What do daily reports add to the picture? Results from a photography intervention designed to increase positive emotion

• Published in: The journal of positive psychology 2020-09, Vol.15 (5), p.639-644
• Main Authors: McKee, Laura G., Algoe, Sara B., Faro, Alyssa L., O'Leary, Jessica L.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Ecological momentary assessment; Emotions; experience sampling method; Feasibility; Intervention; Life satisfaction; Photography; positive emotion; Positive emotions; Positive psychology; Quasi-experimental methods; technology
• ISSN: 1743-9760; 1743-9779
• DOI: 10.1080/17439760.2020.1789697

Although meta-analytic reviews highlight the small average impact of positive psychology interventions (PPIs), it is often unclear how or why interventions succeed. A pilot study of Picture This! - a smartphone-based photography intervention designed to increase awareness of and attention to daily positive emotions - is presented as a case study that demonstrates the power of experience sampling method (ESM) in assessing engagement and testing one mechanism hypothesized to account for intervention success. The ESM design allowed us to document equal engagement for participants in intervention and control conditions while also linking positive emotions elicited from the daily picture-taking exercise with nightly and end-of-study outcomes. Greater positive emotions experienced when taking photographs by the intervention group, relative to controls, partially explained higher savoring beliefs and greater life satisfaction post-intervention. This pilot highlights the benefits of using a high-powered quasi-experimental analytic approach to examine feasibility and purported mechanism of PPIs.