MindCraft Challenges

Social media improves well-being when it involves interpersonal capitalization. Positive responses to capitalization attempts online also increase social bonding.

Of course, it is also possible to use social media to harm others and engage in destructive capitalization responses.

Challenge: Intentionally support other people’s basic psychological needs in your social media spaces by engaging in intentional active-constructive interpersonal capitalization. Choose two or three people that you want to strengthen your social bonds with and engage their social media posts by celebrating positive events and continuing conversations with them about their positive experiences. How do intentional constructive responses to capitalization on social media influence your relationships?

Read More
An overview of interpersonal capitalization
https://doi.org/10.1111/spc3.12407
Online sharing strengthens social bonds
https://doi.org/10.1037/emo0001182

What should a person do if they realize that they have hostile habits online or in real life (or, likely, both)? Sheri Johnson and her colleagues used a WOOP intervention (a kind of implementation intention) to help people develop a plan for hostile habits.

Challenge: If you have a hostile online habit that you want to reduce, form and implement a WOOP plan:

Wish: (What do you want to stop doing?)
Outcome: (What is your goal?)
Obstacle: (What is the trigger of your habit?)
Plan: (How will you stop the trigger from activating the habit? What will you do instead?)

Implement your WOOP plan for a week. Were you able to reduce the hostile habit as you wished?

Read More
The WOOP intervention
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.brat.2020.103708
Another intervention to reduce hostile attributions and aggression
https://doi.org/10.1007/s10608-020-10147-8

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