Program

As shown in Table 1, the positive education program consisted of an introductory session and three main modules: understanding emotions, fostering positive emotions, and managing negative emotions. We started the program with an introductory session on meditation because meditation can help students learn more in class while generating more positive emotions (Waters, 2011). The first major module was about the definition, feeling, expression, and science of emotions, so that the students can fully understand what emotions are and what they can do about them. Then, we taught students practical skills to foster positive emotions like gratitude and serenity. Finally, negative emotions management classes were added as we realized that the promotion of positive emotions would be more effective if the students could manage some of their most common and harmful negative emotions. We chose to teach them how to manage anxiety because it is the most prevalent negative emotion among adolescents (Kashani and Orvaschel, 1990), and anger as its consequence can be particularly severe (Feindler and Ecton, 1986; Lehnert et al., 1994). This way we limited management of negative emotions to two sessions, so that the program was more balanced, yet still focusing primarily on positive emotions.

Outline of the positive education program.

Walton (2014) argued that psychological interventions should be theoretically solid, context sensitive, and aim for long-lasting changes. Our intervention was designed under the framework of the Broaden-and-Build theory (Fredrickson, 2001), which predicts that fostering positive emotions can reduce negative emotions. We mainly used activities that required students’ hands-on participation to enforce habits and embodied memory, as well as practical skills that they could use in frequent daily scenarios. Both components aimed to produce long-lasting effects. And since interventions for adolescent populations should provide participants with greater respect (Yeager et al., 2018), we avoided long lectures, mandatory instructions, and quizzes, all of which could frustrate adolescents’ needs for being respected and discourage their participation. Instead, we focused on activities that generated positive emotions, and practical skills that they could use in their daily lives as they saw fit. We believe this would make the students experience more autonomy and respect during the interventions. Here is a brief description of the activities and skills in each session:

Meditation – Meditation by focusing on breathing can increase mindfulness (Levinson et al., 2014) and help regulate negative emotions like stress, anxiety, and depression (Goldin and Gross, 2010). Ren et al. (2011) found that after a 20 min meditation session, Chinese college students became more alert, conscious, and insightful compared to those in the control group. In this kickoff session of our intervention, we taught students basic mediation skills, like abdominal breathing and counting breaths, which will be practiced in the beginning of every following sessions to make them more mindful and engaged in the program.

Know your emotions – Based on Russell (2003) psychological constructs of emotion and Fredrickson (2009) classification of positive emotions, we taught students about the basic positive and negative emotions. They also learned the functions of emotions in their daily scenarios. For example, anger means they felt they might be trespassed by other students, interest means they found a field that they might gain substantial growth in.

Express emotions – The students discussed experiences of different emotions and learned how to express them, especially the negative emotions. They also learned the facial, verbal, and body cues that could help them identify other people’s emotions. They practiced this “emotion-reading” skill by guessing what emotions other students try to express in a charades-style game.

Emotions and brains – Using a model of human brains and the movie Inside Out, we taught students the basics of affective neuroscience (Panksepp and Watt, 2011), as well as the concept of neuroplasticity (Draganski et al., 2004). Teaching both subjects helped students gain a growth mindset (Dweck, 2006), in which emotions are manageable and controllable. They also learned the “flip your lid” technique (Siegel and Bryson, 2012) that can help them understand the source of their anger and better control this feeling.

Find good things – Employed the “Three Good Things” intervention in which students talked with their parents about at least three good things each day to offset the overly negative emotions brought by the natural negativity bias of humans (Baumeister et al., 2001). This intervention was proven effective in increasing happiness and decreasing depression (Seligman et al., 2005). In a team competition game, every six students were assigned into one team. They wrote down good things that happened in the past 24 h on a poster paper with colored pens, and the team with the most good things listed won.

Gratitude – Gratitude is one of the most important positive emotions and correlates with many positive outcomes (McCullough, 2004). Following the “three good things” exercise, students then discussed the people responsible for these good things, and their feelings toward them. The teacher summarized these feelings as gratitude and asked the students to express their gratitude on gratitude cards. Each team also chose one person or thing that they needed to thank and wrote a card to/for this person or thing.

Savoring – Savoring helps students to be completely submerged in the current positive emotion, so that they can take full advantage of the broaden-and-build effects of the positive emotion (Fredrickson, 2009). Students also used this technique to increase their mindfulness of the environment, especially with regard to its positive aspects (Langer, 1989). Starting from the mindful raisin-eating exercise (Kabat-Zinn, 2006), students were asked to practice savoring food during their next meal.

Serenity – Serenity is one of the top 10 positive emotions according to Fredrickson (2009), yet many adolescents do not feel serene in schools (Byrne et al., 2007). Students shared their experiences of serenity and discussed how to keep calm during stressful times. In an exercise, students were asked to deliver a short improvised presentation and use the serenity technique to calm themselves before the presentation.

Anxiety – Students learned the psychology of anxiety and how to distinguish between healthy anxiety and unhealthy anxiety (Levitt, 2015). In an improvised classroom activity that supposedly elicits anxiety, students learned how to convert unhealthy anxiety into healthy anxiety that could actually benefit their performances.

Anger – Students learned the physiological and psychological characteristics of anger, so that they could better identify anger within themselves and others. They shared the experiences of bad consequences caused by anger and tried to describe the feelings of anger. They also learned anger management skills and practiced them in the class.