Practicing Other-Focused Kindness and Self-Focused Kindness Among Those at Risk for Mental Illness: Results of a Randomized Controlled Trial

Abstract

People with reduced levels of mental well-being might be at risk for developing future mental illness. Although several positive psychology interventions successfully improve mental well-being and psychological distress, less is known about their efficacy in a sample at risk for mental disorders. A Dutch sample of 289 participants with low or moderate levels of well-being were randomly assigned to other-focused kindness with reflection, other-focused kindness without reflection, self-focused kindness, or waitlist control (Trial register: NTR6786). Results of multilevel growth curve analyses revealed that other-focused kindness, but not self-focused kindness, led to improvements in the primary outcome mental well-being relative to waitlist control up to 6-week follow-up. By contrast, only other-focused kindness without reflection led to improvements in psychological distress. The three kindness conditions mainly did not differ from one another, and mainly no differences were found up to 6-months follow-up. An exception was that perceived stress was significantly more reduced up to 6-week and 6-months follow-up when people practiced other-focused kindness without reflection then when participants had practiced self-focused kindness. These findings point to the benefits of practicing kindness for others when people might be at risk for future mental illness. The study also indicates that reflecting about practicing kindness does not seem to have added value.

What Emotions to Encourage? The Role of High and Low Arousal Positive Emotions in Three Randomized Controlled Trials of Different Positive Psychology Interventions

“…In parallel with Study 2, well-being (Cronbach's α = 0.83) and positive emotions (Cronbach's α = 0.82) were assessed at baseline, posttest and 6-week follow-up, and positive emotions were also measured during the intervention, 2 and 4 weeks after beginning of the intervention. Again, well-being was the primary outcome in the original study of which the results have been described elsewhere (Nelson-Coffey et al, 2021). The Cronbachs alpha's were 0.85 and 0.68 for high and low arousal positive emotions, respectively.…”

“…The first aim of the current study was to post-hoc explore the effects of a 9-week multicomponent PPI (Schotanus-Dijkstra et al, 2017a), a comprehensive 6-week gratitude intervention (Bohlmeijer et al, 2020), and a 6-week acts of kindness intervention (Nelson-Coffey et al, 2021) on positive emotions and on high and low arousal positive emotions compared to waitlist control. The second aim was to explore whether high and low arousal positive emotions mediate the effects of these PPIs on mental well-being.…”

“…A self-selected convenience sample recruited via advertisements on Facebook/Linked, an online newsletter of a popular psychology magazine and Dutch regional newspapers (N = 216, 89.4% female) completed the baseline survey (Nelson-Coffey et al, 2021). Participants were predominantly of Dutch nationality (87.5%), higher educated (78.7% attended post-secondary education) and in paid employment (73.6%).…”

The Role of Self-Compassion and Attributions in the Mental Health of Older Adolescents amid the COVID-19 Pandemic

“…According to Shin and Lim [7], self-kindness can affect individuals' mental health, as registered in our correlation analysis. Self-kindness is, among other things, associated with a reduced risk of depression and anxiety, as well as increased psychological well-being, and reduces perceived stress, more so for individuals vulnerable to mental health problems [83]. Others [84] found the mediating effect of self-compassion on the rela-tionship between religion/spirituality and well-being, as well as religion/spirituality and depression/anxiety symptoms.…”