MindCraft Challenges

In Self-Determination Theory, there are three basic psychological needs: autonomy, competence, and relatedness. What should people do when their basic psychological needs are not met? One thing that people can do is to seek out supportive people and groups that would better meet their basic psychological needs. However, we can also choose to intentionally engage in activities that meet those basic psychological needs.

Challenge: take the challenge described in Behzadnia and FatahModares (2023) where you choose an activity that meets one of the basic needs each day for a week (see the instructions in Table 2 on page 70). This challenge will work best if you are in a situation where your basic psychological needs are not being met. Track whether your well-being, motivation, and need satisfaction improve by intentionally engaging in those activities.

Read More
A brief introduction to basic psychological needs
https://doi.org/10.1037/0708-5591.49.1.14
The Behzadnia and FatahModares task
https://doi.org/10.1007/s11031-022-09968-9
Basic psychological needs are motives
https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-6494.2009.00589.x

Hope training has been used with people facing big obstacles (like the cancer patients linked in the ‘Read More’ section). Hope training involves learning to set goals, to imagine pathways, and to talk to yourself about how to accomplish those goals.

Challenge: Hope training can also help people overcome everyday obstacles. On mindcraftchallenge.com, you will find a set of diary prompts for a week-long home hope training challenge. You can track your hopeful progress using the hope scale we discussed in class: https://cognopod.com/sketch/HOPE.

Hope Training Prompts:
https://mindcraftchallenge.com/RESOURCES/HOPE-TRAINING-WORKSHEET.docx

Read More
Hope training diary prompts
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2020.110383
Hope training helps cancer patients
https://doi.org/10.1177/2377960819844381

Today we learned that intrusive thoughts are a component of psychological distress, but that those intrusive thoughts can be disrupted by competing tasks that involve high levels of imagery and attention (like Tetris or other visually demanding, spatial games).

Challenge: Use a visually demanding game on your cell phone to disrupt intrusive thoughts. Limit yourself to three minutes of play when you encounter intrusive thoughts. Does this seem to block intrusive thoughts from returning? Does your mental health improve?

Read More
A version of the Tetris experiment that we discussed in class
https://doi.org/10.1177/0956797615583071
The emergency room study
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41398-020-01124-6

Psychological distress can be amplified when bridging symptoms expand the network of distress symptoms that are activated by intrusive thoughts. One way to intervene and disrupt those networks is with simple well-being interventions. One of these is thinking about new ways to utilize a character strength you already have. 

Challenge: The original study that used the signature strengths intervention involved people completing an inventory with 200 items to identify the strongest of 24 strengths. We will use a much shorter version available at: https://cognopod.com/sketch/STRONG
That inventory will identify your top strength out of three broad areas of strength. For this challenge, spend a week trying to use that strength in a new way every day. Pay attention to your mental health and see if focusing on using your strength can block some of the possible symptoms of psychological distress.

Read More
Using signature strengths in new ways decreases depressive symptoms in the long term.
https://doi.org/10.1037/0003-066X.60.5.410
The brief strengths scale
http://doi.org/10.1037/pas0000164
Learning that people can change prevents the symptoms of depression
https://doi.org/10.1177/2167702614548317

Michael Scullin is a psychology professor and sleep researcher. He decided to help his students sleep during finals week by offering extra credit for averaging more than 8 hours of sleep each night during the final exam week. His challenge worked! The students reported getting more sleep each night and scored higher on their exams than students who opted out or tried the challenge but didn't succeed (even after controlling for their performance in the class before the challenge).

Challenge: Try the eight-hour sleep challenge for a week. Because the offer of a reward was an important part of the challenge, I will provide 25 XP for any student who successfully completes the 8-hour sleep challenge and reports it in a MindCraft report. Your report will need to document the amount of time you slept each night for a week, and you must average 8 hours or more per night. This will require some time management!

Read More
Scullin’s 8-hour sleep challenge
https://doi.org/10.1177/0098628318816142
Consistent sleep predicts academic performance, not sleep the night before a test
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41539-019-0055-z

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

One of the challenges of hunger motivation is that people can’t completely cut eating out of their lives—so complete avoidance is not an option. Genetic set points and environmental influences also make it difficult to change eating patterns. The most recent research by Traci Mann suggests that adopting new healthy habits is easier than getting rid of old bad habits—especially by modifying the environment (making good choices more easily available, pre-packaging food in intended portions).

Challenge: Make one structural change to your environment to make a healthy choice easier. What change did you make? Did it make that healthy choice easier?

Read More
A review of eating and self-control
https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-psych-012424-035404
The stigma of weight controllability in the workplace
https://doi.org/10.1017/iop.2023.78

Today, we discussed how intentional activities contribute to happiness. The fit of those intentional activities with your identity is also important. Sonja Lyubomirsky has developed an instrument to help people identify which activities might be a good choice for a person based on their motivations for doing the activity.

Challenge: Take the Person-Activity Fit Diagnostic at https://pathtohappier.com/. The score for each type of activity will appear after you rate each of the five motivations for that activity. The activity or activities with the highest score are good fits for your current motivational profile. Try one of these activities for a week and monitor your happiness and sense of well-being. You can take a broad well-being inventory at https://psytests.org/life/ohien.html to track your well-being if you answer based on the last day or so each time.

Read More
Changing goals and activities promotes happiness
https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1751-9004.2007.00002.x
Simple activities increase well-being.
https://doi.org/10.1177/0963721412469809

Today, we learned that attention is limited and that those limitations affect conscious awareness. As we work on difficult tasks or face stressful situations, it is possible for the effective capacity of our attention to be depleted even further. However, there is good evidence that activities in nature, like birdwatching or nature walks, can restore depleted attention and increase well-being.

Challenge: Take a walk in nature (the Andrews University main campus is an arboretum with hiking paths accessible behind the wellness center and by the Pathfinder building) for more than 30 minutes every day for a week. Do you feel less depleted? Does your well-being or ability to focus improve?

Read More:
Cognitive benefits of natural environments
https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9280.2008.02225.x

Birdwatching and nature walks improve college student well-being
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jenvp.2024.102306

The average effect size of natural environment influence is very large
https://doi.org/10.1177/0033294119884063