Utilizing Online Positive Interventions to Improve Real-World Decision Processes

Positive Psychology is an emerging and controversial field and being such, the applications of its discoveries often encounter opposition. The aim of this capstone is to overcome some of these obstacles by demonstrating the economic viability of the application of Positive Psychology. To do this, I have designed several experiments to be conducted with poker players in the hopes to demonstrate that the implementation of positive interventions can improve performance in real-world competitions involving complex problem-solving and monetary opportunities. This population provides unique advantages in that poker players regularly compete in a game that presents difficult problems and where every decision has an economic impact. The population also provides an opportunity to study decision processes made under real-world circumstances. As of this writing, the coding for the online interventions has been completed but the studies have not been conducted.