Experiential Self‐Focus Writing as a Facilitator of Processing an Interpersonal Hurt

ObjectivesThis study examined the effects of experiential self‐focus writing on changes in psychological outcomes (i.e., unforgiveness and negative affect) after an interpersonal hurt and the buffering effects of experiential self‐focus writing on the association between anger rumination and these psychological outcomes.DesignA sample of 182 college students who had experienced interpersonal hurt were randomly assigned to either the experiential self‐focus writing condition, in which participants wrote about their feelings and experiences related to the hurt, or to a control writing condition in which they wrote about a recent neutral event.ResultsLatent growth curve analyses indicated that changes in unforgiveness over time did not differ between the experiential self‐focus writing and the control writing conditions. However, relative to the control writing condition, negative affect decreased faster during writing and increased more slowly at follow‐ups in the experiential self‐focus writing condition.ConclusionsThe results supported the hypothesis that negative affect resulting from an interpersonal hurt would significantly decrease over time among participants in the experiential self‐focus writing group compared with the control group. Implications of experiential self‐focus writing for interpersonal hurt and directions for future studies are discussed.