The science behind Rosebud

Online Positive Affect Journaling was associated with decreased mental distress and increased well-being relative to baseline. PAJ was also associated with less depressive symptoms and anxiety after 1 month and greater resilience after the first and second month, relative to usual care.

People diagnosed with Major Depressive Disorder (MDD) in one study showed significant decreases in depression scores immediately after the experiment (Day 5). These benefits persisted at the 4-week follow-up. These data suggest that expressive writing may be a useful supplement to existing interventions for depression.

A meta-analysis based on the responses of 26,427 participants found that higher gratitude was significantly associated with lower depression.

One study showed that students who wrote about a negative personal experience enjoyed greater working memory improvements and declines in intrusive thinking. Expressive writing reduces intrusive and avoidant thinking about a stressful experience.

A 2023 meta-analysis found that conversational AI showed statistically significant short-term effects compared with control conditions in improving depressive symptoms, generalized anxiety symptoms, specific anxiety symptoms, quality of life or well-being, general distress, stress, mental disorder symptoms, psychosomatic disease symptoms, and negative affect.

Another 2023 meta-analysis found that conversational AI significantly reduced symptoms of psychological distress. The results showed that the ameliorative impact of CAs was more pronounced for generative AI, stronger for voice-based compared to text, and the effect was stronger when the intervention was delivered through smartphone apps compared to web-based platforms.