Promoting positive emotions among adolescents through school based gratitude interventions: a preliminary study

Positive and negative emotions are key contributors to sustain health and well-being of an individual. A young person’s ability to recognize, regulate, and express emotions appropriately and effectively plays a crucial role in determining his or her ability to achieve personal or academic goals, as well as to cope with environmental and social challenges. These emotions can be inculcated through positive psychology interventions like gratitude interventions. However cross cultural validation is required before application in different settings. A total of 60 adolescents randomly assigned in experimental group (31) and control group (29) with mean age of 16 years studying in different public schools of Rawalpindi, Pakistan served in this intervention based research. A modified version of three gratitude interventions (count your blessings, writing gratitude letters & LKM) was delivered for four weeks. Pre & post assessment were carried out with the help of Urdu version of GQ-6, GAC & mDES. One way ANCOVA shows a significant effect of modified gratitude interventions on positive emotions after controlling baseline assessment, F (2, 57) = 10.98, p=.002, partial η2= .16. Furthermore the regression analysis showed that State (β=.34**) and Trait (β=.337**) Gratitude are significantly positive predictors of positive emotions.