Hi everyone,
There's an interesting article in the July—August 2005 American Psychologist (Vol. 60, no 5, pp. 410-421) entitled "Positive Psychology Progress: Empirical Validation of Interventions" by Seligman, Steen, Park, and Peterson. The whole study was done via the internet! Subjects (on average, mildly depressed) were assigned to one of six groups (descriptions below from article, p.416):
1. Placebo control exercise: Early memories.
Participants were asked to write about their early memories every night for one week.
2. Gratitude Visit.
Participants were given one week to write and then deliver a letter of gratitude in person to someone who had been especially kind to them but had never been properly thanked.
3. Three good things in life.
Participants were asked to write down three things that went well each day and their causes every night for one week. In addition, they were asked to provide a causal explanation for each good thing.
4. You at your best.
Participants were asked to write about a time when they were at their best and then to reflect on the personal strengths displayed in the story. They were told to review their story once every day for a week and to reflect on the strengths they had identified.
5. Using signature strengths in a new way.
Participants were asked to take our inventory of character strengths online at
www.authentichappiness.org and to receive individualized feedback about their top five (“signature”) strengths. They were then asked to use one of these top strengths in a new and different way every day for one week.
6. Identifying signature strengths.
This exercise was a truncated version of the one just described, without the instruction to use signature strengths in new ways. Participants were asked to take the survey, to note their five highest strengths, and to use them more often during the next week.
Results at six months (remember, this was only a one week assignment): subjects in the "Three good things in life" and the "Using signature strengths in a new way" groups had significantly fewer depressive symptoms than the placebo control. Not surprisingly, it helped if the subjects had continued to do these two exercises after the one week assignment (the authors note that one week may not be enough). No difference was noted for the other groups after six months compared to the placebo control. But the authors suggest the other assignments may, in fact, be helpful in combination with the two exercises that did work…
The authors believe that these two exercises delivered “with human hands” (i.e., in the context of a therapy relationship) are considerably more powerful. Still, they can be done on your own (and you can even post your "three good things in life" here!)
Richard
