Marketing Positivity: Will an Intervention Enhance Marketing Students' Subjective Happiness Scores?

The field of positive psychology has blossomed in research, training, and instruction to provide grounded ways to pursue happiness. Universities are now offering courses on happiness, centers are offering training certificates, and consultants are working with organizations to enhance workers' positivity and wellbeing because research affirms that positivity impacts personal and professional well-being and affects organizational culture and industry growth. This research provides a summary review of the positivity literature and discusses a short, positivity intervention study designed to increase subjective happiness in a marketing research course significantly greater than in a sibling course with no intervention. Students across the experimental and control groups reported similar levels of happiness at the end of the semester, despite the experimental group having completed the positivity intervention. The experimental group did not reflect any increase in their subjective happiness scores from the beginning to the end of the semester. Thus, we find that one positivity intervention is not sufficient to raise students' subjective happiness. Research limitations as well as future research foci are discussed.