European Conference on Positive Psychology 2014, Amsterdam, The Netherlands, Trimbos-instituut.

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Positive Psychotherapy: Use
of Positive Interventions and
the Moderating Role of
Personality
European Conference for Positive
Psychology
July 2, 2014
Weiting Ng
SIM University

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Importance and benefits of SWB
 Subjective well-being (SWB)/happiness
 Life satisfaction
 Affect component: positive affect (PA) & negative affect (NA)
(Diener, Suh, Lucas, & Smith, 1999)
 Higher well-being is linked to more successful life
outcomes (Lyubomirsky, King, & Diener, 2005)
 Happiness Better outcomes in the work, social, and
health domains
 Positive affect leads to success-enhancing behaviors
 Examples: sociability, better conflict resolution, more effective
coping

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Importance and benefits of SWB
 Benefits of positive affect: Broaden-and-build model
 Build physical, intellectual, and social resources
 Broaden scope of attention, cognition, and behavior
 Undo detrimental physiological effects of NA
 Improve psychological resilience
 Benefits on physical health
( Fredrickson, 1998; Isen, 2008; Tugade & Fredrickson, 2004)

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Positive interventions & well-being
• Positive interventions: activities that promote positive
feelings, behaviors, or cognitions
• Positive activities enhance well-being
 Practicing gratitude; performing acts of
kindness; visualizing best possible selves
 Higher life satisfaction; increased PA;
reduced NA
(Emmons & McCullough, 2003; Lyubomirsky, Sheldon, &
Schkade, 2005; Sheldon & Lyubomirsky, 2006)
Happiness-enhancing benefits of positive
interventions endure (Cohn & Fredrickson, 2010)
 Increased happiness & decreased
depressive symptoms even after 6 months
(Seligman, Steen, Park, & Peterson, 2005)

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Positive interventions & well-being
• Positive psychotherapy
 Positive interventions are effective in treating clinical
populations
 Build up positive psychological resources that can
boost well-being instead of focusing on alleviating
and eliminating negative mood symptoms
 Group positive psychotherapy reduced
depressive symptoms and increased life satisfaction
(Seligman, Rashid, & Parks, 2006)
 Meta-analysis: Positive psychology interventions
were effective in alleviating depression (Sin &
Lyubomirsky, 2009)

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Moderating role of personality on
efficacy of positive interventions?
• Do positive interventions successfully enhance well-being
for everyone?
• Would personality moderate the efficacy of positive
interventions?
Positive
interventions
Personality traits
(e.g., neuroticism) Boost well-being
(e.g., improve life
(e.g., practicing
gratitude, visualizing
best possible selves)
satisfaction,
increase PA, reduce
depressive
symptoms)

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Personality and well-being
• Neuroticism (N) is associated with lower happiness;
Extraversion (E) is associated with greater happiness
(Cheng & Furnham, 2003; DeNeve & Cooper, 1998; Hayes & Joseph, 2003)
• N is linked to higher negative affect; E is linked to
higher PA (e.g., Costa & McCrae, 1980; Larsen & Ketelaar, 1989, 1991; Lucas & Fujita,
2000)
• Heritable differences in SWB accounted for by genetic
influences from N, E, and C (Weiss, Bates, & Luciano, 2008)

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Moderating influence of neuroticism on
affect
• Personality differences in well-being
• Neuroticism moderates the effectiveness of regulation
and coping strategies on mood repair
 Coping strategies are effective for low- but not high-N in
alleviating depression (Bolger & Zuckerman, 1995)
 High N unable to use reappraisal successfully to reduce
negative emotions (Ng & Diener, 2009)
 High N more susceptible to detrimental effects of maladaptive
strategies on positive emotions (Ng, 2012)
• Does moderating influence of neuroticism extend to
effects of positive activities on well-being?

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Moderating role of personality on
efficacy of positive interventions
• Extraversion and Openness
 Moderated impact of positive interventions on happiness and
depressive symptoms (Senf & Liau, 2013)
 Greater benefits for those higher on extraversion & openness
• Neuroticism
 Moderated sustainability of positive intervention effects (Ng, 2014)
 Low-neuroticism individuals who exercised gratitude or kindness
reported higher happiness compared to controls, a week after they
stopped performing the activities (But no beneficial effect for high
N)
 Beneficial effects on behavioral choice, however, endured

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Factors that moderate efficacy of
positive interventions
• Many other factors that moderate efficacy of positive
interventions
 Motivation & effort; depression status; culture; features of
activity (e.g., Sin & Lyubomisky, 2009)
 Only participants who were motivated and invested effort
experienced enhanced well-being (Lyubomirsky, Dickerhoof, Boehm, &
Sheldon, 2011)
• How to overcome moderating influences that weaken
beneficial impact of positive interventions?

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Maximizing success of positive
interventions
• Practice
 Improves effectiveness of regulation strategies (Ng &
Diener, 2013)
• Inform participants about
the potential happiness-enhancing
benefits of
positive interventions
 Participants who were led to believe that
visualizing best possible selves effectively
improved well-being showed greater
increases in PA than those who performed
the same activity (Layous, Nelson, & Lyubomirsky,
2013)

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Maximizing success of positive
interventions
• Activities should vary in content and timing
(Sheldon & Lyubomirsky, 2007)
 Variety of positive activities
 Timing
• Methods of implementing positive
psychology interventions
 Technological developments (e.g., smartphone
applications) (Parks et al., 2012)
 Online self-administered positive interventions
are as effective as those administered in-person
(Layous et al., 2013)

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Conclusions
• Positive interventions are effective
 Enhance well-being; reduce depressive symptoms
(Emmons & McCullough, 2003; Lyubomirsky et al., 2005; Sin & Lyubomirsky, 2009)
 More effective than traditional psychotherapy/
antidepressant medication (Seligman et al., 2006)
• Moderating factors (e.g., personality)
 Eg: Neuroticism may moderate efficacy and durability of
positive interventions
• Customize positive intervention treatment

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Thank you