Handbook of Wise Interventions: How Social Psychology Can Help People Change

Precise shifts in the ways people make sense of themselves, others, and social situations can help people flourish. This compelling handbook synthesizes the growing body of research on wise interventions--brief, nonclinical strategies that are wise to the impact of social-psychological processes on behavior. Leading authorities describe how maladaptive or pejorative interpretations can undermine people’s functioning and how they can be altered to produce benefits in such areas as academic motivation and achievement, health, well-being, and personal relationships. Consistently formatted chapters review the development of each intervention, how it can be implemented, its evidence base, and implications for solving personal and societal problems.

Gregory M. Walton, PhD, is Associate Professor of Psychology and the Michael Forman University Fellow in Undergraduate Education at Stanford University. His research focuses on how basic social-psychological processes contribute to major social problems, such as how negative stereotypes and stigma change school settings for minority group members in ways that can undermine these students’ feelings of belonging and achievement. Dr. Walton develops novel psychological interventions to address these processes, including to increase student motivation, improve academic achievement, and reduce achievement gaps between groups. He is a recipient of many awards for his research, including the Cialdini Prize and the Wegner Theoretical Innovation Prize from the Society for Personality and Social Psychology.

Alia J. Crum, PhD, is Assistant Professor of Psychology at Stanford University and Primary Investigator of the Stanford Mind and Body Lab. Her research focuses on mindsets; how they affect important outcomes in such domains as exercise, diet, and stress; and how they can be consciously and deliberately changed through intervention to increase physiological and psychological well-being. Dr. Crum is a recipient of awards including the Director’s New Innovator Award from the National Institutes of Health and the Rising Star Award from the Association for Psychological Science. She has worked as a clinical psychologist for the VA health care system and has developed interventions focused on mindset change for organizations, including LinkedIn, UBS, Stanford Health Care, and the U.S. Navy.