Books, documentaries, websites, even a scholarly journal (“The Journal of Happiness Studies”) are tackling the seemingly elusive construct of happiness and proposing ways that people can get more of it in their lives. The study of happiness is an outgrowth of the field of positive psychology, founded by Martin Seligman. Positive psychology represents an important paradigm shift in psychology: a shift away from pathology and toward resiliency, hope, and strengths development.
In 2020, Lea Waters published a study about improving family happiness. The study tested two positive psychology interventions as a method to promote or induce happiness within healthy families. Research on families often takes a “deficit” approach to improving family life. A deficit approach tackles problems or concerns within a family to try and “fix” family functioning.
A positive psychology or strengths-based approach promotes healthy functioning that taps into strengths or resiliency within the family. This approach “develops positive skills and capacities, is designed to increase positive outcomes, and can be delivered to all types of families” (p. 645).
In addition to deficit interventions, much family research measures “reductions in unwanted behaviors and negative emotions” (p. 645) as the outcome variable after an intervention.
In this study, the outcome variable was family happiness, assessed with an adapted version of the Subjective Happiness Scale. The adapted version rewords questions with a family rather than individual focus. You can review the original scale questions HERE.
Two “family positive psychology interventions,” or FPPIs, were tested in the study. These interventions are called the Strengths Family Contract intervention, and the Strong Ancestry-Strong Family intervention.
The Strengths Family Contract intervention consists of five steps and covers goal-setting, identifying each person’s strengths, and spotting strengths in others. The Strong Ancestry-Strong Family intervention, completed in four steps, involves “sharing stories of the strengths and resilience of ancestors and relatives” (p. 648). Each family creates a strengths family tree map and discusses the strengths of their immediate family.
A total of 300 families were recruited to participate in the study: 100 families each were assigned to both FPPIs and to a control group. Families lived in a variety of nations including the U.S., Canada, Hong Kong, Norway, and others. Family members ranged in age from 10-57, and every family member completed the Subjective Happiness Scale in the pre- and post-intervention stages. A group happiness score was calculated for each family. The intervention period lasted for two weeks. One month later, families completed the final survey. Seventy-four families did not complete the final survey and were not included in the analyses.
Two important findings emerged from the study:
- Families in the two intervention groups had significantly higher happiness scores post-intervention compared to those in the control group.
- Happiness was not significantly different between the two intervention groups at the end of the study, showing that these interventions were equally beneficial.
How were these different outcomes achieved after only two weeks of the FPPI programs? The interventions improved these families’ emotional climate by focusing on strengths, helped them develop new practices and routines, and encouraged goal-setting and reflection.
“It may be that moments of positive emotions were cultivated through the communication activities, through spending time together, and through new family rituals. New resources in the form of strengths knowledge, and a newfound sense of meaning and family identity may have built up over the (post-intervention) month, thus making the family happier” (p. 650).
Strengths of this study’s design included the focus on healthy families, assessing every member of each family, comparing intervention groups to a control group, and waiting one month before collecting the final happiness scores. Undetermined by the study was the potential for long-term resiliency past the one-month follow up. Did the families continue to use their newfound skills long-term, and was family happiness maintained into the future? These questions will need to be answered in future research.
Waters, L. (2020). Using positive psychology interventions to strengthen family happiness: A family systems approach. The Journal of Positive Psychology, 15(5), 645-652.
©Jennie Dilworth, Ph.D