Happiness
Conditions
Keywords
Happiness, Subjective Well-Being, Psychological Flourishing, Well-Being, Health, Behavioral Change, Life Satisfaction, Affect, Emotion, Goals, Meaning in Life
Brief summary
Over the past several decades, a new science of subjective well-being has produced insights into the factors that make people happy-from cultivating strong relationships to pursuing the right goals. Drawing on these empirical findings, the investigators created a comprehensive 12-week intervention program, ENHANCE: Enduring Happiness and Continued Self-Enhancement. The investigators multimodal program is designed to teach people essential skills in order to produce sustainable changes in behavior and, as a result, long-lasting increases in happiness. To test the effectiveness of ENHANCE, the investigators designed a six-month randomized clinical trial. Participants will be assigned to an active treatment group or a waiting group control. They will complete baseline assessments, and follow-up assessment at three and six months after the start of the intervention. These assessments will contain measures of subjective well-being and objective measures of health, as well as a variety of psychological mediators (e.g., psychological needs) and moderators (e.g. personality). The investigators will thus be able to explore not only whether ENHANCE works to improve well-being, but also why and how ENHANCE works.
Interventions
BEHAVIORALENHANCE: Enduring Happiness and Continued Self-Enhancement
ENHANCE is a skill-based intervention to teach people a wide variety of strategies that have been shown to boost happiness. Each session of ENHANCE follows a similar format targeted to address three central goals. First, in each session, participants will complete an active learning module designed to educate participants about one of the ten overarching topics featured in this program (e.g., goals, close relationships). Next, participants will engage in activities that put these principles into practice. Finally, this program is designed to encourage a skill-building mindset by helping participants develop habits to integrate these principles into maintained activity in their daily lives moving forward.
Sponsors
University of British Columbia
University of Virginia
Study design
Allocation
RANDOMIZED
Intervention model
PARALLEL
Primary purpose
TREATMENT
Masking
NONE
Eligibility
Sex/Gender
ALL
Age
25 Years to 75 Years
Healthy volunteers
Yes
Inclusion criteria
• Participants ages 25 to 75
Exclusion criteria
• Major Depression
Design outcomes
Primary
| Measure | Time frame | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Change from Baseline Satisfaction With Life | Baseline, 3, 6 months | Satisfaction With Life Scale |
| Change from Baseline in Positive Affect | Baseline, 3, 6 months | Scale of Positive and Negative Experience: SPANE |
| Change from Baseline in Negative Affect | Baseline, 3, 6 months | Scale of Positive and Negative Experience: SPANE |
| Change from Baseline in Meaning in Life | Baseline, 3, 6 months | Meaning in Life Questionnaire |
| Change from Baseline in Thriving | Baseline, 3, 6 months | Comprehensive Inventory of Thriving |
Secondary
| Measure | Time frame | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Change from Baseline Peer Reports of Negative Behaviors | Baseline, 3, 6 months | Peers will be asked to evaluate the participant on how frequently they engaged in a series of affect-related displays over the past week: crying, frowning, complaining, and criticizing. |
| Change from Baseline Healthy Behaviors | Baseline, 3, 6 months | Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System |
| Change from Baseline Perceived Stress | Baseline, 3, 6 months | Perceived Stress Scale (PSS) |
| Change from Baseline Depression | Baseline, 3, 6 months | Patient Health Questionnaire-9 |
| Change from Baseline Peer Reports of Negative Affect | Baseline, 3, 6 months | — |
| Change from Baseline Psychological Need Satisfaction: Autonomy, Competence, Relatedness | Baseline, 3, 6 months | Need Satisfaction Scale |
| Change from Baseline Body Mass Index: BMI | Baseline, 3, 6 months | — |
| Change from Baseline Blood Pressure | Baseline, 3, 6 months | — |
| Change from Baseline Self-Esteem | Baseline, 3, 6 months | Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale |
| Change from Baseline Positive and Negative Memories Generated by Participants | Baseline, 3, 6 months | In this task, participants list as many positive (and then negative) life events and then as many negative life events as they can in three minutes. Relative quantities of positive to negative life events that are listed demonstrate accessibility of positive and negative memories, which is an indicator of Subjective Well-Being. |
| Change from Baseline Peer Reports of Positive Behaviors | Baseline, 3, 6 months | Peers will be asked to evaluate the participant on how frequently they engaged in a series of affect-related displays over the past week: smiling, laughing, |
| Change from Baseline Peer Reports of Satisfaction With Life | Baseline, 3, 6 months | — |
| Change from Baseline Peer Reports of Positive Affect | Baseline, 3, 6 months | — |
Countries
Canada, United States
Outcome results
None listed