Emotional expression has had a central role in the study and practice of psychology. Pennebaker and Beall (1986) published a study on the effects of written emotional disclosure on physical health, which since has inspired other researchers to replicate and extend their initial findings. The purpose of the current study is to expand previous research on the effectiveness of written emotional disclosure by examining psychological benefits of written disclosure, exploring coping style as a possible moderating variable and utilizing the Internet as the medium of disclosure. Eighty-nine undergraduates participated in this study and completed three online Journal entries. Each participant was assigned to either an emotional disclosure condition (writing about daily stressors) or a non-emotional disclosure condition (writing about daily events without any feelings or emotions). The Depression and Anxiety Stress Scale (DASS; Lovibond & Lovibond, 1995a), the Pennebaker Inventory of Limbic Languidness (PILL; Pennebaker. 1982) and the Coping Inventory for Stressful Situations (CISS; Endler & Parker, 1999) were utilized in order to gain measures of depression, anxiety, stress, somatic complaints and coping style. Results did not demonstrate significant improvement for levels of depression, anxiety, stress and somatic complaints. In addition, task-oriented coping was not found to moderate effects of written emotional disclosure.
