The Journal of College & University Student Housing Vol. 47 No. 1 - 20

Julie M. Koch * Lindsay Murrell * Douglas Knutson * Dillon J. Federici

The correlation between
psychological well-being and
character strengths suggests that
the bolstering and development
of existing strengths might benefit
treatment if and when students
receive counseling services.

of experimental control, and generalizability.
The first of these is inherent in the study, as
all included measures are self-report questionnaires. Therefore, conclusions are drawn based
solely on the viewpoints of the participants.
Many of the questions included in this study
could be considered sensitive, and therefore it
is plausible that participants could choose to
respond in socially desirable ways. Many questions also related to a person's level of social activity, and participants could have responded in
ways to make them appear popular or involved.
Because this study did not use an experimental design (i.e., no variables were manipulated),
findings indicate correlation rather than causation. Therefore, this study is unable to demonstrate a causal relationship between character
strengths, social group participation, and subjective well-being. For example, although it may
appear that social group participation facilitates
increased well-being, the inverse (i.e., subjective
well-being leads to more social group participation) may be more accurate. Additionally, convenience sampling via the university's human
subjects research system was used instead of
random sampling methods (e.g., emails sent

to addresses randomly selected from the entire
student population) to recruit participants.
Moreover, the majority of the participants in
this study attend the same university in a small
rural community. Therefore, it may be difficult to generalize to other populations in other
schools, communities, and age groups or from
other ethnic and racial backgrounds. A majority
of the participants also identified as White, limiting the generalizability to other racial groups.
Given the positive, correlational relationship between social group participation and
subjective well-being, expanding the definition of social activity to include other aspects
of connectedness and social engagement
could provide more robust results. Broadening the concepts related to positive subjective
interpersonal experiences to include participation in social groups, one-to-one interactions
with peers, levels of engagement, and levels
of fulfilled connectivity could provide deeper

Given the link between character
strengths, college satisfaction, and
academic achievement, the benefits
of targeting character strengths
through activities and intentional
programming are remarkable. For
example, hopeful journaling and
zest-motivated sleep hygiene have
the potential to increase well-being
and improve collegiate productivity.

THE JOURNAL OF COLLEGE AND UNIVERSITY STUDENT HOUSING

Journal of College & University Student Housing Vol. 47 No. 1

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Journal of College & University Student Housing Vol. 47 No. 1