What's the best way to improve a gloomy mood? It could be the skill you think you're best at, a new study suggests. Think you're good at mindfulness techniques? Then that may work best for you. Or do you think a more cognitive approach is your strength? Then use that.
Researchers found that people who were in a low mood improved more quickly when they used a mood-enhancing method that they were told was their strongest skill. These participants improved faster than people who were asked to use a skill they were told was a relative weakness.
“We found it helps people think they're working with their strengths rather than something they see as a weakness,” said Samuel Murphy, the study's lead author and a doctoral student in psychology at Ohio State University.
What's most surprising about the study, however, is that participants were randomly told they were best at one mood-enhancing skill or the other.
“Our results suggest that it was irrelevant whether participants were good in the skill. It was the belief that they were good at that skill that made it effective," said study co-author Daniel Strunk, a psychology professor and Ohio State chief of depression.
The study involved 616 students. The researchers briefly told participants about two therapy skills — cognitive and mindfulness — that they said can be helpful in their daily lives. Both are used by therapists to help clients with problems such as depression.
Cognitive skills were defined as identifying and re-evaluating negative thoughts and beliefs. Mindfulness skills were defined as awareness and acceptance of one's thoughts and feelings without trying to change them.
The participants were then presented with a hypothetical situation where they could use those skills—feeling hurt because they hadn't been invited to a social event by a friend—and were asked to practice both skills and take some measures about how they used them.
Each participant was randomly told that one of the skills – cognitive or mindfulness – was their strongest skill or their weakest and that they would use that skill in the next part of the experiment – an 'induction of sad mood'.
The researchers then made the participants sad by vividly imagining someone they cared about dying, while listening to the sad song “Russia under the Mongolian Yoke,” played at half speed to make it sound even sadder. .
As expected, most people reported a significant drop in mood immediately after induction. The participants were then asked to respond to five mood assessments in the minutes following the induction of the sad mood.
All participants saw their mood gradually improve after the induction was over. The results showed that whether they were asked to use cognitive or mindfulness skills had no significant effect on mood recovery — but the framing of whether they were told it was their strongest or weakest skill.
Participants who were told the skill they would use was their strongest — whether cognitive or perceptive — saw greater improvement in their mood than participants who worked with a skill they were told was their weakest.
The study results cannot say with certainty why framing the intervention as a strength produced better results.
"It may be that if there's this initial encouragement early on that they're really good at a particular strategy, that can instill more confidence and persistence in using this skill, leading to better results," Murphy said.
Or maybe it's the other way around.
“People can get discouraged if they're told a particular skill is their weakness and don't try so hard or aren't so sure it will work,” said Strunk.
The researchers said the findings could be helpful for therapists who focus on building client strengths. “It's really easy to let customers know you're building on their strengths, so if it's increasing the benefit, it's important to try,” Murphy said.
Strunk added that the results could help anyone coping with a problem like a sad mood.
“We have only studied mindfulness and cognitive skills here, but there are several approaches to improve mental health,” he said. “The ones you think will work best for you will probably work the best.”
