The effects of counting blessings on subjective well-being: a gratitude intervention in a Spanish sample.

This study examined a gratitude intervention repeating Emmons and McCullough study (2003) in a Spanish sample, Participants were randomly assigned to one of three conditions (gratitude, hassles and any event) and kept daily records during 2 weeks of gratitude, affect, quality of relationships, physical and subjective well-being. We added design features to assess the intervention long-term impact (follow-up measures), and to improve the design control (pre-treatment measures). Following the cited authors' analysis, i.e., comparing groups only in the post-test, we replicated their results, finding differences in positive affect and gratitude between the gratitude condition and the hassles condition. However, when including both the pre and the follow-up measures in the analysis, results were replicated only partially, as the difference in gratitude disappeared. Moreover, the difference in positive affect between groups in the post-test seemed to be influenced mainly by a decrease in positive affect in the hassles group. Post-test differences between groups in positive affect disappeared in the follow-up. Gratitude interventions may have an effect on well-being, but we consider other methods to promote gratitude besides gratitude journals should be tested.

The relationship between fantasy proneness and schizotypy in adolescents.

Previous research has found substantial relationships between fantasy proneness and schizotypy in adulthood. The aim of the present study is to examine the connections between these constructs in an adolescent sample. A sample of 511 adolescents filled out a measure of fantasy proneness and a measure of psychotic-like phenomena. The factorial pattern for schizotypal traits in adolescents replicate the earlier documented three-factor structure. Also, the full range of schizotypal features was found to be related to imaginative tendencies tapped by fantasy proneness. Finally, joint analysis of fantasy and schizotypy showed that, in adolescents, fantasy converges with magical ideation and the cognitive-perceptual dimension of schizotypy, but diverges from the interpersonal aspects of schizotypy.