The current research result are

Dandeneau, S. D., Baldwin, M. W., Baccus, J. R., Sakellaropoulo, M., & Pruessner, J. C. (2007). Cutting stress off at the pass: Reducing vigilance and responsiveness to social threat by manipulating attention. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 93, 651-666.

The initial research into the MindHabits software was published as:
The Inhibition of Socially Rejecting Information Among People with High versus Low Self-Esteem: The Role of Attentional Bias and the Effects of Bias Reduction Training in the Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology, 2004, Volume 23, pp. 584-602.

For more information on how the games work - keep on reading!

Here we will look in more detail at the inner workings of how the Trainers and Trackers work within the games.

An important note before we go on: MindHabits games are designed to be fun games based on serious science and are purely for entertainment value. They are not intended to be diagnostic tools or to function as a psychotherapist or psychiatrist! We hope that some of the ideas explored here, and the Trainers and Trackers themselves, will be entertaining, interesting and useful to you.

If you find anything about these games unpleasant or distressing, you should simply stop using them. If you become interested enough that you would like to consult with a psychologist or other mental health professional, you can ask your doctor for a referral or contact your local association of psychologists, usually listed in your telephone directory.

OK, let's look more closely at the science behind MindHabits Trainers and Trackers!

What are mental habits?

Mental habits are automatic patterns of thought about oneself and others, which can play a powerful role in our psychological wellbeing. We start with the widely-accepted observation that the human being is a social animal. From the moment babies first open their eyes, they are exquisitely attuned to faces, and smiling faces in particular. The need for social contact continues throughout life. How we experience our contact with the social world is influenced by our mental habits - our automatic and even unconscious thoughts and feelings about self and others.

These psychological habits include a person's self-concept and self-esteem, their social skills and expectations regarding interactions with others, and their emotional associations to the idea of relying on relationship partners, trusting friends, being evaluated by people in authority, and so on.

Not surprisingly, such habits of mind can play a huge role in how we deal with the stresses of modern life. Note that the influence of social thinking reaches far beyond simple good or bad feelings. Decades of research have shown that people who feel adequately supported by and connected to others, as opposed to being isolated or rejected, are actually physically healthier and cope better with stress.

Recent research, some of which is reviewed in this Science Lab, indicates that these mental habits can be learned. Just as learning to play the piano requires many repetitions of specific finger movements, and learning to hit a golf ball requires the practice of specific body positions and movement patterns, learning to function well and feel confident in the social world requires the development of an impressive collection of psychological abilities.

We all develop our own set of mental habits in the course of growing up and most of these function quite well, but almost everyone could benefit from additional training much as a profession golfer spends hours on the putting green refining an effective stroke. Computer games, with their unique form of interactivity, provide an excellent opportunity to practice helpful habits of mind.

Outlook

Scientific psychology has shown that our minds continuously filter our experiences, including our view of ourselves and our interactions with others. This filter determines how we feel about and react to the world. In MindHabits, we call this your Outlook.

In the Mindhabits game, we are able to measure your "Outlook" on a daily basis using a series of automatic tests and self-report questions, which are explained in more detail later in this document and in the Science Lab of the MindHabits game.

If your Outlook is relatively more positive on a given day, you will pay attention to warm, supportive feedback from other people, you will interpret unclear interactions in a positive way, you will focus on your strengths rather than your weaknesses -- in general you will find the warmth and kindness in your relations with other people.

If your Outlook is not as positive, you may tend to be on the lookout for social threats like criticisms and rejections, and you may worry more about any flaws of your own that might provoke those kinds of negative reactions.

The Outlook we have on a given day, then, can shape our sense of confidence and security, or make us extra vulnerable to worry and stress.

In MindHabits, we are able to get a rough measure of your Outlook using the Tracker tasks from the Toolbox on the Main Menu. Your overall Outlook is shaped by many specific psychological habits that go into it. For this reason, we need a combination of different Tracker scores to calculate your Outlook.

Each time you play one of the Trackers, your scores are entered into an equation that produces an Outlook value, where higher numbers mean a more positive Outlook. The actual number you get does not mean too much at first, because different people can simply have very different reaction speeds and other factors relating to how good you are with a keyboard and mouse. For this reason you can't compare your own Outlook scores to other people - you're only competing with yourself in MindHabits!

After this, each time you play, you just compare your previous Outlook scores with your current scores. Research has shown that playing games very similar to the MindHabits Trainer games can improve certain aspects of your Outlook. So, come back and play everyday and see if you can improve your own Outlook!

Again, however - MindHabits games are designed to be fun games based on serious science and are purely for entertainment value. They are not intended to be diagnostic tools or to function as a psychotherapist or psychiatrist! If you find anything about these games unpleasant or distressing, you should simply stop using them. If you become interested enough that you would like to consult with a psychologist or other mental health professional, you can ask your doctor for a referral or contact your local association of psychologists, usually listed in your telephone directory.

Activation

Research has shown that it is possible to bring to mind, or "activate" one frame of mind or another. So, if we bring to mind thoughts of warmth and support, this shapes our Outlook to be more attentive to whatever warmth and support is available in our interactions with others. Research has shown that activating a secure frame of mind in this way can often help people feel more self-confident, more creative, more tolerant of uncertainty, and less self-critical.

The "Words" Trainer game works on this principle by getting players to think about a certain list of "activation" words over and over again. By placing words such as "loved" and "caring" into our mind, these games can help us develop a more positive state of mind automatically.

Association

Reactions to situations are often shaped by links, or "associations" between one idea and another. If thinking about yourself, for example, triggers thoughts about criticisms and rejections, this may act to undermine your self-confidence.

If, on the other hand, thinking about yourself can become associated with thoughts of support and acceptance from others, as well as the positive emotions that come along with that, then this may help you feel more self-confident and better able to deal with stress.

Research has shown that it is possible to strengthen associations between one's self-concept and positive social feedback, and that this boosts self-liking.

The "Who Are You" game uses the "association" principle by asking you to find words that are personal to you - such as your name or birth year - making you briefly think about yourself. This is immediately paired with an image of a warm, smiling face. Done over and over again using a game, research has suggested this can help us create a more positive self reference.

Inhibition

Inhibition plays a key role in the way we make sense of the complexities of social life. Inhibition is not meant to describe a negative frame of reference, rather it is used to describe a process whereby you may stop paying attention to the potential negative cues in your environment, and begin to pay attention, instead, to the more positive cues.

If you focus on and dwell on threatening information, this can increase your feelings of stress. Sometimes it is helpful to be able to "inhibit" or disengage from threat - or in other words, to just "let it go".

Research suggests that practice in directing attention away from social threats like rejection or conflict can help reduce stress and also boost self-confidence. Inhibition can sometimes be a very useful skill when it comes to coping with stress, as it helps us "let it go" instead of dwelling on something.

The "Matrix" game works using the "inhibition" principle by helping to train the player to avoid noticing frowning faces and focus more on smiling faces.

Words

In our Word games you search in a grid of letters for specific words listed at the bottom of the screen, and click and drag the mouse across the letters that make up the word to select it.

The background for this Trainer is a large amount of research conducted on the effects of bringing to mind - or "activating" - specific ideas or mental habits. Particularly interesting are studies showing that being reminded of a good friend - or even being reminded of words related to friendship and social support - can help people feel more secure and help them deal better with different kinds of stresses.

In one study, for example, people who were reminded of a supportive friend for a couple of minutes later appeared less worried about other people criticizing their shortcomings.

Our version of the word search game includes words related to social warmth and acceptance. Searching for and findings these words is likely to increase the activation of a positive Outlook. The more you think about and look for warmth and positive connections with people, the more likely you are to find them in your everyday interactions.

To play the game, look at the word list at the bottom of the screen and try to find as many of them inside the large word grid in the center of the screen. When you find a word, select the first letter with the mouse, and hold and drag the mouse button to select the other letters in the word. When you're done, release the mouse button - and if the word is in the list, it will disappear from the list and you'll get the points.

You need to try and find as many words as possible before the timer runs out - if you score enough points, you advance to the next level.

Hint - in later levels, we begin to introduce your own "personal" words - your name or birth year - when you select these a bonus timer starts for five seconds. Any words you select while the bonus timer is active earns you double points!

As in all the games, once you advance to a certain level, you can always advance back up to that level by using the "up/down" arrows near the top left of the screen next to the level indicator.

Who are You

In the Who Are You game, you are to select your own "personal" words that make you think very briefly about yourself - your name, birth year, or nickname, for instance. Each time you do, you are shown a positive, accepting face. This is designed to increase your automatic association between "myself" and "acceptance," which research suggests may help to boost your emotional security and self-esteem.

In one set of research studies, participants played a prototype version of the Who Are You game, in which they clicked on words appearing in different regions on the computer screen.

Each time they clicked they were shown a face with either a smiling, frowning, or neutral expression. Importantly, each time they clicked on a self-relevant word they were shown a warm, smiling face. Some participants in a control group played a similar game, but without this special association built into it.

Participants playing the association game later showed higher unconscious self-esteem, compared to those playing the placebo version of the game. In addition, some of them even reported feeling less aggressive when imagining a situation where someone insulted or rejected them. Evidently, strengthening an association between "myself" and "being liked and accepted" may help us feel more secure.

The reason for this is simple. Self-esteem and self-confidence come from a lot of sources, but primary among them is a feeling of connection to and support from people close to us. If we can feel this sense of acceptance, it allows us to explore our own talents and interests more freely, and these experiences combine to build our confidence and wellbeing.

As in all the games, once you advance to a certain level, you can always advance back up to that level by using the "up/down" arrows near the top left of the screen next to the level indicator.

Matrix

In the Matrix Trainer you click on smiling faces and ignore frowning faces. The Matrix game is designed to help you practice a specific kind of inhibition - disengaging from unhelpful or distracting thoughts of social threat, rather than dwelling on them and worrying about them. Research has shown that practicing this mental habit can help people to feel less distracted by rejections and criticisms, and to feel less stressed.

In one set of studies by Dr. Baldwin, participants played a prototype version of the Matrix game for 5 minutes. Following this, the participants played a version of the Focus Tracker, a widely-used research tool in the psychology literature. As in any group of people, some of these participants showed a tendency to have their attention drawn by frowning, rejecting faces.

The results were that these participants did not show the same attentional pattern on the Focus measure after playing the prototype Matrix game. This indicated that their attentional habits had been modified by playing the Matrix. Similar results have been found when participants played a Stroop measure of attention to rejection words (one of our other Trackers) - the Matrix game prototype seems to reduce distractions that can sometimes be produced by social threats of various kinds.

In two follow-up studies published in a journal of the American Psychological Association (October 2007), several groups of people were asked to play the Matrix each day for five minutes, to assess the impact of the game on their feelings of stress during the day.

University students preparing for an exam, who occasionally took a break to play the Matrix prototype game, felt less stressed about their exam and ended up feeling less anxious while writing the exam.

Telemarketing operators who played the Matrix before their work shift reported feeling less stressed and more self-confident over the course of a week. Amazingly, they also had lowered levels of the stress hormone cortisol, and they even made more sales at work!

This research suggests, then, that having a habit of mind that allows us to avoid being overly distracted by unhelpful thoughts of social rejection can help us deal with the stresses of daily life, and stay focused on other things we would prefer to pay attention to.

To play the Matrix game, just keep on the lookout for any warm, smiling, accepting faces that appear on the screen. Its quite a lot more tricky than you think! As the levels progress, there will sometimes be more than one face to find per screen, and sometimes the faces will flip over or advance without you scoring - but the rule is always the same: just find as many smiles as possible before the timer runs out.

Hint: the more faces you can click in a row without making a mistake, the more bonus points you will start to accumulate. You'll see you're getting bonus points when a little 2X or 3X coin pops out of the face when you click it. If you make a mistake, however, the bonus resets until you can click enough in a row to start it again!

As in all the games, once you advance to a certain level, you can always advance back up to that level by using the "up/down" arrows near the top left of the screen next to the level indicator.

Grow Your Chi

Grow Your Chi is a Trainer game that playfully draws on the Eastern concept of "Chi," or inner vitality and power. Your "Chi pet", in the bottom left corner of the screen, starts the game in need of warmth, and your job is to click on smiles and your own personal information in order to give your Chi pet a thicker coat.

This Trainer combines the three principles of activation, inhibition, and association in one game. You activate a positive Outlook when you look for smiles; you inhibit attention to social threat when you try to avoid clicking on frowns; you create positive self-associations because you are searching for personal, self-relevant information at the same time as attending to positive social feedback.

The idea is that by playing this game you may develop more positive mental habits and perhaps "grow your Chi"!

To play the game, just watch out for clouds that float by with warm, happy faces on them and click them. The more you click, the more points you score, and if you score enough points, you pass to the next level.

Also in this game, you will begin to see little airplanes and balloons fly and float by with words on them. If you can click your "personal" words when you see them, either by clicking the word itself or the balloon or the airplane, you get bonus points!

As in all the games, once you advance to a certain level, you can always advance back up to that level by using the "up/down" arrows near the top left of the screen next to the level indicator.

Focus

In the Focus Tracker, two pictures of a person are flashed on the screen for a split second, and then a "probe" - an arrow pointing up or down - appears replacing one of them. Your job is to identify the probe as quickly as possible, by selecting the up or down arrow key.

This Tracker is based on the finding that the mind works amazingly quickly to filter out some kinds of information and pay attention to other kinds of information. While this can be very helpful sometimes, at other times our filter may end up focusing us too much on one thing, such as the possibility of social threats in our environment..

The idea of the Focus Tracker is to measure how strongly your attention is drawn toward social threats, such as frowning faces. The speed with which you are able to identify arrow probes that replace a frown (compared to a neutral face) indicates the degree to which your attention was automatically drawn toward the frown during the split second that the pictures were displayed.

The Focus Tracker measures your reaction times to probes replacing smiles, frowns, and neutral faces, across many trials, and then calculates a final score that can be factored into your overall Outlook score.

In one set of studies with this type of Tracker, participants were put in a stressful situation (solving difficult arithmetic problems) and measures were taken of the amount of the stress hormone cortisol circulating in their body. They also did a version of the Focus Tracker. People who tended to have their attention automatically drawn toward rejecting faces also tended to show the highest levels of cortisol release in response to the stressful situation.

These and other findings suggest that being excessively watchful for social threats may contribute to the experience of stress.

Stroop

In the Stroop Tracker you are shown a series of words displayed in different colors (red, blue, green, yellow), and you try to indicate the color of the letters while ignoring the word itself. For the most accurate measurement, it is best to use the number keys rather than the mouse to indicate your answer

The Stroop test has long been used in psychological research to measure people's ability to ignore one task while performing another: In this case, ignoring the meaning of words while indicating the color in which they are displayed.

Research has shown that when a word is relevant to a concern of the player, this distracts them and slows them down (very slightly) in their color-naming response. In our version of the classic Stroop test, some words are related to social rejection, and some to acceptance. The Stroop Test Tracker measures the degree to which you are slowed down in your color-naming by words relating to rejection (compared to acceptance-words or neutral words) to calculate a score that indicates how much you are being distracted by social rejection.

Some research with this kind of Stroop task has shown that when people are feeling secure and in a positive mood, they are less distracted by negative words such as those relating to social rejection and failure.

In some sense this is similar to the feeling of being distracted by thoughts and memories of unpleasant interactions. The more secure you are feeling on a given day, the more able you will probably be to stay focused on what you are doing rather than having your mind wander to those kinds of thoughts.

Look

In the Look Tracker you are shown a series of faces displayed with a specific tint, of red, blue, green, or yellow. Your job is to ignore the face itself, and just identify the color of the tint. For the most accurate measurement, it is best to use the number keys rather than the mouse to indicate your answer.

The Look Tracker is a pictoral version of the Stroop Tracker. In the Look, some of the faces are frowning, some smiling, and some are neutral. This task compares the time it takes you to name the tint color of frowning faces, to the time it takes you for smiling and neutral faces, to assess how much your attention is distracted when the face is scowling at you.

This is one measure of your Outlook. How easily can you ignore or disengage from social threat when it is not relevant to what you are trying to do?

Blink

On each trial of the Blink Tracker you are shown a rapid succession of images, flipping quickly one after another on the screen. Your job is simply to watch the images and then indicate whether there was a smiling face in the sequence, and then respond "yes" or "no" (or "maybe") using the mouse or number keys as illustrated in the game.

The Blink Tracker is an indirect measure of how much you are distracted by a social threat. On some of the trials there is a smiling face presented but, right before it, a frowning face is shown. The Tracker records whether this frowning face distracts you so that you do not notice the smiling face.

This Tracker is based on the remarkable degree to which our attention can be captured by some types of stimuli so that we may not even notice other stimuli in the environment. If your Outlook is strongly oriented toward social threats, these may capture your attention so much that you will not notice opportunities for friendliness and pleasant interactions.

Self-Report Tracker

In the Self-Report Tracker you respond to a series of questions about stress and self-confidence. All you need to do is think for a moment about each statement and respond using the scale provided. The more honestly you answer the questions, the more accurate your score will be - so try and reflect on the questions and answer with how you feel, nobody is watching but you!

The questions in the Self-Report questionnaires measure your subjective state of mind. Are you feeling self-confident today? Or stressed? Or relaxed? Your answers to these questions are then compiled and factored into your overall Outlook score.

Stress, self-confidence, and other elements of social intelligence, function at both conscious and unconscious (or "automatic") levels. Self-report questions allow you to reflect on your feelings and thought patterns, to come to your own sense of your conscious Outlook for a given day.