Can virtues enhance the benefits of expressive writing among healthy Chinese? A pilot study

This study aims to explore the relationship between virtues and self-disclosure via a cross-sectional study and an intervention study among Chinese.

In study one, 144 healthy individuals completed the Chinese Virtues Questionnaire (CVQ) and the short version of Jourard Self-Disclosure Questionnaire. In study two, 41 undergraduates voluntarily attended a nine-week intervention. Satisfaction with Life Scale (SWLS) was adopted as the well-being indicator. They were asked to complete the vitality sub-scale of CVQ and SWLS at week one for obtaining the virtue scores and baseline scores of well-being. After an eight-week intervention, SWLS was completed again to examine the intervention efficacy.

Among the three virtues, only vitality had the significant and positive relation with self-disclosure. After eight weeks, the high-vitality group obtained the significant growth of satisfaction with life. The change degree of satisfaction among high vitality individuals was significantly higher than the low vitality group.

Prescreening of individual vitality may be helpful for identifying the sensitive targets of expressive writing intervention. However, considering that this is a preliminary study, more rigorous randomized controlled trials will be helpful to test this conclusion in future.