University of Twente Student Theses

Login

De werkingsmechanismen van de drie goede dingen oefening: de invloed van vrijwilligheid, de mate van reflectie en verschillende positieve emoties in relatie met ervaren positief affect

Schilligerr, D.A.L. (2015) De werkingsmechanismen van de drie goede dingen oefening: de invloed van vrijwilligheid, de mate van reflectie en verschillende positieve emoties in relatie met ervaren positief affect.

[img] PDF
828kB
Abstract:With the rise of positive psychology mental health is no longer regarded as the absence of illness but also as the presence of well-being. Therefore healthcare should invest in the increase of well- being. The three good things exercise is a psychological intervention, which is appeared to be effective in increase positive affect and decrease negative affect. During this exercise the participants were asked to write down three good things that happened to them during the day for at least seven days. Nevertheless, no factors were found yet that could explain why this exercise works. Goal of this study was to investigate the influence of different potential factors in order to understand the working mechanisms behind this exercise. The following variables are explored in relation with positive affect: the influence of voluntarily continuing with the exercise after the recommended seven days, the extent of reflection, and the impact of several positive emotions. Based on previous research it is expected that participants hoe voluntarily continue with the exercise will benefit more than those who stopped practicing after the assigned 1-week period. Based on the broaden- and- build theory, it is expected that positive affect and the extent of reflection are influencing each other mutually. Furthermore, different positive emotions are considered explorative, in terms of the extent of reflection and positive affect. In advance to this study a pre-existing data set was used from which only adherent participants (N=38) were selected. The participants were asked to do the exercise for at least seven days. After each time of measurement the extent of affect was measured with the PANAS and a pre-measurement and a post- measurement took place. The answers were coded in: the extent of reflection in amount of words and the type of positive emotion (happiness, contentment, pride, interest, love). Hypotheses were tested with the Mann-Whitney test, the Pearson correlation en the Kruskall- Wallis test. The results show a weak positive correlation between the amount of words and positive affect. No effects were found, for the aspect of voluntarily continuing with the exercise on positive affect. Furthermore, the different positive emotions pointed out to have no influence on the reflective writing behavior of the participants and also no impact on positive affect. It seemed to be beneficial to write more words within the three good things exercise. These findings offer more insight in the research of working mechanisms behind this intervention. However, this study shows a number of limitations, which should be taken into account for future research.
Item Type:Essay (Master)
Faculty:BMS: Behavioural, Management and Social Sciences
Subject:77 psychology
Programme:Psychology MSc (66604)
Link to this item:https://purl.utwente.nl/essays/68684
Export this item as:BibTeX
EndNote
HTML Citation
Reference Manager

 

Repository Staff Only: item control page