Asking Better Questions: Strategic Questioning as a Psychologically Wise Intervention

Area of Science:

• Psychology
• Social Psychology
• Intervention Science

Background:

• Effective psychological interventions often reframe maladaptive interpretations into adaptive narratives.
• These interventions improve outcomes in diverse areas like health, relationships, and academic performance.
• Current interventions lack focus on developing sustained strategies for goal pursuit.

Purpose of the Study:

• To propose a complementary approach to enhance psychological interventions.
• To explore how strategic questioning can support and maintain adaptive narratives.
• To investigate the role of strategic questioning in effective goal pursuit.

Main Methods:

• Proposes guiding individuals to ask and answer strategic questions.
• Highlights the potential for eliciting strategy generation, access, and use.
• Suggests learning an orientation toward self-prompting strategic questions.

Main Results:

• Strategic questioning can elicit adaptive appraisals and responses to adversity.
• Individuals can learn to proactively use strategic questions for self-guidance.
• This approach offers new avenues for research and practice in psychological interventions.

Conclusions:

• Strategic questioning complements existing narrative-focused interventions.
• It fosters more effective, goal-directed, and generalizable outcomes.
• Understanding strategic questioning opens new frontiers for psychological research and practice.