Cultivating Hope

We have all heard the phrase “have hope”, however, is it simply a feel-good emotion thrown around or is it wishful thinking or is there some truth to the statement?

Growing up in a conservative Middle Eastern country, in a somewhat traditional Sri Lankan home, I was always hopeful of realizing my goal of becoming a journalist – preferably a political reporter using my pen as my tool to change the world and make the invisible visible. When my peers were taking the conventional route of getting married young for stability or choosing financially viable careers, I never lost sight of my goal and with a great support system, I completed my undergrad education and landed a journalism gig straight out of school. I believe I achieved what I set out to do because I was always hopeful that I can create my own reality.

Youth and Hopelessness

I think of kids today and I worry because the news, so easily available at our fingertips, and pretty much every headline seems like an assault on the very notion of hope – school shootings, families torn apart at the border, trans rights under attack, climate change being refuted etc.  And then the content children are exposed to – including superhero movies – have the hero resorting to violence or killing the bad guy to come into power. This constant influx can result in the youth feeling hopelessness that the world around them is beyond their control.
Yet, research has found that adolescents who are hopeful enjoy academic success, develop strong friendships, are more creative and better at problem solving, have lower levels of anxiety, are less likely to drop out of school and do not give up when faced with obstacles.

Can We Learn Hope?

Thankfully, the work of American Psychologist Charles ‘Rick’ Snyder, a pioneer in hope research, shows us that hope can be learnt.
He adopted a three pronged approach to understanding hope: goals, agency and pathways. According to this approach, individuals who are hopeful have the motivation and a clearly defined plan to achieve their goals.
It is not just a general feeling that good things will come rather it is the focus on goals, setting it apart from optimism and wishful thinking. Having hope is to imagine a happy ending and figuring out the means to get there. This is good news for anyone who has a part to play in shaping the next generation.

Barriers to Hope

In order to cultivate hope in the next generation, it is first important to understand some of the triggers of hopelessness.
We live in an age where we are constantly bombarded with information from digital platforms to social blogs. It is no surprise that all ages are avid consumers of social and digital media and this is especially true for pre-teens and teenagers. Increased exposure to digital information can have a positive impact on a teenager as it helps normalize diversity in the world around them, increasing awareness on political and social issues that impact them (for example, the Parkland survivors were instrumental in increasing the number of younger voters in the recently concluded midterms) and even encourage them to explore forms of self-expression like creating blogs.

However, this increased exposure can also have a detrimental effect on cultivating hope.

Instant gratification is one of the downsides of the digital age. Teenagers today are no longer willing to follow the advice that slow and steady wins the race rather, their short attention spans and their need for immediate results is affecting their willingness to work hard in achieving their goals. For example, gone are the days where teenagers poured over books to complete an assignment, now they would rather get the cliff notes version on the internet to quickly put something together.

Peer acceptance is important for teenagers and they are always worried about how they will be perceived by their friends. Teenagers today glean their approval rating from the likes and comments they get on their social profiles and spend a great deal of time trying to prune their online identity, sometimes with a disconnect to who they are. The constant pressure to be someone you are not can result in them not feeling good about themselves leading to a lack of hope and self-doubt. British vlogger Dina Tokio in her book Modestly talks about how she stopped playing sports when she started wearing the hijab because she thought she did not look good playing soccer wearing the hijab. This resulted in her developing body image issues in her later teenage years.

Cultivating Hope

All hope is not lost and there are some ways, research has shown, to cultivate hope:

1. Set clear, attainable goals – Create a big picture of what is important to you and what you want to achieve. A great way to do this is by creating a vision board or writing a personal mission statement. Think about where you want to be in terms of academics, relationships, family, personal interests and it even helps to add bucket list items like places you want to travel to. Then arrange your goals in the order of importance. This is helpful for adolescents with little hope so they do not get distracted by trying to achieve everything in a short span of time and resulting in burnout.

2. Set a clear task plan for achieving goals – Someone with low hope thinks all goals need to be accomplished all at once and this can be very overwhelming for them. By creating a step-by-step task plan, those with low hope can celebrate the completion of each task keeping them motivated till they achieve their goal.  For example, if you want to buy a new car, start by creating a checklist of task beginning with narrowing down on car options to checking details of requirements such as registration and insurance.

3. Visualize different paths to a goal – If you suffer from low hope, chances are one of your greatest challenges in achieving your goals is the inability to move past obstacles and abandoning your goal at the first sign of a hurdle. Visualizing different paths to a goal will help in overcoming obstacles that seem insurmountable and will give you the motivation to take the road less traveled.

4. Identify ‘hope providers’ – As you take on new tasks and dive into the unknown to achieve your goals, it is important to surround yourself with motivators. This can be parents, friends, your partner, or even a teacher – someone you can turn to when you encounter obstacles or just need reassurance that you are on the right track.

5. Bombard yourself with stories of success - Hopeful people are inspired by the stories of success, especially when they are faced with obstacles. Make sure to capture the full story of a person’s success and the failures they had to go through to achieve their goals. Research has shown that seeing the underdog in movies attaining their goals against all odds can act as a motivator and make people more hopeful. For example, even seemingly innocent cartoons such as Mulan and Frozen showcase the main character going through hardship before achieving success.

6. Enjoy the journey – More often than not, the focus is on attaining the goal without focusing on the joys in achieving it. By creating a task checklist, this can be avoided by celebrating little milestones along the way!

Journalist-turned-Marketer Yusra Farzan currently serves as a Project Manager at the Center for Scholars + Storytellers, UCLA. Previously, she has managed strategic communications, content development and cultural insights tracking for Fortune 500 and leading UAE brands. She is passionate about the empowerment of underprivileged youth of color and in increasing representation and inclusion in media and marketing.

In her leisure time, she likes reading and traveling. Connect with Yusra on LinkedIn here.

This blog was originally created to support Baylor University in hosting its Technology Innovation Request for Proposal: Improving Character Strengths of Adolescents through Technology Innovation.

What are Character Strengths?

Character strengths are virtues.  Character strengths such as love, gratitude, hope, patience, generosity, joy, wisdom, and forgiveness can shape people’s understanding of who they are and their understanding of self.  

How can digital technology be used to build character strengths in adolescents?  Can adults play a role in encouraging the development of character strengths in adolescents? When and how are character strengths developed?  Is there a critical time frame to capitalize on for their development? How can we encourage the development of virtues in youth? The Technology and Character blogs posted here explore these questions.

Bridging the Second Digital Divide: Designing Opportunities for Content Creation

For over two decades, talk of the “digital divide” has regularly permeated discourse around educational technology. The term--which gained popularity in the mid-1990’s--originally referred to disparities between those with consistent access to computer technologies and those without. In an era where mobile devices are nearly ubiquitous, however, the digital divide has taken a radically new form. Although digital inequity still persists, such disparities today lie less in access to technology than in how it is used. As the amount of time that young people spend in front of screens increases, a notable gap has emerged in schools and homes alike between those who use technology as passive consumers versus those as active creators. Such inequities have been described as the second digital divide.

A Changing Landscape

For many young people today, the tools needed for digital content creation are readily available to them via mobile devices and an array of websites and apps. Such strides in access, however, are a relatively new phenomena of the last decade.

Looking back 20 years, access to technology was not so universally available. In the mid-1990’s, a series of prominent governmental publications found that although more American households were connected to the nation’s information infrastructure, certain households gained access to new technologies significantly faster. Two reports by the U.S. Department of Commerce, for instance, found that “minorities, low-income persons, the less educated, and children of single-parent households” were disproportionately “information ‘have-nots’” with alarmingly less access to information resources that included telephones, computers, and the internet. They describe this digital divide as one of America’s “leading economic and civil rights issues.”

In the early 2000’s, The Organization for Economic Co-Operation and Development (OECD)--an intergovernmental economic organization of 36 member countries--reported a rise in the digital divide in countries across the world, separating “those who live in a digital and connected world from those who are left behind on the analogous side of the divide.”

This divide, they asserted, had impeded full participation in work and had reduced political efficacy.

Research in the last decade, however, paints a picture where young people are increasingly growing up in environments where technology is readily accessible. In 2012, for instance, an average of 94% of students across OECD countries reported that they had a computer at home.  And although a 2015 Common Sense Census reported a 25 percentage-point gap in home computer access between children from lower- and higher-income households, the gap in mobile ownership had “virtually disappeared,” with 96% of lower-income families possessing a mobile device in the home. Similarly, a 2017 Common Sense Census exploring media use by kids ages zero to 8 reported that the percentage of homes with a mobile device grew from 52% in 2011 to 98% in 2017.

The Second Digital Divide

Although gaps in access to technology have virtually disappeared for many young people in the past decade, equal access by no means implies equal opportunity.The OECD has utilized data from the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA), an international assessment measuring reading, math, and science literacy of students 15 years of age, to track international shifts in how technology is used across the world.

In the analysis of the 2006 PISA results, the OECD concluded that despite increased access to technology, a second form of digital divide emerged between those with “necessary competences and skills to benefit from computer use” and those without. Similar to the divide of the decade prior, such competencies were linked to students’ economic, cultural, and social backgrounds.

Furthermore, this report emphasized that although students increasingly appear technologically ‘savvy,’ this alone does not mean that they have developed the skills and competencies that make them “responsible, critical and creative users of technology.” As children are increasingly exposed to technology at a young age, it is imperative that educators and content creators alike resist conflating digital nativism and the ease in which students navigate technology with the 21st century skills and capacities needed to leverage it as a tool in their favor.

Consuming Vs. Creating

As ownership of mobile technology grows, it has become instinctive for many young people to travel between home and school with personal devices in hand. As such, most young people interact with media regularly throughout the day: at home before and after school, while waiting for the bus, in the hallways, and even in many of their classrooms. Recent research provide a glimpse into screen time among teens and tweens.

Specifically, for the first time, the 2015 Common Sense Census  quantified time teens and tweens spent using devices for different functional purposes. Oververall, they found that mobile devices accounted for nearly half of all screen time among teens outside of school, and although devices were used to code, write, or make art and music, time dedicated to content creation paled in comparison to that spent watching videos, listening to music, or playing games. The “passive consumption” of media, according to the report, accounted for 39% of time on devices, while a mere 3% was dedicate to content creation.

Opportunities for Content Creation

With increased access to technology comes new opportunities for students to learn, collaborate and create beyond the confines of the traditional classroom. As such, a number of exemplar applications have emerged that support young people in moving beyond mere passive consumption, and instead empower young people to actively leverage their devices as content creators.

Digital Promise’s 360° Story Lab, for instance, supports young people in producing 360° media to create experiential stories that share youth perspectives. Their global campaign “Join MY World 360°” encourages youth worldwide to create immersive media related to the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals.

Similarly, a number of new authoring tools provide opportunities for non-technical users to seamlessly create immersive 360° stories, including Google’s Tour Creator and IRL Lab’s SocialVR. The latter provides users a simple drag and drop platform to combine 360° photographs and video with user-generated annotations, such as audio recordings, still images, and text.

Scratch, a programming language developed by the MIT Media Lab supports even the youngest learners in programing their own interactive stories, games, and animations as well as proving a moderated online community to share digital creations with others around the world. Currently, there are over 42 million projects shared to this community.

Based on Karen Brennan and Mitch Resnick’s research of the Scratch platform, the active creation of content using programming has supported young people in developing computational thinking competencies including an ability to view computation as something they can use “for design and self-expression.” “Young people should feel empowered to ask questions about and with technology,” Brennan and Resnick assert. This, they state, leads young people to feel less disconnected between “the technologies that surround them and their abilities to negotiate the realities of a technological world.”

Considerations for developers:

1. Although most young people have access to technology today, disparities exist between those who use technology to consume versus those who use it to create.

2. When designing technology, consider integrating opportunities for users to create their own media in addition to interacting with pre-made content. This might take the form of drawing an illustration or recording an animated video.

3. As not all young people might have experience using technology to create their own content, consider scaffolding opportunities step-by-step for greater support.

4. Look for inspiration in existing communities of youth-created content, such as the Scratch online community.

Tyler Samstag

Tyler is the Director of the Center for Creativity at the Allegheny Intermediate Unit, a regional service provider for 42 public school districts in Western Pennsylvania. Interested in the intersection of education, technology, and design, Tyler regularly supports schools in the thoughtful integration of new technologies and teaching practices. Tyler holds a master’s degree from Teachers College, Columbia University and graduated from the Mind, Brain, and Education program at Harvard University, where he was an Urban Scholars Fellow. Connect with Tyler via LinkedIn and Twitter.

This blog was originally created to support Baylor University in hosting its Technology Innovation Request for Proposal: Improving Character Strengths of Adolescents through Technology Innovation.

The power of human: Re-inventing technology to prompt more social connection

In the past year, we have been asked – by startups and seasoned companies – if it might be time to build modern digital friends for young children. After all, today’s kids spend a tremendous amount of time on digital devices – anywhere from 3 to 7 to 11 hours per day. If they are going to use their digital devices solo anyway, it makes sense for them to have “someone” to play with, right?

Would children benefit from owning a compassionate and intelligent robot or an on screen “friend” app that can listen to them and respond in ways that build on products like Alexa or Siri?

As we pondered these questions, however, the literature on digital toy and app use give us pause.  Might we be reducing children’s opportunities to develop the very skills that they need to grow up to be socially-sensitive and compassionate humans – real life human-to-human social interaction. This unease is fueled a basket of recent studies describing how digital technologies seem to compromise social engagement.

Social Interaction

Social interaction is the foundation of what it means to be human. Humans are born into a social world and the very essence of learning starts with a socially primed brain. Human-to-human, back and forth – contingent – interactions support language growth, cultural practices, and even brain development.

A majority of digital apps actually disrupt opportunities for social interaction. For example, during app play, contingent caregiver-child social interaction dissipates compared to the elaborate contingent interactions observed during more traditional play. Similar results in the pre-app era revealed parents use fewer words when their toddlers played with a digital toy sorter compared to playing with a non-digital version. The non-digital toy essentially prompted greater parental language that creates the foundation for contingent interaction between caregivers and children.

Some e-book research also points to restricted interactions between caregivers and children compared to reading traditional books. When reading e-books, caregivers are less likely to ask questions or to start conversations because if they interject they interrupt the audio narration – limiting social interactions. The same pattern occurred in our lab when parents and children read either a traditional book or battery-operated, touch-sensitive console book together in the pre-e-book era. This is notable, as children still learn more when reading e-books with caregivers than when reading e-books solo.

Impact of Caregivers

There is also a growing body of data revealing that the simple presence of caregivers using digital technology is impacting toddlers. Our lab has found digital devices that distract parents from their toddler makes it tougher for toddlers to learn novel words. This complements work indicating caregivers using digital devices in front of their 7- to 24-month-olds relate to infant distress. Traditional contingent play between moms and infants was disrupted when moms were asked to use a digital device and ignored their infants for two minutes. Although moms resumed playing with their infants again, the infants exhibited distress when the social integration was disrupted by the tech. Critically, even after moms resumed playing, distress lingered for infants’ whose parents frequently use digital devices in front of them.

Though the research is still limited, the trickle of studies that do exist suggest that apps and digital devices are often designed in ways that discourage all-important contingent social interaction. But it does not have to be this way. Digital devices could support social connectedness and prompt live, human-to-human social interaction.

Video chat offers a prime example. Our lab examined how contingency with or without digital devices supports children’s word-learning. Toddlers were taught novel verbs live in a room with a researcher, live on video chat with a researcher, or while watching a prerecorded video of the researcher. Toddlers learned better from live and video chat interactions than the non-contingent video – meaning the contingent social interaction mattered for learning, not the medium. Digital technology that involves contingency may be one key for prompting social interactions that spur socially-fueled outcomes.

This brings us back to the question of modern digital friends. If we want to support social development, maybe it is not quite time for digital friends. There is something about the back and forth social contingency between live people that is a kind of human glue – a glue that bonds the foundation for social skills and for learning. How can we create more opportunities like video chat – or more apps – that support in-person joint interaction or even play?

Challenge

The challenge for the industry is how to encourage live, in person social interactions from digital toys and apps. How can designers create digital toys and apps that prompt more human-to-human connections? How can we harness the power of human while still enjoying the reach and unfathomable possibilities of digital tools?

Actionable Insights

• Start with apps like Pokemon GO to glean inspiration from, and brainstorm new apps that encourage person to person interaction, AND are engaging and meaningful, not just a replication of the hit game.

• Think Geocache.  How could you create games that teens could use in pairs to find a “National Treasure” while learning about the history of a city or area? How could they solve a great riddle with their friends?

• Products like Alexa and Siri are motivating the digital friend movement.  Now twist the idea. Ask how these products already encourage greater interaction with the digital device, but how could they actually prompt in-person social interaction instead?

Molly Schleisinger is a postdoctoral fellow at Temple University where she leads the Playful Learning Landscape initiative and publishes on play and technology.

Kathy Hirsh-Pasek is the Lefkowitz faculty fellow in psychology at Temple University and a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. She has published 14 books, hundreds of articles and is an expert in the areas of play and learning, early childhood, language and literacy and STEM development.

This blog was originally created to support Baylor University in hosting its Technology Innovation Request for Proposal: Improving Character Strengths of Adolescents through Technology Innovation.

Cultivating Patience

“Patience is a virtue, virtue is a grace. Both put together make a very pretty face.”

As a young child, I loved this rhyme and eagerly embraced the virtue of patience because I honestly believed it held the promise of a prettier face.  I figured that patience was a small price to pay for a better looking nose. Now as an adult, I recognize more clearly the merits of patience…while sadly accepting that none of them involve the reconstruction of my somewhat flawed nose.  But I digress.

Dr. Sarah Schnitker, an expert on patience, defines it as “the propensity to wait calmly in the face of frustration or adversity.” She identifies three types of situations in which patience can be displayed: Daily Hassles (e.g., waiting in a long line, traffic jams); Long-Term Goals and Life Hardship (e.g., getting a job, coping with a serious illness); and Interpersonal (e.g., dealing with a difficult person).

We are regularly faced with such situations, and the research shows that the more we respond to them with patience, the better off we are. Compared to impatient individuals, those who display patience tend to have better mental health, lower levels of depression, and are more successful at reaching long-term goals. Patience leads to better social interactions, better physical health, and greater satisfaction. Patience is clearly an important and necessary skill for children to develop.  

But the reality is that today’s youth are impatient, and they know it. In one survey of adolescents and young adults, 80% said they expect to receive a quick reply when they send an email, and express annoyance when this doesn’t happen.  When presented with the statement, “I have little patience and I can’t stand waiting for things,” the majority agreed.

To understand why, one need only consider the technologically advanced society many of today’s youth have known their whole lives. It is a society where speed and immediacy are valued and rewarded; where information, entertainment and communication are just a click away.  Retailers offer same day delivery. Smartphone apps eliminate the wait for a taxi, a Starbucks coffee, even a date. Movies and TV shows stream in seconds. Books download instantly. There’s fast food, high-speed internet, instant messaging…the list goes on. As a society, we seem to place less emphasis on patience and more on speed and instant gratification. In fact, one survey actually found that the use of the word “patience” declined by 48% in American books over the 20th century.  According to Dr. Schnitker, “technology is eroding our patience.”

Which begs the question: Are there ways in which technology and media can actually promote it?

Show patience in action: As with any character virtue, patience can be modeled by the onscreen characters viewers most readily connect with and aim to emulate, commonly those seen as intelligent and successful.  Having such characters display patience across a variety of situations is a good first step towards inspiring young viewers to do the same.

We also know that viewers relate best to same-sex media characters, stressing the need for content creators to ensure that patience is displayed and modeled equally by both male and female characters.  This is especially important in light of research suggesting that males are more impatient than females.

Focus on Emotion Regulation:  Given that the hallmark of patience is the ability to remain calm in frustrating situations, efforts to help kids regulate their emotions will go a long way in helping them develop patience.  Dr. Schnitker used this knowledge to provide patience training for adolescents, and discovered the importance of having participants work through the stages of emotion regulation in a step-by-step manner. Specifically, having them identify:

a) what they are feeling;

b) why the situation triggered those feelings;

c) strategies to calm themselves (e.g., meditation);

d) ways to reframe the situation (e.g., this traffic jam gives me more time to listen to music I love).

Creating media properties that feature these steps, and specifically target the three types of patience described earlier, will help provide kids with the practice and tools they need to display patience when emotionally triggered in their everyday lives. This could be accomplished through apps where kids put themselves in given situations and work through the steps, or through media properties with storylines where fictional characters do the same.

Emphasize the value of patience: Too often, kids today believe that patience means inactivity or laziness, expressing concern that if they’re patient, they won’t get anything done. But that’s not what the research shows. Dr. Schnitker found that adolescents who patiently pursued their goals actually exerted more effort toward attaining them, and were more satisfied in their goal pursuits.  Being patient and calm allowed the adolescents to more effectively engage in working toward their goals.

This is the message that media can help kids realize: Patience isn’t about disengaging. On the contrary, patience is about active and calm engagement while waiting to achieve the end goal.  That’s what leads to success.

Video Games

Knowing little about video games myself, I turned to my son (our resident expert) to better understand if and how video games could instill patience in those who play them. He offered up some thoughts on how patience was required and reinforced through gameplay. Here’s what I learned:

The virtual worlds of many games today are so realistic, players feel as if they are actually living the experience in real time. For instance, to get from point A to point B, players are required to physically travel there. And the greater the distance, the longer the journey. Given that the more valuable and desirable items are typically placed furthest away, getting to them takes a long time…a situation that nicely mirrors real life. This gameplay feature basically rewards players for putting in time and effort in pursuit of something desirable, which is what patience for long-term goals is all about.

In games where you level up, there is usually a main story as well as side quests or missions along the way. If players are impatient, and complete the main story too quickly, the game ends. Players come to learn that a better, more satisfying strategy is to do a bit of the main story as well as some side quests, back and forth, so that they have a richer experience. Also by the time they do get to the end, their ability to successfully complete the main story is dependent on the skills they gained along the way (through the various side quests and missions.) Once again, players are rewarded for displaying patience.

Grinding is also an interesting aspect of gameplay. This is when players perform a repetitive, often boring, action in order to gain power or experience that will benefit them in the next stage of the game. Grinding effectively corresponds to real life situations and the patience required to attain long-term goals. In fact, when I went to a gaming forum discussing the pros and cons of grinding (apparently some gamers like it, others don’t), I came across this one entry that sums it up well: “For sure, grinding requires patience, but it allows someone who’s willing to put in the time an eventual 100% chance of success.”  Nice!

Patience is a quiet virtue that can easily be overlooked in today’s busy, hurried, noisy world.  That’s why media efforts to highlight its value, and to help today’s youth cultivate it within themselves, are so relevant and necessary.

Dr. Lynn Oldershaw is a developmental psychologist who has worked for the past 18 years in children’s media, first as an Executive in Charge of Production for Programming at the Canadian Broadcasting Corp., and currently as a children’s media content consultant for production companies in Canada, the US, and Europe.

Prior to working in children’s programming, Dr. Oldershaw was an Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychology at the University of Western Ontario, and was the Research Director of CAMH’s Child Psychiatry Program in Toronto.   Her research and clinical work focused on the factors that contribute to the social, emotional and intellectual development of children.

This blog was originally created to support Baylor University in hosting its Technology Innovation Request for Proposal: Improving Character Strengths of Adolescents through Technology Innovation.

Forgiveness

Elsa had a point: How developing the ability to “let it go” can help youth to cope and maintain social relationships

It’s more than just a catchy Disney tune; the ability to let it go  - where “it” is whatever shade is being thrown, tea is being spilled, or any other form of wrongdoing has taken place – is an important character trait. Developing the ability to forgive as a child or adolescent sets one up for success in relationships. Their understanding of and ability to forgive may evolve as youth develop but, all in all, it helps them to cope with social and personal situations.

Understanding forgiveness

Forgiveness is a tricky thing. It’s something that emotions and the ego can get in the way of. It’s something we need to do to move forward in certain situations. It’s something that often involves our relationship with others. And, sometimes, it’s even something that only we can give to ourselves.

Forgiveness comes in three forms:

• Forgiveness of others - When one forgives someone else for something

• Forgiveness from others - When one is forgiven by someone else for something

• Forgiveness of yourself - When one forgives themself for something.

Forgiveness also needs to be genuine. Simply saying the words, “I’m sorry” don’t mean that someone actually is sorry. Saying these words is something that’s often encouraged in childhood and continues to be put in practice into adulthood. In order to teach young people how to really apologize, they need to be guided to understand what a wrongdoing is and how they should have approached a situation. Additionally, they need to be taught how to express their emotions. These are things that should start in childhood and continue throughout adolescence.

Why forgiveness is important

Kids can be cruel. A 2012 study talks about how an adolescent’s adjustment is related to just how they cope with negative experiences among others in their age group. They took a look at just what kind of potential forgiveness has as a way to cope with these kinds of negative experiences. It turns out that:

• Adolescents who were more forgiving were likely to engage in more effective forms of coping and less likely to seek revenge when bullied;

• Forgiveness might be a valuable coping strategy for both victims and bully-victims because youth who respond to bullying in more negative ways perpetuate victimization and other relationship problems with their peers; and

• The act of forgiving may also help the development of the ability to identify remorse and express empathy.

Further research confirmed that forgiving is good for you because it can reduce the burden on mental health. By being forgiving of ourselves and others, the connection between stress and mental illness can be eliminated. In other words, forgiveness can help young people to both overcome and let go of negative experiences among peers, and it can have a positive effect on their social development and mental health.

The challenge teens face in exercising forgiveness

According to Everett Worthington Ph.D, teens’ immediate responses to being wronged by someone else are motivated by hormones...and there are lots of hormones at play for this age group. Also, he says that “the part of the brain that helps someone to have self-control – and the ability to control their immediate responses – doesn’t fully mature until about age 26. That means that the urge for payback is strong and can be hard to overcome, but patience and putting oneself in the other person’s shoes in order to let go of hard feelings will pay off in the end.

Special considerations for adolescents related to forgiveness

Think about the last time you were faced with having to forgive or ask for forgiveness. It probably had to do with a social situation involving one other person or a group of other people. This 2018 study discusses that “by its very nature, forgiveness is an interpersonal process, and to fully understand the forgiveness process, the perspectives of both the victim (who may grant forgiveness) and the perpetrator (who may seek forgiveness) is needed.” Adolescence is a critical time for social situations and research shows that there are differences in how different aged young people both understand wrongdoings and approach forgiveness. There’s a sort of spectrum that kids move through as they develop an understanding of the consequences of their actions and the nature of forgiveness. For example – two opposite ends of this spectrum are that:

• Younger children negotiate with forgiveness, claiming that they’ll forgive in exchange for something they want/need; and

• College-aged youth view it more as a means to maintain social relationships.

It’s important to consider just how much of an understanding of forgiveness youth have at their age and stage of life.

Another consideration is that, given the media- and technology-based culture we live in, cyberbullying is a looming threat to young people. But Quintana-Orts and Rey’s (2017) research shows that the promotion of forgiveness can help to prevent cyberbullying. This is a huge opportunity for those in content development and creation. That the very virtual landscape in which cyberbullying happens could potentially prevent it through stressing its importance and educating on how to achieve it, ultimately helping youth to overcome wrongdoings by letting go and practicing forgiveness, is really exciting!

Developing the ability to forgive through technology and media

Everything we’ve discussed in this post ladders up to the importance of having an ability to let it go – not an easy thing to learn, difficult to practice at any age, but something that can set adolescents up for success in life and relationships. Luckily, media developers and creators can play a positive role in helping young people to learn to let things go and forgive others. Here are some actionable insights you can consider that can show teens the importance of forgiveness and help them to develop the ability to forgive:

• Show forgiveness in action and its effects or, on the flip side, include a narrative that shows what happens if forgiveness doesn’t happen in a given situation - the consequences of being unforgiving.

• Require forgiveness as an action for participation in a given medium’s narrative.

• Portray intergenerational forgiveness. Help youth to understand consequences as it relates to relationships with persons of a variety of ages because it’s not just among their friends and same-aged peers that forgiveness will need to happen in life, it will need to be present in relationships with parents and other family members, teachers, coworkers, etc. Humans of all ages make mistakes.

• Help young people to understand what it feels and looks like to forgive - this comes down to having an understanding of expression and mannerisms, but also the feelings associated with being forgiven and being forgiving.

• Consider empathy-based content where the user virtually experiences what it’s like to be in someone else’s shoes – this would work particularly well in augmented reality or virtual reality platforms.

• Consider a narrative that helps youth to understand how their hormones play a role in their impulses and self-control, or incorporate self-control related actions into their engagement with or participation in the content.

Jen Rowe holds a Master of Science in Communications Innovation and leads the communications team for a national Canadian non-profit. Connect with her on LinkedIn.

This blog was originally created to support Baylor University in hosting its Technology Innovation Request for Proposal: Improving Character Strengths of Adolescents through Technology Innovation.

Generosity

“It is the heart that does the giving; the fingers only let go.” —Nigerian proverb

One of the most beautiful things about true generosity is that it comes from the heart. More than what you give, it is about being giving— approaching the world and your relationships with a feeling of abundance and a readiness to give what you can to make others’ lives even just a little bit better.

What is generosity, really?

According to the University of Notre Dame’s Science of Generosity Project, generosity is “the virtue of giving good things to others freely and abundantly.”

This definition is really helpful because it breaks down generosity into two essential components:

1) Giving good things to others

Despite what many people might think, it doesn’t take a large donation to be generous. You can be generous in many ways: with your time, with your love and support, with your things. All it takes is giving a good thing (however you define that!) to someone else.

2) Giving them freely and abundantly

Giving freely means giving without reservations, without strings attached or any expectations of being given anything in return. Giving abundantly means giving often and from a place where you feel that you have enough of what you want to give — a smile, a hot meal, a moment from your day — for yourself and for others. This is what makes giving a gift, rather than a burden.

What can science tell us about generosity?

The Greater Good Science Center, based at the University of California, Berkeley, conducted an extensive review of The Science of Generosity. Here are a few of their key takeaways.

Giving makes you happy.

People report being happier when they spend money on others rather than themselves, both in the lab and in the real world, regardless of the amount of money (even $5 was enough to make a difference!). A study with male undergraduates found that helping other students pick up spilled objects uplifted their mood, and a study with over 29,000 adults found that people who volunteered for religious organizations were happier than people who did not.

Happiness makes you give.

Students who recalled a time they had spent money on someone else felt happier. What’s more, those that reported feeling happiest were most likely to spend money given to them during the experiment on someone else, suggesting a positive feedback loop between happiness and giving. This may apply across cultures too — data from 136 countries showed that people who give to charity are happier. In another study, participants who completed a writing task that made them feel positive feelings were more motivated to perform acts of kindness for others than participants who completed a neutral writing task.

Giving is good for your health.

A study of 1,118 diverse older adults in New York City found that giving social support was associated with better health, and that more generous people had better health regardless of the support that they themselves received. Another study found that participants who performed acts of kindness for others over a period of six weeks reported more positive emotions and gene transcriptional changes that are associated with positive health outcomes. Giving support can also reduce your stress response by dampening sympathetic nervous system activity.

Giving is good for your relationships.

A daily diary study with 69 romantic couples found that acts of putting your partner first, or acts of sacrifice, were associated with greater positive emotions. Moreover, the people who did not expect or want sacrifice in return for their own reported the greatest relationship satisfaction.

Emotions that connect you to others or to the natural world inspire generosity.

Empathy, compassion, connectedness, and gratitude— emotions that connect you to others — have been found to motivate people to cooperate more, give more, and help more. Awe and elevation, emotions that take you outside of yourself, were also found to result in greater willingness to volunteer and help strangers.

How can we cultivate generosity through digital media?

1) Nurture emotions that support generosity. Focus on ways that media might be able to prompt or predispose us to the emotions that result in a more generous mindset: happiness, empathy, compassion, connectedness, gratitude, awe, and elation. This insight has deep roots in philosophical and religious traditions as well. According to the Dalai Lama XIV, “Generosity is the most natural outward expression of an inner attitude of compassion and loving-kindness.”

2) Tie generosity into identity. Research suggests that people are more willing to give when they see generosity as a part of who they are. Perhaps digital media can ask us to perform small acts of kindness for others, or point out the things we already do, and redefine generosity as something that we already have within us.

3) Build in reflection. A meta-analysis showed that community service only had positive effects on adolescent’s academic, personal, social, and civic achievement when they reflected on the meaning of the experiences. Maximize the benefits of giving by prompting moments of reflection.

4) Teach mindful giving. Most of us know that giving is good, but we don’t necessarily know how to give freely or abundantly. Digital media might be able to help teach us how by giving structured cues that encourage us to step outside of ourselves, to give without needing to be appreciated for it, or needing it to be received in a certain way. Letting go of expectations and learning how to give simply because it feels good and is part of who you want to be in the world can be a source of growth and joy.

5) Create community. Part of the power of giving is the positive ripple effect it can have in our relationships and community. Generosity is contagious. Teenagers give more when they think their peers also give, and people also feel good (even elated!) when witnessing acts of kindness that others perform. By connecting us in new and creative ways, digital media can help start and spread those ripples.

Generosity as a strength

Performing even the smallest acts of generosity can make a difference in your health and happiness. Sharon Salzberg, a meditation teacher and writer, goes even farther. She argues fiercely and beautifully that generosity is a strength, “a powerful force, an inner resource, a real tool for changing how we relate to ourselves, to others and to our world.”

Rather than passively “giving up” something for someone else, generosity is really about deciding to “let go.” It is freeing and empowering to give without feeling attached to an outcome or a need to be appreciated for it. Even better, the more you give love and generosity, the more you inspire love and generosity in others. Here lies the true strength in generosity. Not only can it make us happier and healthier as individuals, but it can be a powerful tool for positive change in our relationships, community, and society.

Laura Hazlett is a first year PhD student in Social Psychology at UCLA. She studies how social connection affects our brains and bodies, and why it has such a powerful effect on our health. In her free time, Laura loves cooking for friends, going for long runs, listening to her favorite podcasts, and traveling.

Laura is part of the Social and Affective Neuroscience Lab: https://sanlab.psych.ucla.edu/

This blog was originally created to support Baylor University in hosting its Technology Innovation Request for Proposal: Improving Character Strengths of Adolescents through Technology Innovation.

Cultivating Greater Love for Yourself and Others

As Leo Tolstoy aptly put it in his famous Anna Karenina, “I think... if it is true that there are as many minds as there are heads, then there are as many kinds of love as there are hearts”. Tolstoy was right, there are so many different kinds of love – whether it’s romantic love, platonic love, or lust. Love can take the form of a friend cooking food for a loved one in the hospital, or a mother looking at her infant child for the first time, or a child sharing their last piece of candy with their best friend. Most people consider love to be “adult” emotion and therefore may not prioritize teaching children about it. However, Dr. Richard Weissbourd from the Harvard Graduate School of Education encourages us to look at love through a different lens when it comes to children; he thinks self-maturity, respect, and deep appreciation are important aspects of love to focus on when cultivating this virtue in children. Teaching children how to cultivate and practice self-love from an early age may be key to raising adolescents and individuals who can then appreciate and love others well.

Psychological Research on Love

Many studies in psychology focus on two concepts based in mindfulness practices: loving-kindness meditation (LKM) and compassion meditation (CM). The practices are used to enhance unconditional, positive emotional states of kindness and compassion. In one such study, participants were randomly assigned to either the LKM condition or an imagery condition. In the LKM condition, people were instructed to imagine two loved ones standing on either side of them and sending their love. Then, they were told to open their eyes and redirect these feelings toward the photograph of a complete stranger. In the imagery condition, participants did almost the same thing except they imagined two acquaintances standing next to them.

They found that Loving Kindness Meditation had a significantly greater effect on explicit and implicit positivity toward strangers. Implicit positivity was measured by response time to a particularly emotionally-charged word.Implicit positivity means that though a person might not be able to express that something has changed, a change in their behavior (like response time) tells us that something has indeed changed within them. They also found that LKM was associated with greater implicit positivity towards the self as well. This study found that a short exercise of loving-kindness meditation could lead to big changes in how people thought of others and themselves.

Emotional Shifts

Another study investigated if Loving Kindness Meditation could help enhance daily experiences of positive emotions. Researchers conducted 60-minute LKM sessions over the course of 7 weeks and found that this specific type of meditation led to shifts in people’s daily experiences of a wide range of positive emotions including love, joy, contentment, gratitude, pride, hope, interest, amusement, and awe. Even more impressive, these emotional shifts lasted for a number of weeks after the course ended.

Teaching Children About Love

Dr. Weissbourd believes that for children and adolescents in particular, love is an important virtue to cultivate intentionally because society tends to focus heavily on preparing young adults for work, but not love. If children were taught to love themselves and others the way they’re taught to work hard, maybe intimate relationships with partners, family, and friends in young adulthood and beyond would prove to be easier, healthier, and more successful.

Creating  content that can help children cultivate positive, loving emotions toward the self and others is therefore an essential skill that shouldn’t be shoved off until adulthood. Love, in all of its forms, will be present all throughout life. Therefore, it is crucial that the media children consume teach them about love by depicting healthy relationships with others ways to love and care for themselves.

Recommendations for cultivating love in children and adolescents  through media:

1. Dr. Weissbourd recommends showing children positive  representations of healthy relationships.

2. Create apps that promotes engagement of Loving Kindness Meditation for 5 minutes every day – think of a loving moment in your life, focus on the emotion of that loving feeling, try to project these feelings onto others you visualize.

3. Cultivate self-love by encouraging writing what you like about yourself!

4. Create media that demonstrates characters exercising self-love and self-care practices.

Julia Schorn is a second-year Ph.D student in Psychology at UCLA, with a focus in cognitive neuroscience and memory. In her free time she enjoys playing the harp and making science accessible to everyone!

http://juliamarieharp.com/ and https://www.linkedin.com/in/julia-schorn-4128258a/

This blog was originally created to support Baylor University in hosting its Technology Innovation Request for Proposal: Improving Character Strengths of Adolescents through Technology Innovation.

Generosity

“It is better to give than to receive.”

We all grew up hearing this age-old adage, and most parents still hope to instill this message of compassion in their children. But are they accomplishing that goal? Do today’s youth place a higher value on giving to others than on satisfying their own personal interests and` needs? A 2017 Harvard Graduate School of Education study suggests the answer to that question is “no.” The researchers asked 10,000 middle and high school students across the U.S. to prioritize their values, and found that 80% of the students chose personal achievement and happiness over caring for others.

This is concerning – especially in a world filled with divisiveness and growing social and racial tensions. observing someone else engage in generous behaviour enhances children's own generosity. Now, more than ever, we need to be raising a generation of children who are empathic and kind, who genuinely care about the welfare of others, and who generously give to those in need.

How can we do this? What role can children’s media play in helping today’s youth become more caring and generous citizens?

One insight comes from controlled laboratory studies that have long supported the notion that observing someone else engage in generous behavior enhances children’s own generosity .

This robust finding has been shown to apply to both boys and girls, children of all ages, races, and socio-economic statuses. Additionally, the positive effect of observing a generous model has been shown when live models are used, videotaped models, and characters on tv shows.

Creators of children’s media are well-positioned to take advantage of this well-documented phenomenon by featuring characters who themselves display and model generous behavior. Characters in television shows, movies, story-driven games, apps, online videos, ebooks, etc. hold the potential to influence how kind and generous children become.

But let’s dig a bit deeper and ask questions to help fine-tune how media characters can best influence children’s generosity:

What type of media characters will be most effective?

The more viewers connect with and relate to media characters, the more they will want to become like them. In the literature, this is referred to as “wishful identification”, and is strengthened when viewers regard media characters as similar to themselves in terms of demographic features (e.g., gender, race, and age). Perceiving demographic similarities tends to enhance viewers’ desires to emulate media characters through behavior, and by adopting their attitudes and values. Research has also found that wishful identification is enhanced when media characters are seen as kind and helpful, which is promising, given how challenging it can be to cover all your demographic bases. This suggests that generosity, in and of itself, will appeal to viewers and draw them closer to characters who display it.

Does it matter what characters in shows or apps  say or do when modeling generosity?

Preaching about generosity doesn’t work with kids.

It’s not enough to be told that generosity is important and expected, kids need to see it in action to buy into its virtues.

In a classic experiment, school-age kids were given the opportunity to donate their winnings from a game to children in poverty. The students first watched a role model play the same game either generously or selfishly. Then they listened to the model preach about either generosity or about selfishness. Those kids who observed the model behave generously, regardless of what the model said, donated considerably more than the norm. This was true even when the model preached the virtues of selfishness. Similarly, regardless of the model’s words, those kids who observed the model behaving selfishly donated considerably less than the norm. The bottom line: children learn generosity not by listening to what role models say, but by observing what they do.

The message for media creators hoping to instill generosity in kids is clear: Make the message of generosity behavioral rather than verbal. Showing media characters behaving generously will always be more effective than having them talk about generosity and its virtues.

How should other characters respond to generous behavior?

We know that responses to children’s behavior can strongly affect their future behavior. For instance, to increase children’s motivation and achievement behavior, research clearly points to the value of reinforcing effort or behavior over ability and character. In the case of generosity, however, the opposite is true: Children are more likely to repeat a generous act if their character has been praised (“You are a generous person”) rather than the behavior itself (“That was a generous thing you did”). The reason being, when someone is told they are generous, it is internalized, and over time can become part of their identity. This type of character praise appears to be especially influential during critical periods of development, like adolescence, when the formation of a strong sense of identity is just as crucial.  

This finding suggests that when media characters behave with generosity, other characters should explicitly comment on and praise their generous nature rather than the behavior itself.

This simple adjustment in dialogue and storyline can be powerful. Similarly, when apps or online games are developed with the goal of promoting generosity, the specific reinforcement offered to players when their responses are correct or positive (i.e., in keeping with the generosity message of the game) should always be character praise.

Aside from presenting great characters and role models for children to learn from and emulate, there are other ways in which the media can facilitate generosity. A number of research findings that seem particularly informative in this regard come from the field of neuroscience.  

Recently, brain research on young children discovered that generosity was increased, only when the children were thoughtfully reflecting upon the moral behavior of others. This is fascinating, and suggests that interactive media properties with built-in opportunities for kids to think about and reflect on what a character is doing, and to assess for themselves the rightness or wrongness of the act, will be most effective at activating generosity in the child brain.

An example, while not specifically addressing generosity per se, is The Social Express, a media property that features animated interactive webisodes that encourage kids to think about, analyze, and practice real-life social interactions. Efforts to create interactive media properties of this kind that engage and activate kids’ thinking about generosity would prove particularly fruitful.

Commonsense media is another source for looking for inspiration for app or linear content creators. Brainstorm from this list of gratitude activities and tools for students.

And finally, a personal favorite research finding with respect to generosity, and one that has been well-documented across various studies: Generosity leads to happiness. Neuroscientists have even gone so far as to identify the specific brain mechanisms responsible for this direct link between generosity and happiness. We are biologically predisposed for generosity.

I particularly love this finding because it implies that if we can get kids to engage in acts of generosity, we can hopefully activate a self-sustaining cycle of giving: Generosity leads to happiness, which itself serves as a powerful and natural reinforcer that increases the likelihood of future generosity, in turn leading to more happiness, and more generosity…and on and on.

So can children’s media play a role in triggering this self-perpetuating system? And are there ways to get children to behave generously as part of the media experience? Yes; an interesting media property that accomplishes this goal is Freerice, an ad-supported, free-to-play website that allows players to donate to charities by playing multiple-choice quiz games. For every question answered correctly, 10 grains of rice are donated to people in need through the World Food Programme. Anyone who has played Freerice knows how addictive it can be; to see onscreen the rice you have donated, and to know that someone in need will receive food because of something simple you just did, feels truly great and rewarding.

Which brings us back to where we started: “It is better to give than to receive.” And while today’s youth may not always know or believe that, hopefully tomorrow’s media will help them discover its truth.

Dr. Lynn Oldershaw is a developmental psychologist who has worked for the past 18 years in children’s media, first as an Executive in Charge of Production for Programming at the Canadian Broadcasting Corp., and currently as a children’s media content consultant for production companies in Canada, the US, and Europe.

Prior to working in children’s programming, Dr. Oldershaw was an Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychology at the University of Western Ontario, and was the Research Director of CAMH’s Child Psychiatry Program in Toronto.   Her research and clinical work focused on the factors that contribute to the social, emotional and intellectual development of children.

This blog was originally created to support Baylor University in hosting its Technology Innovation Request for Proposal: Improving Character Strengths of Adolescents through Technology Innovation.

The Power of Forgiveness

Regardless of age, we have all experienced being hurt by our siblings, co-workers, strangers and even our closest friends. When this happens, we often do one of two things – hold a grudge and attempt to get revenge or move on and forgive them, no matter how hard it may be.

Expert Everett Worthington from Virginia Commonwealth University has spent his career studying forgiveness. He explains that this difficult decision requires us to ignore our initial instinct to “get even” and instead try to understand the other person’s reasoning behind their hurtful behavior. Once we make the decision to abandon the negative emotions we feel toward that person and replace them with positive ones, forgiveness will happen over time.

Health Benefits of Forgiveness

Researchers have identified that forgiveness is associated with several benefits including better physical and mental health (e.g., low blood pressure, psychological well-being), reduced anger, and maintenance of close relationships. On the other hand, holding grudges and seeking revenge is associated with several health concerns including depression, anxiety, poor physical health and lower self-esteem.

The benefits of forgiveness have not only been found in adults, but also in children and adolescents as well. The ability to forgive someone is an essential component to maintaining relationships with others and is especially important during development. Peer relationships are crucial for children’s social, emotional, physical and psychological wellbeing –BUT as we all know from experience, relationships are not always easy to manage, especially in the face of conflict.

Teaching this Virtue to Young People

So how can we teach children about the virtue of forgiveness?

One very important way is through parenting. As research has consistently shown, children often imitate their parents’ behaviors, making parents a direct model of behavior for their children. One study in particular demonstrated how parents’ forgiving tendencies were associated with their child’s forgiving tendencies and the results were maintained up to one year later. Outside of modelling forgiving behavior, parents can also explicitly teach their children about forgiveness and how they should respond when faced with conflict or when someone has hurt them.

However, despite parents’ best efforts to instill appropriate values in their children, they are often in competition with the media. In today’s society, media is a very powerful tool that can manipulate the beliefs, norms, perceptions, values and behaviors of the society at large; if something is accepted by the media, it is often accepted by society as well. But if used appropriately, media can be an important educational tool. Therefore, what children see in the media they consume (i.e., YouTube, television, apps) will have an enormous impact on their development, and sometimes even more so than parents!

In this sense, how characters and stories are represented in the media matters, a lot. Often times, representation of characters is talked about in terms of gender or race. However, what we must not forget is that representation can also be about a character’s internal qualities, morals, and beliefs; embodying forgiveness is no exception. Because of the many benefits that accompany the act of forgiving (and being forgiven), it is crucial that we create characters in the media who display the virtue of forgiveness and can therefore teach children and adolescents how to exercise this in their own lives.

How to best show forgiveness through Media:

• Show characters who not only forgive others who hurt them, but also show characters who make mistakes (because they are ‘human’), and take responsibility for their actions, including asking for forgiveness.  

• Portray characters who forgive others (or ask for forgiveness) as brave and courageous because forgiveness is often misconstrued to be a sign of weakness.

• Display characters going through the emotions people experience when they are hurt by a close friend and show how they deal with these emotions.

  • This strategy has been shown to be effective in previous research that found children are capable of learning how to manage their emotions by using an app in which a familiar media character taught children how to recognize and understand emotions (see CSS blog by Eric Rasmussen—a CSS collaborator)

• Portray the importance of friendships and the obstacles that come with them. How are conflicts between friends resolved? What happens if they are not resolved? What happens if they are resolved?

• Demonstrate a character forgiving themselves after they’ve done something to hurt a loved one.

Adrianna Ruggiero is a first-year Ph.D student in the Psychological Science stream at Ryerson University and the Senior Research Coordinator for the Center for Scholars and Storytellers. Her current research mainly focuses on children’s selective social learning and selective trust. She is hoping to expand this area and explore how children learn from technology and media!

Early Childhood Cognition Lab (https://psychlabs.ryerson.ca/ecclab/), Ryerson University

This blog was originally created to support Baylor University in hosting its Technology Innovation Request for Proposal: Improving Character Strengths of Adolescents through Technology Innovation.

Creating Gratitude-based Apps for Youth

At some point in time, we’ve all experienced that moment when things seem to be going wrong and someone says, “Well, look on the bright side.” They then proceed to run down a list of silver linings we could be focused on instead.  If it were really that easy to reframe our perspective, why do so many of us have trouble doing so? The answer may lie in the way our brains are wired. Researchers have discovered that our brains possess a negativity bias; that is, we tend to have stronger emotional responses to negative news than to positive news. For example, we are more upset about losing $10 than we are happy about finding $10 (a phenomenon known as Loss Aversion). Though this negativity bias was once a useful survival tool for our primate ancestors, is can have detrimental effects on our well-being now, and it can increase the likelihood of developing mental illnesses such as depression.

There’s good news though: researchers have discovered that practicing gratitude can counteract our default negativity bias. When we practice gratitude, we are mindfully and intentionally focusing on the positive, which actively rewires the way our brains function. Expressing gratitude brings our awareness to the small, often overlooked, wonderful things happening around us. Psychologists Robert Emmons and Michael McCullough conducted the study in which they asked people to keep a daily gratitude journal. Participants were instructed to write down five things, each day, that they appreciated and were grateful for. The study concluded that keeping a gratitude journal increased overall well-being and positive emotions, reduced stress, improved sleep, increased physical health and even boost the immune system!

Gratitude for all ages

Best of all, gratitude can be developed at any age. This means that with a little guidance and support from teachers, parents and/or mentors, children and adolescents can begin dismantling their negativity bias long before they reach adulthood. Dr. Giacomo Bono, a professor of psychology at California State University, Dominguez Hills, suggests that adolescents can cultivate gratitude by journaling; meanwhile younger children might benefit from drawing pictures of things or people they are grateful for. Furthermore, Dr. Bono has also recommended an activity in which students are instructed to identify their top five strengths and then create “Strength Posters” that are hung on the walls of their classroom. The posters serve as powerful reminders of each student’s unique and inherent gifts. Finally, teachers reinforce positive thinking and gratitude by encouraging students to leave a thank-you note on others’ posters.

Using Technology to Facilitate Gratitude

Dr. Bono believes that apps and other educational technologies could help facilitate the expression of gratitude. He suggests that a platform that enables users to create and send digital thank you notes could be a powerful resource to promote and support mental health. Imagine the benefits of a social network based completely on expressing gratitude to loved ones in a streamlined, effortless way; imagine the feeling of receiving a random digital thank you from someone you mentor, and imagine a generation of kids and adolescents who have no trouble expressing their feelings of gratitude! App developers and EdTech can help make this possible, and may even initiate a ripple effect of gratitude.

Dr. Bono is currently working on ways to convert gratitude from an action into a personality trait. He is utilizing a two-pronged approach: first he instills the value of gratitude in students by teaching them about the science of gratitude. Second, he provides students with safe ways to begin practicing gratitude. It’s important to note that children and adolescents may not want to practice gratitude socially because they are not comfortable showing emotions and disclosing personal matters to others. This is why Dr. Bono uses a web-based app called GiveThx, in which students can practice give and receive expressions of thanks.

The more often children and adolescents experience the emotional and neurological rewards of gratitude, the more likely they are to continue engaging in thanks giving actions.Eventually, the actions become an automatic function and turn become an integrated personality trait.

Gratitude is more than saying kind words that make us feel good in the moment, it is a powerful practice that activates the brain’s reward center, combats our default negativity bias, and builds meaning. In youth, gratitude has the power to facilitate meaningful conversations and build social capital; it encourages personal growth, bigger goal setting, and can create a sense of purpose. Young people especially need to know that they matter and they need to feel as though they can make an actual difference in the world. Apps that activate gratitude may be a huge step forward in supporting purpose-driven attitudes in the next generation of young influencers.

Suggestions for developing apps and media that promote gratitude:

• Create apps or games that allow people to list the things they are grateful for

• Find ways to use technology to express appreciation to others

• Focus on strengths and positive emotions versus what has gone wrong

• Encourage people to think about their meaning and purpose in life

• Use images and video clips that inspire people to contribute to society

H. Wenwen Ni, PhD Candidate, UCLA

Wenwen Ni is a PhD candidate in Social Psychology at UCLA. She is passionate about using psychological research to improve well-being.

https://huolab.psych.ucla.edu/people/

This blog was originally created to support Baylor University in hosting its Technology Innovation Request for Proposal: Improving Character Strengths of Adolescents through Technology Innovation.

“Patience is a Virtue”

It can be hard to remember that patience is a virtue in today’s fast-moving, always-on culture. Every day, we are bombarded with advertising, online apps and other media that promises to deliver on a product or service at increasing rates, instilling in us a greater desire for instant gratification of our wants and needs. But is that always a good thing? After all, we’ve all seen the harmful consequences of impatience: a driver runs a red light and gets into an accident; holiday shoppers shove each other on Black Friday and fight over discounted electronics and toys; students drop out of college because getting a degree feels like it’s taking too long.

It’s easy to lose sight of the many benefits of having patience because sometimes the frustration is all too much. However, research has revealed time and time again that the short term discomfort we might experience while we work toward our desired outcome is well worth the wait.

The Marshmallow Study

One of the best (and cutest!) studies on patience was conducted by psychologist Walter Mischel at Stanford University in 1972; it is famously known as the Marshmallow Experiment. Children between the ages of 3 and 5 were asked to sit a table and a marshmallow was placed in front of them. The researchers explained to the children that they had two options: either eat the marshmallow in front of them immediately (small reward) or wait 15 minutes and eat two marshmallows instead of one (large reward). The children were tracked by the researchers, well into adulthood, and the study revealed that those who were able to exercise patience and wait for their larger reward were more successful later on in life. They were also found to be better able to cope with stress and frustration as adolescents, suggesting that developing patience as children can lead to better coping skills later in life. Additional research by Dr. Sarah Schnitker, a psychologist from Baylor University, revealed that increased patience leads to higher achievements, which leads to greater well-being.

Research Findings on Delayed vs Immediate Gratification

What differentiates those who can delay gratification from those who can’t? The answer may lie in our brains. Researchers conducted brain scans of the marshmallow experiment participants after a period of 40 years had passed and the children well into adulthood. They found that the group that could delay gratification had greater activity in the prefrontal cortex area of the brain. The prefrontal cortex is responsible for thinking and planning, especially when it comes to actions that are relevant to our goals. It acts as the “control center” of the brain and is ultimately responsible for what actions we take. This finding suggests that the prefrontal cortex played a large part in helping people prioritize controlling their impulses in order to obtain a desired reward. Conversely, those participants who had trouble delaying gratification showed more activity in the ventral striatum area of the brain; the ventral striatum is part of the reward system of the brain. This finding suggests that those who could not delay gratification were drawn to the possibility of immediate rewards, which had an overriding effect on the rational, thinking parts of their brains.

The Marshmallow Experiment might lead you believe that patience is a trait that is hard-wired into our brains, but Dr. Schnitker’s research suggests that patience is a trait that can be developed. One way to increase patience is by tying a delay of gratification to a larger goal. By thinking about goals, we activate the prefrontal cortex and are therefore more likely to control our impulses. For example, we can teach children and adolescents that waiting to play video games until they’ve finished studying is tied to the goal of doing well in school, which in turn gives them greater choices in terms of occupation when they become adults. According to Dr. Schnitker, spirituality and religion can also help with the development of patience, perhaps because so many spiritual and religious practices emphasize keeping calm in the face of adversity. Religion and spirituality can also provide answers to the question of why humans suffer, which can give us the ability to bear hardships in life.

Therefore,apps or media that have clearly stated goals and can link children and adolescents’ actions to those goals can help children develop patience.

Similarly, creating media that emphasizes the spiritual, rather than the mundane, aspects of human existence can also help children and adolescents look towards something higher instead of becoming frustrated by the small annoyances in life.

Other methods of developing patience are demonstrated by the techniques that the researchers used in carrying out the marshmallow study. Recall that the experimenters took the children into a room and placed a marshmallow in front of them, then left the room. The children who were successful in not eating the marshmallow exhibited a variety of behaviors in order to avoid temptation: They would "cover their eyes with their hands or turn around so that they can't see the tray, others start kicking the desk, or tug on their pigtails, or stroke the marshmallow as if it were a tiny stuffed animal.” In other words, the children distracted themselves in order to avoid temptation.

This suggests that techniques that promote distraction – of not always focusing on what’s in front of us – can help develop patience.

It’s also important to have multiple goals or objectives in life, so that we do not grow frustrated if we are not making progress in one area.

Suggestions for developing patience in children and adolescents using media:

• Develop apps or games with multiple objectives and ways to succeed

• Develop apps or games that require a level of patience in order to advance to the next level

• Create media that emphasizes the spiritual aspects of life

• Show examples of people who have overcome suffering through perseverance, such as Ghandi or Nelson Mandela

• Create media that ties short-term objectives to long-term goals

Wenwen Ni is a PhD candidate in Social Psychology at UCLA. She is passionate about using psychological research to improve well-being.

https://huolab.psych.ucla.edu/people/

This blog was originally created to support Baylor University in hosting its Technology Innovation Request for Proposal: Improving Character Strengths of Adolescents through Technology Innovation.

Cultivating Gratitude for a Fulfilling Life

Gratitude is one of the first things children learn, as parents constantly urge them to say “thank you” to others who hand out candy on Halloween, share toys in the classroom, or say something sweet. Some even argue that gratitude acts as a “social glue”, strengthening relationships and providing meaning in life. It’s no secret why kids are taught about gratitude as soon as they can talk – research has shown that it improves behavior, increases grades, increases happiness, and decreases risky behaviors. Scientists have been working tirelessly to understand this virtue and new research can provide insights in creating media for young children that cultivates gratitude for a happy and fulfilling life.

Increasing gratitude during childhood is important because this is a key period in development when children have more social relationships than ever before, and it is vital that these relationships are supportive, happy, and healthy.

Psychological Research on Gratitude

A group of scientists from multiple universities teamed up to examine a new intervention for promoting gratitude in young children. In this study, published in School Psychology Review, children were randomly assigned to either a control group or an intervention group that educated children on “benefit-appraisal”. In the benefit-appraisal group, students were taught how to understand a person’s good intentions when helping someone else, how that helping may come at a cost to the giver or helper, and how beneficial it is to receive a gift from someone else. These lessons were not just lectures, but comprised of discussions, writing assignments, and even role-playing activities – activities that target specific ways children learn. These lessons were carried out every day for one week. They found that students who received these lessons showed increased grateful mood and wrote 80% more thank you notes to the parent-teacher association than the students in the control condition! But this intervention didn’t just last a week – the researchers found that it induced gratitude up to five months later and even showed a positive effect on well-being. Scientists believe that this effect is so powerful because the curriculum induces grateful thinking, which manifests as grateful action and attitude, and therefore changed behavior and enhanced well-being.

Gratitude vs Happiness

More research has shown that gratitude may contribute more to children than momentary happiness – it may even ignite a motivation to give back to their community. In this study, middle school students were asked about their gratitude beliefs, social behavior, life satisfaction, and social integration (e.g., motivation to help others) at three different points in time: when the study started, three months later, and six months later. The researchers found that the measurement of gratitude at the start of the study predicted how well students were socially integrated six months later! The factors driving this finding were social behavior and life satisfaction. Their findings suggest that gratitude and social integration build on each other; one predicts the other, and vice versa. The scientists conclude that in order to shape children into thoughtful, caring, contributing members of society, gratitude interventions may be the first step.

Gratitude and Adolescents

Research has shown that teenagers who were more grateful experienced social support from friends and family, increased optimism, and higher satisfaction in all parts of their life, such as school, family, friends, community, and self, as compared with teens who weren’t as grateful. Also,teens who were more grateful reported greater life satisfaction, academic achievement, passion for activities, and they felt less envious, depressed, and materialistic than their not-so-grateful peers. Overall, it’s clear that developing gratitude is a skill that will positively affect almost every aspect of life. Therefore, it’s vital that children’s media make it fun and easy to focus on cultivating gratitude. Thankfully, there are concrete, evidence-based practices that only take a couple minutes a day and can help children lead a fulfilling life full of gratitude.

How to Integrate Gratitude:

• Counting blessings using a gratitude journal by writing down five things every day for which kids are grateful – take it one step further by also writing down the causes of those good things

• Kids can write a gratitude letter to someone they never really properly thanked –this will make the receiver feel appreciated and the giver feel fulfilled!

• Encourage kids to think about what life would be like had a positive event not occurred – this is called mental subtraction and can increase happiness.

• Show kids that spending money on experiences rather than things will feel better in the long term; instead of buying flashy tennis shoes, buy a board game to play with friends.

Julia Schorn is a second-year Ph.D student in Psychology at UCLA, with a focus in cognitive neuroscience and memory. In her free time she enjoys playing the harp and making science accessible to everyone!

http://juliamarieharp.com/ and https://www.linkedin.com/in/julia-schorn-4128258a/

This blog was originally created to support Baylor University in hosting its Technology Innovation Request for Proposal: Improving Character Strengths of Adolescents through Technology Innovation.

Joy

In January of 2018, nearly one in every four Yale freshmen gathered in a lecture hall with a common task for the semester: to learn what brings us joy. The “Psychology and the Good Life”course was created by Yale psychology professor Dr. Laurie Santos, and it has become the most popular class in the university’s 300-year history. The success of the course mirrors  a broader human fascination with understanding how to experience and increase well-being in our everyday lives.

What  is Joy?

When you hear the word “joy”, you might immediately think of “happiness”—indeed, it is quite common to see these words used interchangeably. However, scholars have suggested that the two terms are distinguishable. Whereas happiness is predominantly derived from external and potentially fleeting sources, joy is thought to be more sustained and reflect a sense of deep connection to something or someone we value. Joy has also been described as a response to something we have been hoping for or anticipating. For example, watching a feel-good comedy might promote our happiness, but being reunited with a loved one after a long separation can bring us joy.

Psychological Research on Joy

Although psychological research on joy has been relatively limited given the complexity of its definition, we do know about some barriers to experiencing joy in our everyday lives.

First, researchers have recognized that humans have a negativity bias, wherein we tend to pay more attention to negative things that happen to us compared to positive things. Think about the last time you had lunch with a friend—did you spend more time talking about your stresses and worries or all the positive things in your life? Although it’s important to seek out social support in times of distress, disproportionately focusing on the negative and ignoring the positive can take a toll on our well-being.

Second, humans exhibit habituation to positive events and experiences—with repeated exposure, pleasant things get less pleasant. Imagine a child who receives a new toy. Although initially overjoyed, after several days the child becomes disinterested and tosses the toy aside. Habituation helps explain why people may have trouble sustaining well-being over time.

How can we combat negativity biases and habituation to lead happier and more joyful lives? It’s important that we not only seek out social support and interaction with others when we’re struggling or when things aren’t going our way (e.g., after a breakup), but also when things are going right. For example, there is scientific evidence that people feel better on days that they tell other people about positive personal events (e.g., receiving phone call from an old friend). Additionally, expressing gratitude(i.e., what we are thankful for) can provide a helpful reminder of all the things we should appreciate in our lives.

Joy in the Connected World of Adolescents

Given the proliferation of electronic communication, it’s also important to think about how we can promote joy and happiness in an increasingly (technologically) connected world. This is especially relevant when we talk about teenagers, who are some of the most prolific users of social media.

Although adults may express widespread fears about the risks of teens online, we also know that technology and social media offer many benefits for teens. The ability to connect with others at the click of a button allows users to stay in touch with and potentially even strengthen friendships. Teens who feel lonely or isolated can also use mobile technologies as a way to more easily interact with peers and receive social support. Additionally, mobile technologies can offer adolescents opportunities to explore different personal identities and express themselves creatively, which can contribute to a stronger sense of self.

On the other hand, there are certain ways that excessive phone use and online activity can undermine adolescents’ joy and happiness. When I asked Dr. Laurie Santos, Yale professor and creator of the new Psychology and the Good Life course, about potential downsides of teen media usage, she also highlighted its effects on health and face-to-face interactions. Adolescents who spend more time on social media sleep less and sometimes even report more emotional distress (e.g., depressive symptoms). For example, whereas using social media to actively connect with others can promote well-being, a lot of passive browsing (e.g., scrolling through Instagram) can create envy and negative mood. This raises an important issue for tech developers looking to create media or apps geared at children and adolescents. Santos notes that we need to carefully “balance any benefits that come from an app [with] the downside of more phone use overall,” especially in light of evidence that increased use of mobile devices predicts less enjoyable face-to-face interactions.

Taking Action

So, how can we find more joy in our daily lives? Here are a few tips based on what we know from the research.

1.    Keep a gratitude journal. Every day, take time to reflect on what you are grateful for and log it in a journal. Even if it’s only for five minutes, this exercise can help you keep perspective on all the things you have to appreciate in life.

2.    Help others. Although there are times we are stressed out and need support from others, research shows that holding doors for strangers, doing volunteer work, and helping out our friends all contribute to better well-being, even among teens and young adults.

3.    Balance online and offline time. Given that online venues offer both opportunities and risks, the question is less about whether we should spend any time online and more about how and when we’re spending time online. Disconnecting before bed might be especially important, and being intentional and cognizant about connecting rather than comparing ourselves is likely to create a more positive experience.

Hannah Schacter is a National Science Foundation Postdoctoral Research Fellow in the University of Southern California Department of Psychology. Her research examines how adolescents' interpersonal relationships contribute to their health and well-being across varying social contexts. To learn more, please visit www.hannahschacter.com.

This blog was originally created to support Baylor University in hosting its Technology Innovation Request for Proposal: Improving Character Strengths of Adolescents through Technology Innovation.

Creating Vitality Through Hope

“You can do it!”

“I believe in you!”

“Never give up!”

Each of these common motivational phrases is centered around the idea of cultivating one of the earliest and most crucial human virtues to develop: the virtue of hope. Hope is often defined as a wish, and with it an expectation, that something good will happen. Herein lies the beauty of the human mind: when we imagine and believe in a positive outcome, we actually increase our likelihood of achieving that outcome. Over the past few decades, scientists have found time and time again that hope is related to positive outcomes such as greater happiness, increased academic success, and an overall sense that life is meaningful. Therefore, it may come as no surprise that a great emphasis is placed on the importance of increasing hope in children.

Psychological Research on Hope

In his theory of hope, psychologist Charles Snyder described three components that he viewed as fundamental to this virtue: goals, agency, and pathways. Setting and achieving goals is integral for healthy human development. Agency refers to the belief and motivation that we can achieve our goals, while pathways are the set of steps necessary to accomplish the desired outcome. According to this theory, hope is essential for every step of decision making.

In fact, research has shown that children and adolescents with higher levels of hope tend to develop many life goals, they focus on success rather than failure when working towards their goals, and view themselves as capable of solving any problems that might arise. In addition, hopeful youth are generally more optimistic and have higher self-esteem and better mental health. We all know that being hopeful feels good, but these studies demonstrate that hope is also healthy.

Losing and Learning Hope

Perhaps the most striking way to see the power of hope lies in the cases where hope has been lost. Rates of depression have been rising, especially amongst teenagers; a key symptom of depression is a feeling of hopelessness. In a study investigating the relationship between hope and depression in adolescents, hopelessness was found to be the key predictor of depressive symptoms and suicidal behavior. Similarly, hope is negatively related to symptoms of depression in both children and teens. Taken together, these results suggest that higher levels of hope may protect individuals from the effects of negative life events on mental health. Therefore, psychologists suggest interventions for developing youth aimed at building positive expectations and optimism.

Fortunately, studies suggest that almost anyone can be taught to be more hopeful. Interventions aimed at increasing hope in children and adolescents have been successful in enhancing hope in all students, regardless of initial hope levels. In one study, scientists created a 5-week hope-based intervention for middle school students that was designed to increase hope, life satisfaction, self-worth, mental health, and academic achievement. This intervention harnessed the power of parents, teachers, and peers in helping students accomplish four main steps: 1) conceptualizing clear goals, 2) identifying a range of pathways for attaining said goals, 3) summoning the mental energy and motivation to continue goal pursuit, and 4) reframing seemingly insurmountable obstacles (i.e., “I will never do well on this test because I get anxious during exams”) as challenges to be overcome (i.e., “My test anxiety makes it more difficult for me to do well on this test; therefore, I need to practice stress-reducing activities that I can use to calm myself down”). The researchers identified two groups of students at the same middle school with similar initial levels of hope, mental-health, life satisfaction, self-worth, and academic achievement. One group then participated in the intervention, while students in the other group continued their routines as usual.

Both groups were tested immediately after, 6 months after, and 18 months after the intervention had finished. The students who had participated in the intervention reported higher levels of hope, life satisfaction, and self-worth. Even further, this positive impact was still found when the students were tested at the 18-month follow-up. This study showed that even a short hope intervention can have positive effects on psychological strengths, and that parents and teachers can help cultivate hope in children by encouraging them to set goals and helping make plans for goal attainment.

Hope and Media

Increasingly, children and teens rely on media and technology to structure their everyday life. We now have a unique opportunity to harness the power of this reliance to our advantage by developing programs and applications such as fun, positive-thinking, goal-setting smartphone apps that focus on increasing hope in developing youth. An impactful app could bolster hope by following a set of guidelines. First, the app could guide students through questions aimed at measuring their levels of hope. For example, the Children’s Hope Scale gives a total hope score, in addition to subscale scores for pathway and agency, components of hope. After a baseline hope score is determined, the app could offer an engaging narrative to teach students about hope theory and its relevance to setting and achieving goals, and then walk the student through creating a list of important life components and assess the student’s level of satisfaction within these areas.

Then come up with the most important steps: creating positive, specific, workable goals and developing multiple pathways to achieve each goal. The app should encourage the student to generate and focus on agency-promoting thoughts about each goal. The student’s baseline hope subscale scores will provide information about which aspects of hope are most important to target during this process. After the goals and pathways have been established, the app should check in with students weekly to remind them of their plans and encourage them to continue towards goal attainment. The app could also help students maintain motivation by offering incentives such as virtual points and trophies as goal progress is made. With apps such as this one, we can bolster hope in children and teens and give students the tools they need to work towards achieving a more positive and fulfilling life.

Amanda Baker is a Ph.D. psychology student at the University of California, Los Angeles. Her research examines adolescent brain and behavioral development, with a focus on the emergence of anxiety in adolescence.  https://galvanlab.psych.ucla.edu/lab-members/

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/amanda-baker-b186b9b0

This blog was originally created to support Baylor University in hosting its Technology Innovation Request for Proposal: Improving Character Strengths of Adolescents through Technology Innovation.

Developing Wisdom

You may have heard the old saying, “Wisdom is something that comes with age”, and while there is truth to this, children and adolescents can develop wisdom as well. According to Dr. Thomas Plante,, a professor of psychology at Santa Clara University, wisdom involves the active process of reflection and discernment – two actions that anyone can take. We use reflection when we think about our lives thus far and consider if we are living in accordance with our values, and we use discernment when we make decisions and judgments that guide us towards more meaning and purpose in our lives.

Research shows that our brains are hard-wired to help us acquire wisdom, by ensuring that we learn from our mistakes. In fact, there is a specific region of the brain (anterior cingulate cortex) whose function is to alert us when we have made a mistake or when a mistake is likely to occur. This region also ensures that we pay attention to and learn from our mistakes, so that we are less likely to repeat those mistakes in the future!

Therefore, learning from our mistakes is an important part of our development, especially for children and adolescents. In fact, Dr. Plante believes that children and adolescents are at a critical period in their lives for thoughtful reflection, discernment, and character formation because they are in the constant process of learning. Dr. Mark McMinn, a professor of psychology at George Fox University, agrees, pointing to research that suggests that wisdom increases most between the ages of 13 and 25.

Though it’s unclear why wisdom increases during these specific years, Dr. McMinn suspects that adolescents and young adults may learn wisdom by confronting age-appropriate dilemmas, such as learning from mistakes. Thus, understanding the different ways children learn about behavior is key to understanding how they also develop wisdom.

In addition to learning from their own actions, children and adolescents also look to the outside world to understand norms about how to act and what behavior is appropriate. In one famous psychology study (the Bobo Doll Experiment ), Stanford psychologist Albert Bandura discovered that children were much more likely to behave aggressively towards a large doll if they saw adults hitting and punching the doll first. Bandura’s research suggests that children and adolescents learn by watching those around them, and that children learn from authority figures such as their parents and teachers.

Children also learn from comparing themselves to their friends, a process known as social comparison. In social comparison, people compare themselves to others and try to determine if they are doing better or worse in areas that are important to them, such as performance in school. If children and adolescents see their friends being rewarded or otherwise doing well for making good decisions, this will lead them towards the path of self-improvement and character development as well.

In addition to parents, teachers and friends, Dr. Plante points out that our current culture is also an important source of influence on children and adolescents. Children learn from popular media such as movies and television as well as from social media, apps and games.

Therefore, telling stories that showcase people learning from the consequences of their actions serves as a great example of wisdom development for an audience.

Apps and games which are interactive are also essential for the development of wisdom, because they allow people to receive real-time feedback about their actions and choices. Apps and games that incorporate decision-making can help children and adolescents learn from their mistakes, especially if feedback is provided on how to improve.

This is not to say that an app, in and of itself can lead to wisdom development, but might instead be a useful supplement to aid in the development of wisdom. Dr. McMinn points out that we primarily use our phones to do things quickly, and wisdom is developed slowly, because the learning process is gradual and as we’ve established, wisdom relies heavily on one’s ability to learn.

Dr. McMinn has been most successful in helping others develop wisdom in the context of in-person small groups involving conversation, silence, spiritual components, and practice confronting various dilemmas with the support of “wisdom mentors”.

It’s important to note that Dr. McMinn’s research suggests that children and adolescents would benefit greatly from having mentors that do not rush to provide them with answers in the midst of the dilemmas, but instead take on a supportive role and allow children to arrive at their own solutions. This research suggests that media that helps facilitate in-person conversations may be a way for content developers to assist with wisdom development. The prefrontal cortex, which is responsible for problem solving, develops during adolescence and is not fully formed until the early twenties. Therefore, children and adolescents greatly benefit from adult guidance to support their learning process in developing wisdom.

Finally, wisdom is not just something to be applied towards the self; it can and should also be part of our interactions and relationships with others. When we turn wisdom outwards, it becomes compassion towards others. Compassion is simply having concern for others and expressing care towards them. It can be developed through learning about diversity and the value of people from different backgrounds, as well as from experiencing religious services and serving the community.

While wisdom is certainly something that improves with age, we know that it begins developing long before adulthood. Children and adolescents are full of unsuspecting insight, but targeting specific components of the mechanisms utilized in learning about behavior can help facilitate and support the development of wisdom and compassion.

Actionable Insights:

• Develop media which encourages children and adolescents to practice making choices

• Use media and apps to facilitate small-group, in-person conversations

• Help people reflect on the consequences of their actions

• Check that people are learning from their mistakes

• Provide feedback about how to improve on mistakes

• Use parents, teachers and peers as role models for making good decisions

• Teach children and adolescents to care for others

• Portray cultural diversity in media to facilitate development of compassion

H. Wenwen Ni, PhD Candidate, UCLA

Wenwen Ni is a PhD candidate in Social Psychology at UCLA. She is passionate about using psychological research to improve well-being.

This blog was originally created to support Baylor University in hosting its Technology Innovation Request for Proposal: Improving Character Strengths of Adolescents through Technology Innovation.

Love

Many have asked: What is love?

A question that is all-too-common, all-too-asked, all-too-experienced- and yet perpetually misunderstood. We may flip open Romeo and Juliet and pine through Shakespearean sonnets. With our own hands, we may take to novels, poems, essays. We may describe love with all possible adjectives in all possible languages or sing songs that produce countless romantic melodies.

Truly, love and the arts are highly intertwined and we primarily rely on the arts to describe “love.”

We know this. But how about science? In this digital age we live in, where science and technology inevitably shape our cognition--

Can science and technology tell us anything about love?

Clearly, love is not an on-off switch that we can control at our fingertips with our smart devices. It is a human emotion, one that is impossible to explain and attribute to non-human devices. And yet, an entire sub-branch of artificial intelligence, known as artificial emotional intelligence, aims to do just this.

Well, in actuality, it is much more complicated. But, the idea is very simple at its core. Think about Alexa. After a long day of work, Alexa seems to be a great option to empty workday frustrations on. Yet, her unflinching calmness and apparent lack of emotion to our range of emotions can be highly frustrating. How emotionally “dumb” are our intelligent assistants?

To answer this question, researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) media lab are training digital assistants to accurately read and respond to human emotions.
In fact, Affectiva, a company started by a group of MIT media lab researchers, has already developed emotion recognition software to track user’s emotional facial expressions (face-tracking) and physiological responses.

What implications could artificial emotionally intelligent devices have for love?

Creating devices that accurately recognize and respond to human emotions can provide support and love to individuals with clinical impairments, such as in autism and schizophrenia. Even in the general population, artificial emotionally intelligent devices can provide company to isolated individuals, or those who miss the experience or connection of love. Physically, individuals who are confined to wheelchairs or whom do not have the luxury of moving out and about, can have a more tangible device that can provide a proxy for human companionship.

One of the major criticisms of modern technology is the apparent lack of empathy. We live in a society that is largely producing human avatars devoid of emotion and love. Modern day dating apps such as Tinder, for example, have faced heavy criticism is its marked disinterest  in the value of love, and heightened fixation on “hook-up” culture.

How can we utilize technology to promote love in all its forms?

One of the first goals should be to use technology to promote love in our society.

Actionable Insights for Content Creators:

• Focus on encouraging positive social development and interaction through new technology, rather than aiming to “replace” (e.g., Pokémon Go)

• Bridge self-love and technology through positive mantras, meditation, and exercising

• Encourage positive thinking through motivational YouTube content or social media shares

• Create technology that aims to alleviate a negative problem in order to spread positivity (see Affectiva’s emotionally intelligent assistants)

Prior to our social media world, Temple Grandin created the early “hug box”, which provided social stimulation to adolescents with Autism Spectrum Disorder by allowing them to hug a machine for sensory relief. Previous studies found that in autistic children, there was an overall reduction in tension and anxiety when using the hug box, demonstrating profound improvements in social impairments.

In the current age, modern AI researchers have sought to down-size the “hug” box and instead, utilize some of our smart devices to ameliorate some of the social deficits in Autism. Additional work from Affectiva has focused on emotion recognition in Autism through utilizing affective computing.

This artificial emotional intelligence has also been applied to other clinical impairments such as depression. The rise of social media has related to increased amounts of depression (particularly in adolescents and teenagers). Recent research has even found that limiting social media use to around 30 minutes per day can lead to significant improvements in overall mental health. As a result, automated assistants that can monitor overall emotional and physical health have now been implemented in biometric algorithms to bridge the gap between healthy mental health and depression.

Spreading positivity and love in society is very important. In an age where a majority of social interactions occur online, it is important to experience and connect with love. Yet, a previous study in the UK of more than 10,000 people found that of people between aged 12 to 20, 70% of respondents admitted to being abusive online. These surprising statistics speak to the human faces (many of them teenagers) who have lost their lives at young ages to suicide due to cyberbullying.

While technology can reduce love and positivity, Trisha Prabhu, teenager and founder of ReThink, sought to utilize “technology” to solve “technology’s” existing problems. She implemented a simple technology that can detect an offensive message and subsequently provide the user an opportunity to “rethink” their post. Previous research conducted by ReThink has shown that when adolescents are asked to re-think their decision, they end up changing their mind 93% of the time. This simple “check” to stop online harassment in order to spread positivity can seamlessly bridge modern technology and human emotions.

From sharing positive content on YouTube, to re-tweeting heartwarming posts, who says that we cannot utilize technology to spread positivity? We may not yet have access to complex artificially emotional intelligent devices, but it does not mean that we cannot spread love. All it takes is a spin on Trisha’s rethink of negative online comments by thinking more about “love,” even if it is simply a heart on the next Facebook update we come upon.

Akila Kadambi is a third-year Cognitive Psychology PhD student at the University of California, Los Angeles where her research focuses on the intersection between higher-level social cognition and biological motion.

This blog was originally created to support Baylor University in hosting its Technology Innovation Request for Proposal: Improving Character Strengths of Adolescents through Technology Innovation.