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.
Study Type
INTERVENTIONAL
Allocation
RANDOMIZED
Purpose
TREATMENT
Masking
NONE
Enrollment
154
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.
University of Virginia
Charlottesville, Virginia, United States
University of British Columbia
Kelowna, British Columbia, Canada
Change from Baseline Satisfaction With Life
Satisfaction With Life Scale
Time frame: Baseline, 3, 6 months
Change from Baseline in Positive Affect
Scale of Positive and Negative Experience: SPANE
Time frame: Baseline, 3, 6 months
Change from Baseline in Negative Affect
Scale of Positive and Negative Experience: SPANE
Time frame: Baseline, 3, 6 months
Change from Baseline in Meaning in Life
Meaning in Life Questionnaire
Time frame: Baseline, 3, 6 months
Change from Baseline in Thriving
Comprehensive Inventory of Thriving
Time frame: Baseline, 3, 6 months
Change from Baseline Positive and Negative Memories Generated by Participants
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.
Time frame: Baseline, 3, 6 months
Change from Baseline Peer Reports of Positive Behaviors
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,
Time frame: Baseline, 3, 6 months
Change from Baseline Peer Reports of Satisfaction With Life
Time frame: Baseline, 3, 6 months
Change from Baseline Peer Reports of Positive Affect
Time frame: Baseline, 3, 6 months
Change from Baseline Peer Reports of Negative Affect
Time frame: Baseline, 3, 6 months
Change from Baseline Peer Reports of Negative Behaviors
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.
Time frame: Baseline, 3, 6 months
Change from Baseline Healthy Behaviors
Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System
Time frame: Baseline, 3, 6 months
Change from Baseline Perceived Stress
Perceived Stress Scale (PSS)
Time frame: Baseline, 3, 6 months
Change from Baseline Depression
Patient Health Questionnaire-9
Time frame: Baseline, 3, 6 months
Change from Baseline Self-Esteem
Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale
Time frame: Baseline, 3, 6 months
Change from Baseline Psychological Need Satisfaction: Autonomy, Competence, Relatedness
Need Satisfaction Scale
Time frame: Baseline, 3, 6 months
Change from Baseline Body Mass Index: BMI
Time frame: Baseline, 3, 6 months
Change from Baseline Blood Pressure
Time frame: Baseline, 3, 6 months
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