Symposium 6th World Congress on Positive Psychology 2019

Understanding And Improving Wellbeing Using Ecological Momentary Assessment (EMA) In The Context Of The PERMA Model   (#285)

Saeideh Heshmati 1
  1. Claremont Graduate University, Claremont, CALIFORNIA, United States

The PERMA theory of wellbeing (Seligman, 2011) suggests that wellbeing is a complex construct with five interacting elements: Positive emotions, Engagement, positive Relationships, Meaning, and Accomplishment.  In the current study we examined the interplay of these elements in youth’s daily lives, while also exploring the effect of positive psychology and mindfulness interventions on changes in these elements. Our focus is on understanding human flourishing as a state – changes in wellbeing over time – therefore we adopted an Ecological Momentary Assessment (EMA; Shiffman, Stone, & Hufford, 2008) design to allow participants to report on their wellbeing in real-time, across contexts, and across time points. We had participants (N = 160, Female = 106, MAge = 20.31 years, SD = 1.23, range = 18-22) complete a short survey via their smartphones, sent randomly six times a day for 28 days. Through these daily surveys we measured elements of the PERMA model as a measure of well-being in daily life. We used growth curve modeling to carry out multivariate time series analysis on daily reports of well-being. Additionally, we used network modeling methods to visualize a PERMA network graph and examine the patterns of interconnectivity among the five well-being elements.