コロナ禍において,手紙を使って未来の自分と対話することで,ネガティブ感情が弱まることを明らかにしました。
Negative emotions were weakened by using letters to communicate with the future self in the COVID-19 pandemic.
在COVID-19大流行中,通过使用字母与未来的自己沟通,负面情绪被削弱。
Semasa pecahnya COVID-19 di COVID-19, watak-watak yang digunakan pada masa lalu digunakan pada masa akan datang.
Abstract
Novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) is spreading across the world, threatening not only physical health but also psychological well-being. We reasoned that a broadened temporal perspective may attenuate current mental distress and tested a letter-writing manipulation designed to connect people to their post-COVID-19 future selves. We conducted an online experiment with 738 Japanese participants recruited from two common survey platforms. They were randomly assigned to either send a letter to their future self (letter-to-future), send a letter to present self from the perspective of future self (letter-from-future), or a control condition. Participants in both letter-writing conditions showed immediate decrease in negative affect and increase in positive affect relative to the control condition. These effects were mediated by temporal distancing from the current situation. These findings suggest that taking a broader temporal perspective can be achieved by letter-writing with a future self and may offer an effective means of regulating negative affect in a stressful present time such as the COVID-19 pandemic.