Author(s)

Antoine Lecat, Fanny Weytens, Moïra Mikolajczak

Research Institute for Psychological Sciences, UCLouvain, Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium.

This article aims to investigate whether a simple attentional training computer task aimed at increasing attention towards positive stimuli can increase positive affects and provide the same benefits on mental health than classic positive psychology exercises. We addressed this issue by ex-perimentally manipulating selective attentional response to positive in-formation and examining its impact on the level of individuals’ positive af-fects and subsequent well-being. Results show that we were not able to induce an attentional bias towards positive cues in all participants, sug-gesting that some people are more responsive to positive attentional training than others. However, responsive subjects showed an increase in well-being that was proportional to the positive bias induced. Taken together, our results suggest that typical positive psychology exercises currently remain the “gold standard”.

Attentional Bias Modification, Attentional Training, Well-Being, Positive Affect, Dot Probe Task, Computer-Task Experiment, Positive Psychology, Happiness, Positive and Negative Stimuli, Intervention

Lecat, A. , Weytens, F. and Mikolajczak, M. (2019) Effect of an Ecological Attentional Bias Modification towards Positive Cues on Positive Affect and Well-Being. Psychology, 10, 648-666. doi: 10.4236/psych.2019.105041.