Study Watkins et al. (2014): study US 2011

Public

Psychology students, USA, 2011

Survey name

Unnamed study

Sample

Respondents

N = 129

Non Response

Assessment

Questionnaire: Conputer Assisted Web Interview (CAWI)

Correlate

Authors's Label

Gratitude 3-blessings intervention

Our Classification

Remarks

Participants in all three groups filled out a pre-treatment measures packet. After randomization, they received an email regarding their specific treatment each afternoon for the next 7 days. Participants replied to the email after following instructions, and they were to complete each exercise by 10 AM the following morning. After the treatment phase subjects completed the outcome measures packet, and we administered these measures again one week and five weeks after the end of treatment.

Distribution

1:    n = 47
0A: n = 42
0B: n = 40

Operationalization

Participants were randomly assigned to:
1:   GRATITUDE 3-BLESSINGS.
Subjects first listed three good things that had happened to them in the previous 48 h. For each event, they were then instructed  to ‘write about how this particular experience or event made you feel grateful.’
0A: CONTROL: PRIDE 3-BLESSINGS.
subjects first listed ‘three things that went well’ during the previous 48 h. After recalling these events, subjects were asked to ‘write about how this particular experience or event made you  feel that you are better than most or better than average
0B: CONTROL:MEMORY PLACEBO.
Subjects were told ‘Recent research suggests that a person’s mood state
may be improved by things as simple as the frequent practice of focused memory retrieval exercises.’ For each evening during the  treatment phase, subjects were to describe a different personal semantic memory.

Observed Relation with Happiness