An interventional study of Attentional focus on positive emotion via photography and Social Sharing in College Student Mental Health, Mindfulness and Positive Emotions, sponsored by Georgia State University. Completed. Open to participants aged 18 Years and older, including healthy volunteers. Per ClinicalTrials.gov, last updated 2026-01-02.
Sponsored by Georgia State University · Not applicable, Interventional, and Other
The goal of this clinical trial is to test whether photography-based, smartphone exercises can increase well-being and reduce depressive symptoms in college and graduate students. The main questions it aims to answer are:
Can savoring and/or social sharing of positive experiences via smartphone photography improve emotional well-being? Does attentional retraining toward positive stimuli reduce depressive symptoms?
Researchers compared:
Picture This! (21 days of taking daily photos of things that elicited a positive emotion, savoring the moment, and reviewing the photos at the end of each day) Picture This! Plus Social Sharing (21 days taking daily photos of things that elicited a positive emotion, savoring the moment, and reviewing the photos at the end of each day + sharing photos each week with a friend/family member) Document This! (21 days of taking "day in the life" photos each day and reviewing them each evening) Passive control group (21 days without instructions to take photos)
To see if the positive emotion-focused intervention conditions (Picture This! and Picture This! Plus Social Sharing) outperformed neutral (Document This!0 or no-photo conditions in improving psychological health.
Participants were:
Randomly assigned to one of four groups. Asked to complete baseline and follow-up questionnaires and computer tasks.
Three active conditions:
Take 2+ photos daily for 3 weeks. Upload photos to a secure drive. Complete nightly savoring exercises and surveys. (Social Sharing group only) Share photos weekly with a friend/family member.
All participants completed weekly surveys and a final lab visit with follow-up assessments.
The proposed intervention draws primarily from two paradigms, positive psychology interventions (PPI) and cognitive bias modification (CBI), and marries components of each into a technology-enhanced program designed to increase global well-being and decrease social isolation and depressive symptoms among college students. Although both intervention paradigms are in relatively early stages of investigation, they have garnered an impressive amount of empirical support indicating their success with regard to increasing psychological health. While they have grown out of very different traditions and theoretical cloths, both approaches also aim to uplift individuals who are languishing rather than flourishing and provide behavioral, cognitive, and attentional tools to increase the experience of positive emotion.
Although they come in various forms ranging from the intentional practice of positive thinking to writing letters of gratitude and increasing social interactions, all positive psychology interventions (PPIs) utilize practices, tools, and exercises to cultivate or increase the participant's sense of subjective well-being. They are, by definition, strengths-based and so do not necessarily intend to address deficits or heal pathology; rather, they are designed to optimize, to build, and to elevate. Recently, PPIs have been utilized with participants suffering from depression. While this application may at first blush seem at odds with the definition, a closer look provides clarity. Depression is characterized not only by high levels of negative affect but also low levels of positive affect. Research to date indicates that increased positive emotion in depressed individuals is beneficial with regard to "increased broad-minded coping,", resilience from negative emotions, and even in preventing relapse. Accordingly, such interventions are a natural fit for depression. A recent meta-analysis suggests that PPIs are superior to control or comparison groups in enhancing well being and in addressing depressive symptoms; however, PPIs may be relatively more successful for depressed participants and participants who self-select into the interventions.
Cognitive models of depression have long posited that individuals suffering from affective disorders (namely, Major Depressive Disorder) show information processing deficits that include increased attention to negatively-valenced cues. For example, when presented with both sad and neutral faces, subjects diagnosed with MDD selectively attended to the sad face, whereas control subjects divided attention between the sad and neutral faces. More recent work indicates that dysphoric individuals lack a protective bias toward positive stimuli and that they have difficulty disengaging from "mood-congruent (i.e., sad, negative)" stimuli. There is also some evidence that depressed individuals may be more likely to interpret ambiguous stimuli as threatening. Recently, researchers have tested cognitive bias modification interventions (CBI), which are designed explicitly to modify dysfunctional patterns of information processing including both attentional and interpretation biases. In their meta-analysis of 45 CBM studies, one research group found, overall, a medium effect size for the CBMs on cognitive biases and a small, but significant, effect on anxiety and depressive symptoms before the data was corrected for publication bias. Although the effects were no longer significant after correction for publication bias, the authors report a larger and more robust (while still insignificant) effect for CBMs when measured in the context of a stressor, giving credence to the diathesis-stress cognitive paradigm. They also noted that interpretational biases were impacted relatively more than attentional biases by the intervention manipulation, and anxiety symptoms relatively more than depressive symptoms.
Building upon these two disparate bodies of research, the current project aims aim to test a set of exercises using Smartphones with college and graduate students designed to retrain attention toward moments/events/people that elicit positive emotions, encourage the savoring of such moments, increase social connectedness, and in turn, decrease depressive symptoms. The aims will be achieved by recruiting college/university/graduate students who provide consent to participate in a randomized trial of the intervention and who will be randomly be assigned to 1 of 4 conditions.
All research participants in all 4 groups will be asked to complete a weekly online survey asking about whether they shared the pictures they took as a part of the study or as a part of their regular life (see Appendix F).
At the end of the intervention, all subjects will be provided a list of local mental health resources and will also be provided with the instructions for all 3 picture taking conditions (should they wish to implement any of the other exercises on their own time).
Georgia State University is the lead sponsor of 52 studies on the registry; 14 are open to participants now.
Counted across the registry records on this site, refreshed daily.
Exclusion Criteria:
1. Take 2 or more photographs each day for 21 days of something that elicits positive emotion 2. When taking the photograph, notice: 1) how your body feels physically, 2) what thoughts are going through your mind, 3) what emotions you are experiencing. 3. Save these photographs on your phone. Upload them to the study drive. 4. Each evening for 21 days, take 10 minutes to review the photographs you took during the course of the day. Review the photos you took as a part of the study. 5. Complete nightly savoring exercises online while reviewing photos taken during the day and answer questions about well-being 6. Complete weekly brief questionnaire about well-being 7. Complete pre and post assessments, prior to and at the end of the 21 days
Behavioral: Attentional focus on positive emotion via photography
1. Take 2 or more photographs each day for 21 days of something that elicits positive emotion 2. When taking the photograph, notice: 1) how your body feels physically, 2) what thoughts are going through your mind, 3) what emotions you are experiencing. 3. Save these photographs on your phone. Upload them to the study drive. 4. Each evening for 21 days, take 10 minutes to review the photographs you took during the course of the day. Review the photos you took as a part of the study. 5. Complete nightly savoring exercises online while reviewing photos taken during the day and answer questions about well-being 6. Share your photos with a friend/family member each week. Complete questionnaire about sharing experience and weekly brief questionnaire about well-being 7. Complete pre and post assessments, prior to and at the end of the 21 days
Behavioral: Attentional focus on positive emotion via photography · Behavioral: Social Sharing
1. Take 2 or more photographs each day for 21 days of your "day-in-the-life" 2. When taking the photograph, notice: 1) how your body feels physically, 2) what thoughts are going through your mind, 3) what emotions you are experiencing. 3. Save these photographs on your phone. Upload them to the study drive. 4. Each evening for 21 days, take 10 minutes to review the photographs you took during the course of the day. Review the photos you took as a part of the study. 5. Complete nightly savoring exercises online while reviewing photos taken during the day and answer questions about well-being 6. Complete weekly brief questionnaire about well-being 7. Complete pre and post assessments, prior to and at the end of the 21 days
Behavioral: Taking Photographs of daily life events and moments
1. Each evening for 21 days, answer questions about well-being 2. Complete weekly brief questionnaire about well-being 3. Complete pre and post assessments, prior to and at the end of the 21 days
The current project aims aim to test a set of exercises using Smartphones with college and graduate students designed to retrain attention toward moments/events/people that elicit positive emotions, encourage the savoring of such moments, increase social connectedness, and in turn, decrease depressive symptoms.
Also known as: savoring, mindfulness
For individuals in the social sharing condition, participants were instructed to share their photos for the study each week with a friend or family member of their choice. They were provided a script to help them with the social sharing, if needed.
The individuals in the Document This condition will take daily photographs of moments in their lives for 21 days. They are not directed to focus on taking photos that elicit positive affect as the individuals in PT and PTPSS are. They are asked to review their photos each evening and answer questions about them.
Mean level change from baseline to study completion in depressive symptoms for individuals in the PT and PTPSS intervention groups
Self-reported depressive symptoms measured using the Beck Depression Inventory-II total score at pre and post-intervention. Potential range is 0-63, with higher scores represented worse functioning/outcomes.
Time frame: from baseline to study completion (approximately 21-30 days)
Increase in mean levels of positive affect from baseline to study completion for individuals in the PT and PTPSS intervention groups
Positive affect was self-reported using the Modified Differential Emotion Scale (MDES). Potential range is 0 to 40, with higher scores reflecting higher levels of assessed emotions.
Time frame: from baseline to study completion (approximately 21-30 days)
Mean level Change in Savoring Beliefs from baseline to study completion for individuals in the PT and PTPSS intervention groups
Savoring beliefs were self-reported using the Savoring Beliefs Inventory (SBI) total score and subscales. Potential range is 24 to 168, with higher scores reflecting better outcomes/higher savoring beliefs.
Time frame: from baseline to study completion (approximately 21-30 days)
Mean level Increase in mindfulness from baseline to study completion for individuals in the PT and PTPSS intervention groups
Self reported mindfulness on the Carolina Empirically-Derived Mindfulness Inventory. Total score and subscale scores. Potential range 32-160 with higher scores reflecting higher levels of mindfulness / better outcomes.
Time frame: from baseline to study completion (approximately 21-30 days)
Mean level Increase in life satisfaction from baseline to study completion for individuals in the PT and PTPSS intervention groups
Self-reported life satisfaction using the Brief Satisfaction with Life Scale. Potential range 5-35, with higher scores reflecting higher satisfaction with life / better outcome.
Time frame: from baseline to study completion (approximately 21-30 days)
Mean level Increase in perceived social support for individuals in the PTPSS intervention group from baseline to study completion
Self report using the Medical Outcomes Study (MOS) Social Support Survey. Range is 1 to 5. Mean score calculated, with higher levels indicating more social support / better outcome.
Time frame: from baseline to study completion (approximately 21-30 days)
Mean level Increase in self-esteem for individuals in the PT and PTPSS intervention groups from baseline to study completion
self-reported self-esteem on the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale. Scores range from 0 to 30, with higher scores reflecting higher self-esteem / better outcomes
Time frame: from baseline to study completion (approximately 21-30 days)
Mean level Increase in gratitude from baseline to study completion for individuals in the PT and PTPSS intervention groups
Self-report of gratitude using the Gratitude Questionnaire (GQ-6). Scores range from 6 to 24, with higher scores reflecting higher levels of gratitude / better outcome.
Time frame: from baseline to study completion (approximately 21-30 days)
mean level Decrease in physical health symptoms from baseline to study completion
Self-reported response on the frequency of 9 physical health symptoms over the past month. Scores range from 7 to 63. Higher levels reflect more physical heath problems / worse outcome.
Time frame: from baseline to study completion (approximately 21-30 days)
Mean level Improvement in sleep from baseline to study completion for individuals in the PT and PTPSS intervention groups
self-report on sleep duration and quality using the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Inventory. Scores range from 0 to 21 with higher scores reflecting worse quality sleep / worse outcome
Time frame: from baseline to study completion (approximately 21-30 days)
Mean Level Changes in cognitive style for individuals in the PT and PTPSS intervention groups
Self report using the Cognitive Style Questionnaire (CSQ). Range of scores is 72 (most positive) to 360 (most negative), with higher scores reflecting a more negative cognitive style.
Time frame: from baseline to study completion (approximately 21-30 days)
Changes in Attentional Bias for individuals in the PT and PTPSS intervention groups
Attention bias is measured using a computerized dot probe task in which individuals view two emotion faces on a computer screen and then indicate using a key stroke where the cursor showed up after the emotion faces images were briefly displayed. A bias toward negative faces is determined when the amount of time it takes an individual to identify the cursor when it appears in place of the negative emotion face over collective trials is faster, on average over the course of the trials, than when the cursor replaces the happy emotion face.
Time frame: from baseline to study completion (approximately 21-30 days)
Change in interpretation bias in individuals in the PT and PTPSS intervention groups
Using the Ambiguous situation task, participants read short stories with unclear social situations, then rate multiple possible interpretations of the situation. The task measures interpretation bias by assessing whether an individual consistently chooses the more negative or positive interpretations across several scenarios.
Time frame: from baseline to study completion (approximately 21-30 days)
Photograph content
Participants in the PT and PTPSS will upload photos for the research team. The photos will be judged by independent raters on aspecs such as subject matter, positive nature of the photos, and for other trends.
Time frame: Photos will be taken starting on Day 1 and uploaded each day over the course of the 21 day intervention
No study locations are listed for this record.
Documents are hosted by the registry — open the source record to download them.
Plan to share: No — When the participants were consented, they were not asked whether their data could be shared outside of the individuals on the research team. Given that they did not give their consent to have data shared outside the research team, we have chosen not to do so.
This study is completed, as verified in Dec 2025. You cannot join it, but the record below documents what was studied.
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Georgia State University