Effectiveness of a Crowdsourced Cognitive Reappraisal Intervention

NCT ID: NCT02302248

Last Updated: 2014-11-26

Basic Information

• Recruitment Status: COMPLETED
• Clinical Phase: NA
• Total Enrollment: 270 participants
• Study Classification: INTERVENTIONAL
• Study Start Date: 2014-04-30
• Study Completion Date: 2014-07-31

Brief Summary

This study evaluates a web-based, crowdsourcing platform to promote cognitive reappraisal. Half of participants will be granted access to the crowdsourced reappraisal platform. The other half will be provided a web-based expressive writing platform. The investigators hypothesize that the crowdsourcing reappraisal platform will be more effective than the expressive writing platform in promoting positive psychological outcomes.

Detailed Description

There are many ways to manage stress and mood, including exercise, diet, and relaxation practices. Cognitive-based techniques are also extremely powerful. Simply changing how you think about stressful situations can dramatically affect the way you feel. Individuals who routinely use strategies like cognitive reappraisal exhibit an enviable affective profile: studies suggest these individuals generally have less stress, lower incidence of depression, and better social functioning than those who rely on less adaptive emotion regulatory techniques. Techniques like cognitive reappraisal are also integral to many evidence-based psychotherapeutic traditions, such as cognitive-behavioral therapy and rational-emotive therapy.

Unfortunately, cognitive techniques can be hard to learn. Thinking flexibly about stressful thoughts and situations requires creativity and poise, faculties that often elude us when we need them the most. In this study, the investigators evaluate a web-based technology that uses crowdsourcing and peer-to-peer interactions to help people learn cognitive-based techniques and apply them throughout their daily lives.

The goal of the proposed study is to see whether the investigators' technology is more engaging and more effective at reducing depression symptoms than a web-based expressive writing platform. While the investigators are most interested in how this intervention affects depression symptoms, the investigators will also assess other psychological variables and the investigators will open the study to the general population.

Participation in this study will last three weeks. Participants will be randomly assigned to receive either a crowdsourcing reappraisal platform or an expressive writing platform. All study procedures (subject recruitment, baseline and follow-up assessments, interventions) will be conducted online.

Conditions

Depression

Study Design

• Allocation Method: RANDOMIZED
• Intervention Model: PARALLEL
• Primary Study Purpose: BASIC_SCIENCE
• Blinding Strategy: SINGLE

Study Groups

Crowdsourced Reappraisal

Participants received the web-based crowdsourcing reappraisal intervention.

Group Type: EXPERIMENTAL

Crowdsourcing reappraisal intervention

Intervention Type: BEHAVIORAL

3 week access to a web-based crowdsourcing reappraisal platform.

Expressive Writing

Participants received the web-based expressive writing intervention.

Group Type: ACTIVE_COMPARATOR

Expressive writing intervention

Intervention Type: BEHAVIORAL

3 week access to a web-based expressive writing platform.

Interventions

Crowdsourcing reappraisal intervention

3 week access to a web-based crowdsourcing reappraisal platform.

Intervention Type: BEHAVIORAL

Expressive writing intervention

3 week access to a web-based expressive writing platform.

Intervention Type: BEHAVIORAL

Eligibility Criteria

Inclusion Criteria

• An email account, a desktop computer, and broadband Internet access
• Access to modern web browsers (e.g., Chrome, Safari, Firefox)
• Native English speaker
• 18 to 35 years old

Exclusion Criteria

• Planning to be without Internet access during the scheduled intervention time

• Minimum Eligible Age: 18 Years
• Maximum Eligible Age: 35 Years
• Eligible Sex: ALL
• Accepts Healthy Volunteers: Yes

Sponsors

Northwestern University

OTHER

Sponsor Role: collaborator

Columbia University

OTHER

Sponsor Role: collaborator

University of Florida

OTHER

Sponsor Role: collaborator

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

OTHER

Sponsor Role: lead

Responsible Party

Responsibility Role: SPONSOR

Principal Investigators

Rosalind W Picard, Sc.D

Role: PRINCIPAL_INVESTIGATOR

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

References

Morris RR, Schueller SM, Picard RW. Efficacy of a Web-based, crowdsourced peer-to-peer cognitive reappraisal platform for depression: randomized controlled trial. J Med Internet Res. 2015 Mar 30;17(3):e72. doi: 10.2196/jmir.4167.

Reference Type: DERIVED

PMID: 25835472 (View on PubMed)

Other Identifiers

1311006002

Identifier Type: -

Identifier Source: org_study_id