Gratitude During the COVID-19 Pandemic in Germany : an Experimental Study Investigating the Effects of a Gratitude Letter Writing Intervention on Mental Well-Being and Gratitude

At the beginning of the year 2020, a new form of the coronavirus (COVID-19) was discovered, which quickly spread around the world. The COVID-19 pandemic seems to exert detrimental effects on the mental well-being of the population. To deal with these detrimental effects, this experimental study had the aim to examine the efficacy of writing a gratitude letter in the form of a love letter and writing a break-up letter to enhance mental well-being and trait gratitude during the COVID pandemic. Therefore, for this experimental study a 2 (Experimental condition: Love letter vs. Break-up letter) x 3 (Time: Baseline measurement (T0) vs. Post-measurement (T1) vs. two week follow-up measurement (T2)) mixed design was applied. Results of this experimental study revealed that writing a love letter and writing a break-up letter did not significantly enhance mental well-being and trait gratitude for participants over time. Besides that, writing a love letter did not significantly enhance mental well-being and trait gratitude more compared to writing a break-up letter. Based on these findings, this study indicated that a single gratitude letter writing effort seems to be not a sufficient mean to enhance mental well-being and trait gratitude during the COVID-19 pandemic.