The Trustees of Princeton University

The study aims to examine whether the investigators can predict, on the level of individual participants who have symptoms of depression, who will benefit more from self-help tools based on principles of behavioral activation vs. cognitive restructuring, in terms of a greater decrease of self-reported symptoms. The investigators use a combination of self-reported clinical information and behavior on learning and decision-making tasks to predict change in symptom scores.

Expressive writing involves writing about one's deepest thoughts and feelings surrounding an emotional event. The current literature on the efficacy of expressive writing is mixed and warrants further investigation into how, when, and for whom expressive writing is an effective intervention. The goal of this study is to compare the efficacy of expressive writing interventions in young adults when people imagine that they're writing to themselves vs. a loved one. Participants will carry out an expressive writing exercise for 14 consecutive days. Participants are randomized into 3 groups: Self, Other, and Control. The Self group is instructed to write as if they were talking to themselves. The Other group is instructed to direct their writing to someone they feel close to. The Control group is asked to write down a factual description of their routine that day, and direct this writing to themselves. We will recruit participants until we have usable data from 53 participants per group (i.e., 159 in total).