Abstract
The current article discusses the potential utility of self-help books as a means of disseminating positivepsychological interventions, and presents data comparing a positive psychology-based self-help book witha cognitive-behavioral self-help book and a self-monitoring control condition. We studied college freshmen(N=58), and argue that this population is a particularly appropriate target for well-being intervention.Outcome measures included both indices of efficacy (depressive symptoms and life satisfaction) and effectiveness(e.g. the extent to which participants found their assigned activities to be meaningful). The twobook groups outperformed the control and were equivalently efficacious at reducing depressive symptoms;on life satisfaction, positive self-help outperformed cognitive-behavioral, but only at 6-month follow-up.Positive self-help was also superior to cognitive-behavioral self-help on indices of effectiveness. Possibilitiesfor future directions are discussed, with an emphasis on the realities of practical dissemination to bothcollege students, and to the general public.
