Seminar on Positive Computing (Technology for Psychological Wellbeing) at Stanford's Center for Compassion and Altruism Research and Education (CCARE). Presented with Dorian Peters (slideshare.net/DorianPeters)
Repurposing LNG terminals for Hydrogen Ammonia: Feasibility and Cost Saving
Slide share poscomp_15-ccare
1. 1
POSITIVE COMPUTING
Technology for psychological wellbeing
Prof.Rafael A.Calvo
ARC Future Fellow, Engineering
The University of Sydney
Presented at:
The Center for Compassion and Altruism Research and Education
(CCARE)
Stanford University
January 22,2015
Dorian Peters
Creative Leader, Education and Social Work
The University of Sydney
2. About the University of Sydney
• 50,200
students;
7,500
Staff
• First
University
in
Australia
(1850)
6. We design for…
• ProducOvity
• Efficiency
• Accuracy
• Speed
• Performance
• SaOsfacOon
• Pleasure
• Desire
The Tyranny of Productivity
7. We design for proxies
Why design for proxies
when we can design for the real thing?
8. Technology should be designed to
support psychological wellbeing.
POSITIVE COMPUTING
“The research and development of
technology to support wellbeing
and human potential”
10. Technology already changes us...
1. Facebook
Use
Predicts
Declines
in
Subjec8ve
Well-‐Being
in
Young
Adults.
Kross
E,
Verduyn
P,
Demiralp
E,
Park
J,
Lee
DS,
et
al.
(2013)
PLoS
ONE
8(8):
e69841.
2. Experimental
evidence
of
massive-‐scale
emo8onal
contagion
through
social
networks
Kramer,
A,
J.E.
Guillory,
and
J.T.
Hancock.
PNAS
2014
3. Detec8ng
Emo8onal
Contagion
in
Massive
Social
Networks.
Coviello,
Lorenzo,
et
al.
PloS
one
9.3
(2014):
e90315.
4. Growing
Closer
on
Facebook:
Changes
in
Tie
Strength
Through
Social
Network
Site
Use
Moira
Burke
et.
al
CHI
2014
5.
A
wandering
mind
is
an
unhappy
mind.
Killingsworth,
M.A.
and
Gilbert,
D.T.
Science
330,
6006
(2010),
932.
(Experience
sampling
using
smartphones)
6. A
61-‐million-‐person
experiment
in
social
influence
and
poliOcal
mobilizaOon.
Bond,
R.M.,
Fariss,
C.J.,
Jones,
J.J.,
et
al.
Nature
489,
7415
(2012),
295–298.
11. Cognitive Computing
Understanding
what
people
think
via
wriOng
J.
Villalón,
P.
Kearney,
R.A.
Calvo,
P.
Reimann.
(2008)
“Glosser:
Enhanced
Feedback
for
Student
WriOng
Tasks”.
• essays,
• journals
• CBT
12. Behavioural Analytics
Understanding
what
people
do
and
the
impacts
of
interven8ons
Example:
R.A.
Calvo,
A.
Aditomo,
V.
Southavilay
and
K.
Yacef.
(2012)
"The
use
of
text
and
process
mining
techniques
to
study
the
impact
of
feedback
on
students’
wriOng
processes".
InternaOonal
Conference
on
the
Learning
Sciences.
Faculty Research Award
13. Behavioural Analytics
Understanding
what
people
do
and
the
impacts
of
interven8ons
Example:
R.A.
Calvo,
A.
Aditomo,
V.
Southavilay
and
K.
Yacef.
(2012)
"The
use
of
text
and
process
mining
techniques
to
study
the
impact
of
feedback
on
students’
wriOng
processes".
InternaOonal
Conference
on
the
Learning
Sciences.
Faculty Research Award
16. Affective Computing
Understanding
what
people
feel
Physiology
The Oxford Handbook of
AFFECTIVE
COMPUTING
O X F O R D L I B R A R Y O F P S Y C H O L O G Y
EDITED BY
RAFAEL A.
CALVO
SIDNEY
D’MELLO
JONATHAN
GRATCH
ARVID
KAPPAS
19. • HCI & UX
• Human-Centered Design
• Values-Sensitive Design
• Emotional design
• Architecture
• HCI
• Affective computing
• Personal informatics
• Persuasive tehnologies
• Attentive technologies
COMPUTINGPSYCHOLOGY & BRAIN SCIENCE
DESIGN
• Positive psychology
• Subjective Wellbeing
• Psychiatry
• Neuroscience
• Behavioral Economics
• Personal development
• Learning technologies
• Media Studies
• Social Work
EDUCATION & SOCIAL SCIENCES
Research Foundations
Many areas can contribute to our understanding of wellbeing
and how to apply it to technology.
20. Foundations in Psychology
MODELS OF POSITIVE MENTAL HEALTH
1. Clinical
DSM
Global
Assessment
of
FuncOoning
(e.g.
CES-‐D
<
16)
2. Posi8ve
Psychology
(e.g.
Seligman,
Lyubimorski,
Huppert
)
3. Socio-‐emo8onal
intelligence
(e.g.
Salovey,
Mayer
&
Caruso)
4. Self-‐determina8on
Theory
(Ryan
&
Deci)
5. Subjec8ve
well-‐being
(e.g.
Diener,
Kahneman)
6. Neuroscience
and
Physiology
(e.g.,
Panksepp,
Davidson)
COMPONENTS
Autonomy,
connectedness,
competence
(Deci),
Meaning,
Posi8ve
Emo8ons,
Engagement,
(Seligman)
Mindfulness
(Davidson)
...
21. Population-wide measures
UN’s
first
World
Happiness
Report
(Helliwell,
Layard,
&
Sachs,
2012)
Happy
Planet
Index
which
combines
data
on
experienced
wellbeing,
life
expectancy
and
economic
footprint
First
UK
happiness
report
released
in
2012
with
staOsOcs
on
QoL
and
SBW
Gallup-‐Healthways
Well-‐being
Index
undertakes
and
an
impressive
live
daily
assessment
of
health
and
wellbeing
measures
across
the
U.S.
(see
well-‐beingindex.com)
22. Experienced
U8lity
-‐
Average
of
posiOve
&
negaOve
emoOons.
sampled
over
Ome
(Kahneman
&
Krueger,
2006)
Experience
Sampling
(Csikszentmihalyi
&
Larson,
1987)
or
Day
ReconstrucOon
Method
Affec8ve
Compu8ng
techniques
The
model
contemplates
accounOng
for
engagement.
Measures of Subjective Wellbeing
Kahneman,
D.,
Diener,
E.,
&
Schwarz,
N.
(Eds.).
(1999).
Well-‐Being:
The
Founda/ons
of
Hedonic
Psychology.
New
York:
Rusell
Sage
FoundaOon.
Kahneman,
D.,
&
Krueger,
A.
B.
(2006).
Developments
in
the
measurement
of
subjecOve
well-‐being.
The
journal
of
economic
perspec/ves,
20(1),
3–24.
Layard,
R.
(2006).
Happiness:
Lessons
from
a
new
science.
Penguin.
23. Moving the population towards flourishingPercentage
of
Popula8on
Common
Mental
Disorder
Languishing
Moderate
Mental
Health
Flourishing
Psychological
Resources
Source:
Felicia
Huppert,
Cambridge
Wellbeing
InsOtute
24. Designing to support Determinants of Wellbeing
• PosiOve
emoOons
• Autonomy
• Connectedness
• Self-‐awareness
• Resilience
• Engagement
&
flow
• Meaning
• Mindfulness
• Empathy
• Compassion
&
altruism
25. Emotional Design
Aesthetics
Fun, “Delighters”
Casual Games reduce stress &
depression (eg. Rusoniello et.al.)
Positive Emotions
Jane
McGonigal
Game
designer
and
author
Institute
for
the
Future
Don
Norman
One
of
World’s
most
in7luential
designers
(Newsweek)
27. Seeking-‐focused
Affilia8ve-‐focused
Drive,
excitement
Contentment,
connectedness
Gilbert,
P.
(2014),
The
origins
and
nature
of
compassion
focused
therapy.
BriOsh
Journal
of
Clinical
Psychology,
53:
6–41.
Depue,
R.A.,
&
Morrone-‐Strupinsky,
J.V.
(2005).
A
neurobehavioral
model
of
affiliaOve
bonding.
Behavioral
and
Brain
Sciences,
28,
313–395.
28. Positive Emotions in Technology
Catching
up
with
email
Organizing
your
week's
events
on
a
calendar
Preparing
a
talk
in
powerpoint
“Meforming”
on
twiser
Combat
simulaOon
A
round
of
candy
crush
Online
shopping
Searching
for
informaOon
Tracking
exercise
Anything
gamified
Striving-achievement
(dopaminergic)
• TexOng
playfully
with
spouse
• GraOtude
journal
app
• Praising
someone
on
facebook
Affiliative-contentment
(opiate system,oxytocin)
38. Compassion vs.Empathy
1. Addressing
appraisals
of
deservedness
2. SupporOng
feelings
of
agency
3. Providing
opportuniOes
for
the
pracOce
of
altruism
4. Providing
opportuniOes
for
elevaOon
5. SupporOng
compassion
training
pracOces.
Peters,
D,
&
R
Calvo.
"Compassion
vs.
empathy:
designing
for
resilience.”
Interac/ons
21.5
(2014):
48-‐53.a
Goetz,
J.
L.,
Keltner,
D.,
&
Simon-‐Thomas,
E.
(2010).
Compassion:
An
evoluOonary
analysis
and
empirical
review.
Psychological
BulleOn,
136(3),
351.
39. Altruism
Developing
helping
behaviors
with
VR
Rosenberg,
R.
S.,
Baughman,
S.
L.,
&
Bailenson,
J.
N.
(2013).
Virtual
Superheroes:
Using
Superpowers
in
Virtual
Reality
to
Encourage
Prosocial
Behavior.
PloS
one,
8(1).
Superhero
experiment,
Stanford
(images
from
Catalyst,
ABC)
43. Expert Perspectives
Multidisciplinary views of wellbeing technology (in the book)
Don Norman
One of World’s most
influential designers
(Newsweek)
Prof.Mihaly
Csikszentmihalyi
Founder of the Quality of Life
Research Center.
Prof.Mark Williams
Director,Oxford
Mindfulness Centre,
University of Oxford
Mary-Helen Immordino-
Yang
Brain and Creativity
Institute
USC
Jeremy Bailenson
Augmented Virtual Reality
Stanford University
danah boyd
Social Media researcher at
Harvard & Microsoft
Prof.Felicia Huppert
Director of Cambridge
Well-being Institute
Prof.David Caruso
Yale
Jonathan Nicholas
CEO Reachout Foundation
Prof.Jane Burns
CEO,Young and Well CRC
.
45. Moderator Assistant
Ming
Liu,
Rafael
A.
Calvo,
Tracey
Davenport,
Ian
Hickie
"Moderator
Assistant:
helping
those
who
help
via
online
mental
health
support
groups".
Social
Technologies
for
Health
and
Wellbeing'
workshop
at
OzChi
2013.
Nov
25
&
26.
Adelaide,
South
Australia
46. Self-management in health
In
Partnership:
In
Partnership
with:
Charles
Perkins
Centre
|
Children’s
Hospital
at
Westmead
|
Asthma
Australia
[Autonomy]
47. MH promotion in emergency services
workplace
Men @ Work –workplace wellbeing
[Resilience, Compassion]
48. ARC Future Fellowship (2015-2019)
Identifying software design strategies that can foster various
determinant factors of wellbeing
Understanding
expert/disciplinary
concep8ons.
Iden8fying
design
strategies
Measurement
–
Evalua8ng
proposed
design
strategies
in
specific
projects
In
collaboraOon
with:
49. Positive Computing workshops
Competence:
Feeling
that
one
has
sufficient
ability/
experOse
relevant
to
an
experience.
Autonomy:
Feeling
that
one
has
the
power
to
influence
or
endorse
the
outcome
of
an
experience.
“Internal
perceived
locus
of
causality”.
Meaning:
Find
a
deep
sense
of
fulfilment
by
employing
our
unique
strengths
for
a
purpose
greater
than
ourselves.
Posi8ve
emo8ons:
eg.
joy,
graOtude,
serenity,
interest,
hope,
pride,
amusement,
inspiraOon,
awe,
love.
Engagement:
taking
part
in
acOviOes
that
absorb
one
completely,
state
of
flow
(loss
of
self-‐consciousness,
no
mind-‐
wandering)
Relatedness:
Belongingness
and
connectedness
with
others,
”secure
relaOonal
base”
With
support
from
the
Charles
Perkins
Centre
RA
Calvo,
D.
Peters,
D.
Johnson,
Y.
Rogers
“Autonomy
in
Technology
Design”
CHI
’14
50. Conclusions
1. Technology
changes
us.
2. There
are
psychological
factors
known
to
increase
wellbeing
(described
in
psychological
theories)
3. These
factors
can
be
used
to
inform
the
design
of
technologies
that
beser
support
wellbeing
4. PosiOve
compuOng
provides
a
framework
to
support
effort
by:
• Drawing
on
mulO-‐disciplinary
work
and
theoreOcal
frameworks
that
can
serve
as
an
evidence
base
for
pracOce
• Helping
pracOoners
manage
design
for
wellbeing
by
addressing
determinants
• TargeOng
the
promoOon
of
flourishing
in
all
technology
51. Thank you.
PosiOveCompuOng.org
Journal CHI 2015
Positive Computing Course in Seoul 27 April 2015.
Special Issue
Psychology of Well-Being (Springer)
CFP Deadline July 1st, 2015
Notas del editor
”Positive Computing: Technologies for psychological wellbeing and human potential"
Abstract
Digital technologies have made their way into all the aspects of our lives that, according to psychology, influence our wellbeing -- everything from social relationships and curiosity to engagement and learning. By bringing together research and methodologies well-established in psychology, education, neuroscience and human-computer interaction, we can begin to cultivate a new field dedicated to the design and development of technology that supports wellbeing and human potential.
More specifically, in this seminar I will present an introduction to our Human-Computer interaction work aiming to support psychological wellbeing. The suggested HCI framework builds on psychology, education, design and other disciplines addressing intrapersonal factors of wellbeing such as motivation, engagement, reflective thought and mindfulness, interpersonal factors such as empathy, and extrapersonal such as altruism.
For more information visit positivecomputing.org
Rafael Calvo is Professor at the University of Sydney. He has taught at several Universities, high schools and professional training institutions. He worked at the Language Technology Institute in Carnegie Mellon University, Universidad Nacional de Rosario (Argentina) and on sabbaticals at the University of Cambridge and the University of Memphis. Rafael also has worked as an Internet consultant for projects in the US, Australia, Brasil, and Argentina. Rafael is the recipient of 5 teaching awards for his work on learning technologies, and the author of two books and many publications in the fields of learning technologies, affective computing and computational intelligence. Rafael is Associate Editor of the IEEE Transactions on Learning Technologies and of IEEE Transactions on Affective Computing and Senior Member of IEEE. Rafael is Editor of the Oxford Handbook of Affective Computing. “Positive Computing” (MIT Press) with Dorian Peters is coming out this October. For more information visit: rafael-calvo.com
The University of Sydney, the first in Australia, was founded in 1850.
It now has 50,200 students and over 7,000 staff
Sydney has a long relationship with the beaches and natural beauty throughout Australia
But is also known for sports and some iconic buildings like the Opera house, finished in 1973.
Back then most people in Australian, and everywhere else in the world, were foreign to digital experiences. And digital experiences were limited to the workplace.
In the eighties they started touching our home lives through game consoles and then the personal computers.. In the 90s, those clunky mobile phones started becoming cooler and more common and after 2000 they started doing far more than just making phone calls.
In just the last five years we’ve seen digital devices become part of almost every aspect of our experience from work and business to exercise, friendships, romance.
They are now continuous players in our moment-by-moment lived experience.
And according to the promises engineers are making about the future Internet of Things there will be little separation between digital and non-digital experience. But one critical question remains…
In other words, is all this creativity, investment, energy, carbon emissions delivering with respect to our overall wellbeing?
Incredibly, according to the statistics, we’re not. Population surveys over the last … years shows that the wealth of nations has increased, and with that of course, so has access to digital devices and experiences, but happiness has not significantly increased.
Naturally, as an engineer I had to ask myself, if tech is supposed to make life better, why is the correlation between technology and happiness so poor?
We’ve spent the last few decades designing for sensible things like Productivity, efficiency, accuracy, speed, performance… and only fairly recently fort things like satisfaction, pleasure and desire.
Productivity has always played a starring role. Productivity as a goal is easy to implement easy to measure and digital technology began as a tool for work. But it’s moved well beyond that and the productivity mentality is seeing us track, compare and measure everything from miles run, hours slept to number of times we’ve gotten lucky (I swear there’s an app for that).
This has created what we see as a Tyranny of Productivity that makes it all the more difficult
to slow down, to pause, to disconnect, to value quality over quantity, to take the time to be curious, or direct full attention to one thing at a time.
All things critical to wellbeing.
In other words, we’ve designed for proxies. We value things like productivity, pleasure, and wealth because we figure they’ll make us happier --more satisfied with life. The problem is we now know that wealth and digital experiences per se are not effective proxies for greater happiness. So we’ve been designing for all these things we believe make life better, but have never *directly* tackled the one thing that really matters
If we want technology to increase worldwide wellbeing, we have to design for wellbeing directly. In fact, we believe that all technolgy, all digital experience should be designed to support psychological wellbeing. This is what we call Positive computing – the research and development of technolog to support psychological wellbeing and human potential
But before discussing the measures I would like to give some brief examples of how technology is changing us,
and what are the disciplines that can provide theoretical foundations for different measures
And finally I will tell you about some of the projects I am currently working on
We know our brains are adapting to technology. Plenty of research shows how our digital experiences are changing the way we remember, the way we relate to each other and even the ways we understand ourselves.
The ubiquity of digital devices means that digital experience has slithered its way into every aspect of our lives that psychologists identify as key influencers to our wellbeing.
The relationship is often complex as shown for example in the research on the impact of social networking in people’s lives.
Hundreds of papers provide evidence on the positive and negative effects of social networking platforms like Facebook.
There are papers suggesting social networks can cause a declines in subjective wellbeing, others have shown how the impact depends on what we do with them, others explored emotional contagion.
The most recent and more nuanced studies explore the impact of specific uses of Facebook by different type of people.
We can use new tools for understanding the factors that promote wellbeing as in a study by Gilbert and Killingsworth’s published in science that has implications for understanding digital distraction and multitasking. They sampled about 5000 people from 83 different countries who range in age from 18 to 88 and found “1) that people are thinking about what is not happening almost as often as they are thinking about what is and (ii) that doing so typically makes them unhappy.” These massive participant numbers were made possible by smart phones.
The importance of designing with wellbeing in mind is highlighted by the impact that design can have on what people do and think.
If you thought that was a lot of subjects consider a study published in Nature run through Facebook that included 61 million people. This study showed the power of online social influence on behavior, specifically for mobilizing people to vote.
As just mentioned new techniques allow us to understand more about users’ experiences.
My own research interests reflect some of the topics that have received attention in the Human-Computer Interaction community, and are now increasing the interest on positive computing.
The focus over much of this period has been to develop tools that automatically process what people write.
One of the cool things about writing is that when you write you are normally thinking about what you are writing. It is very hard to be thinking of something else.
Modern technologies, somewhat similar to those that underlie your favorite search engine can be used to automatically process the documents that people write, in real time, while they write.
We have built feedback interventions with automated summaries and visualizations that people can use to reflect on what they write.
One of the most useful ways of helping people learn is to provide feedback, But udnerstanding the impact of these feedback interventions is particularl;y challenging.
We have been using behavioral analytics tools and visualizations to understand what forms of feedback are most useful.
In this diagram each row represents an individual student writer.
The green balls indicate different revisions of a document. If you see many balls it generally indicates the person has spent a lot of time in the activity. The triangles and the squares are two forms of interventions. One is directive where we describe a problem and a solution, and the oterh reflective where we do not tell the writer how to fix the problem.
In the diagram you can see how often they write, for how long, if they read and address the feedback. You can use this knowledge to learn about the best most effective intervention and customize it to individual users.
One of the most useful ways of helping people learn is to provide feedback, But udnerstanding the impact of these feedback interventions is particularl;y challenging.
We have been using behavioral analytics tools and visualizations to understand what forms of feedback are most useful.
In this diagram each row represents an individual student writer.
The green balls indicate different revisions of a document. If you see many balls it generally indicates the person has spent a lot of time in the activity. The triangles and the squares are two forms of interventions. One is directive where we describe a problem and a solution, and the oterh reflective where we do not tell the writer how to fix the problem.
In the diagram you can see how often they write, for how long, if they read and address the feedback. You can use this knowledge to learn about the best most effective intervention and customize it to individual users.
We are studying how this type of emotion detection can be used in medical education helping doctors improve their communication skills when they use tele-health systems.
The system can automatically generate a tally of acknowledgment expressions such as shaking and nodding, or emotions like anger, disgust, fear etc.
The learner can use this information to reflect on key events during the interaction.
Other techniques beyond computer vision can be used to detect emotions.
We have used physiological sensors as in this study supporting an Intelligent Tutoring Systems.
This is a short video showing a Tutoring System on Information technologies. It recognises for example, when the person is engaged, bored or frustrated.
The different emotions can then be used to adapt the system. If the person is bored you can raise the difficulty of the questions. If he is stressed you can provide extra explanations.
If we have the ability to use technology to better understand the impact of it on cognition, on affect and on behaviour, couldn’t we turn this to psychological wellbeing?
Where do we begin identifying research foundations for a field in positive computing.
Many areas that can contribute to a) our understanding of wellbeing and how to apply it to technology.
PosComp is necessarily multidisciplinary.
Currently we see relevance in the following fields.
The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders and the Center for Epidemiological Studies depression scale are probably the most commonly used scales to measure depression and in this clinical model, lack of depression means wellbeing. The scales are considered so reliable that insurance companies are willing to pay for treatment when you have too high a score
Positive psychology is a movement that arose from critics to the clinical model including Martin Seligman who was then President of the APA.
It focuses on looking for the factors that best identify those who are flourishing, at the top of the wellbeing scales, and in studying how those factors could be promoted.
Some of these factors include those in emotional intelligence: accurate conscious perception and monitoring of one’s own emotions; modification of our emotions so that their expression is appropriate; accurate recognition of and response to emotions in others; skill in negotiating close relationships with others; capacity for focusing emotions (motivation) toward a desired goal
Other psychologist like Nobel Prize winner Daniel Kahneman, or Diener have focused on techniques where people is asked directly about their experiences of being well, and this is taken as wellbeing. Self-reports are known not to be terribly accurate so they have used Experience sampling and other techniques and shown that the averages over time are accurate and valid measures.
Neuroscientists have explored for example how some of this factors are represented on the brain. Richard Davidson’s work on the transformative power of mindfulness training is one example.
As part of making sure we were capturing the depth of research in this theoretical models we invited experts to write 1-2 pages about their perspectives on how their research could inform technology design, and were lucky that they agreed. This includes Felicia Huppert a psychologist from Cambridge and David Caruso from Yale – one of the founders of the EI movement)
Economist and policy makers have also been developing, and using, measures of wellbeing
They are using population surveys across Europe and individual countries to better understand what policies have an effect on people’s quality of life and wellbeing
The World Happiness Report for example describes stats from different countries.
In the UK, the government runs population surveys periodically and it is using it to inform policy making.
In the US, the Gallup-Healthways provides a daily asssment.
Of course what we’re talking about here is wellbeing promotion. Many mental Health Professionals are understandably focused on the treatment of disease. However, if we’re going to recruit the design of all technologies to support optimal mental health across the population than we have to use models of wellbeing promotion. Felicia Huppert, director of the Cambridge Wellbeing Inst has put it elegantly. By showing how promotion can shift the mean across the population of the mental health spectrum. Embedded promotion could prevent more people from moving into languishing or disorder and increase the number of people who are thriving. This is where everyday technologies can have the most impact.
These are some of the determinant factors. Many of which we examine in greater detail in our book. Their causal impact on wellbeing is supported by significant research and there are already examples of technologies aiming to foster them.
Of course it’s not enough to say, my game or my app produces positive emotions like fun and pleasure so it must be increasing wellbeing. We’ll need to evaluate users on the short and longer term with validated methods to show negative, neutral or positive impact on individual determinants and on overall psychological wellbeing.
For example, Positive emotions are probably the most easily identified and acknowledged in design. Digital designers frequently talk about things like “delight”, “pleasure” and fun to describe their aspirations.
However, in general, this has been based on the simple idea that giving people good experiences with your technology will bring them back, sell more products, or facilitate whatever other goal that drives the project. People have not been supporting positive emotions with design in order to increase wellbeing. One exception is Game Designer Jane McGonigal. She points to the ability of games to produce positive emotion as one reason that we should be turning to games as solutions to large social problems as well as personal change. The Young and Well CRC report provides a nice detail review about the positive impact of games.
If we take for example the model of emotion regulation systems used by compassion-focused therapy we can look at two basic distinctions.
As most of you will already know, positive emotions are not created equal. We often think of sensual pleasures as different to eudaimonic factors like meaning and engagement. At a more basic level Neuroscience has given evidence that we have at least two separate positive emotion regulation systems. One which is probably dopaminergic that is about striving, it drives us toward acheivement, status and success – it’s how we get so much done in a day. But according to research in psychology and genomics its not the system that is so good for our health, our longeivity our immune system. For that, we need to turn to those positive emotions we have evolved to help us bond and connect better with others. This affiliative system is associated with contentment, cam, compassion, caring and warm feelings of safety. It is self-soothing. Well, if we were to think about where our daily technology mediated activities fall, between checking our email and playing first person shooeters it’s like we’re bathed in dopamine. Technology, like so much of our society has spent the last few decades working towards better striving. Engineers value productivity, efficiency, achievements. Gamification is all about rewards, acheivement, striving and status. Opportunities for affiliative positive emotions are fewer and far between and not as explicity valued or designed for, but they are there, often appearing without being explicitly designed.
So We’re really REALLY good at this kind of positive emotion. But that isn’t because technology is only capable of supporting this,
Take this accidental moment of affiliative experience. At the face of it, this is a game of chess. Easily placed in the striving achievment category. But there’s another layer here. This game of chess was being played by a 7 year olld grandson with his 75 year old grandfather and they were about 10,000 miles apart on the globe. This app and two tablets allowed them to interact together in some way. That might have been thoroughly limited interaction but this app allows players to chat with each other in a window. Through the course of the game playful chatting back and forth finally lead to truly meaningful affiliative conversation. Including, did you know you’re my favorite grandson? “yes, you too. And even an eventual “I love you” that never would have been spoken in person or face-to-face. But this example wasn’t especially designed for. I want to share a few examples that were a bit more consciously shaped.
Technologies allow us to communicate with others over distances but this remoteness can lead to a loss of social cues that help us empathize. Fortunately technology can also be used to develop empathy. At the low-tech level, just deciding to add human photographs to a digital environment can make a difference. At the higher tech level, games are being used to allow people to role-play and experience different sides of things. For example peacemaker game allows players to play both sides of the Israeli Palestinian conflict. There’s a game where you take the role of a refugee fleeing Africa to Europe. And a few years ago, a virtual clinic was created in Second Life that allowed players to experience firsthand some of the symptoms of psychosis such as hallucinations.
How about this. One of these expresses gratitude – small wording changes can make a significant difference.
Analysis the impact on wellbeing can raise our awareness of a different type of tradeoffs
For example, it is well known that expressions of gratitude, wishing well or admiration are of great value. Obviously for the one receiving it, but also for the person expressing it.
In our race for usability and productivity sometimes we miss opportunities. For example, the LinkedIn endorsements have optimised the process so much that it is TOO easy.
It takes so little effort that people will endorse others for random things. I have been endorsed for Microsoft Word, for example!
This has no meaning, neither for the one who expresses it or for the recipient. In fact I would argue it is not even helping LinkedIn collect good quality data about what people is good at.
Yammer, does a lot better with their praise functionality. The tradeoff is balanced more to promote meaningful connections.
our threat systems are relentlessly triggered by the media and people have begun to respond by “hacking” their news environment. That is they seek out the good stories and the soothing media to balance out this situation. So while the TV news blasts atrocities repeatedly, people are increasingly chosing to turn to online sources like youTube and BuzzFeed to be updated where they can easily find those amazing “man saves 5 bear cubs” videos or this one, Glen James “homeless man returns 50,000stories or even the requisite cat videos. We can laugh at the appeal of lil’ bub but what says safe, affectionate and content better than a dwarf cat.
Now my final example may seem a little bit contradictory. And let me be clear, I don't think playing a zombie apocolypse game could ever possibly make you feel safe and soothed but it's worth noting that you can find inspiration in just about anything if you keep your mind open ;) what I find interesting about graphic narrative games like the walking dead are how even within this context, pro-sociality can be actively valued in the game.
Believe it or not, outside of the occasional zombie attack, it’s actually socio-emotional consequences are the core challenge in this game.
In a recent article called compassion vs. empathy: designing for resilience” we look at the work on compassion as resilient and how that’s different from empathic distress and then speculate, based on this work, about how we might begin to design for that resilient compassion. We suggest adressing appraisals of deservedness. If you’re designing to help people gain a deeper understanding of each other’s humanity you may need to help bust some myths.
Supporting feelnigs of agnecy. A sense of competence and autonomy or core components of psychological wellbeing, and therefore supporting a feeling of empowerment in the face of circumstances that may otherwise make you feel helpless should help facilitate action-oriented compassion vs. the burnout or breakdown of distress
Prosocial Games have also been shown to increase proscocial behavior. Most recently Jeremey Bailenson and his team from Stanford created a virtual reality experience that resulted in increases of alturistic behavior after the intervention.
This is a dedicated intervention, specially built to promote altruism.
I want to briefly show you some of the ways that technologies are already being used to support wellbeing and where this might lead us in future.
We have also found it necessary to have a way of differentiating or organizing different levels to which technology can be designed to support wellbeing.
For example, many of the examples we have given are technologies dedicated to wellbeing exclusively, but our larger vision sees the inclusion of wellbeing as a design consideration into the design of all technology.
Therefore, we have developed this table as a way of better understanding and communicating the various ways in which design for wellbeing can be incorporated into digital experiences.
At the first level…
In developing this initial framework, we have been particularly sensitive to the fact that a field in Positve Computing should be as supportive of practitioners and developers as it is of research and researchers.
Drawing from various frameworks in psychology and developing a structure amenable to both practice and research,
We have selected to break a rather large problem down into actionable chunks.
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Our project with the Young and Well Cooperative research Centre, Moderator Assist, seeks to help moderators of mental health forums.
These moderators spend countless hours reading through posts to support groups responding to questions, providing help and looking for warning signs of danger, We want to help make their job more manageable and rewarding,…
One of the problems we are helping them with is to manage their large online communities.
Online peer support groups can have thousands of people asking for help at any point in time. This is a challenge for the moderators of such communities.
As the practical aspect of this project we are building tools that generate automated interventions from the text that people post in these communities
The different interventions follow different psychological models, such as CBT, positive psychology and informational.
What positive computing approach brings to this project is that we are also considering the wellbeing of the moderators, specifically we can support their sense of meaning and resilience.
When the human moderator click submit the intervention is sent to the user or posted on the forums where the question was asked.
We can then see if the person engaged in the activity proposed, for example following on a link provided.
We have been working on two projects, one supporting young people with Diabetes type I and Cystic Fibrosis and a another one for Young People people with Asthma
In both cases the user group is adolescents transitioning from pediatric care to adult care.
From the positive computing angle what we are trying to do is support tehir Autonomy, or what medical professionals refer to as self-management of the disease.
This project we are staring this year is about
We have been running what we sometimes call Happy Camper workshops with a number of organizations and the have found them most useful to start thinking of new the tradeoffs and perspectives around 6 factors.
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