Writing about traumatic or stressful experiences has been shown to have
physical and mental health benefits. This book describes two studies
that were designed to test the hypothesis that programmed writing would
enhance the mood, health, and dance skill of students enrolled in dance
education classes. Study 1 included 40 participants with a mean age of
17.1 years who were enrolled in a community-based summer dance camp.
Study 2 included 100 participants with a mean age of 20.5 years who were
enrolled in university-based dance education classes. Both studies
utilized a pre/post design, and participants were randomly assigned to a
programmed writing group or a control writing group. The programmed
writing group was instructed to write about their thoughts and feelings
about dance, and the control writing group was instructed to write about
what they learned in class that day. Participants also completed
questionnaires about their mood, health, and perceived dance skill, and
were rated by independent observers on dance skill and attitude. A
series of multivariate analyses of variance (MANOVA) examined the
effects of programmed writing on mood, health and dance skill. The
results of Study 1 suggested that programmed writing had a positive
effect on mood, but failed to have a significant effect on health or
dance skill. The results for Study 2 suggested that programmed writing
did not have a significant effect on health, mood, or dance skill. These
studies appear to be an appropriate application of programmed writing in
an applied setting, and call into question the ability of programmed
writing to effectively cause positive changes in health, mood, and goal
attainment, as is typically reported in the literature. Ideas for future
research such as linguistic analysis of participants' journals and
further clarification of the role of stress and emotionality in dance
are discussed.
