What Are the Ingredients for the Best Form of the Best Possible Self (BPS) Intervention? (BestBPS)

Philipps University

Status: Completed

Conditions: Healthy Participants

Treatments: Behavioral: Thinking, writing and imagination

Study type: Interventional

Funder types: Other

Identifiers

NCT04753801

BestBPS

Details and patient eligibility

About

This study aims to determine the relevant 'ingredients' to make the best possible self (BPS) intervention most efficacious and test whether the BPS's efficacy can be enhanced by including mindfulness aspects.

Full description

The best possible self (BPS) intervention is a brief positive psychology intervention to increase a person's positive affect and optimism. The BPS has been used in different forms (writing vs. imagining/visualizing vs. writing + imagining/visualizing the best possible self). However, it remains unclear which 'ingredients' are necessary to let the BPS unfold its effects. This online study aims to determine the relevant 'ingredients' to make the best possible self (BPS) intervention most efficacious. Since mindfulness interventions have recently indicated promising effects on positive and negative affect, another goal of this study is to test whether the BPS's efficacy can be enhanced by including aspects of mindfulness.

Enrollment: 181 patients

Sex: All

Ages: 18+ years old

Volunteers: Accepts Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion criteria

• fluent in the German language
• access to a computer/tablet/smartphone with audio output/headphones

Exclusion criteria

• not willing to take part in an online-intervention (duration: 60 minutes)
• no access to a computer/tablet/smartphone with audio output/headphones

Trial design

Primary purpose: Basic Science

Allocation: Randomized

Interventional model: Parallel Assignment

Masking: None (Open label)

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181 participants in 5 patient groups

Best Possible Self (writing only)

Experimental group

Description:

Participants are asked to think and write about their best possible future self (15 min).

Treatment:

Behavioral: Thinking, writing and imagination

Best Possible Self (writing+imagining)

Experimental group

Description:

Participants are asked to think and write about their best possible future self (15 min) and, then to imagine their positive future (5 min).

Treatment:

Behavioral: Thinking, writing and imagination

Best Possible Self (writing+mindfulness)

Experimental group

Description:

Participants are asked to think and write about their best possible future self (15 min) and subsequently engage in a brief mindfulness sequence (5 min).

Treatment:

Behavioral: Thinking, writing and imagination

Best Possible Self (writing+recall)

Experimental group

Description:

Participants are asked to think and write about their best possible future self (15 min) and subsequently engage in a brief recall imagination task about the past two days (5 min).

Treatment:

Behavioral: Thinking, writing and imagination

Writing about the past

Active Comparator group

Description:

Participants are asked to think and write about activities of the past two days (15 min).

Treatment:

Behavioral: Thinking, writing and imagination