Increasing motivation to use internet-based relationship enhancement interventions.

This study investigated an Internet-based intervention designed by the principle investigator to increase motivation to engage in a provided relationship enhancement activity. It collected descriptive data to determine how participants engaged with the intervention, as well as to identify areas of improvement in future web-based couples work. The study also tested the effectiveness of this new intervention. Participants included 561 individuals who reported being in a romantic relationship, and were all recruited anonymously on-line through Mechanical Turk. All participants were randomly assigned to one of three conditions, including a motivational enhancement condition, a feedback-only condition, and a no-feedback control. The study results identified three areas of potential difficulty for intervention completion. These areas included 1) lack of a discrepancy between desired scores on outcome measures and actual scores, 2) inaccuracy in interpreting and/or reporting scores as provided on a visual chart, and 3) not providing responses to open-ended prompts, in some cases despite the stated desire to do so. The results did not reveal any significant group differences.Psy.D