Preface: I participated in a six-week happiness intervention experiment. During this six weeks, I self-reported my happiness levels on a range from 1-10 (1 being the lowest and 10 being the highest) three times a day. The first three weeks were to measure a control and the last three weeks I began journaling every night to see if my mood would increase. It did, but very minimally.
Journaling the Day Away
I have always wanted to journal. I have bought myself numerous journals over the years, promising to fill the pages with memories, but again and again these journals are left empty sitting under my bed. Then, the day came in writing class when it became mandatory I keep a journal in which I reflect on my days. Finally came my time to fill a journal! Well, at least three weeks’ worth of one.
I think I always wanted to journal for future use. I don’t have the best memory so I felt keeping a journal would help when to look back on the good times. In this project, I found journaling to be more of a present, in the moment experience than I previously thought. Instead of being a piece of writing that I will read and share with my kids, it had a more short term impact. I wrote in my journal right before bed every night which allowed me to think through my whole day, good and bad.
This actual act did not make me happy. In fact, the data showed that my average mood only increased .04 points from Weeks 1-3 to Week 4-6. Definitely not a big enough change to conclude that journaling has a significant positive impact on mood. What journaling did for me create self-awareness. During the day, during the time I was journaling, I found myself thinking about how I felt at random times of the day. Whether I was walking in the rain, watching Netflix, eating dinner with friends, or in class I was thinking about how the situation was affecting my mood. When I would think about this, I didn’t want to feel unhappy so I would try to do things that would make myself happier, like focus more on the positive in the situation. In my opinion these little self-reflective changes can have a huge impact on mood and I think if done longer, a larger change in mood could be found.
So, maybe the journal entries I wrote won’t be passed down from generation to generation to share stories, but they did give me a platform to be more aware of my feelings and why they were occurring. This is something I think anyone could benefit from. You don’t have to go do a five week long experiment, but based on my personal experience, picking up a pen and a pad of paper is definitely an eye opening, intrapersonal experience.
Tips for future Journaling Researchers
Based on the missteps that occurred during my journaling interventions, here are some suggestions for future studies similar to that of the Journaling Experiment:
- Start Early: The more data (journal entries and happiness scores) you have the better. Perhaps make the experiment even longer so you can gather more data.
- Self-Reported Numbers can be tricky: I suggest giving the participant or yourself a personality quiz before starting that will give better gauge on happiness set points.
- When combining data with others, do this efficiently. Create a single Google Doc or Google Spreadsheet that can be shared and added too. Too many different formats of reported results makes it hard to analyze.
- Keep the journal next to your bed if you journal at night, this will help you remember to write in it and not get behind.
- Get a larger sample size. A small sample size works, but more people will help you to prove your point further
- Take into account outside factors impacting the participant’s mood. Combining the qualitative and quantitative can get to be a lot, but there is a lot that goes on in people’s life that could skew results.
- Caution: journaling is not for everyone. It is a very introspective action that not everyone feels comfortable. I happen to feel that that self-reflection is very important to improving all aspects of life, but not everyone feels the same. Skeptics and introverts alike though should try it and see how it makes them feel!
An Eye for Details
With the use of quantitative data, this experiment became a bit number heavy. With all of these numbers, it became important to analyze what these numbers mean. So, here is a look closer at one of the findings from the 8 of us who participated in journaling. I evaluated the overall averages for all participants by week and created a visual display. The shape of this graph was very interesting. In a perfect world, the graph would show a steady or slightly decreasing line through week 3 and then an upturn at week 4 following the start of the experiment. Instead, the graph shows to have an unstable shape, with random increasing and decreasing (see Average Mood Across Weeks). It is hard to say exactly what caused this, but it is safe to say this experiment did not take place in a perfect world. Clearly, there are other factors contributing to the experiment. This graph can give us the baseline evidence that journaling does help to increase mood, but knowing what we do based on analysis of the shape of the graph, we cannot conclude with certainty that this average increase was due just thanks to journaling. Exams happen, family visiting happens, a sunny day happens, it all just depends and this is something that needs to be realized. Graphs can help us figure this out visually.
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