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Tackling rumination by self-affirmation essay in Hong Kong young adulthood
Author(s)
Date Issued
2017
Publisher
Hong Kong : Hong Kong Shue Yan University
Description
Hong Kong Shue Yan University. Dept. of Counselling and Psychology.
Thesis (M.Soc.Sc.) -- Hong Kong Shue Yan University, 2017.
Includes bibliographical references (p. 42-50).
x, 70 p.
Type
Thesis
Programme
Master of Social Sciences in Counselling Psychology
Abstract
Rumination was targeted in current study to be tackled as it was well studied in its negative influence in reducing psychological health and relating to depression and anxiety. In Hong Kong collectivistic society, societal expectation and competitive environment expose individuals to difficult life with failure experiences. A big discrepancy from goal was perceived leading to rumination brooding while goal was hard to abandon to due to collectivistic culture. Self-affirmation writing was explored under current study to in its effect in reducing rumination was a way out to achieve stable and healthy growth of individuals. Self-affirmation was found to be useful in reducing rumination due to suggested reclaiming
of self-worth. Current study sought evidence on active self-help form of self-affirmation in specific. A mixed method was used to investigate both rumination cessation effect and exploration of self-affirmation useful elements. 60 participants were recruited and went through a 7-day experimental period which each of them completed rumination measures on their failure experience on the start and the end of experiment. Three short writing were completed on 1st , 3rd, 5th day according to their assigned intervention conditions including control. As previous research found backfire could appear when the salience of failures were triggered during self-affirmation, two groups of different aspect self-affirmation (DASA) and same aspect self-affirmation (SASA) were set to capture corresponding impact on rumination cessation. DASA writing group wrote self-affirmation essay on aspect different than their
ruminated failure aspect while SASA writing group wrote on same aspect of their failure. Results indicated that self-affirmation writing in general can help in rumination cessation. When one generates statements on self-narratives, own mission and insight, rumination reduced significantly. Different aspect self-affirmation (DASA) writing was found to be more effectively generate the above stated crucial elements while same aspect self-affirmation (SASA) writing was found to be more effective in bringing rumination cessation. It might be due to higher specificity of SASA writing in countering the ruminated failure experience, as also evident in significantly higher reappraisal though control after
SASA writing intervention. Implications and limitations of results were discussed.
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