Adolescent Acts of Kindness Intervention With Reflection

Adolescents will complete a 4-week intervention, during which they will either complete a kind act for others, complete a kind act for others with a reflection component, or report their daily activities three days per week. Psychological measures will be indexed before and after the intervention.

Study Overview

• Status: Recruiting
• Conditions: Mental Health Wellness 1
• Intervention / Treatment: Behavioral: Other-Focused Acts of Kindness Intervention with Reflection; Behavioral: Other-Focused Acts of Kindness Intervention; Behavioral: Daily Reports

Detailed Description

There is growing policy and scientific interest in promoting the positive benefits of kindness and prosociality. This is particularly true for adolescents, whose psychological and social maturation offers fertile ground in which kindness can be seeded early in life with potentially positive effects on their psychological health. Much of the existing efforts have focused on large-scale community engagement and service-learning programs. Investigating less costly and time-intensive alternatives is necessary to broaden engagement and access. This project aims to implement one such effort with an enhanced acts of kindness intervention for adolescents. The enhancement incorporates existing evidence that requiring adolescents to reflect upon and savor their experience of helping others promotes the positive impact of such interventions. 120 high-school-aged youth will be recruited and assigned to one of three groups (40/group). Participants will either conduct a kind act for others, complete a kind act for others with a reflection component (enhanced condition), or report their daily activities three days per week for 4 weeks. During this intervention, they will receive text messages 3 days per week instructing them to complete their respective act. Participants will provide a brief description of this act that evening, as well as complete brief surveys at the end of the week for each week of the intervention. Participants will also complete a pre- and post-intervention questionnaire and participants' parents will complete a brief survey at the start of the study to provide demographic information and an idea of what prosocial behaviors participants witnessed in their home. The investigators will use these data to assess the effects of prosocial behavior on psychological health. Conceptual frameworks from developmental psychology guide the hypothesis that prosocial behavior will influence adolescents.

• Study Type: Interventional
• Enrollment (Estimated): 120
• Phase: Not Applicable

Contacts and Locations

• Study Contact: Name: Xochitl A Smola, MA; Phone Number: 310-794-5104; Email: xsmola16@ucla.edu

Study Locations

• United States
  • California
    • Los Angeles, California, United States, 90066
      • Recruiting
      • Adolescent Development Lab
      • Contact: Andrew J Fuligni, PhD; Phone Number: 310-794-6033; Email: afuligni@ucla.edu

Participation Criteria

Eligibility Criteria

• Ages Eligible for Study: 14 years to 17 years (Child)
• Accepts Healthy Volunteers: Yes

Description

Inclusion Criteria:

• Between the ages of 14-17

Exclusion Criteria:

• None

Study Plan

How is the study designed?

Design Details

• Primary Purpose: Basic Science
• Allocation: Randomized
• Interventional Model: Parallel Assignment
• Masking: Single

Number of Arms

3

Arms and Interventions

Participant Group / Arm	Intervention / Treatment
Experimental: Kindness to Others with Reflection; Participants will complete the 'Other-Focused Acts of Kindness Intervention' by performing acts of kindness for others and will also complete a reflection component. They will be asked to complete 3 kind acts for others throughout the week for 4 weeks. They will receive text messages three days per week (either Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday or Wednesday, Friday, and Sunday) and will report on their kind act later that day. At the end of each intervention week, they will be asked to reflect upon their experience of performing kind acts for others.	Behavioral: Other-Focused Acts of Kindness Intervention with Reflection; Participants engage in positive behaviors by completing acts of kindness for others three times per week. These acts should require effort and be outside of an individual's normal routine. Participants will then reflect on their kind acts after each week.
Active Comparator: Kindness to Others; Participants will complete the 'Other-Focused Acts of Kindness Intervention' by performing acts of kindness for others. They will be asked to complete 3 kind acts for others throughout the week for 4 weeks. They will receive text messages three days per week (either Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday or Wednesday, Friday, and Sunday) and will report on their kind act later that day.	Behavioral: Other-Focused Acts of Kindness Intervention; Participants engage in positive behaviors by completing acts of kindness for others three times per week. These acts should require effort and be outside of an individual's normal routine.
Sham Comparator: Daily Report; Participants will complete the 'Daily Reports' and be asked to report their daily activities throughout the week for 4 weeks. They will receive text messages three days per week (either Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday or Wednesday, Friday, and Sunday) and will list activities from their day.	Behavioral: Daily Reports; Participants will report their daily activities three times per week. Aside from reporting at the end of the day, no changes should be made to the individual's normal routine.

What is the study measuring?

Primary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure	Measure Description	Time Frame
Average Positive Affect	Average Positive Affect as assessed by the positive affect subscale of the Affect Adjective Checklist. An average is taken across four items, and scores range from 1 to 5 with higher scores indicating more positive affect over the week.	Weekly over 5 weeks

Secondary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure	Measure Description	Time Frame
Average Psychological Flourishing	Change in average psychological flourishing from baseline to one week following the intervention as assessed by Mental Health Continuum-Short Form at week 5. An average is taken across 20 items, and scores range from 1 to 6, with higher values representing greater psychological flourishing.	Baseline and one-week post intervention (elapsed time of 5 weeks)
Average Negative Affect	Average negative affect as assessed by the negative affect subscale of the Affect Adjective Checklist. An average is taken across five items, and scores range from 1 to 5 with higher scores indicating more negative affect over the week.	Weekly over 5 weeks

Other Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure	Measure Description	Time Frame
Average Stress	Average stress as assessed by the Perceived Stress Scale. An average is taken across 10 items, and scores range from 1 to 5 with higher scores indicating greater stress.	Weekly over 5 weeks
Sleep Quality	Sleep quality as assessed by the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI). The assessment has 7 components, each scored from 0 to 3. A sum is taken across these components, such that total scores range from 0 to 21 with higher scores indicating poorer sleep.	Weekly over 5 weeks
Average Social Connection	Average social connection as assessed by the relatedness subscale of the Balanced Measure of Psychological Needs. An average is taken across 6 items, and scores range from 1 to 5 with higher scores indicating greater social connection.	Weekly over 5 weeks

Collaborators and Investigators

• Sponsor: University of California, Los Angeles
• Investigators: Principal Investigator: Andrew J Fuligni, PhD, University of California, Los Angeles

Study record dates

Study Major Dates

• Study Start (Actual): August 24, 2023
• Primary Completion (Estimated): June 1, 2024
• Study Completion (Estimated): July 1, 2024

Study Registration Dates

• First Submitted: February 23, 2022
• First Submitted That Met QC Criteria: February 23, 2022
• First Posted (Actual): March 4, 2022

Study Record Updates

• Last Update Posted (Estimated): December 6, 2023
• Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria: November 29, 2023
• Last Verified: November 1, 2023

More Information

Terms related to this study

• Keywords: adolescence; psychological well-being; social connection; kindness
• Other Study ID Numbers: IRB#21-002091

Drug and device information, study documents

• Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated drug product: No
• Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated device product: No