WISE INTERVENTIONS

College students were asked to take 15-minutes per week over 8 weeks to make regular expressions of gratitude—to write about “times in their lives when they were grateful for something that another person did for them and then writing a letter about those experiences directly to that person (but not sending it).” In a second treatment, students were to make regular expressions of optimism “to visualize living a life consistent with their ideal self” in terms of romance, educational attainment, family life, etc.. Among students who self-selected into a study on a “happiness intervention,” who were presumably motivated to increase their happiness, completing either of these exercises as compared to a randomized control exercise (listing what they had done over the past week to increase “organizational skills”) increased reported greater well-being at the end of the 8-week writing period and at a 6-month follow-up. Among students who self-selected into a study on “cognitive exercises” there was no difference by condition.