those in the peer helping will be asked to write for the benefit of a student who is about to begin their first year, whereas those in the facts-only control will not. In total, participants will complete 4 writing assignments, each on a separate day over the course of one week. Valid self-report measures will be assessed at pre-intervention, each writing session, post-intervention, and at the 2-week follow-up. The investigators expect participants in the peer helping condition to experience a greater increase in well-being (primary outcome) across the intervention and the follow-up when compared to the control condition. Secondary outcomes will include depressive symptoms, anxiety, loneliness, physical symptoms, social support, and generativity. As an exploratory aim, will also assess several moderators (i.e., psychological distress, prosocial tendencies, generativity) and mediators (i.e., fulfillment of psychological needs, positive affect) of the intervention effects.
Study identification
- NCT ID
- NCT04207528
- Recruitment status
- Completed
- Study type
- Interventional
- Phase
- Not applicable
- Enrollment
- 165 participants
Conditions and interventions
Conditions
Eligibility (public fields only)
- Age range
- 18 Years and older
- Sex
- All
- Healthy volunteers
- Healthy volunteers not accepted
This page does not interpret eligibility. Detailed inclusion and exclusion criteria are on the official ClinicalTrials.gov record.
Study timeline
- Start date
- Jan 5, 2020
- Primary completion
- Feb 9, 2020
- Completion
- Feb 9, 2020
- Last update posted
- Feb 11, 2020
2020
United States locations
- U.S. sites
- 1
- U.S. states
- 1
- U.S. cities
- 1
| Facility | City | State | ZIP | Site status |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| University of California, Los Angeles | Los Angeles | California | 90095 | — |
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 NCT04207528, 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 Feb 11, 2020 · Synced Sep 11, 2026
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Open the official record
The complete protocol, eligibility criteria, and contact information for NCT04207528 live on ClinicalTrials.gov.