Enhancing Student’s Self-Leadership Through a Positive Psychology Intervention? A Randomized Controlled Trial Using an Idiographic Perspective

Abstract

Positive psychology interventions have been shown to increase individual well-being and happiness at a nomothetic level. We expand our understanding of their potential impact on individual’s self-leadership by adopting an idiographic approach. Moreover, we compare that effect with that of a goal-setting intervention. In a diary study using a randomized controlled design, 60 undergraduates were surveyed daily for 14 consecutive days before an exam and were assigned to one of three conditions: a “three good things” (TGT) intervention in which participants wrote down three positive things they had experienced during the day before going to bed; a “goal-setting” (GS) intervention in which they wrote down three learning goals for the next day; or a placebo control condition. Dynamic modeling of time series revealed that students in the TGT and the GS intervention significantly increased their self-leadership across time at a small to medium effect size. Students in the placebo control group showed no significant change. Contrary to expectations, the TGT intervention was not more strongly associated with self-related strategies, and the GS intervention was not more strongly associated with task-related strategies. This study demonstrates the value of a brief positive psychology intervention, which is comparably effective as a goal-setting intervention in fostering individual self-leadership in academic achievement settings.