The Impact of Dyad Exercises on Well-being and Connection in Young Adults

Mental Health Wellness 1 Clinical Trial

Official title:

Effectiveness and Physiological Mechanisms of Contemplative Dyad Meditation to Increase Social Connection in Young Adults in the Aftermath of the Pandemic

Clinical Trial Details — Status: Completed

Administrative data

• NCT number: NCT05490979
• Other study ID #: #10085952
• Status: Completed
• Phase: N/A
• Start date: September 6, 2022
• Est. completion date: October 3, 2023

Study information

• Verified date: October 2023
• Source: University of Pennsylvania
• Contact: n/a
• Is FDA regulated: No
• Study type: Interventional

Clinical Trial Summary

Many people are experiencing low well-being and loneliness, particularly due to the COVID-19 pandemic. As the world is opening back up, it is crucial to determine methods to help people grow closer again and boost subjective well-being. One promising method is contemplative dyad meditation, which has hardly been studied. This is a method in which two people have a structured dialogue with each other while contemplating a prompt, as they alternate between listening and speaking. It is related to but different from other methods that have previously been shown to increase connection, such as the "fast friends" exercise. In "fast friends", two people answer a series of increasingly personal questions in a dialogue.

Here, 180 participants between 18-35 years will be randomly allocated to three conditions (stratified by gender): (a) contemplative dyad meditation training, (b) "fast friends", or (c) no-intervention. Participants in the dyad meditation group will receive professional meditation training followed by 2 weeks of regular meditation practice. Participants in the "fast friends" group will meet regularly during 2 weeks to practice "fast friends" exercises. The impact of the interventions on well-being, loneliness, mindfulness, and related measures will be investigated. After the interventions have finished, participants' physiology (heart rate) and brain waves (using electroencephalography [EEG]) during the respective exercises will also be measured to explore potential biological mechanisms. Of particular interest are heart rate variability (HRV, often linked with higher well-being), frontal alpha asymmetry in the EEG (linked with positive affect and approach), and biological synchrony in these variables between the two interacting individuals.

Both dyad meditations and "fast friends" exercises are predicted to improve closeness, thriving, loneliness, affect, depression, anxiety, and social interaction anxiety compared to no-intervention. Moreover, dyad meditation is predicted to have stronger effects than "fast friends" in terms of increasing mindfulness, self-compassion, and empathy. Dyad meditation and fast friends will show differential physiological signatures (e.g., lower heart rate and higher averaged alpha power for meditation).

This study may reveal effective methods to improve well-being and connection and provide insights into their biological mechanisms.

Recruitment information / eligibility

• Status: Completed
• Enrollment: 120
• Est. completion date: October 3, 2023
• Est. primary completion date: June 22, 2023
• Accepts healthy volunteers: Accepts Healthy Volunteers
• Gender: All
• Age group: 18 Years to 35 Years

Eligibility

Inclusion Criteria:

• Current student, staff, or employee at the University of Pennsylvania (for safety reasons)

Exclusion Criteria:

• none

Related Conditions & MeSH terms

• Loneliness
• Mental Health Wellness 1

Intervention

Behavioral:
• Contemplative dyad meditation
Participants take part in a 3-hour group meditation training led by a professional meditation teacher. They receive detailed instructions and also practice contemplative dyad meditation for at least 30 minutes with another participant. During the 2 weeks following the training, participants meet in supervised group settings to practice the meditation method with alternating partners for up to 6 times.
• Fast friends
During 2 weeks, participants meet in supervised group settings to practice the 'fast friends' exercise with alternating partners for up to 6 times.

Locations

Country	Name	City	State
United States	University of Pennsylvania	Philadelphia	Pennsylvania

Sponsors (1)

Lead Sponsor	Collaborator
University of Pennsylvania

Country where clinical trial is conducted

United States, 

Outcome

Type	Measure	Description	Time frame	Safety issue
Other	Heart rate	measured using electrocardiogram, by Bitalino	3 weeks
Other	Heart rate variability	measured using electrocardiogram, by Bitalino, calculated as Root Mean Square of Successive Differences (RMSSD)	3 weeks
Other	Respiration	measured using respiration belts by Bitalino	3 weeks
Other	EEG	measured using Emotiv-EEG	3 weeks
Primary	Brief Inventory of Thriving	The Brief Inventory of Thriving (Su, Tay, & Diener, 2014) is a questionnaire consisting of 10 items, measuring psychological well-being. Scores range from 1 to 5 with a higher score indicating more thriving (i.e., higher well-being).	3 weeks
Primary	Loneliness Scores on the Comprehensive Inventory of Thriving	The Loneliness sub-scale from the Comprehensive Inventory of Thriving (Su, Tay, & Diener, 2014) consists of 3 items. Scores range from 1 to 5 with a higher score indicating higher loneliness.	3 weeks
Primary	Mindfulness Score on the Five Facet Mindfulness Questionnaire	The Five Facet Mindfulness Questionnaire (Baer et al., 2006) consists of 39 items. Scores for mindfulness range between 1 and 5 with a higher score indicating more mindfulness.	3 weeks
Primary	Inclusion of Other in the Self Scale	The Inclusion of Other in the Self Scale (Aron, Aron, & Smollan, 1992) consists of 7 response options measuring closeness to another person (here: the meditation or exercise partner). The response options each show two circles labeled as" "Self" and "Other", which vary in terms of overlap, from barely touching (1, i.e., not close at all) to almost completely overlapping (7, i.e., extremely close).	Directly after each individual meditation or "fast friends" exercise
Secondary	Positive Affect Scores on the Negative And Positive Affect Scale	The 10-item version of the Negative And Positive Affect Scale by Joshanloo (2017) contains 5 items measuring positive affect. Scores for positive affect from these 5 items range from 5 to 25 with 25 indicating higher positive affect. The scale is used here with the following adaptation: it asks about the previous 14 days rather than 30 days.	3 weeks
Secondary	Negative Affect Scores on the Negative And Positive Affect Scale	The 10-item version of the Negative And Positive Affect Scale (NAPAS) by Joshanloo (2017) contains 5 items measuring negative affect. Scores for negative affect from these 5 items range from 5 to 25 with 25 indicating higher negative affect. The scale is used here with the following adaptation: it asks about the previous 14 days rather than 30 days.	3 weeks
Secondary	Depression Scores on the Patient Health Questionnaire-9	The Patient Health Questionnaire-9 consists of 9 items and measures the severity of depression. Scores range from 0 to 27 with a higher score indicating more severe depression.	3 weeks
Secondary	Generalized Anxiety Disorder-7 questionnaire	The Generalized Anxiety Disorder 7-item questionnaire screens for general anxiety disorder. Scores range from 0 to 21 with higher scores indicating more severe anxiety.	3 weeks
Secondary	Social Interaction Anxiety Scale-6	The Social Interaction Anxiety Scale-6 (Peters et al., 2012) is a 6-item measure assessing social interaction anxiety. Scores range from 0 to 24 with 24 indicating more severe social anxiety.	3 weeks
Secondary	Self-Compassion Scale Short-Form	The short form of the Self-Compassion Scale (Raes et al., 2011) includes 12 items. Scores range from 1 to 5 with higher scores indicating more self-compassion. Change = (Week 3 Score - Baseline Score).	3 weeks
Secondary	Toronto Empathy Questionnaire	The Toronto Empathy Questionnaire consists of 16 items. Scores range from 0 to 64 with higher scores indicating higher empathy.	3 weeks
Secondary	Positive Affect Scores on the Negative And Positive Affect Scale	The 10-item version of the Negative And Positive Affect Scale by Joshanloo (2017) contains 5 items measuring positive affect. Scores for positive affect from these 5 items range from 5 to 25 with 25 indicating higher positive affect. The scale is used here with the following adaptation: it asks about the current moment rather than the past 30 days. Response options are adapted to vary from 1 (not at all) to 5 (extremely).	Directly after each individual meditation or "fast friends" exercise
Secondary	Negative Affect Scores on the Negative And Positive Affect Scale	The 10-item version of the Negative And Positive Affect Scale (NAPAS) by Joshanloo (2017) contains 5 items measuring negative affect. Scores for negative affect from these 5 items range from 5 to 25 with 25 indicating higher negative affect. The scale is used here with the following adaptation: it asks about the current moment rather than the past 30 days. Response options are adapted to vary from 1 (not at all) to 5 (extremely).	Directly after each individual meditation or "fast friends" exercise
Secondary	Emotional synchrony	Average correlation between emotions of the 2 people doing the exercise together, as reported with regards to the last 5 minutes of the meditation or the "fast friends" exercise. The following emotions (taken from the short version of the Negative and Positive Affect scale by Joshanloo) will be rated by both participants: restless/fidgety, hopeless, that everything was an effort, in good spirits, calm and peaceful, full of life.	Directly after each individual meditation or "fast friends" exercise