CAREER: Using Positive Emotion Regulation to Design Everyday Technologies that Promote Well-being

该项目通过将积极情绪调节（PER）理论整合到未来技术的设计中，推进以人为本的设计研究。我们每天使用智能手机、家用电器和社交媒体可以带来快乐的时刻，但它们本身并不能提高幸福感。人们适应了使用技术的乐趣，然后发现它们很平凡。一些积极的情绪会导致解构行为，比如过度沉迷于社交媒体。该项目调查设计技术，以支持年轻人的积极情绪调节，这一人群的心理健康可能受到有限的情绪调节技能和获得传统健康干预的挑战的影响。通过一系列共同创造的讲习班和研讨会，结合设计专业人员的观点，正在产生用于开发这些技术的实用设计方法和工具。一个反映情绪调节的工具包和方法正在开发和传播，以帮助设计师创造创新的、基于证据的情绪管理技术。该项目通过新颖的社区参与项目，鼓励学生批判性地思考日常技术是如何塑造人类情感和行为的，从而促进STEM教育。该项目探讨了积极情绪如何通过技术有效地调节，以及技术介导的积极情绪如何有助于幸福感。虽然传统研究假设技术对用户情绪的直接影响（例如，对人工制品外观的操纵），但本项目建立在发现技术对情绪调节的影响是间接的基础上，因为它是由用户的活动介导的（例如，可视化一个人用技术做过/将要做的积极的事情）。本项目采用协同创新、设计研究的方法，通过分析日常技术在强化和延长积极情绪体验中的作用来研究积极情绪调节；(2)开发交互式数字和有形工件原型（例如，交互式装置、物联网设备和应用程序）；(3)评价原型对幸福感的影响；(4)将所得见解转化为设计方法和工具，以支持PER技术的发展，以促进福祉。该项目发现了对技术、活动、积极情绪和幸福之间关系的新理解。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

The project advances human-centered design research by integrating positive emotion regulation (PER) theory into the design of future technologies. Our daily use of smartphones, appliances, and social media can engender pleasurable moments, but they do not inherently lead to improved well-being. People adapt to the joys of using technologies, then find them mundane. Some positive emotions can cause deconstructive behaviors, such as over-engagement on social media. The project investigates designing technologies to support positive emotion regulation in young adults, a population whose mental health can be impacted by limited emotion regulation skills and challenges to accessing traditional health interventions. Practical design methods and tools for the development of such technologies are being generated by incorporating perspectives of design professionals through a series of co-creative workshops and seminars. A toolkit and methods reflecting insights into emotion regulation is being developed and disseminated to help designers create innovative and evidence-based emotion-managing technologies. The project promotes STEM education for underserved students through novel community-engagement programs that encourage students to think critically about how everyday technologies shape human emotion and behavior.The project explores how positive emotions can be effectively regulated through technology and how technology-mediated positive emotions can contribute to well-being. While traditional research assumes a direct impact of technology on user emotions (e.g., manipulation of an artifact’s appearance), this project builds on findings that the impact of technology on emotion regulation is indirect, because it is mediated by users’ activities (e.g., visualizing positive things one did/will do with the technology). Through co-creative, research-through-design methods, the project investigates positive emotion regulation by: (1) analyzing the roles of everyday technology in reinforcing and prolonging positive emotional experiences; (2) developing interactive digital and tangible artifact prototypes (e.g., interactive installations, IoT devices, and apps); (3) evaluating prototypes’ effects on well-being; and (4) translating resulting insights into design methods and tools that support the development of PER technologies to promote well-being. The project discovers new understandings of the relationships between technologies, activities, positive emotions, and well-being.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.