Positive education in college students: the effects of the “self-knowledge and soul care” workshop on the emotions and character strengths

Abstract

Objective: most healthy and unhealthy behaviors are acquired or consolidated during youth, thus a good investment in the future of any nation, should be to promote the development of young people, incorporating them into projects and programs that aspire to increase their subjective wellbeing and personal health. The Psycho-Educational Intervention (PEI) presented here has been shown to have effects on the health and wellbeing of students as well as on their academic performance. However, its effects on strength of character, emotional balance and emotional intelligence are unknown. Materials and methods: in this paper it was shows the effects of this PEI on positive education in a group of 18 students through three questionnaires: VIA-240, PANAS-20 and PIEMO. To estimate the effects of the PEI, a comparison was made between the scores obtained on the three questionnaires before and after the PEI sessions. Results: the results show that not only did character strengths, positive affect and emotional intelligence improve with PEI, but that also the character strengths and the emotional bearings arranged in a network topography changed with intervention. Also, there were some changes in the most connected nodes of the network. Conclusions: these results show that PEI improved the previous reported variables, they also show the way in which the balance of the positive and negative affects, the development of emotional intelligence and the enhancement of character strengths give access to the three pillars of positive psychology.