Exploring User Perspectives on Brief Reflective Questioning Activities for Stress Management

Abstract

The ubiquity of the internet holds tremendous promise for users to access interactive support for mental well-being, as evidenced by the proliferation of apps enabling experiences like peer-to-peer discussion or automated chatbots. In contrast, we investigate whether and to what extent digital interfaces as simple as questionnaire webforms can help people help themselves by reflecting on stressful situations and feelings. In this work, we experiment with a brief reflective questioning activity (RQA) that prompts people to externalize their underlying thoughts and emotions on a troubling situation. Inspired by principles of cognitive behavioral therapy, the 15-minute activity encourages self-reflection without a human or automated conversational partner. A deployment of the RQA on Amazon Mechanical Turk suggests that people perceive several benefits from the RQA, including structured awareness of their thoughts and problem-solving around managing their emotions. Quantitative evidence from a randomized experiment suggests people find that our RQA makes them feel less worried about their selected situation, and is worth the time investment. We find similar benefits in a real-world deployment of a two-week technology probe deployment with 11 participants, which also suggests people see benefits to doing this activity repeatedly as long as it does not get monotonous over time. Results from our prototype RQA provides a foundational first step in exploring the design space of digital interfaces that leverage questions for user-driven reflection, whether they be for mental well-being or other areas where psychologically-informed design can empower users to help themselves.

Keywords: Mental Health, Reflection, Stress, Intervention, Interview, Mental well-being, Reflective activity, Computer-mediated communication