Socio-emotional training
The daily practice of the socio-emotional training program was the Affect Dyad, a 12-min partner-based exercise, in which two randomly matched participants take on the roles of a speaker and a listener. Thereby, daily appointments could be scheduled in the app by both partners, and participants were reminded of the appointment 10 min before the practice via a push notification. The speaker explores two questions posed by the listener. The first question is: “Please tell me about a situation of your last 24 h, in which you experienced a difficult emotion, and how it felt in your body.” After elaborating for 2.5 min, the listener is instructed to say: “Thank you for sharing. Now, please tell me about a situation of your last 24 h, in which you felt grateful and how that felt in your body.” After one minute of silence, the roles are switched, and the procedure is repeated. The Dyad starts and ends with a period of silence to drop everything shared and heard. The listener is instructed to listen non-judgmentally and empathically. The partner-based practice aims to foster positive qualities and social capacities such as empathy, acceptance of self and others, gratitude, acceptance of difficult emotions, and social connectedness.