Promoting Well-Being Through Compliments and Positive Writing: An Experimental Study

Abstract

This study attempted to use compliments in order to create a new positive psychology intervention that improves well-being. Therefore, the research question of this paper focuses on finding differences on well-being scores between three conditions. Two online interventions, best possible self (BPS) and a compliment intervention, were compared with each other and a waitlist control condition. It was expected that the BPS and compliment condition would prove superior to the control condition, but not differ from each other. In total, 18 participants were randomly allocated over the three conditions. Participants were 13 women and 5 men. The mean age was 23.94 (SD = .46), with an age range of 18 to 35 years. Participants were measured on their well-being at both pre- and post-test through the Mental Health Continuum-Short Form. This study found that, on average, participants in the intervention groups scored higher on well-being on the post-test than participants in the control condition. Furthermore, improvement in well-being did not differ between interventions. Several limitations of the current study and recommendations for future research are discussed.