Use of Psychology in Change cont.)

Underlying mechanisms
"...Studies have not only shown that well-being can be increased by applying certain strategies but have also offered insights as to why the strategies contribute to well-being..."
PositivePsychology, 2020

For example, looking at different emotional regulation strategies and their impact on cognitive resources.
Previously it has shown that when you exert self-control, this can result in decreased self-control performance on a subsequent task.
An example is a dieter who is also trying to quit smoking; when the dieter says no to a piece of cake, he/she is more likely to fail in refusing a cigarette at a later moment. This and similar studies provides
"...insight into a potential mechanism underlying mindful acceptance, namely that is probably conserves revelatory resources..."
PositivePsychology, 2020

Measurement tools

i) Values in action inventory of strengths (brings together the 6 most valued virtues that are operationalised into 24 different character strengths)
(for more details see elsewhere in the Knowledge Base)
ii) Flourishing scale
iii) Subjective happiness scale
iv) Adult dispositional hope scale
v) Brief resilience scale

These tools are useful for a variety of reasons
- insights to which certain elements characterise people
- scores on assessment tools can be compare it to mean scores, eg population characteristics like country, regions, age group, gender group, etc
- used as repeated measures, ie questionnaire used multiple times during an intervention so that the progress can be tracked (this also provides information on the stability of the characteristics)
- insights into the relationship between different constructs can be obtained by comparing the correlation between scores on different assessment tool, ie people who score high on mindfulness could use this strength more