A Meta-Analysis of the Effectiveness of Randomized Controlled Positive Psychological Interventions on Subjective and Psychological Well-Being

Selda Koydemir (), Aslı Bugay Sökmez and Astrid Schütz
Additional contact information
Selda Koydemir: University of Bamberg
Aslı Bugay Sökmez: Middle East Technical University, Northern Cyprus Campus
Astrid Schütz: University of Bamberg

Applied Research in Quality of Life, 2021, vol. 16, issue 3, No 11, 1145-1185

Abstract: Abstract We conducted a meta-analysis to analyze the effects of randomized controlled positive psychological interventions on subjective and psychological well-being. Our aim was to extend previous research by following a more comprehensive approach in the selection of studies, by including new moderators, by focusing on adult nonclinical populations and increases in well-being, and by comparing the effects of interventions targeting subjective and psychological well-being (i.e., hedonism or eudemonia) or a combination of the two. In contrast to previous analyses, we compared effects on different outcomes and contrasted effects of technology-assisted interventions with traditional ones. We included 68 randomized controlled studies of nonclinical populations with a total of 16,085 participants. The results showed that positive psychological interventions do increase well-being. The overall effect size (Cohen’s d) was 0.23, but it was 0.08 for psychological well-being, 0.22 for subjective well-being, and 0.43 when the studies targeted both types of well-being. Longer interventions showed stronger immediate effects than shorter ones, and interventions based on traditional methods were more effective than those that used technology-assisted methods. With respect to short-term outcomes, there was a negative relation to age, but when long-term effects were considered, the relation to age was positive. Overall, we also found evidence of long-term effects of the interventions.

Keywords: Positive psychology; Positive psychological interventions; Meta-analysis; Well-being; Happiness (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s11482-019-09788-z Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:ariqol:v:16:y:2021:i:3:d:10.1007_s11482-019-09788-z

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer.com/journal/11482

DOI: 10.1007/s11482-019-09788-z

Access Statistics for this article

Applied Research in Quality of Life is currently edited by Daniel Shek

More articles in Applied Research in Quality of Life from Springer, International Society for Quality-of-Life Studies
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().