MindCraft Challenges

In many everyday settings, the default choice is to simply experience negative emotions as they arise, rather than attempting to reappraise them. Gaurav Suri and his colleagues noted that when the default is ‘do nothing’, people only try to reappraise in a lab task only 16% of the time.

Challenge: Try a day of reappraisal. You will try to change your default by leaving yourself “reappraise!” messages (notes in your room and car, a sticky note or home screen on your phone, etc.). Any time you experience a negative event throughout the day, you will try to follow the reappraisal instruction. Because Suri and his colleagues found that there was the possibility that reappraisal instructions might also have a small effect on the likelihood of reappraisal, you should read this handout with descriptions of how to do two kinds of reappraisal.

Read More
Defaults predict whether reappraisal will happen
https://doi.org/10.1037/emo0000011
Instructions for two kinds of reappraisal
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-021-01173-x

Hindsight bias (“I knew it all along”, “I saw it coming all along”) can lead to problems with learning and decision-making. Because of hindsight bias, people fail to search long enough for explanations for mistakes or unwanted outcomes (cognitive myopia). People also believe they have the best understanding of situations (overconfidence). Thus, people avoid learning from mistakes.

Challenge:
One of the best ways to counteract hindsight bias is with the consider-the-opposite strategy. When faced with the results of a decision, you can use consider-the-opposite to think about what other outcomes could have occurred and what steps might have led to those other outcomes. You might also think about how other steps could lead to the same outcome. Try using consider-the-opposite to better understand educational or social outcomes for a week. Did you learn anything about alternative actions or possibilities?

Read More:
About hindsight bias:
https://doi.org/10.1177/1745691612454303

Principle:
Believing incorrect information is a psychological problem. However, there are some easy actions that you can take when searching for information on the internet that can protect you from being misinformed.

Challenge:
Add lateral reading and click restraint into your habits for internet searching.

Read more:
On the psychology of misinformation:
https://doi.org/10.1038/s44159-021-00006-y
On sharing misinformation:
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tics.2021.02.007