Actual Experience Research Articles

Empathic forecasting of the big-fish-little-pond effect

ABSTRACT The big-fish-little-pond effect (BFLPE) is the tendency for students to evaluate themselves more favourably when they have high rank in a low rank school than low rank in a high rank school. Research has documented the BFLPE on experienced emotions. We conducted three studies that examined forecasts of how the BFLPE influences other people’s emotions (i.e. empathic forecasts). In Study 1, participants received performance feedback about themselves or another person and reported their own affect or anticipated the other person’s affect. Results extended the BFLPE to empathic forecasting. Moreover, forecasters anticipated that the BFLPE had a stronger influence on negative emotion than it actually did. Study 2 tested whether neglect of group rank underlies the BFLPE in empathic forecasting. Empathic forecasts were strongly influenced by another person’s rank in their group, but only weakly influenced by group rank. Study 3 tested whether extremity of group ranks exacerbates the BFLPE in empathic forecasting. Empathic forecasts were especially favourable (unfavourable) when a target had very high (low) rank in a very low (high) rank group. These data support the BFLPE in empathic forecasting, but also illustrate ways in which it is both similar to and different from actual experience of the effect.

STRESS MANAGEMENT DURING PH.D. STUDIES: A SHARE OF REAL EXPERIENCES

Effective and proficient stress management during the duration of a Ph.D. programme is critical for all Ph.D. students. This is done to ensure the emotional well-being of Ph.D students. Despite confronting a variety of hurdles and tests throughout the course of study, academic achievement remained consistently excellent. Travelling, cooking, reading, watching films, and gardening are just a few of the stress-relieving activities that are commonly mentioned on social media platforms like Facebook and blogs. However, we have chosen a unique technique, called play therapy, as our stress management therapy modality. Toys such as robots (Transformers), miniature car models (Hotwheels), blocks (LEGO/Kre-O), weapons and arrows (NERF), small train models (Thomas & Friends), and board games (Monopoly/Scrabble) were among our therapeutic goods during our Ph.D studies. The act of going to the store to buy new toys, the joy of finding a good deal on something we've been eyeing for a long, and the "hunt" for our all-time favourite toy are all components of this activity's therapeutic significance for us. As a result, the benefits of the toy treatment are felt not only by us but also by our children. Consequently, we are not the only ones who are experience it. We have taken toy collection treatment to an altogether new level. Whereas, as a family, we were able to successfully capture many medals, including gold medals, in international innovation competitions by leveraging our interest in collecting these toys. In addition, we presented papers on various elements of toy design at a number of international conferences. It is our honest hope that being able to speak and share our actual experiences of coping with stress while working on our Ph.D. can, to some extent, energise the sharing of many therapies that are already available for stress management.

Uniaxial Testing of Soil–Cement Composites to Obtain Correlations to Be Used in Numerical Modeling

This paper presents the results of laboratory testing of samples obtained from soil–cement composite columns produced on a real-world test site as part of a research and development project. The introduction presents the motivation of the research and the goals that guided the layout of a research program. The general geotechnical conditions, initially assumed methodology of soil–cement composite sampling, and finally, the methodology of strength tests were presented. In tests conducted with the measurement of the strain-stress path, the strength and stiffness of the material were determined in various modes of the stress–strain path, including unloading/reloading cycles. The test results were presented in the form of graphs presenting soil–cement composite stiffness in the function of material strength and subjected to a short critical discussion against the background of reference samples from composites prepared in laboratory conditions. This allowed for their qualitative and quantitative assessment and the formulation of conclusions and guidelines, concerning the execution of works and especially the potential practical outcomes (benefits for numerical modeling), juxtaposed in the summary. Some prospects and needs for future developments were also formulated on the basis of actual experience.

Child Soldiers, Agency, and Aristotelian Virtue Ethics

Abstract The international community first responded to child soldiering by embracing within law and policy a narrative that saw child soldiers largely as passive victims. Empirical work with child soldiers has since revealed a more complex picture of children’s agency and actual experiences. From this work, a more recent narrative – which I call the political actor narrative – has taken shape within scholarly work on child soldiers. While the former narrative may be wrong to universalise the condition of all child soldiers as passive victims, the latter narrative is limited in what it can tell us about how child soldiering affects moral character development. I argue that we have good reason to seek a more comprehensive narrative that mixes elements of the passive victim and political actor narratives into a new narrative that provides resources for character-based normative analysis, and I show how virtue ethics provides the conceptual resources to do this.

Built Environment and Walkability: Investigating Urban Design Qualities by Serial Vision Method at Itahari Chowk

The current state of Itahari chowk reflects the challenges of urban development and the prioritization of vehicular traffic. The study examines the connection between the built environment and walkability, utilizing Itahari chowk as a study area. This paper aims to quantify the degree of walkability in relation to built environment while comprehending how the built environment affects people’s walking habits and how aspects of walkability related to urban architecture are related to physical attributes. The study employs a thorough analysis of walkability coverage across four distinct spots within Itahari chowk using Gordon Cullen serial vision method. This method rooted in urban design principles evaluates four crucial qualities: Imageability, Enclosure, Transparency and Human Scale. To further refine the assessment, interview was conducted to gauge the perception of users. Respondents were asked to rank the urban design qualities based on their perceived importance and ranking data were used to determine weightage for each quality. By integrating the weighted evaluation criteria in the walkability coverage obtained through the serial vision method, a more accurate representation of actual walkability experience emerged. The findings obtained from theoretical method (serial vision method) and people’s perception (ranking method) were compared and discuss. The results of this analysis showed that people's perceptions of walkability were different from the theoretical method. The study will be beneficial to pedestrian design professionals and academic interested in this topic. Ultimately the general public will be benefit from more walkable and user-friendly street.

Body maps of loves

ABSTRACT Love is an essential biological, psychological, sociological, and religious phenomenon. Using various conceptual models, philosophers have often distinguished between different types of love, such as self-love, romantic love, friendship love, love of God, and neighborly love. Psychologists and neuroscientists on the other hand have thus far focused predominantly on understanding the emotions and behavioral and neural mechanisms associated with romantic love and parental love. We do not yet know how the models construed by philosophers are related to actual experiences of love, and to which extent they are merely nominal creations connecting phenomena that in fact have little to do with each other. We lack empirical knowledge of how different types of love are experienced as embodied feelings, and how these experiences are related to one another. Here we distinguished between 27 different types of love. Using self-report methods, we measured 1) how subjective feelings of different types of love are topographically embodied; 2) how different types of love are associated with self-reported emotional valence, strength of the bodily and mental experience, association with touch, time elapsed since last experienced, and controllability; and 3) how similar different types of love feel. Our study provides the first mapping of embodied experiences associated with different types of love. The results show that the subjective feelings associated with the love types form a continuum from strongly to weakly felt loves.

Exploring willingness to use shared autonomous vehicles

Although multiple studies have modeled and predicted the potential effects of shared autonomous vehicles (SAVs), the research on the adoption of SAVs by riders with actual ridership experience is still limited. In addition, the increasing tendency towards operating SAV technology requires understanding its efficiency while integrating it into the existing transportation network infrastructure. This study aims to identify the factors affecting the user's willingness to ride the SAVs based on the data collected from a comprehensive survey distributed among users and non-users of a self-driving pilot project called RAPID (Rideshare, Automation, and Payment Integration Demonstration) in Arlington, Texas. Using structural equation modeling (SEM), we identify the effects from vehicle ownership, RAPID usage, existing modes of transportation, RAPID service attributes (comfort and safety), and sociodemographic variables on individuals' willingness to use SAVs in the future. Results indicate that most riders of the RAPID service are young Asian individuals and students from low-income households with limited or no access to a private vehicle. Furthermore, SEM results show that RAPID usage directly impacts willingness to use SAVs, implying that people start developing trust for the technology with an increase in the frequency of using the service. Our model suggests that sociodemographic attributes of the SAV riders indirectly influence the willingness to use SAVs through the mediators, including RAPID usage, existing modes of transportation, and vehicle ownership. This study provides crucial insights about individual travel behavior after integrating SAVs into existing transportation infrastructure to assist policymakers and transportation planners in developing AV-related policies.

Maintenance priority towards the features and facilities in Malaysian public parks: Visitors’ perspective versus actual experience

Maintenance priority towards the features and facilities in Malaysian public parks: Visitors’ perspective versus actual experience

Exploring the Traces of Humanism: An Investigation into Doris Lessing’s The Golden Notebook

This research article dwells upon the exploration of the various colours of humanism as reflected most impressively in Doris Lessing’s most famous novel, The Golden Notebook. During her long-spanning literary career, she did receive a very deep impression and motivation from her contemporary female-writers such as Mary Wollstone Craft, Kate Millet, Elain Showalter, Simone de Beauvoir and Virginia Woolf and some others. Like all these feminist-writers, she too was very deeply concerned with the mental harassment, rape-violence and the sexual exploitation of the females in the existing phallocentric society. She too accelerated the movement of feminism even in the contemporary period. Being a woman, she could understand much better the issues and the problems of the females. Thus, through her novels, she has very strongly advocated for the equality, liberty and fraternity to the females without any kind of gender-discrimination. She is not an object of sexual gratification, confined to the domestic activities, but rather she has her oven self-esteem, love and honour. She cannot lose her self-esteem at any cost. By dint of her novels, she very strongly raised her voices against gender-discrimination, social injustice, sexual exploitation, mental torture and misconduct being committed to the females. In her most famous novel, The Golden Notebook, she happens to introduce the two lady characters– Anna and Molly, living together in a London flat in 1957 in their free and independent life-style. These intermittent narrative frames four huge sections dedicated to Anna’s notebooks of the 1950’s,’ a black notebook dealing with the African experience, out of which, she has written her only novel; the red for politics – the decline and fall of the communist myth; blue a record of free relations with men, and of rosy dreams and sessions with her analyst; yellow in which she takes up stories; mostly drafts of a novel in which ‘Ella’ re-enacts a large part of Anna’s experience. In all this, what it means to be ‘free women’ is very thoroughly articulated and worked out. The question of living “lives like men” poses an illusion within the narrative. Despite Anna’s engagement in a sexual relationship with the same liberty as a man, it inevitably culminates in an undesirable dependency. This aspect alongside the overwhelming freedom of choice that stifles her literary endeavors, the unchecked freedom permitted by the world’s irresponsible state, and the paradoxical liberty of a woman obsessed with the notion of integrity, who is fatefully bound to navigate randomly to discern the significance of her actions, collectively construct the novel’s intricate framework. Despite the evident complexity, the novel’s most remarkable attribute does not lie in its profound or original difficulty. Contrarily, it resonates a compelling conviction of closely mirroring actual experiences. Within this realistic depiction, the anticipated concerns of a mid-twentieth-century writer organically find their respective positions, enhancing the authenticity and relatability of the narrative. It is simply an exceptional documentation of the experience of female autonomy and responsibility in connection to men and other women. It illustrates the endeavor to achieve self-reconciliation regarding these relationships, as well as issues of writing and politics. The document’s distinctiveness is highlighted by its unwavering honesty and extensive scope, providing a unique exploration of these multifaceted dimensions. It has got a very wide range of interest among the readers. Thus, it remains as a sort of the book that determines the way people think about themselves.

Changes in Documentation Due to Patient Access to Electronic Health Records: Protocol for a Scoping Review.

Internationally, patient-accessible electronic health records (PAEHRs) are increasingly being implemented. Despite reported benefits to patients, the innovation has prompted concerns among health care professionals (HCPs), including the possibility that access incurs a "dumbing down" of clinical records. Currently, no review has investigated empirical evidence of whether and how documentation changes after introducing PAEHRs. This paper presents the protocol for a scoping review examining potential subjective and objective changes in HCPs documentation after using PAEHRs. This scoping review will be carried out based on the framework of Arksey and O'Malley. Several databases will be used to conduct a literature search (APA PsycInfo, CINAHL, PubMed, and Web of Science Core Collection). Authors will participate in screening identified papers to explore the research questions: How do PAEHRs affect HCPs' documentation practices? and What subjective and objective changes to the clinical notes arise after patient access? Only studies that relate to actual use experiences, and not merely prior expectations about PAEHRs, will be selected in the review. Data abstraction will include but will not be limited to publication type, publication year, country, sample characteristics, setting, study aim, research question, and conclusions. The Mixed Methods Appraisal Tool will be used to assess the quality of the studies included. The results from this scoping review will be presented as a narrative synthesis structured along the key themes of the corpus of evidence. Additional data will be prepared in charts or tabular format. We anticipate the results to be presented in a scoping review at a later date. They will be disseminated at scientific conferences and through publication in a peer-reviewed journal. This is the first scoping review that considers potential change in documentation after implementation of PAEHRs. The results can potentially help affirm or refute prior opinions and expectations among various stakeholders about the use of PAEHRs and thereby help to address uncertainties. Results may help to provide guidance to clinicians in writing notes and thus have immediate practical relevance to care. In addition, the review will help to identify any substantive research gaps in this field of research. In the longer term, our findings may contribute to the development of shared documentation guidelines, which in turn are central to improving patient communication and safety. PRR1-10.2196/46722.

The Individual Victim. Hypogeneralization within a New Social Type

Over the past several decades we have seen increased attention paid to victimhood. However, many of these dialogues are only tangentially related to actual experiences of victimization. They are better understood as reflections of a new Simmelian social type, that is, a new pattern emerging within psycho-social interaction—namely, the Victim. The current reflections focus on the meaning making processes within these broader discussions of victimhood. We first briefly review Georg Simmel’s understanding of social types and explore the Victim as a new social type. We then examine how the process of hypogeneralization appears within social types, including the Victim, whereby the patterned social interactions that constitute a social type are seen as a single individual or collective. Finally, we examine a recent example from popular discourse of the hypogeneralized Victim.

Expert consensus on clinical drug prevention and treatment of osteonecrosis of the femoral head(2022)

With the in-depth understanding of osteonecrosis of femoral head (ONFH), and more and more patients seeking medical treatment in the early stage of the disease, surgical treatment of femoral head necrosis alone is no longer sufficient for the current treatment of patients' demand, how to rationally and effectively apply drugs to strengthen the early prevention and treatment of femoral head necrosis and delay the progression of disease is becoming more and more important. This article combines the latest expert consensus and evidence-based medical evidence on the principles of ONFH diagnosis and treatment in Chinese and Western medicine at home and abroad, combined with domestic actual clinical application experience, and is organized by experts from Association Related to Circulation Osseous Chinese Microcirculation Society (CSM-ARCO) to write this consensus, focusing on the types of ONFH drugs, the characteristics, safety, rationality and basic principles of drug use provide reference opinions for the safe, reasonable, standardized and effective drug use of medical institutions at all levels. This consensus is only an expert guideline based on literature and clinical experience, not as a requirement for mandatory implementation, let alone as a legal basis. The clinical practice could be tailored to the actual local conditions to develop appropriate prevention and treatment measures for patients.

The unhomed data subject: negotiating datafication in Latin America

ABSTRACT Critical scholarship about datafication reveals the implications of algorithmically driven digital transformations for both social processes and human experiences of subjectivity. Digital transformations embed ontological beliefs in the information systems that drive new organizational processes and are accompanied by techno-positivist discourses that promote the benefits of these schemes. The dual power of new information systems plus strong discursive influences has led to fears that data subjects will come to be defined by data and information systems – that their subjectivity will be subordinated by the algorithm. However, in this paper, we argue that real experiences of data sharing offer a means to reveal actual experiences with subjectification, and that often these experiences are multiple and complex. Drawing on the results of five digital literacy interventions carried out by partner organizations in Chile, Colombia, Paraguay, Peru, and Uruguay in 2021, we consider participants’ lived experiences with datafication. Our work reveals how people experience, negotiate, reject, and accept data power’s multiple manifestations in ways that strategically mobilize data resources, constituting a fractured data subjectivity that overlaps the bounds of any one information system. This leads us to suggest the idea of the ‘unhomed’ as a useful concept for understanding data subjectification in the contemporary moment.

Combining Phenomenology and Grounded Theory in Software Engineering: An Experience

Phenomenology and grounded theory are two prominent qualitative methods, particularly used in social sciences research. Phenomenology is carried out to understand the individuals’ actual experience regarding a phenomenon. The method describes "what" individuals experience and "how" they experience it. The focus is on the meaning of the exposures experienced by individuals regarding the phenomenon. Grounded theory on the other hand allows researchers to explore a phenomenon in depth with individuals, by which a theory is then generated. The goal is to go beyond the understanding of phenomenon by producing a theory that describes comprehensively the problem being studied. Although these two methods are initiated by similar motivations, namely to understand a phenomenon, they however employ slightly different approaches during execution. The differences make them fit complementary together to produce a more concrete and holistic outcome. To research that occasionally use qualitative methods such as Software Engineering, these methods bring new and multifaceted experience. Software Engineering research opts for qualitative methods to promote understanding, as many phenomena in the field have yet to be understood by its community. In that respect, grounded theory is becoming quite a norm in Software Engineering research in recent years, phenomenology however is relatively sporadic. This paper shares the experience of employing as well as combining phenomenology and grounded theory in Software Engineering research. The sharing is intended to inspire future research in twofold: more technical fields such as Software Engineering to employ qualitative methods in research; and leveraging the benefits of combining two qualitative methods complementarily in one study.

Dynamics of Student Internship System in Faculty of Art of KNUST, Kumasi, Ghana: Exploring Perceptions, Values, Access and Development Outcomes

An internship programme is a great way to connect what is learnt in class with actual work experience. Existing research has underscored the positive contribution of internship to the educational process and career outcomes among students. The internship programme for students of Faculty of Art, KNUST is a requirement or considered as a compulsory 15 credit hour course for the award of undergraduate degree. As such it is a vital component of the curriculum. Nonetheless, empirical literature on the dynamics of the internship programme at the university is sparse. Without insight into these dynamics however, there will be lack of information that could inform policy and continuous improvement of the programme. To bridge this gap, this paper seeks to analyze the internship experiences of students to determine what factors seem to create the greatest perceived value. The study employed the descriptive exploratory study design approach. Data was obtained from a total of 376 students of the Faculty of Art through the use of questionnaire designed in open and close ended patterns and focus discussions. The statistical package for the social sciences (SPSS) computer package was used for data analysis, while descriptive statistical tools such as frequency and percentage were used to analyze the facts sought from the questionnaire. The students described a variety of skills learned during the internship including mastering the use of some equipment, software, and report writing. About 80% of the participants indicated that the internship programme was important and linked the classroom work to real work environment. All the students regardless of their experiences indicated they had value for the internship which they believe will play a role in their future career objectives. On the other hand, some of the students had some unfavourable experiences including inadequate work space, provision of inadequate PPEs, boring and difficult tasks. Others were engaged in other duties that were not related to their field of studies, all of which could potentially influence the perception of students.

The Clinic That Cried Safe.

The Clinic That Cried Safe.

Spatial characteristics of unpleasant cycling experiences

The relationship between cycling and spatial characteristics has focused more on push & pull factors, such as distance and time between A and B, rather than on the actual experience of cycling on the route between A and B. Several studies have examined cycling experiences, and their geospatial relations, but few have linked the two in a quantitative matter. In this paper we provide insight into urban spaces are related to unpleasant experiences, and how this affects perceived safety and the degree of avoidance of these places.Hereto, this study has carried out, mapped, and examined a unique database consisting of the results of a map-based survey of 808 experiences reported by 641 cyclists in the city of Oslo, which were related to their geospatial aspects (including aspects of land use, transport network measures, and geographical aspects) in Geographic Information System (GIS). We use a novel methodological approach by using GPS-based route choice data, to account for differences in exposure.Our findings show that unpleasant experiences while cycling happens in a wide range of places spread over the city. The geographic variables correlated to these experiences were related to public transport infrastructures, places where pedestrians and cyclists used combined roads and higher road speed limits, higher levels of road traffic, and a high employment density. The higher length of a road section in the network, was related to fewer negative experiences, indicating that they are related to intersections. In general, those with lower weekly amounts of cycling were more likely to feel unsafe or to avoid specific places. The findings have implications for integrated transport and spatial planning.

Over-the-top (OTT) retailing in the post pandemic world. Unveiling consumer drivers and barriers using a qualitative study

Consumers are increasingly moving from traditional television to Over-The-Top (OTT) streaming platforms. Although OTT platforms are widely used, people's interactions with them vary; some people use them eagerly, while others are hesitant. There is a need for thorough knowledge of the underlying elements that affect people's decisions to adopt OTT platforms. OTT platforms must understand the consumers' perceptions to engage effectively in customer retention and acquisition. Using the Gioia method, the study adopted the qualitative research approach to investigate the themes that emerged from the participant's responses and to frame our research into the context of users' actual experiences by utilizing the grounded-theory methodology. The extracted themes drawn from the opinion of 50 participants were found to align with the Innovation Resistance Theory (IRT) and Uses & Gratification Theory 2.0 (UGT 2.0). Aligning with the IRT theory, the barriers were classified under five sub-themes: usage, value, risk, tradition, and image. The drivers were mapped with the UGT 2.0 framework comprising of four sub-themes: modality, agency, interactivity, and navigability. Our study contributes a theoretical aspect by classifying OTT platform usage behavior in the post-pandemic period.

Understanding Patients' Preferences and Experiences During an Electronic Health Record Transition.

The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) has embarked on the largest system-wide electronic health record (EHR) transition in history. To date, most research on EHR-to-EHR transitions has focused on employee and system transition-related needs, with limited focus on how patients experience transitions. (1) Understand patients' preferences for information and support prior to an EHR transition, and (2) examine actual patient experiences that occurred at facilities that implemented a new EHR. We used a two-step approach. We had discussions with geographically diverse patient advisory groups. Discussions informed semi-structured, qualitative interviews with patients. Patients affected by the EHR transition. We met with four patient advisory groups at sites that had not transitioned their EHR. Interviews were conducted with patients who received care at one of two facilities that recently transitioned to the new EHR. Patient advisors identified key areas important to patients during an EHR transition. 1) Use a range of communication strategies to reach diverse populations, especially older, rural patients. 2) Information about the EHR transition should be clear and reinforce trustworthiness. 3) Patients will need guidance using the new patient portal. From the patient interviews, we learned if and how these key areas mapped onto patients' experiences. Patients at the sites that had transitioned learned about the new EHR through a variety of modalities, including letters and banners on the patient portal. However, their experiences varied in terms of information quality, leading to frustrations during and between healthcare encounters. Patient portal issues exacerbated frustrations. These raised concerns about the accuracy and security of the overall EHR. Maintaining clear communication across patients, local leadership, and providers throughout an EHR transition is essential for successful implementation. Patient-facing communications can set expectations, and help patients receive adequate support, particularly related to the patient portal.

Affective debiasing: Focusing on emotion during consumption attenuates attribute framing effects

AbstractOne of the most pervasive findings in attribute framing research is the valence consistent shift; that is, positively valenced frames (e.g., 95% natural ingredients) are preferred over semantically equivalent but negatively valenced frames (e.g., 5% artificial ingredients). Despite the robustness of this finding, it has primarily been observed in judgments of prospective or hypothetical consumption. When valenced frames are presented during or immediately prior to an actual consumption experience, evidence for the valence consistent shift is weaker and less conclusive. In the present research, we propose and show that individuals' susceptibility to a valenced frame encountered around the time of a related consumption experience depends on whether they focus primarily on their cognitions or their emotions during the experience. Specifically, five experiments provide evidence that the valence consistent shift is attenuated in visual, auditory, and (simulated) gustatory consumption contexts when individuals are prompted to rely more on affective (vs. cognitive) inputs. Implications for both theory and practice are discussed.