the tower

three good things · three minutes · across the street

The story

In 2005 Martin Seligman’s group ran a placebo-controlled test of five happiness exercises against a control (“write about early memories”) with 577 adults over the internet. “Three good things” — write three things that went well today and why they happened, nightly, for a week — was the one whose benefits were still there six months later.

What it does to you

The why is the mechanism. Writing what went well is pleasant; writing why it happened makes you notice you had a hand in some of it and that other people did too. Over weeks that shifts the default story you tell about your days.

The receipts

• Seligman, Steen, Park & Peterson (2005), American Psychologist — 577 adults enrolled (411 completed all follow-ups), random assignment, placebo control (writing about early memories), one week. Three good things showed no effect at one week, then higher happiness and lower depressive symptoms at 1, 3, and 6 months. PDF
• Mongrain & Anselmo-Matthews (2012), Journal of Clinical Psychology — 1,447 enrolled, 344 at six months; replication with a positive placebo (early positive memories) added. Three good things raised happiness at 1 week, 3 and 6 months (d ≈ .15–.22) — but so did the positive placebo, and nothing beat control on depression. The authors read this as a common factor (calling up positive self-relevant material), not a special mechanism. Wiley
• Carr et al. (2021), Journal of Positive Psychology — meta-analysis of 347 positive-psychology-intervention studies, 72,000+ participants, 41 countries: well-being g = 0.39, depression g = −0.39, anxiety g = −0.62, gains holding at three months; larger for longer programs, clinical groups, and non-Western settings. DOI
• Emmons & McCullough (2003), JPSP — Study 1: 192 undergraduates, weekly gratitude vs. hassles vs. neutral lists for ten weeks: better life ratings, fewer symptoms, more exercise, but no affect difference; the positive-affect effects came in the daily two-week and three-week studies (n = 157 and 65). PDF

The honest part

How the city does it

Each thing lights a window in the tower, and you put a figure in it: who made it happen. That “who” is the causal-attribution step from the original protocol, and the windows stay lit across nights so the week is visible.

Try it in the city →