Abstract
Subjective well-being (SWB) refers to traits concerned with happiness, fulfillment and enrichment and is a substantial predictor of a flourishing life. Interest in the promotion of well-being has blossomed in recent years, and it is widely reported that positive psychological interventions (PPIs) can effectively improve SWB. However, to date, the neural correlates of PPIs remain elusive. Since previous research has suggested that emotion regulation might be the theoretical foundation for potential working mechanisms, here we used electroencephalography (EEG) techniques to identify whether the intentional increase of subjective well-being through PPIs was associated with greater tonic left frontal activation. Fifty-five students met the inclusion criteria and were allocated to a randomized controlled trial that was single blinded. The intervention group received PPIs once a week for 10 weeks (n = 28). Meanwhile, students in a placebo control group (CG, n = 27) were asked to write down early memories every day for 10 weeks and were invited to share voluntarily at the weekly meeting. Measures of subjective well-being, depression and anxiety were assessed at pre-test and post-test. Forty-eight students completed the post-test, and the collected data were analyzed across time (PPIs, n = 25; CG, n = 23). It was found that students undergoing the 10-week PPIs reported larger improvement in SWB, and greater relief in self-rated depression and anxiety from pre-intervention to post-intervention than did those in the control group. As expected, in conjunction with the promotion of subjective well-being and the amelioration of emotional distress from pre- to post-treatment in the intervention group, a significantly increased coefficient of frontal alpha EEG asymmetry was found. In summary, these findings suggest that adaptive emotion regulation, which is characteristic of greater tonic left frontal activation, reflects the efficiency of PPIs and highlights the frontal alpha EEG asymmetry as a neural substrate linking PPIs and mental health.Clinical Trial Registration Number: ChiCTR-ROC-17012636
Highlights
Recent years have seen a blossoming interest in the field of human subjective well-being (SWB)
The results indicated that positive affects, satisfaction with life, and domain satisfactions are correlated with lower risk of all-cause and natural cause mortality
A recent EEG study had found that there was a positive correlation between left-sided frontal activation and the levels of SWB [24], it is not clear whether the intentionally increase of subjective well-being through positive psychological interventions (PPIs) was associated with greater tonic left frontal activation. To address this gap in the literature, here we examined the frontal alpha activities before and after PPIs, and we hypothesized that the PPIs might boost an individual’s mental well-being to the extent of the improvement of ability to properly regulate emotions, which manifested as an increased coefficient of frontal alpha EEG asymmetry
Summary
Recent years have seen a blossoming interest in the field of human subjective well-being (SWB). SWB refers to a broad category of phenomena that include people’s evaluations of their lives (e.g., “life is satisfactory”) and emotional responses (e.g., “I am happy”) [1]. As a predominant positive psychological component, subjective well-being is considered to play a critical role in fostering the quality of people’s social lives [1]. There are a number of studies on the predictive power of SWB on health and longevity [4]. The results indicated that positive affects, satisfaction with life, and domain satisfactions are correlated with lower risk of all-cause and natural cause mortality (risk ratios from 0.90 to 0.99). Unnatural-cause mortality can be predicted by positive affects and satisfaction with life (risk ratios from 0.86 to 0.96) [5]. Just as Diener proposed, “subjective well-being is a desirable outcome but can be an important predictor of future life outcomes” [1]
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