Clinical trial NCT05490979: The Impact of Dyad Exercises on Well-being and Connection in Young Adults
Official title: Effectiveness and Physiological Mechanisms of Contemplative Dyad Meditation to Increase Social Connection in Young Adults in the Aftermath of the Pandemic
Study type: INTERVENTIONAL
Overall status: COMPLETED
Phase: NA
Conditions: Mental Health Wellness 1
Loneliness
Lead sponsor: University of Pennsylvania
Sponsor class: OTHER
First posted: 2022-08-08
Enrollment: 120
Sex: ALL
Minimum age (years): 18
Maximum age (years): 35
Standard ages: ADULT
Accepts healthy volunteers: yes
Allocation: RANDOMIZED
Intervention model: PARALLEL
Primary purpose: TREATMENT

Brief 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.


Eligibility criteria: Inclusion Criteria:

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

Exclusion Criteria:

* none

Primary outcomes:
measure: Brief Inventory of Thriving
timeFrame: 3 weeks
measure: Loneliness Scores on the Comprehensive Inventory of Thriving
timeFrame: 3 weeks
measure: Mindfulness Score on the Five Facet Mindfulness Questionnaire
timeFrame: 3 weeks
measure: Inclusion of Other in the Self Scale
timeFrame: Directly after each individual meditation or "fast friends" exercise
Secondary outcomes:
measure: Positive Affect Scores on the Negative And Positive Affect Scale
timeFrame: 3 weeks
measure: Negative Affect Scores on the Negative And Positive Affect Scale
timeFrame: 3 weeks
measure: Depression Scores on the Patient Health Questionnaire-9
timeFrame: 3 weeks
measure: Generalized Anxiety Disorder-7 questionnaire
timeFrame: 3 weeks
measure: Social Interaction Anxiety Scale-6
timeFrame: 3 weeks
measure: Self-Compassion Scale Short-Form
timeFrame: 3 weeks
measure: Toronto Empathy Questionnaire
timeFrame: 3 weeks
measure: Positive Affect Scores on the Negative And Positive Affect Scale
timeFrame: Directly after each individual meditation or "fast friends" exercise
measure: Negative Affect Scores on the Negative And Positive Affect Scale
timeFrame: Directly after each individual meditation or "fast friends" exercise
measure: Emotional synchrony
timeFrame: Directly after each individual meditation or "fast friends" exercise
Other outcomes:
measure: Heart rate
timeFrame: 3 weeks
measure: Heart rate variability
timeFrame: 3 weeks
measure: Respiration
timeFrame: 3 weeks
measure: EEG
timeFrame: 3 weeks
Locations:
city: Philadelphia
country: United States
facility: University of Pennsylvania
state: Pennsylvania
Study officials:
affiliation: University of Pennsylvania
name: Michael L Platt, PhD
role: PRINCIPAL_INVESTIGATOR
References: