The Effects of an Online Positive Psychology Course on Happiness, Health, and Well-Being

Abstract

This study investigated the effects of an 8-week online positive psychology course on happiness, health, and well-being. There were 65 undergraduate students in the course and a comparison group of 63 undergraduates taking other online psychology courses. The participants were assessed on positive mental health (e.g., happiness, positive emotions), negative mental health (e.g., anxiety, depression), general health, and personal characteristics (e.g., hope, resilience) during the first and last week of the courses. The anxiety and depression measures had cut-offs for clinically significant symptoms. The hypotheses were that the positive psychology students would have significant improvements on all measures and a reduction in the percent anxious and depressed relative to the comparison group. The hypotheses were supported with large effect sizes for positive and negative mental health (mean ds = 0.907 and − 0.779, respectively) and medium-to-large effects for general health and personal characteristics (d = 0.674 and mean ds = 0.590, respectively). There was a reduction from 49.2 to 23.1% percent anxious and from 18.6 to 6.2% percent depressed with no change in the comparison group. In addition, improvements in the online positive psychology course were compared with a previous study of a similar face-to-face positive psychology course (Smith et al., 2021) showing the effect sizes for improvements relative to the comparison groups were larger in the online vs. face-to-face course (mean ds = 0.878. vs. 0.593). Possible explanations for these differences are discussed along with the implications for maximizing the benefits of positive psychology courses in the future.