Impact of psychoeducational content delivered online to a positive psychology aware community

Abstract

Happiness-increasing interventions demonstrate significant variation in outcomes, suggesting that the people who use them might be as important as the interventions themselves to determine efficacy. In light of this, instructive interventions might not be necessary to increase happiness given a population with knowledge of happiness-increasing strategies. We recruited 270 participants with knowledge of positive psychology to receive six weeks of online psychoeducation. We explored participants’ use of the website, reported use of happiness strategies, and changes in well-being. Those who spent more time on the website reported smaller changes in well-being than those who spent less time on the website. Conversely, those who reported employing more happiness strategies reported greater increases in well-being than those who used fewer strategies. This shows that for those already familiar with positive psychology, information, rather than instruction, might increase well-being. This has implications for studies evaluating the efficacy of happiness-increasing interventions more broadly.

Keywords:

• happiness
• intervention
• positive psychology
• Internet

Additional information

Funding

Dr Schueller was supported by a grant from the National Institute of Mental Health [grant number K08 MH102336] (PI: Schueller). Dr Parks is scientific advisor to Happify.com; she receives remuneration for services rendered, but owns no part of the company.