Evidence map›Paper›PMID 41005158›Full record

ArticleActa psychologica2025

Effects of an app-based brief gratitude practice on positive and negative daily affect during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Shengjie Lin, Shuting Shen, Zorana Ivcevic, David R Cheng, Ryan Probasco, Ben Silbermann, Feng Zhang, Xihong Lin, Marc Brackett

Abstract read
PubMed Full text at PMC Publisher
In one paragraph

Article in Acta psychologica, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Not yet cited in PubMed.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
0citing papers in PubMed
–field-weighted citation impact
1 · What the graph read from it

What it found

Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.

The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.

2 · The registry

The trial behind it

Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.

Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.

3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

0 citing papers in PubMed.

No citing paper in PubMed yet.

4 · The record

Corrections and comments

PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

9 authors.

Shengjie LinYale Center for Emotional Intelligence, Yale University, CT, USA; Department of Individual, Family, and Community Education, The University of New Mexico, NM, USA. Electronic address: shengjielin@unm.edu.
Shuting ShenDepartment of Biostatistics, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, Boston, MA, USA; Department of Statistics and Data Science, National University of Singapore, Singapore.
Zorana IvcevicYale Center for Emotional Intelligence, Yale University, CT, USA. Electronic address: zorana.ivcevic@yale.edu.
David R ChengThe How We Feel Project, USA.
Ryan ProbascoThe How We Feel Project, USA.
Ben SilbermannThe How We Feel Project, USA.
Feng ZhangThe How We Feel Project, USA; Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, Cambridge, MA, USA; Department of Biological Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, USA; McGovern Institute for Brain Research, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, USA; Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, USA; Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Chevy Chase, MD, USA.
Xihong LinDepartment of Biostatistics, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, Boston, MA, USA; The How We Feel Project, USA; Department of Statistics, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA. Electronic address: xlin@hsph.harvard.edu.
Marc BrackettYale Center for Emotional Intelligence, Yale University, CT, USA.

Funding

Translational Research Support CoreP30ES000002 · NIEHS · HARVARD UNIVERSITY (SCH OF PUBLIC HLTH) · PI JAIME ELIZABETH HART · 1985 to 2026
$44.6M
NIEHS NIH HHS P30 ES000002
6 · The paper itself

Abstract

Gratitude practices have been suggested to be helpful in decreasing negative and increasing positive affect. Using large-scale data from a smartphone app (How We Feel) in the United States across three waves of the COVID-19 pandemic before spring 2021 (Wave 1: 61,267 users; 677,246 observations; Wave 2: 16,037 users; 267,938 observations; Wave 3: 9128 users; 265,575 observations), the current study examined associations between a brief gratitude practice and individuals' daily discrete positive and negative affect from Days 1 to 6 after the practice. The results showed that writing down one thing a person feels grateful for was associated with decreased stress, anxiety, tiredness, and loneliness, and most of these effects were sustained one to six days post-practice. However, the brief practice resulted in counterintuitive findings in relation to positive affect; individuals reported feeling less happy, hopeful, and optimistic after writing about what they were grateful for at the beginning of the pandemic. The discussion focuses on the effectiveness of brief, low-cost digital gratitude practices on individuals' affect.

Indexed as

AffectCOVID-19Mobile ApplicationsAdultAnxietyFemaleHumansLonelinessMaleMiddle AgedUnited StatesYoung AdultCOVID-19 pandemicDigital healthGratitude practiceNegative affectPositive affectSmartphone-app

Identifiers

PMID41005158
PMCPMC13242960

What OpenQuestion holds

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Registered trials

None linked

Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.