Socioemotional Intervention
The partner-based socioemotional intervention consisted of 10 weeks of practice of a daily dyadic exercise with a randomly assigned partner, the so-called Affect Dyad. Daily practice of the Affect Dyad begins with a moment of silence wherein participants are required to center themselves and let go of any current thoughts and feelings. After this, the first partner speaks about a difficult or stressful situation that they experienced during the past 24 hours and how emotions that occurred during that situation felt in their body. While the first partner speaks, the other partner remains silent and is instructed to listen in a nonjudgmental and empathic manner without providing any verbal or nonverbal communication. After speaking for 2.5 minutes about the difficult situation, the first partner then speaks about a situation in the past 24 hours that made them feel grateful and how the experience of gratitude felt in their body. The listener again remains silent and listens with an empathic and nonjudgmental stance. Once the first partner finishes speaking about the grateful situation for 2.5 minutes, and after another 30 seconds of silence, the procedure is then repeated with the roles of speaker and listener switched. The exercise ends with another moment of silence. Participants were instructed to perform this daily exercise 6 times a week. Before each week of daily dyad practice, the participants were randomly paired with a new participant in the socioemotional intervention group. The goal of the Affect Dyad exercise is to enhance coping with difficult emotions through acceptance and increase social connectedness, acceptance of self and others, empathic and nonjudgmental listening, and gratitude.