Psychologically Wise Interventions that Capitalize on the Need to Understand
Many interventions aim to help people interpret themselves and their circumstances in adaptive ways by capitalizing on the need to make sense of matters as best they can. These studies draw primarily on attribution theory, which assumes that people try to form rational impressions of the causes of their own and other people’s behavior (Weiner, 1985). They thus assume that people are responsive to information and experiences that suggest new ways of thinking. Because there is typically no single simple truth about subjective meanings, and because people’s views readily become self-fulfilling, this approach is less concerned with whether people’s interpretations are accurate in some objective sense than with facilitating reasonable perspectives that help people flourish (Abramson, Seligman, &Teasdale, 1978).
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People strive to develop reasonable understandings of themselves, other people, and the world around them, so as to understand and predict their own and other people’s behavior and to guide their behavior effectively (Heider, 1958). Initially researchers focused on how people make causal attributions about behavior, as documented in decades of research on attribution theory (Bem, 1972; Heider, 1944, 1958; Jones & Davis, 1965; Kelley, 1967; Weiner, 1985). Subsequent research has examined how people make sense of themselves (e.g., their identity) and the social world (e.g., their relationships) more generally (e.g., Miller, Brickman, & Bolen, 1975; Murray et al., 2006), and broadened the view of the kinds of information people use to draw these inferences, including features of the cultural context (Markus & Kitayama, 2010; Stephens et al., 2012). All approaches in this group, however, share the assumption that people often act like rational information processors—lay scientists trying to make sense of themselves and others as best they can. They also agree that there is often no single “truth” to be discovered, such as about one’s self-identity, ability in school, or how a romantic partner “really” feels. Instead, people do their best to draw inferences that are consistent with their experiences and the information available to them.
Sometimes the available information leads people to draw pejorative inferences. A 9th grader might reasonably infer, from the existence of “Gifted and Talented” programs, a corporate focus on “talent” (Murphy & Dweck, 2010), and praise like “You’re so smart!” (Gunderson et al., 2013; Haimovitz & Dweck, 2016; Mueller & Dweck, 1998), that intelligence is a fixed quality that cannot change. She might then conclude that a poor score on a first algebra test means she is “not good at math.” Cultural stereotypes also create specific risks or contingencies, and, thus, different perspectives for making sense of the same event (Steele, 1997). In many academic contexts, awareness of the possibility of race-based disrespect can lead Black students, as compared to White students, to consider very different causes of critical academic feedback, even when both are trying to form reasonable impressions of the world (Cohen, Steele, & Ross, 1999). In turn, pejorative inferences can lead to self-defeating cycles of behavior, such as failing to try hard in school (Blackwell et al., 2007; Valins & Nisbett, 1971; Wilson & Linville, 1982).
As these examples imply, meanings, including negative ones about both the self and social events, are not just “in the head” but typically are reasonable responses to the world as it presents itself to a person. A broadly important intervention strategy, then, is give people a new basis for drawing a more adaptive inference, interrupting the flow of ideas that become self-defeating from socio-cultural contexts into minds. There can be multiple potential points of entry to do so, such as by changing how a specific experience is presented to people (e.g., framing feedback from teachers in adaptive ways, Yeager, Purdie-Vaughns et al., 2014, Experiments 1 and 2), or by encouraging a new view of a class of experiences (e.g., teaching students to interpret feedback in general in adaptive ways, Yeager, Purdie-Vaughns et al., 2014, Experiment 3). One approach alters how the world presents itself to a person; the other alters people’s lens for making sense of an aspect of the world (see Figure 1C, middle panel).
Psychologically Wise Interventions that Capitalize on the Need for Self-Integrity
Even as people strive to make sense of the world reasonably, they desire or are threatened by certain meanings. Among these is the desire to see oneself as decent, moral, competent, and coherent. Experiences that threaten this sense of self-integrity can give rise to a range of personal and social problems (Aronson, 1968; Sherman & Cohen, 2006; Steele, 1988).
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People are not disinterested observers of the world. They also desire or are threatened by certain meanings. The second basic motive underlying meaning making is that people want to think well of themselves—to believe they are adequate, moral, competent, and coherent (Aronson, 1968; Sherman & Cohen, 2006; Steele, 1988). When this sense of “self-integrity” is threatened, people can be defensive and function poorly. This insight has led researchers to develop novel ways to help people maintain a sense of personal adequacy, which can improve functioning in the face of threat (e.g., Cohen et al., 2009). It has also led to ways to motivate positive behaviors by casting them as ways to restore or bolster a sense of adequacy (e.g., Stone, Aronson, Crain, Winslow, & Fried, 1994).
Psychologically Wise Interventions that Capitalize on the Need to Belong
A third family of interventions capitalizes on people’s need to see themselves as connected to others so as to improve outcomes that go beyond a relationship or a sense of belonging itself, such as to improve well-being, health, or achievement.
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The third basic motive arises from the fact that we are an inherently social species. People want to feel connected to others: to be accepted and included, to be valued members of social groups, and to contribute positively to the lives of others. Indeed, forming and maintaining social relationships is among our most important tasks from birth (Asch, 1952; Baumeister & Leary, 1995; Bowlby, 1988; Deci & Ryan, 2000; Dweck, 2017). When this need to belong is threatened, people can experience distress and dysfunction; some interventions bolster a sense of belonging and connection to improve functioning (e.g., Motto & Bostrom, 2001). Others leverage the need to belong to motivate positive behaviors, such as by casting a specific desired behavior as a way to strengthen a person’s relationships, social standing, or fit within a social community (e.g., Goldstein, Cialdini, & Griskevicius, 2008).
Social Area(s)
Please indicate the social area or areas that the intervention addresses most directly: Civic Relationships, Crime, Education, Health, Intergroup Relationships, Interpersonal Relationships, Retirement Savings, Poverty, Sustainability, Well-Being, Work
Intervention Technique(s)
Walton and Wilson identify four categories of intervention techniques. Review these categories and selection the technique or techniques that best represents your intervention. Click on each label to see how Walton and Wilson defined each category.
Direct labeling
A classic study found that twice as many people cooperated when a prisoner’s dilemma activity was called “the Community Game” rather than “the Wall Street Game” (Liberman, Samuels, & Ross, 2004). A direct approach is to provide people a positive label that defines an otherwise ambiguous aspect of themselves, a social situation, or other people. This can motivate people to behave in accordance with the label (self-labeling: e.g., Miller, 1975; labeling of others: e.g., Rosenthal & Jacobson, 1968; situation-labeling: e.g., Goldstein et al., 2008). Directly labeling the self, however, can be more effective with children than with adolescents or adults, who may have more established self-views and may react against messages that appear coercive (Yeager, Dahl, & Dweck, 2017). Direct labels can also backfire if they imply that a personal quality is fixed, not an area in which people can grow. Thus, telling children “You’re so smart” can undermine their resilience to setbacks (Mueller & Dweck, 1998).
Prompting new meanings
Many interventions give people a basis for drawing a new inference but do not impose the inference itself. This can prompt people to reconsider how they think about themselves, others, or a situation—to revise their implicit “stories”—without directly telling them what to think (Wilson, 2011). For example, cleaning up a neighborhood implies that rule-breaking is inappropriate—a meaning-relevant change in situation—and can reduce crime (Braga & Bond, 2008). Other studies provide new facts, such as about the malleability of intelligence, altering how students make sense of their own struggles in school (Blackwell et al., 2007). Third, as any good lawyer knows, well-targeted questions can introduce new ways of thinking (Loftus & Palmer, 1974). Leading questions assume an idea and encourage people to elaborate on its significance, such as to understand how a compliment has a global meaning (Marigold et al., 2007). Moreover, as compared to direct appeals or the provision of overtly relevant information, questions may seem less controlling.
Increasing commitment through action
As research on cognitive dissonance shows, people are motivated to see their behaviors and attitudes as consistent (Aronson, 1968; Festinger, 1957). Thus, creating situations that inspire people to freely act in line with a new idea can cement psychological change. An especially powerful technique is saying-is-believing (Aronson, 1999; Higgins & Rholes, 1978). People are provided new information in a way that implies the idea is intuitive and one they already endorse. They are then asked to explain the idea to other people, often in the form of advice to younger or less experienced people than themselves, using examples from their own experience. Compared to simply providing information, this (1) encourages people to think about an idea actively rather than to just receive it passively, promoting learning; (2) treats people as helping others, leveraging prosocial motivations (Yeager, Henderson, et al., 2014), rather than as recipients of an intervention, a potentially stigmatizing role (Alvarez & van Leeuwen, 2015; see Yeager, Romero, et al., 2016), or of a persuasive appeal, which could be rejected; (3) encourages people to advocate for an idea, increasing its persuasive appeal (Festinger & Carlsmith, 1959); and (4) helps people connect the idea to their own lives and thus personalize and take ownership of it, allowing standardized materials to speak to diverse people. Saying-is-believing procedures have contributed to some of the largest gains in the literature (Aronson et al., 2002; Okonofua, Paunesku, & Walton, 2016; Paunesku et al., 2015; Walton & Cohen, 2011; Wilson & Linville, 1985; Yeager, Henderson, et al., 2014; Yeager, Johnson, et al., 2014: Yeager, Purdie-Vaughns et al., 2014, Experiment 3). Other commitment techniques based in dissonance theory include precommittment (e.g., Shu et al., 2012), effort justification (e.g., Axsom & Cooper, 1985), hypocrisy (e.g., Stone et al., 1994), and counter-attitudinal behaviors (e.g., Brannon & Walton, 2013).
Active reflection exercises
A variety of exercises help people reframe their experiences, often through writing. People do not receive new information and are not asked to change their behavior in any way. Instead, they write in open-ended ways in response to structured prompts that help them reinterpret events on their own. Some exercises focus on positive aspects of the self or connections with others (e.g., Sheldon & Lyubomirsky, 2006). Others focus on ways to complete goals, so as to help people cultivate these qualities (e.g., Chen, Chavez, Ong, & Gunderson, 2017; Sheldon & Lyubomirsky, 2006). Others focus on negative experiences, which can give rise to unproductive cycles of negative thoughts and feelings, and aim to help people think more clearly and find resolution or positive meaning in them to improve functioning (e.g., Pennebaker, 1997). A fourth group, value-affirmation exercises, aims to mitigate psychological threat by reconnecting people with core personal values (Cohen et al., 2009).
FAQs
1. How should I report an intervention following the same participant sample across multiple studies or publications, such as an original report and a long-term follow-up published separately?
Please report them in a single entry. For an example, see Bugental & Schwartz, (2009).
2. How should I report multiple trials of the same intervention reported in the same paper but with different participant populations?
Please report them as separate entries. For an example, see Sherman et al., 2013, Study 1 and Sherman et al., 2013, Study 2.
3. How should I report two or more interventions reported in a single study compared against a common control condition?
Please write a separate entry for each intervention. In each title, add a dash followed by the label for the relevant intervention. In each summary, briefly reference the other intervention. For an example where two interventions produced different effects, see Yeager, Walton, et al. 2016 Experiment 1-Social Belonging and Yeager, Walton, et al., 2016 Experiment 1-Growth Mindset. For an example where two interventions produced similar effects, see Yeager, Walton, et al. 2016 Experiment 2-Social Belonging and Yeager, Walton, et al., 2016 Experiment 2-Growth Mindset.
4. How should I report two or more interventions that interact (e.g., in a factorial design) reported in a single study?
If the two (or more) interventions represent distinct psychological process paths, enter the study multiple times, once for each intervention/process path. However, use the identical title and summary, which should describe each intervention. For an example, see Ehret & Sherman, 2018.
5. How do I revise or update an intervention entry?
Enter the intervention as if it were a new entry but simply mark in the summary that this is a revision of an existing entry.