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?

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

Synchronization is a reflection of attachment and close relationships. Synchronization can also help build relationships by strengthening social attachments.

Scott Wiltermuth and Chip Heath conducted several experiments to demonstrate the effects of intentional synchronization on group cooperation. In one study, people walked together and synchronized their steps. In another, people moved plastic cups from side to side in time with a song while they sang along (the song was “O Canada”, the people were Americans, and the point was that the song could be an out-group song). People cooperated more in a group game after synchronizing their actions (compared to unsynchronized pairs).

Challenge: Find a friend. Go for a synchronized walk. (Sing “O Canada” together?) Try working on a project together. Did synchrony make a difference?

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Intentional Synchrony Experiments
https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9280.2008.02253.x
Synchrony Across Brains
https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-psych-080123-101149

John Gottman reports that improving friendship between romantic partners reduces negative interactions during conflict. Gottman teaches improving friendship as part of his marriage education program with multiple exercises, but there are simple everyday actions that people can take to build their friendships.

Challenge: Brenda O’Connell and her colleagues demonstrated that intentional gratitude and kindness towards friends can improve relationship quality. They asked people to either “Write and deliver a positive message (email, text, face-to-face) to someone in your social network (friend, family, colleague), thanking or praising them for something you are grateful for” or to engage in acts of kindness for someone in their social network at least 3 or 4 times in a week. Try this for yourself and see if those relationships improve.

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Gottman’s assessment of interventions
https://doi.org/10.1207/s15327698jfc0503_1
O’Connell’s friendship-building study
https://doi.org/10.1080/17439760.2015.1037860

McGregor and Holmes (1999) found that the stories we tell about conflict events in our relationships can bias our later memory of the event—taking on the story-telling role of a lawyer explaining why the other person was at fault led to more hurt and anger 8 weeks later than did taking on the role of an unbiased reporter. Many people also refused to take the perspective that the other person was innocent and they might be to blame—that is, they refused to do the task when assigned to take on the role of the other person’s lawyer.

On the other hand, satisfied romantic couples tell stories about each other that turn flaws into virtues—over time, those stories become true as people take on the qualities and roles of the stories they hear.

Reshaping our memories isn’t always a bad thing. For example, our memories of embarrassing situations or painful events shift over time so that we no longer feel the negative emotions in the same way.

Telling stories that shape our romantic partners and friends into better versions of themselves is a way to shape the imagined future function of memory systems. Try purposely telling stories about your friends (in their presence) for a week that emphasize their virtues and admirable qualities. Ask them to do the same for you (you can tell them that it is a psychology experiment, which is the truth). Does this type of positive storytelling change your perception of your relationship?

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Emotional memory is malleable
https://doi.org/10.1038/s44159-024-00312-1
The study of storytelling bias from the participation sheet:
https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.76.3.403
How satisfied couples tell stories:
https://doi.org/10.1177/0146167294206004
Idealization becomes reality for romantic partners:
https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.71.6.1155