About bringing Mindfulness-based Strengths Practice (MBSP) into Higher Education
Sam was a particularly personable, warm, and good-natured student. He had just started our master's program in Positive Psychology here at Liverpool John Moores University. Despite his obvious passion for the course, things didn’t seem to go well. He had to face a few unexpectedly low grades for his assignments. Frustration and disappointment were written all over his face, and I clearly recall his slumped posture. The dissonance between his love for the subject and the marks he was awarded seemed to weigh heavily on him.
All the more surprising, then, to see him a short while later bouncing with joy and energy. What had happened? How did this transformation come about? How did Sam manage to turn his disappointment into joy, energy, and a growing enthusiasm for his studies, and how did he find an inner certainty for himself?
The answer to these questions can be found in the content of the course itself. At the heart of our MSc programme sits the mindfulness-based strengths practice course (Niemiec, 2023), the experiential backbone of the whole programme. Participating in MBSP, Sam gained first-hand experience of working with mindfulness and character strengths – with profoundly transformative effects.
What happens during MBSP?
When going through the MBSP programme, students learn to apply mindfulness to recognising their strengths and to becoming more aware how important these strengths are in their lives. But it goes further than that. MBSP is not only about one’s own strengths, not just an inward-looking, personal perspective. A mindful approach to character strengths is fundamentally social and interpersonal. If we can perceive the character strengths of those around us more clearly – friends, family, colleagues and even people we may only meet briefly – we get to know them on a deeper level. This also counteracts the “innate” human tendency to react particularly strongly to anything “disturbing”. It helps to develop a greater awareness of human qualities. Looking outwards, this appreciation for the good in people enriches our human interaction. Turned inwards, it means a greater appreciation of our own positive qualities and ultimately a richer inner life, living and acting in harmony with your values and beliefs, with more inner freedom, more energy, and more strength for an authentic life.
Precisely this was the impressive transformation that I witnessed in Sam – and in many of my students. The character strength love of learning stood out in his VIA personal character strengths profile, much to his own surprise, as he had merely scraped through school and university. The idea that love of learning was an essential part of him first came to him as a shock. But with reflection and mindful observation, he gained a better understanding of what really made him tick: Although he had never seen himself this way before, his character profile was right. His interests and the activities he experienced as particularly fulfilling were, indeed, an expression of his love of learning. For instance, he realised how much he enjoyed learning about the history of his village and the development of crafts in the region. Sam started seeing more clearly how wide and varied his interests are and realised how enthusiastically he explored new topics – truly an expression of how much it energised him to dig deeper and learn about new things.
In Sam’s character strengths profile, kindness and social intelligence appeared alongside love of learning as top character strengths, so-called signature strengths. Armed with the knowledge of his own signature strengths, he reflected on the real reasons why he wanted to study Positive Psychology: not to get a particularly good degree, not to excel academically. Rather, he wanted to learn as much as possible about positive psychology so that he could better support his students in the school he worked in. By reflecting on his strengths, Sam reconnected with his values and goals and reawakened his energy and joy. He found meaning instead of frustration, and he again felt invigorated.
After graduating, Sam told me how much it had helped him to understand his character strengths. He wanted to learn to help, not to shine. The engagement with his own strengths led him to more authenticity and has since given his life a clear, meaningful direction.
MBSP at LJMU
Within our 13-week version of the MBSP programme, the students develop mindfulness – a non-judging, open, curious, and accepting attitude and reap all the benefits associated with it. But going beyond that, they also learn how to employ mindfulness to identify their character strengths – their positive personality traits – and to then bring these forth wisely. In a nutshell, they learn about their personal character strengths, bring mindfulness to observing and exploring their character strengths, and practice bringing their strengths into their lives in a conscious and balanced way. At the same time, they also learn to bring forth their character strengths to enhance their mindfulness practice.
The VIA character strengths system, introduced around 2004 by Chris Peterson and Martin Seligman is one of the most impressive success stories of Positive Psychology (Peterson & Seligman, 2004). It is a science-based approach that takes the uniqueness of each individual seriously and, on that basis, invites to consciously integrate character strengths into our lives. Within only a few years, character strengths work has become established in a wide variety of contexts, including workplaces, schools and universities. It is enriching our private and social lives. Increasingly it is also used in therapeutic work, in counselling and coaching.
When developing LJMU’s MSc Positive Psychology & Wellbeing programme, I deliberately chose to put character strengths and mindfulness centre stage and am still amazed how profound and far-reaching the effects are. It is immensely rewarding to observe how much our students benefit from it, on a personal level as well as professionally, integrating character strength approaches and mindfulness into their private life as well as their profession.
How MBSP helps our students
Meanwhile, four cohorts of our students completed the MBSP programme as part of their studies. The first cohort was challenged by outer circumstances to take one of the key learnings of MBSP to heart: to see obstacles as opportunities. They brought forth their character strengths to an impressive degree – such as self-regulation, perseverance, social intelligence, kindness, fairness, gratitude, and love of learning – to complete the course while COVID-restrictions hit their studies hard. In many conversations students shared how much the MBSP tools helped them to cope better with the challenges of lock-down, in their studies but also in their private lives. One student, for example, shared that MBSP helped her in her new relationship while the UK's government restrictions did not allow them to meet:
"MBSP helped me to learn more about and become closer to my partner. This is a new relationship, so it has been a nice way to bond with each other more while not able to spend time together."
Another student told us about her MBSP experience:
“It helped me to help my young daughter to cope with lockdown. I was able to share with her about her strengths and she saw that she has tools in her 'toolbox' to help her navigate life.”
Also in subsequent years, one of the most prominent outcomes was how MBSP impacted on relationships:
"I feel happier and more positive which in turn improves how I relate to my partner and children."
and ...
"Engaging with MBSP has improved my relationship with my daughter. Understanding and being aware that her signature strengths are very different to mine have hugely improved our communication as we now allow for our differences when talking."
Many students also noticed other positive effects of MBSP:
"It struck me most how character strengths and mindfulness are interwoven, yet separate, but can make such a positive and profound difference in one's wellbeing."
Many shared how MBSP improved their way of being in the world:
- “I am more accepting and therefore less negative when facing challenges in life.”
- “It changes your perspective. I have a less judgemental attitude towards myself and others.”
- “I am able to notice when I am using a strength too much or too little and how it directly applies to my situation. This makes it easier to guide a way out of a problem.“
- “My journey over the last 13 weeks has been life changing in lots of ways. The opportunity to learn, experience and talk about MBSP in a group of like-minded people has really opened my mind to lots of possibilities moving forward.”
MBSP effects in numbers
In addition to these personal statements, we collected some light-touch retrospective data from our last three cohorts. Although we cannot take these data as robust empirical evidence, the student responses nevertheless highlight some of the benefits they experienced.
For instance, all three cohorts reported increased wellbeing in nine different areas. 91% of students found that their overall wellbeing improved as a result of taking part in the MBSP programme. As shown in Figure 1, these improvements are similar for all other wellbeing domains they reported on, ranging from 82% for improvements in ‘accomplishment’ to 95% of students reporting improvements in their ability to manage problems and their sense of who they are.
A more differentiated view on these data is offered in Figure 2. It shows the mean responses for the wellbeing domains separated by cohort (year of completion). Students chose from seven response options to indicate the change they experienced: from 1 = much lower or worse to 4 = about the same and 7 = much higher or better. As the figure shows, almost all mean responses were somewhere between slightly higher or better (5) and much higher or better (7), with a general tendency to show stronger effects year on year. Whereas for the 2021 cohort the mean response score across all nine dimensions was 5.7 it increased to 6 and then 6.2 for 2022 and 2023, respectively. Given that the 2021 cohort experienced the whole MBSP programme online and generally was more affected by COVID restrictions, it may be the case that the slightly more subdued responses are a result of this.
These observations are generally in line with emerging research, such as the first randomised controlled study of MBSP in higher education (Wingert et al., 2022). In this study with US colleague students, retention rates were significantly higher for students who had taken part in the 8-week MBSP programme compared to a control group of students who did not take part in it (Wingert et al., 2022). Students in the MBSP group had higher retention rates (86%) throughout the next academic year, which, in the control group, dropped from 61% in the next semester to 55% a further semester later. With other words, students who took part in MBSP were less likely to drop out than others. If their experience was anything like the transformation Sam experienced, we can get a sense why MBSP improved retention. In addition, the MBSP programme was linked to significantly higher wellbeing, engagement, meaning, and health.
Similarly, a study with high school students in Turkey found that 24.5% of the variance in grade point average was predicted by mindfulness and the three character strengths perseverance, prudence, and love of learning (Güldal & Satan, 2022). In India, Kulandaiammal and Alafia (2023) conducted a pilot study with undergraduate students and reported increased life satisfaction and wellbeing combined with a reduction in psychological distress, loneliness, and negative emotions after participation in MBSP. A PhD project carried out at the University of Lincoln (UK) provides further evidence for the positive effects of MBSP in higher education (undergraduate and postgraduate research students) notably also on self-efficacy (Park, 2020). All these studies – and our own observations – point in the same direction: there seems to be immense potential when combining a mindfulness practice with a positive, value-based approach which takes the individual differences of what makes us tick and feel alive seriously.
Moving beyond higher education, a randomised controlled study with adolescent pupils from the Netherlands investigated an adapted version of MBSP that consisted of eight in-class sessions of 45 minutes each (Kennes, et al, 2023). It demonstrated increased emotional, psychological, and social wellbeing combined with decreased hyperactivity/inattention symptoms and peer-related problems. However, these improvements were not maintained after a six-months follow-up period, potentially indicating that more extensive engagement is required. Because the study did not consider the extent of home practice participants engaged with, it is difficult to get a more comprehensive picture, whether the level of engagement indeed played a role.
A study in the workplace directly compared MBSP with the most commonly used mindfulness intervention, mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR). It found that both approaches enhanced employee wellbeing (Pang & Ruch, 2019). Interestingly, with the additional strengths focus, MBSP yielded further benefits, such as higher employee motivation and bolstered task performance. Also, a recent study from China aimed to investigate MBSP-specific effects. Zhu et al. (2023) compared MBSP with an intervention that focused on enhancing character strengths, but without including mindfulness. Both approaches were found to have equal benefits for enhancing character strengths, strengths knowledge and strengths use. While MBSP more effectively enhanced psychological wellbeing, the character strengths intervention had a stronger effect on subjective wellbeing. Somewhat similar to Pang and Ruch’s study, also this study shows that MBSP seems to have specific effects. Such selectivity is a good indicator that the two main components – mindfulness and character strengths work – contribute in a meaningful way and that, in consequence, by combining them within MBSP specific outcomes can be achieved.
This brief synopsis shows that integrating mindfulness-based practice and character strengths holds a lot of promise, in education as well as workplaces. My own observations of running these MBSP programmes fully confirm this. While Sam’s specific experience and the character strengths that make him get out of bed in the morning are unique to him, the enthusiasm, energy and meaning he experienced certainly are not. From what I was privileged to witness so far, the emerging richness, the enhanced meaning and the growing authenticity is a common outcome.
Observing these wonderful transformations in so many of my students inspired me to bring this exciting approach to the German speaking world. So, I wrote "Charakterstärke", the first German book on the combination of Mindfulness and Character Strengths. As VIA-certified MBSP Master Trainer I am now teaming up with the DGPP - Deutsche Gesellschaft für Positive Psychologie - to develop MBSP training and trainer certification for the DACH region (i.e. Germany, Austria, Switzerland).
References
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Güldal, Ş., Satan, A. (2022). The effect of mindfulness based psychoeducation program on adolescents’ character strengths, mindfulness and academic achievement. Current Psychology, 41, 6608–6619. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12144-020-01153-w
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Kennes, A., Lataster, J., Janssens, M., Simons, M., Reijnders, J., Jacobs, N., & Peeters, S. (2023). Efficacy of a school-based mental health intervention based on mindfulness and character strengths use among adolescents: A pilot study of Think Happy-Be Happy intervention. Journal of Happiness Studies, 24(2), 677-697. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10902-022-00611-5
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Kulandaiammal, R., & Alafia, J. (2023). A Pilot and Cultural Validation Study on Mindfulness-based Strengths Practice (MBSP) in Enhancing Well-being among Indian Undergraduate Students. Indian Journal of Positive Psychology, 14(3), 301-308. https://iahrw.org/our-services/journals/indian-journal-of-positive-psychology/
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Malinowski, P. (2023). Charakterstärke. Mit Achtsamkeit deine positiven Eigenschaften erkennen und entwickeln. O.W. Barth. https://www.amazon.de/Charakterstärke-Achtsamkeit-positiven-Eigenschaften-entwickeln/dp/3426293277/
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Niemiec, R. M. (2023). Mindfulness and Character Strengths: A Practitioner's Guide to MBSP (2nd Ed.). Hogrefe Publishing.
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Pang, D., & Ruch, W. (2019). Fusing character strengths and mindfulness interventions: Benefits for job satisfaction and performance. Journal of Occupational Health Psychology, 24(1), 150–162. https://doi.org/10.1037/ocp0000144
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Park, R. J. (2020). Mindfulness-based strengths practice: A 'toolbox' for self-efficacy in Higher Education (Doctoral dissertation, University of Lincoln). https://eprints.lincoln.ac.uk/id/eprint/46297/1/Rebecca Park - PhD - Psychology.pdf
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Peterson, C., & Seligman, M. E. P. (2004). Character strengths and virtues: A handbook and classification. Oxford University Press.
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Wingert, J. R., Jones, J. C., Swoap, R. A., & Wingert, H. M. (2022). Mindfulness-based strengths practice improves well-being and retention in undergraduates: a preliminary randomized controlled trial. Journal of American College Health, 70(3), 783-790, https://doi.org/10.1080/07448481.2020.1764005
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Zhu, Q., Wang, Q., & Yang, S. (2023). Does mindfulness matter in the development of character strengths? A RCT study comparing mindfulness-based strengths practice and character strengths-based intervention. The Journal of Positive Psychology, 1-22. https://doi.org/10.1080/17439760.2023.2257678
I first published this post on LinkedIn.
