Expression Versus Distraction

Abstract

While the benefit of distraction over expression as an emotion regulation strategy has been shown, it is not clear whether this benefit generalizes across a range of activities. To find out, we compared distraction versus expression in drawing, writing, talking, and thinking to oneself. We induced a negative mood in 160 participants by asking them to visualize an upsetting experience. Participants were randomly assigned to an emotion regulation strategy (express or distract) and an activity (draw, write, talk, or think). Positive and negative affect was measured before and after the mood induction and after the activity. Distraction boosted positive affect more than did expression for the draw and think activities, but distraction lowered negative affect more than did expression for all four activities. We conclude that distraction is a more effective emotion regulation strategy than expression in improving mood especially for activities that involve drawing and thinking.

Keywords

emotion regulation express distract draw write

We use a wide range of strategies to help us to manage our emotions (Larson, 2000; Webb, Miles, & Sheeran, 2012). It is these strategies that allow us to smile when we lose an award to a friend, focus on work in a highly stressful environment, and continue on after enduring an upsetting life event. Berk (2013) defines emotional self-regulation as “the strategies we use to adjust our emotional state to a comfortable level of intensity so we can accomplish our goals” (p. 409). Gross and Thompson (2007) emphasize two attention deployment emotion regulation strategies that can affect which aspects of a situation people direct their attention toward and hence influence their resulting emotions about that situation: distraction (diverting attention away from negative emotions) and expression (focusing attention onto the negative emotions of a situation). These two strategies are used everyday as people struggle to express their feelings to those surrounding them (self-expression) or by diverting their attention elsewhere (self-distraction). The effectiveness of distraction versus expression through the activities of drawing, writing, talking, and thinking has been investigated in several different studies. The goal of this study was to directly compare the four activities and determine which emotion regulation strategy is the most effective for each activity. We also sought to determine whether the most effective emotion regulation strategy would differ depending on the activity or whether the emotion regulation strategy would be beneficial across all activities. Thus, the current study goes beyond comparing drawing and writing by also examining two common activities that are used in everyday life—talking and thinking.

Distraction and expression are strategies that can be used in a wide variety of mediums. Drawing, writing, talking, and thinking are activities through which we can either reflect on our emotions or distract ourselves from them. In this study, we have chosen to focus on how distraction and expression can affect mood when engaged in these four activities. A number of studies examining the visual arts have found that making a work of art improves mood, at least after a single session of drawing, by taking the person away from negative thoughts and serving as a form of distraction (Dalebroux, Goldstein, & Winner, 2008; Drake, Coleman, & Winner, 2011; Drake & Winner, 2012, 2013). De Petrillo and Winner (2005) investigated whether drawing a picture improves short-term mood after a negative mood induction more effectively than simply copying shapes. Mood improved the most when participants drew rather than copied. Dalebroux et al. (2008) went on to directly compare the effects of distraction versus expression when drawing. They found that mood improved more when participants drew something positive and hence redirected themselves away from their negative feelings compared with when participants used drawing as a way to express their negative emotions. The benefits of drawing a positive image also occur when no mood induction is involved. Work by Curl and Folks (2008) demonstrated that drawing a positive life event versus negative life event leads to a reduction in stress. Taken together, these results not only suggest that positive distraction is an effective strategy to use when regulating emotions, but that distraction through the creative activity of drawing can help to increase overall mood at least in the short term.

The mediums of writing and drawing were compared in Drake et al.’s (2011) study. Drawing was more effective than writing in improving mood, and mood improved the most when both activities were used as a form of distraction rather than expression. Drake and Winner (2012) tested whether drawing a neutral image improved mood or whether the benefits of drawing are exclusive to drawing a positive image (as in Dalebroux et al., 2008). After a negative mood induction where participants were asked to watch a sad film, participants were randomly assigned to draw to distract (where they were instructed to draw the neutral depiction of a house) or draw to express (where they were encouraged to draw while reflecting on the negative events of the mood induction). While both draw to distract and draw to express increase positive affect, only the draw to distract condition decreased negative affect. This indicates that diverting attention away from negative feelings is an effective strategy in regulating emotions at least in reducing negative affect. Drake and Winner (2012) then investigated the effects of time passage by assigning participants to draw to distract or express or a control condition where participants were instructed to sit for 10 min. They also made the mood induction more personal and potentially more powerful by asking participants to focus on the saddest event that they had ever experienced. The sit condition was included to control for the passage of time. The results indicated that those in the distract condition improved positive and negative affect more than both the express and sit conditions. This suggests that drawing negative representations in an effort to express one’s feelings does not improve mood as much as drawing something neutral, and this is not due to the passage of time.

Two studies have directly compared the benefits of creating a positive versus neural image resulting in mixed results. A study by Diliberto-Macaluso and Stubblefield (2015) found no difference in mood improvement between painting a positive or neutral image after an anger induction: Both activities improved mood and did so more than painting as a way to express negative feelings. Work by Smolarski, Leone, and Robbins (2015) found after a stressful mood induction that expressing positive emotions through drawing resulted in greater mood improvement than tracing and coloring. However, tracing and coloring did not involve any creativity, and this may explain the discrepancy in results between this study and the work by Diliberto-Macaluso and Stubblefield. It is possible that diverting oneself from a negative mood is sufficient to improve mood even if one is not focusing on something positive, but this needs further testing.

Distraction and expression have also been studied in the medium of writing in the work of James Pennebaker and his colleagues (Pennebaker, 1993; Pennebaker & Beall, 1986; Pennebaker, Mayne, & Francis, 1997). Pennebaker and Beall (1986) examined how writing about an upsetting event over a period of 4 days can influence negative mood, physiological symptoms, and health. Pennebaker and Beall found that participants who wrote about both the facts and emotions felt about an upsetting situation (compared with writing about trivial topics) had the least number of visits to a health center for the 6 months following the experiment but also had the highest blood pressure and higher negative mood 6 months following the experiment. Pennebaker et al. (1997) investigated the effects of expression through the creative activity of writing. They reanalyzed the results of six studies that had previously demonstrated that expression of upsetting events through writing had both physical and mental health benefits (Pennebaker, Colder, & Sharp, 1990; Pennebaker & Francis, 1996; Pennebaker, Kiecolt-Glaser, & Glaser, 1988; Petrie, Booth, Pennebaker, Davison, & Thomas, 1995; Richards, Pennebaker, & Beall, 1995; Spera, Buhrfeind, & Pennebaker, 1994) in order to determine which aspects of writing led to these positive outcomes. In each of these studies, participants wrote about a variety of emotional topics (e.g., trauma, being laid off, attending college) over several days (Pennebaker et al., 1997). Pennebaker et al. found that putting their experiences into a cohesive narrative through the use of insightful and causal thinking words led to positive outcomes such as good grades, employment, and physical health.

Other researchers have found that expressive writing can improve mood after a single session when the content of the writing is positive (Hemenover, Augustine, Shulman, Tran, & Barlett, 2008). In this study, writing about a positive life experience after a negative mood induction (participants were asked to watch a clip about a child serial killer) resulted in the greatest mood improvement. However, not all positive writing resulted in mood improvement: Participants who were asked to write about the positive consequences of the film clip (a form of reappraisal) did not reap the same mood benefits as those who were asked to write about a personally positive experience. Other researchers have found benefits of reappraisal (focusing on positive aspects of an event) after watching a sad film clip (Sheppes & Meiran, 2007). It is possible that the results of the Hemenover et al.’s study are due to the emotionally charged nature of the film clip and the difficulty of finding positive aspects of a clip about a child serial killer.

The activities of writing versus drawing were compared by Pizarro in her 2004 study. Participants were asked to either write or draw about a stressful or upsetting event for 1 h in each of the two sessions. The control group for this study was asked to draw a photograph of a still-life for the same amount of time. Writing improved overall health more than drawing in the long term (after 1 month). However, drawing improved affect more than writing in the short term (which was measured immediately after the activity). Thus, engaging in a drawing activity was more effective in the short term for improving mood than is engaging in a writing activity (Pizarro, 2004).

Talking out loud is another activity, like writing, that allows us to construct our emotional experiences from an abstract feeling into a narrative that we can better examine (Lyubomirsky, Sousa, & Dickerhoof, 2006). Lyubomirsky compared the activities of talking, writing, and thinking through expression in order to determine which of these activities had the most beneficial outcomes. Participants engaged in these activities on three consecutive days for 15 min each day. Talking and writing led to increased life satisfaction, while thinking led to reduced physical and mental health as well as social functioning. However, talking, thinking, and writing had no significant effect on positive or negative affect. These results support the work by Pennebaker and colleagues suggesting that putting these experiences into words helps us to frame and understand our experiences, leading to positive outcomes (Pennebaker et al., 1997). They also suggest that expression through talking, writing, and thinking does not lead to an overall mood improvement. Recent research on self-disclosure has found that talking about one’s own thoughts and beliefs can be an intrinsically pleasurable experience, even if one is not talking about a very emotionally engaging subject (Tamir & Mitchell, 2012).

Silent thinking to oneself is another activity that can allow for distraction through fantasizing and daydreams or private exploration of emotional experiences. Privately thinking and letting one’s mind to wander can have positive consequences, such as helping to plan for the future, generating creative ideas, attending to multiple ideas, and allowing for valuable breaks during ongoing tasks (Schooler et al., 2011). However, there is evidence that thinking about upsetting events and their associated emotions may lead to self-focused rumination about negative emotions, hence “prolonging dysphoric mood, enhancing negatively biased and pessimistic thoughts and memories, and interfering with problem solving, motivation, and concentration” (Lyubomirsky et al., 2006, p. 693).

The aim of the study reported here was to compare the effectiveness of distraction and expression across four kinds of activities: drawing, writing, talking, and thinking of oneself. Two hypotheses were tested. First, drawing, writing, talking, and thinking using the emotion regulation strategy of distraction should be more effective at elevating short-term mood than performing the same activities using the strategy of expression. While several studies indicate that the expression of emotion can lead to positive outcomes such as better mental and physical health after several days (Lyubomirsky et al., 2006; Pennebaker & Beall, 1986; Pizarro, 2004), they also indicate that expression of emotions can lead to a more negative mood (Pennebaker & Beall, 1986). Additionally, other researchers have indicated that distraction is the most effective emotion regulation strategy for short-term mood improvement (Dalebroux et al., 2008; Drake et al., 2011; Drake & Winner, 2012, 2013). Although no studies have yet examined how distraction affects short-term mood through the activities of talking and thinking, it is reasonable to assume that that the strategy of distraction can also be applied to these actions with similar results.

Second, drawing when used either to distract or express was expected to improve mood more than writing, talking, or thinking when used to distract and express. Previous findings have suggested that drawing to distract is an effective strategy for increasing short-term mood (Dalebroux et al., 2008; De Petrillo & Winner, 2005; Drake & Winner, 2012, 2013) and that distraction through drawing can improve mood significantly more than distraction through writing (Drake et al., 2011). Drawing may be a more effective means of distraction because of its aesthetically engaging properties (e.g., color, line, composition, etc.). However, the influence of talking and thinking to distract on short-term mood has not yet been examined. Drawing to express has also been found to be more effective in improving short-term mood than writing to express (Pizarro, 2004). The purpose of this study was to determine whether there are differences in the effectiveness of distraction versus expression when employing these strategies through drawing, writing, talking, and thinking. We hypothesized that drawing would be the most effective strategy to improve mood when used both to distract and express. No predictions were made about the relative effectiveness of writing, talking, and thinking.

Methods

Participants

Participants were 160 undergraduate students (121 women, 39 men) between the ages of 18 and 22 (M = 18.9, SD = 0.9). The sample was 64.4% Caucasian, 15% Asian, 10% Hispanic or Latino, 6.3% Black or African American, 2.5% Other, and 1.9% biracial. Participants received research credit as part of a course requirement. Participants were told that the study was about emotion regulation strategies.

Measures

Positive and Negative Affect Scale

Participants were asked to indicate their current affect state by completing the Positive and Negative Affect Schedule (PANAS; Watson, Clark, & Tellegen, 1988). The PANAS lists 20 words (10 positive and 10 negative) that describe different feelings and emotions (i.e., happy, distressed, and excited). Participants were asked to rate how much they experienced each emotion on a 5-point scale from not at all to extremely. The PANAS scale measures positive affect and negative affect as two independent variables (Watson et al., 1988). An overall positive affect and negative affect score was calculated by adding the ratings for the 10 positive words and the ratings for the 10 negative words, respectively. Participants completed the PANAS before (Time 1) and after the mood induction (Time 2) and after drawing (Time 3). Cronbach’s α for this measure was as follows: positive affect Time 1 α = .85, positive affect Time 2 α = .84, positive affect Time 3 α = .89, negative affect Time 1 α = .83, negative affect Time 2 α = .84, and negative affect Time 3 α = .88.

Mood induction

To induce a sad mood, we asked participants to think of the saddest event that they had ever experienced. Participants recorded the event on a sheet of paper and were then guided through a 3-min visual imagery task (Rusting & Nolen-Hoeksema, 1998). The visual imagery task asked them to focus on the sight, sounds, thoughts, and feeling evoked by the event they had recalled.

Activity

Participants were randomly assigned to an emotion regulation strategy (distract or express) and activity (draw, write, talk, or think). There was no difference in gender distribution across strategy (χ²= .034, p = .854) or activity (χ²= .644, p = .886). In the distract emotion regulation strategy, participants were instructed to draw, write, talk, or think about their plans for their day. Participants were instructed as follows: “In as much detail as possible, draw (draw, write, talk, or think) about your plans for the rest of the day from when you finish this study to when you go to bed tonight” (Burton & King, 2004, p. 155).

In the express emotion regulation strategy, participants were instructed to draw, write, talk, or think about their deepest thoughts and feelings related to the event. Participants were instructed as follows:

I would like you to (draw, write, talk, or think) about your deepest thoughts and feelings regarding the significant life experience you wrote about previously. I’d like you to really let go and explore your deepest emotions and thoughts. You might tie your topic to your relationships with others including parents, significant others, friends, or relatives, to your past, your present, or your future, or to who you have been, who you would like to be, or who you are now. Don’t worry about using complete sentences or being logical. Just talk about whatever comes to mind about this experience. (Lyubomirsky et al., 2006, pp. 696–697)

The sentence about using complete sentences was omitted for the drawing activity. Participants were given a tape recorder in the talking activity, pen and lined paper in the writing activity, and colored pencils and paper in the drawing activity. All participants engaged in their assigned activity for 10 min. Thus, time was held constant across emotion regulation strategy and activity. Participants were blind to the other conditions and were instructed to simply engage in their assigned activity.

We analyzed the content of the talking and writing samples to ensure that participants were adhering to the prompts and were producing similar levels of output with regard to emotion regulation strategy. All of the audio files were transcribed and were checked by a second experimenter for quality. One experimenter (blind to the assigned condition and study hypotheses) read the talking transcripts and writing samples and categorized each with respect to emotion regulation strategy (distract or express). The same experimenter counted the number of words produced and categorized the number of positive and negative emotion words produced. Interrater reliability was performed on 25% of the samples (five per group), r = .882 for the positive emotion words and r = .995 for the negative emotion words.

Procedure

Participants first completed the PANAS (Time 1). They were then asked to think of the saddest event they had ever experienced and completed the PANAS a second time (Time 2). Participants were then randomly assigned to an emotion regulation strategy (distract or express) and activity (draw, write, talk, or think). After carrying out the activity in their assigned condition, they were asked to complete the PANAS a final time (Time 3). Finally, participants were debriefed on the purpose of the study.

Results

Change in Affect From the Mood Induction

Positive affect

Table 1 presents the means and standard deviations for positive affect by emotion regulation strategy and activity. To determine the effectiveness of the mood induction in decreasing positive affect, we performed a mixed design analysis of variance (ANOVA) with emotion regulation strategy (2) and activity (4) as the between-subjects factor and time (Time 1 [before the mood induction] and Time 2 [after the mood induction]) as the repeated measure. There was an effect of time, F(1, 152) = 193.344, p < .001,

n_{p}^{2}

= .560: Positive affect decreased from before to after the mood induction. There was no effect of emotion regulation strategy, F(1, 152) = 0.201, p = .655,

n_{p}^{2}

= .001; activity, F(3, 152) = 0.075, p = .973,

n_{p}^{2}

= .001; no interaction between time and emotion regulation strategy, F(1, 152) = 0.636, p = .426,

n_{p}^{2}

= .004; emotion regulation strategy and activity, F(3, 152) = 1.120, p = .343,

n_{p}^{2}

= .022; and time, emotion regulation strategy, and activity, F(3, 152) = 0.567, p = .638,

n_{p}^{2}

= .011.

Table 1.

Means and Standard Deviations for Positive Affect By Emotion Regulation Strategy and Activity at Time 1, Time 2, and Time 3.

Condition	Time 1		Time 2		Time 3
Condition	M	SD	M	SD	M	SD
Distract
Draw	26.7	5.0	20.6	6.2	24.1	6.1
Write	24.2	6.1	19.3	6.6	22.7	7.7
Talk	26.0	7.2	21.9	6.5	23.0	7.0
Think	28.1	6.5	19.7	7.2	26.2	7.8
Express
Draw	27.2	6.7	20.9	6.4	22.8	7.2
Write	27.6	7.2	22.2	6.8	24.9	8.8
Talk	24.1	6.1	21.1	6.9	21.1	8.1
Think	26.4	6.0	20.1	5.0	19.7	5.4

There was an interaction between time and activity, F(3, 152) = 4.078, p = .008, $n_{p}^{2}$ = .074. To understand the interaction, we conducted a paired sample t test separately for each activity on positive affect before and after the mood induction. We used a Bonferroni-adjusted significance level of .0125 (α level of .05 divided by four comparisons). The mood induction decreased positive affect for all activities (all ps < .001) with the greatest decrease in positive affect occurring in the thinking activity (M = 7.3). Since the post hoc tests did not demonstrate any significant differences in the effectiveness of the mood induction by activity, we did not control for positive affect in subsequent analyses.

Negative affect

Table 2 presents the means and standard deviations for negative affect by emotion regulation strategy and activity. To determine the effectiveness of the mood induction in increasing negative affect, we performed a mixed design ANOVA with emotion regulation strategy (2) and activity (4) as the between-subjects factor and time (Time 1 [before the mood induction] and Time 2 [after the mood induction]) as the repeated measure. There was an effect of time, F(1, 152) = 156.623, p < .001,

n_{p}^{2}

= .507: Negative affect increased from before to after the mood induction. There was no effect of emotion regulation strategy, F(1, 152) = 0.005, p = .943,

n_{p}^{2}

= .0; activity, F(3, 152) = 1.149, p = .331,

n_{p}^{2}

= .022; no interaction between time and emotion regulation strategy, F(1, 152) = 0.374, p = .542,

n_{p}^{2}

= .002; time and activity, F(3, 152) = 0.515, p = .673,

n_{p}^{2}

= .010; emotion regulation strategy and activity, F(3, 152) = 0.912, p = .437,

n_{p}^{2}

= .018; and time, emotion regulation strategy, and activity, F(3, 152) = 1.745, p = .160,

n_{p}^{2}

= .033.

Table 2.

Means and Standard Deviations for Negative Affect By Emotion Regulation Strategy and Activity at Time 1, Time 2, and Time 3.

Condition	Time 1		Time 2		Time 3
Condition	M	SD	M	SD	M	SD
Distract
Draw	13.1	5.9	17.7	4.1	12.3	3.7
Write	15.6	5.5	20.4	7.0	15.5	5.6
Talk	13.3	4.4	17.8	6.9	13.6	5.3
Think	14.2	3.7	20.0	6.1	14.6	4.9
Express
Draw	14.2	4.6	18.9	6.1	15.7	5.2
Write	12.8	3.2	18.9	7.0	18.9	8.8
Talk	13.5	4.2	18.2	6.1	17.4	5.8
Think	16.7	5.3	19.2	6.1	17.7	6.6

The results were unchanged when gender was entered as a covariate. Thus, we did not include gender as a variable in subsequent analyses.

Mood Improvement After the Activity

Positive affect

We performed a mixed design ANOVA with emotion regulation strategy (2) and activity (4) as the between-subjects factor and time (Time 2 [after the mood induction]) and Time 3 [after the activity]) as the repeated measure on positive affect. There was an effect of time, F(1, 152) = 27.384, p < .001, $n_{p}^{2}$ = .153: Positive affect increased from before to after the activity. There was no effect of emotion regulation strategy, F(1, 152) = 0.324, p = .570, $n_{p}^{2}$ = .002; activity, F(3, 152) = 0.138, p = .937, $n_{p}^{2}$ = .003; no interaction of emotion regulation strategy and activity, F(3, 152) = 1.372, p = .253, $n_{p}^{2}$ = .026; and no interaction between time and activity, F(3, 152) = 1.854, p = .140, $n_{p}^{2}$ = .035.

There was an interaction between time and emotion regulation strategy, F(1, 152) = 8.597, p = .004, $n_{p}^{2}$ = .054. To understand the interaction, we conducted a paired sample t test separately for each emotion regulation strategy on positive affect before and after drawing. We used a Bonferroni-adjusted significance level of .025 (α level of .05 divided by two comparisons). Positive affect increased for the distract, t(79) = 4.968, p < .001, d = .55, but not for the express emotion regulation strategy, t(79) = 1.887, p = .063, d = .21.

Finally, there was a three-way interaction of time, emotion regulation strategy, and activity, F(3, 152) = 2.616, p = .053, $n_{p}^{2}$ = .049. To understand the interaction, we conducted a paired sample t test separately for the distract emotion regulation strategy (since it was significant in the two-way interaction) by activity on positive affect before and after drawing. We used a Bonferroni-adjusted significance level of .0125 (α level of .05 divided by four comparisons). Positive affect did not increase for the talk or write activities. However, both the distract draw, t(19) = 2.871, p < .010, d = .63, and distract think conditions, t(19) = 4.460, p < .001, d = .97, resulted in increased positive affect from before to after drawing. Figure 1 presents the positive affect change score (positive affect before the activity was subtracted from positive affect after the activity) by condition and emotion regulation strategy.

Negative affect

We performed a mixed design ANOVA with emotion regulation strategy (2) and activity (4) as the between-subjects factor and time (Time 2 [after the mood induction]) and Time 3 [after the activity]) as the repeated measure on negative affect. There was an effect of time, F(1, 152) = 81.820, p < .001, $n_{p}^{2}$ = .350: Negative affect decreased from before to after the activity. There was an interaction between time and emotion regulation strategy, F(1, 152) = 26.170, p < .001, $n_{p}^{2}$ = .147. To understand the interaction, we conducted a paired sample t test separately for each emotion regulation strategy on negative affect before and after drawing. Again, we used a Bonferroni-adjusted significance level of .025. Negative affect decreased for both the distract, t(79) = − 10.623, p < .001, d = −1.18, and express strategies, t(79) = −2.624, p = .010, d = −.29, with the effect size larger for the distract emotion regulation strategy.

There was no effect of emotion regulation strategy, F(1, 152) = 3.358 p = .069, $n_{p}^{2}$ = .022; activity, F(3, 152) = 1.349, p = .261, $n_{p}^{2}$ = .026; no interaction of emotion regulation strategy and activity, F(3, 152) = 0.134, p = .940, $n_{p}^{2}$ = .003; and no interaction between time and activity, F(3, 152) = 1.575, p = .198, $n_{p}^{2}$ = .030; and no three-way interaction between time, emotion regulation strategy, and activity, F(3, 152) = 0.683, p = .564, $n_{p}^{2}$ = .013.

Content of the Talking and Writing Samples

Participants in both the talking and writing activities followed the prompts with regard to emotion regulation strategy. A univariate ANOVA performed on word count by activity (2) and emotion regulation strategy (2) revealed that participants produced more words in the talking than writing activity, M = 1,177.3, SD = 33.9 versus M = 274.6, SD = 33.9; F(1, 76) = 355.027, p < .001, $n_{p}^{2}$ = .824. There was no effect of emotion regulation strategy, F(1, 76) = 0.244, p = .623, $n_{p}^{2}$ = .003, and no interaction between activity and emotion regulation strategy, F(1, 76) = 1.546, p = .218, $n_{p}^{2}$ = .020.

We also examined whether the percentage of positive and negative emotion words differed by activity (talking or writing) and emotion regulation strategy. We performed a multivariate ANOVA with activity and emotion regulation strategy as the between-subjects factors and percentage of positive words and percentage of negative words as the dependent variables. For the percentage of positive emotion words, there was an effect of activity, F(1, 76) = 5.524 p = .021, $n_{p}^{2}$ = .068, and emotion regulation strategy, F(1, 76) = 8.063, p = .006, $n_{p}^{2}$ = .093. More importantly, there was an interaction between activity and emotion regulation strategy, F(1, 76) = 13.069, p = .001, $n_{p}^{2}$ = .147: Those in the write express activity had a higher percentage of positive emotion words than the write distract, talk distract, and talk express activities.

For the percentage of negative emotion words, there was an effect of activity, F(1, 76) = 5.608 p = .020, $n_{p}^{2}$ = .069, and emotion regulation strategy, F(1, 76) = 40.298, p < .001, $n_{p}^{2}$ = .347. More importantly, there was an interaction between activity and emotion regulation strategy, F(1, 76) = 4.340, p = .041, $n_{p}^{2}$ = .054: Those in the write express activity had a higher percentage of negative emotion words than the write distract, talk distract, and talk express activities.

While the content analysis revealed that the write express activity had a higher percentage of positive and negative emotion words, this did not play a role in mood improvement. There was no difference in mood improvement between the express and talk activities. However, we did find that the distract emotion regulations strategy resulted in a decrease in negative affect (there was no difference in mood improvement between the write, talk, think, and draw activities when used as a form of distraction). Still, the percentage of positive and negative emotion words was very small across the talk and write activities. Thus, the content of the samples does not play a role in the results because neither activity improved mood and the percentage of positive and negative words was very low.

Discussion

We hypothesized that after a sad mood induction, distraction (across all four activities) would increase positive affect and decrease negative affect more than expression (across all four activities). Drawing, talking, writing, or thinking about a neutral experience should allow participants to shift their attention away from the sad event and thereby improve their mood. We found support for this hypothesis: Drawing, talking, thinking, and writing in the distract emotion regulation strategy increased positive affect and decreased negative affect more than performing the same activities in the express condition. Thus, diverting attention away from the emotions associated with the sad event through the activity of drawing, talking, thinking, and writing is a better strategy for improving mood than focusing on and expressing those negative emotions through the same activities. This effect was driven by the drawing and thinking conditions: When these activities were used to distract, positive affect significantly increased. This same effect was not observed for writing to distract or talking to distract.

These results are consistent with previous research showing that distraction through drawing is more effective in improving mood than expression through drawing (Dalebroux et al., 2008; Drake et al., 2011; Drake & Winner, 2012, 2013). Drake and Winner’s (2012) results showed that drawing a neutral depiction leads to greater mood elevation (both increase in positive affect and decrease in negative affect) after thinking about a sad event. While we showed a benefit of distraction (over expression), further analysis showed that only distraction by drawing or thinking led to significant increases in positive affect.

A second hypothesis of this study was that drawing would more effectively improve mood (both for the distraction and expression conditions) than the other activities. Drawing is an inherently pleasurable activity that has been shown to improve mood when compared with nondrawing activities and writing (Dalebroux et al., 2008; De Petrillo & Winner, 2005; Drake et al., 2011; Drake & Winner, 2012). However, the results of this study only partially supported this hypothesis: The benefits of drawing were specific to drawing from distraction. We found that both drawing to distract and thinking to distract resulted in an increase in positive affect.

How can these findings be explained? One explanation has to do with instructions. The instructions for the draw to express condition in this study were very lengthy and advised participants to draw, think, talk, or write about several different aspects of the upsetting situation they chose to visualize. Participants were directed to focus on their feelings; thoughts; relationships with family and friends; the ways in which the situation relates to their past, present, and future; and the ways in which the situation may have affected them as a person (Lyubomirsky et al., 2006). Such detailed instructions in the draw to express condition may have allowed participants to work through their thoughts and emotions regarding the sad event. The opportunity to fully examine many aspects of the sad event through drawing may have led participants to indicate an increase in positive and decrease in negative affect. This could explain why there was such a small difference in positive and negative affect between the drawing to distract and drawing to express conditions. Previous work has asked participants to draw a specific object (e.g., building). It is possible that participants found it difficult to draw their plans for the rest of the day.

With regard to the content of the talking and writing samples, we found that participants adhered to the instructions of their respective emotion regulation strategies. Not surprisingly, we found that those in the talking activity generated more output (words) than the writing activity. The percentage of positive and negative words did differ by emotion regulation strategy and activity. Those in the express write activity generated a higher percentage of both positive and negative emotion words. However, the percentage of positive and negative words across all four activities was quite low with a mean of 1% of the total for the positive words and 2% of the total for negative words. Still, future researchers should continue to analyze the content of the samples to determine whether the content plays a role in participants’ emotion regulation abilities.

Participants in the distraction emotion regulation strategy were asked to draw, think, talk, or write about their plans for the rest of the day, as their plans were assumed to be neutral and unrelated to either negative or positive emotions. However, it is possible that their plans could have elicited a wide range of emotions depending on how hectic or carefree the rest of their day looked, who they were planning to see, and what they were going to do. For example, the participants, all of whom were college students, may have contemplated the enormous amount of work they needed to accomplish, eliciting negative feelings of anxiety. Another possibility is that taking time to plan out your day can lead to feelings of productivity or future planning. In the thinking activity, this could have resulted in daydreaming, and this may have prompted participants to imagine activities that promote positive emotions. A limitation of the current study is that we did not ask participants to report on what they were thinking about during the activity. Future research should ask participants after the study about any possible emotions they may have experienced while planning out their day. By asking this, researchers can ensure that the activities chosen as a neutral distraction are not directly associated with any positive or negative emotions. Additionally, the experimenter was not blind to the participants’ assigned condition. Whereas it is possible that this may have introduced observer bias, the experimenter was an experienced researcher with extensive experience administering this research paradigm. Nevertheless, future research should consider having the experimenter blind to the assigned condition by presenting the participant with a sealed envelope containing the condition instructions (as in Smolarski et al.’s, 2015, study).

Individual differences in emotion regulation strategies may have also played a role in the findings. Future research should expand on this work by examining individuals’ preferred emotion regulation strategies and their ability to monitor and label their emotions. We know that an individual’s expectancy about the success of an emotion regulation strategy (and perhaps even activity) influences how they monitor and label their emotions. And, the ability to effectively monitor and label emotions results in greater mood improvement (Hemenover et al., 2008). Thus, it is important for future research to examine not only individual’s emotion regulation abilities but also their expectancies of the effectiveness of different emotion regulation strategies and activities.

It is also possible that certain individuals may benefit more from different activities. While previous research has found that preferred activities (drawing vs. writing) do not impact mood improvement (Drake & Hodge, 2015), we do know that drawing and writing are very different mediums. Drawing invites distraction with the emphasis on color, line, and shape, whereas writing invites expression with the emphasis on the semantic content of our words. The benefits of drawing and writing and even the use of distraction and expression may depend on our preferred emotion regulation strategies and our command of the medium.

Future research should explore the possible interaction of type of activity with other emotion regulation strategies such as positive cognitive reappraisal, which involves finding the positive aspects of a negative situation. While previous research has indicated that cognitive reappraisal through writing does not lead to an improvement in mood (Hemenover et al., 2008), other studies have found that thinking while employing the strategy of cognitive reappraisal does increase positive and decrease negative affect (Rood, Roelofs, Bögels, & Arntz, 2012; Sheppes & Meiran, 2007). It would be advantageous to investigate whether using drawing and talking to cognitively reappraise a situation could influence mood improvement.

Learning how to regulate our emotions is a developmental process that helps us to manage how we feel in order to appropriately guide our behaviors. Distraction and expression are the two attention deployment emotion regulation strategies that are frequently employed (Webb et al., 2012) and can be used through various forms of creative media to influence mood. Our results are limited to a single session of drawing in a nonclinical sample of undergraduate students. And, while distraction may be an effective emotion regulation strategy when initially experiencing a traumatic and upsetting event (as in the case of dialectical behavior therapy; Linehan, 1993), it may not be an effective long-term coping strategy. Distraction may allow an individual to tolerate and manage a stressful situation, but it does not allow them to develop skills to accept and manage their emotions. In this case, distraction may be beneficial in the short term by allowing an individual to manage the traumatic experience and expression may be more beneficial in the long term as an individual learns to confront and deal with the experience. Taken together, these results demonstrate that a variety of activities—drawing, writing, talking, or thinking—when used as a form of distraction can improve short-term mood. Diverting attention away from adverse feelings leads to a significant overall improvement especially when thinking or drawing about something distracting at least in the short term.

Footnotes

Acknowledgments

We thank Elen Zanotti and Isabella Poloes for their assistance with coding the transcripts and writing samples.

Authors’ Note

This study was conducted at Boston College while Ciara James was a MA student.

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The authors received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Author Biographies

Ciara James is a PhD student in Clinical Psychology at the University of Rhode Island, USA.

Jennifer E. Drake is an assistant professor in the Psychology Department at Brooklyn College, City University of New York, USA.

Ellen Winner is a professor and Chair in the Psychology Department at Boston College, USA.

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