Recruiting

Self-Affirmation

Sponsor:

University of South Florida

Code:

NCT07356635

Conditions

Grief

Cardiovascular Health

Emotion

Eligibility Criteria

Sex: All

Age: 18+

Healthy Volunteers: Accepted

Interventions

Value-affirmation

Study Details

Brief summary:

Self-affirmation (SA) theory proposes that people are motivated to maintain a positive self-image of being worthy, stable, and capable. Self-affirmation (SA) manipulations have been shown to effectively increase self-worth as well as reduce cardiovascular reactivity while enhancing cardiovascular recovery in response to stress. While SA is discussed as a way to alleviate grief, its effect on cardiovascular reactivity (CVR) and recovery to grief recall has yet to be studied within laboratory settings. This study proposes an experimental design to examine how an in-lab manipulation promoting self-affirmation can improve patients' cardiovascular responses during and after a grief recall procedure. The investigators hypothesized that grief severity (a continuous variable) interacts with condition (a categorical variable with two levels, i.e., SA intervention vs. control) to predict CV reactivity and recovery as outcomes.

Primary Objective 1: To investigate effects of self-affirmation intervention on cardiovascular responses among grieving participants during and after grief recall.

Secondary Objective 1: To investigate the relationship of grief severity with psychological stress.

Conditions

Grief

Cardiovascular Health

Emotion

Study ID

NCT07356635

Start date

Oct 16, 2025

Status verified date

Jan, 2026

Completion date

Mar, 2027

Anticipated

Primary completion date

Dec, 2026

Anticipated

Eligibility Criteria

Eligibility Criteria

Sex: All

Age: 18+

Healthy Volunteers: Accepted

Inclusion Criteria:

  • Individuals aged 18 and older who have experienced the death of family member and/or friend within the last 2 to 18 months.
  • Participants must also be fluent in English as all procedures will be conducted in English.

Exclusion Criteria:

\- Individuals with a history of cardiovascular disease or disorders, those who report being pregnant, or are taking medication which may alter/affect cardiovascular and/or cognitive processes.

Study Design

Enrollment

140 participants

Anticipated

Allocation

Randomized

Intervention Model

Parallel Assignment

Primary purpose

Supportive Care

Interventions and Outcome Measures

Arms

experimental: Grief-reducing intervention

Participants will be randomly assigned to either a self-affirming task or a non-affirming neutral task prior to engaging in grief recall.

no intervention: Control group

Participants will be randomly assigned to either a self-affirming task or a non-affirming neutral task prior to engaging in grief recall. Participants in no-affirmation control group will be asked to rank their top 12 favorite jellybean flavors and write about the 3rd and 4th favorite flavor for 10 minutes. This control task has also been tested to propose same amount of workload without promoting participants' self-worth.

Interventions

Value-affirmation

Participants who are randomly assigned to the value-affirmation condition will be presented with 11 values and qualities to rank in order of importance from 1 to 11. Values presented including: being creative / artistic, government or politics, independence, learning and gaining knowledge, athletic ability, belonging to a group (such as your community, cultural group, or school club), music, career, spiritual or religious values, sense of humor.

Participants will then be asked to write about their top-ranked value/quality and how it makes them feel good about themselves for 10 minutes.

Primary outcome measure

  • Hypothesis 1: There will be a main effect of self-affirmation condition on CV reactivity and recovery to the grief recall task [ Time Frame: Two months after the last participant data collection. ]
  • Hypothesis 2: Grief severity (as measured by the PG-13 Questionnaire) will moderate the effect of the self-affirmation condition on cardiovascular reactivity and recovery. [ Time Frame: Two months after the last participant. ]
  • Hypothesis 3 (Exploratory): There will be a mediated moderation effect: the self-report measurement of self-worth mediates the change in cardiovascular reactivity, moderated by grief severity. [ Time Frame: Two months after the last participant data collection. ]
  • Hypothesis 4-1: Grief is related to psychological stress among young adult grieving participants: depression [ Time Frame: Two months after the last participant. ]
  • Hypothesis 4-2: Grief is related to psychological stress among young adult grieving participants: anxiety [ Time Frame: Two months after the last participant. ]
  • Hypothesis 4-3: Grief is related to psychological stress among young adult grieving participants: worries [ Time Frame: Two months after the last participant. ]
  • Hypothesis 4-4: Grief is related to psychological stress among young adult grieving participants: perceived stress [ Time Frame: Two months after the last participant. ]
  • Hypothesis 4-5: Grief is related to psychological stress among young adult grieving participants: sleep quality [ Time Frame: Two months after the last participant. ]
  • Hypothesis 4-6: Grief is related to psychological stress among young adult grieving participants: Post-traumatic Stress Disorder [ Time Frame: Two months after the last participant. ]
  • Hypothesis 5-1 (exploratory): Grief Severity is associated with meaning violation [ Time Frame: Two months after the last participant. ]
  • Hypothesis 5-2 (exploratory): Grief Severity is associated with perceived inclusion [ Time Frame: Two months after the last participant. ]
  • Hypothesis 5-3 (exploratory): Grief Severity is associated with complicated relationship [ Time Frame: Two months after the last participant. ]

Central Contacts and Locations

Central contacts

Kaiyuan Luo, BS, BA

412-708-9227kluo@usf.edu

Locations

University of South Florida, Psychology and Communication Sciences and Disorders Lab Building

Recruiting

Tampa, Florida, United States, 33620

Contacts

Kaiyuan Luo, BS, BA

412-708-9227kluo@usf.edu

More Information

Sponsor

University of South Florida

Last update posted

Jan 21, 2026

Last verified

Jan, 2026

Keywords

  • grief
  • cardiovascular reactivity
  • cardiovascular health
  • heart rate variability
  • psychophysiology
  • self-affirmation
  • value-affirmation
  • stress
  • mourning

Trial information was received from ClinicalTrials.gov and was last updated on 2026-09-10. This information was provided to ClinicalTrials.gov by University of South Florida on 2026-01-21.