Positive Psychology Exercise Packages Study

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The goal of this study is to scientifically determine the effects of positive psychology exercises on mood and emotion.

If you choose to participate in this study, you will be asked to complete brief, weekly assessments of your mood for 6 weeks. You may be randomly assigned to try a "package" of anywhere between two and six of our exercises over the six-week period, and report on your experience with the exercises. It is also possible that you will be randomly assigned to an assessment-only "control" group, and will do no exercises during this time. Regardless of which condition you are assigned to now, you will receive descriptions of all of the exercises in our study for your own use once the study is complete (e.g. after 1-year follow-up).

In addition to the weekly assessments described above, and any exercises you might be assigned to practice, we will ask you to complete a somewhat longer assessment (25-30 minutes) right now, before you are assigned to a condition, and in 6 weeks, once you have completed the six weekly assessments. One month, three months, six months, and one year later, we will also ask you to complete brief (10-15 minutes) follow-up assessments. As the study progresses, we will hold numerous raffles in which participants who complete follow-up questionnaires will have the chance to win $100 prizes. Each time you complete a follow-up questionnaire, your chances of winning one of these prizes increases.

You can drop out of the study at any time, but you should only sign up if you plan to complete all of the assessments.

The results of this study could benefit many people.

Help us further the science of Positive Psychology by signing up to participate today!

The goal of this study is to scientifically determine the effects of positive psychology exercises on mood and emotion. Should you choose to participate, you will be asked to continue doing so for the next year. While the majority of the time you would spend on this study is compressed into the first six weeks, we would also like to track you for the next year using brief, web-based surveys. You can drop out of the study at any time, but you should only sign up if you plan to complete all of the assessments.

If you click on the "agree" button below, you will immediately begin the first phase of the study by completing a baseline set of questionnaires. This should take you no longer than 25-30 minutes. Following your completion of these initial surveys, you will be randomly assigned to one of four possible conditions: 2 exercises, 4 exercises, or 6 exercises, or an assessment-only (no exercises) control condition. It is essential that you stay with the condition that you are given. Please DO NOT re-register to receive a different condition, as doing so will undermine the validity of our study. Regardless of which condition you are assigned to now, you will receive descriptions of all of the exercises in our study for your own use once the study is complete (e.g. after 1-year follow-up). In this way, all participants will have access to all exercises, even if they are in the assessment-only control group at the moment.

Once you are assigned to one of the above four conditions, you will be asked to return to our website once per week for the next six weeks to fill out very brief (~5 minute) questionnaires. In addition, if you are assigned to the 2-exercise, 4-exercise, or 6-exercise group, you will be also provided with detailed instructions on how to complete your first exercise, and will be asked to practice that exercise over the next week before returning to our site. You will be able to access those instructions at any time during the following week by returning to the site and logging in. You will also receive an email reminder during the week containing the instructions for your exercise in case you would like to review them.

You may receive anywhere between zero and six exercises. It is essential to the validity of the study that you remain in the condition to which you are randomly assigned. We cannot reassign you to a new condition.

After the end of the first week, you will receive an email asking you to return to the site and complete a small subset of the questionnaires you completed the week before (it should take only 5 minutes or so). You will also be asked to answer a few brief questions about your experience with the exercise to which you were assigned. Please return and complete the assessments even if you were asked to practice and exercise and did not do so. You will be specifically asked about how often you used the exercise, and we will take this into account when analyzing the data. If, at any point, we cannot reach you by e-mail to remind you of assessments you are due to complete, we may try to contact you by phone at the number you provide during registration. Once you complete the brief set of questionnaires, you will receive information on your next exercise (if you are not in the assessment-only control condition), and will be asked to repeat this process, practicing the exercise and then reporting back to the website in a week. This process of weekly assessments will continue for a total of six weeks. At the end of the sixth week, you will be asked to complete a longer set of questionnaires (15-20 minutes). After you complete these questionnaires, you will have completed the first phase of the study.

In the second phase of the study, we will ask you to return four times over the next year and complete brief follow-up questionnaires. These follow-ups should only take 15-20 minutes of your time, and will occur one month, three months, six months and one year after you complete the first phase of the study. Your completion of the final one-year follow-up will conclude your participation in our research. It is essential for our study that participants complete as many follow-up assessments as possible, so please sign up only if you are willing to use the exercise and continue answering our follow-up questionnaires.

It is important that you complete the follow-up questionnaires even if you did not use the exercises. You can report whether or not you used the exercises when you return for each follow-up assessment.

We expect that some participants will go through major life events, illness, and the like. It has been a concern of some participants in the past that such events would invalidate our results. Our study is designed to control for this, so please do not skip a questionnaire because you are afraid your responses will invalidate our results.

As the study progresses, we will hold numerous raffles in which participants will have the chance to win $100 prizes. For each assessment that you complete after the initial baseline assessment, you will be entered in one of these raffles. While it is essential for our study that you complete as many follow-ups as possible in order to give us an accurate assessment of how the exercise has worked for you, failing to complete one follow-up questionnaire does not preclude you from completing later follow-ups and subsequently being entered in later raffles.

Lastly, the data we receive from you will be used only for research purposes, and will be stored on a secure server that only our research team can access. You may withdraw from the study at any time by emailing the project coordinator, Acacia Parks (acparks@psych.upenn.edu) or by viewing your profile and making this selection. You can only sign up for this study once; you cannot withdraw and then sign up again at a later time. For the results of the study to be scientifically valid, it is very important that you do not register as more than one person, and do the exercises as instructed, only when they are assigned to you.

Disclosure Statement: Dr. Seligman has a potential financial conflict of interest with Positive Psychology training programs, as he could potentially profit from the sale of such a program.

Here is a summary of the important points:

1. This is a research study.
2. You will receive anywhere between 0 and 6 exercises to practice over the next 6 weeks. We cannot re-assign you to a different set of exercises.
3. We will ask you to complete questionnaires on a weekly basis for the next 6 weeks, then again after 1 month, 3 months, 6 months, and 1 year.
4. You should complete the follow-up questionnaires even if you do not use the exercises.
5. After the study is complete, we will give you a summary of the results and a brief description of each of the exercises for your own use.

If you understand the above information and would like to participate in this study, click on the button below.