Diaries: Who Keeps Them and Why

Abstract

Directed diary keeping is an important method of gathering data for various therapeutic and research purposes. Little information, however, has been collected on spontaneously kept diaries. A questionnaire relating to personal diary keeping and five personality inventories were administered to 101 undergraduates. Analysis suggested that women keep diaries more often and at an earlier age than men. Also, information regarding diary content and reasons for starting and stopping a diary are discussed. Surprisingly, scores on personality inventories were not significantly different for respondents who had kept a diary than scores for those who had not.