Imagined Situation Research Articles

Role-play or debate to promote students' argumentation and justification on an issue in animal transgenesis

This paper compares the impact of a role-play and a conventional discussion on students' argumentation on an issue involving animal transgenesis. Students were confronted with an imaginable but fictional situation. They had to decide whether or not to approve a giant transgenic salmon farm being set up in a seaside village. Students received the same teaching and information, the only differences being in the debate situation. Students were asked to reach a decision on well-argued grounds, to identify areas of uncertainty and to define the condition or conditions under which a change of view might be considered. They had to write them down. Pre-post-tests were used to assess the students' opinions. The role-play and discussion were all video- and audio-taped and transcribed in full. The analysis focuses on the argumentative structure of the students' discourse and identifies the reference areas that students draw on to deliver their arguments. The theory of economics of 'greatness' or 'importance', which has recently emerged as a framework for the sociology of justification, has also been used in analysing students' discourse.

The Social Significance of the Shaman among the Chinese Reindeer-Evenki

Today, approximately 200 Reindeer-Evenki live in the Greater Khingan Range of northeast China (Manchuria). Their ancestors, who around the end of the 1820s migrated from Siberia, already were nominally Russian Orthodox Christians before their immigration. Nevertheless, up to this date shamans have been playing an important role in religion and particularly in society. The Chinese Reindeer-Evenki are pure animists and believe that each thing has its soul. In their understanding, various spirits populate the whole universe. The shamans act as mediators between the world of humans and that of the spirits, and serve the members of their group as helpers in hunting, as healers and protectors, as keepers of tradition, and as guides for the departed on their journey to the land of the dead. They are a safety valve in every imaginable situation of mental stress, and are consulted even today in difficult and extraordinary situations, although they show signs of deterioration and suffer persecution. This study uses many examples in order to detail the very important social impact of the shaman on the society of the Reindeer-Evenki living in the Chinese taiga. The difficult, and for the candidate also dangerous process, of becoming a shaman among the Reindeer-Evenki of the Great Amur Bend, as well as the shaman's costume symbolizing a deer, is described briefly.

Environmental risk perception and urban renewal in the West Midlands, UK

This is a report of a social environmental audit of urban renewal schemes based on an investigation of environmental hazard risk perceptions of people in their homes, workplaces and other places of urban activity, in the vicinity of five major renewal sites in Sandwell, West Midlands, UK. The selection of the renewal schemes was designed to incorporate a range of the types of contemporary urban development in the UK. People were asked to give a scaled score response reflecting the perceived magnitude of risk of each of a series of hazards. Each person was asked to give two responses to each hazard, one response referring to the actual present situation post-renewal and the second response referring to an imagined present situation as if renewal had not occurred. The statistical analysis of the responses suggested that urban renewal had brought about an increase in certain perceived environmental risks and not necessarily a more desirable perceived environmental state than the alternative of dereliction.

Radiological Safety Aspects of Indian Watches Containing Tritium

In recent years tritium activated radioluminous paint has become the preferred compound in dial painting by wrist watch industries. Tritium activity in metallic wrist watches has been found to be in the range of 5.5-18.8 MBq. The release rates of tritium from different watches showed considerable variation in the range of 0.2-15 kBq.d -1 under humid conditions and indicate dependence on the gross activity level present in the watch. The mean tritium life in watches is 5±2 years based on gross activity estimated and release rate measured. The annual effective dose to the wrist watch wearer works out to be about 2.5 μSv from air concentration through inhalation and percutaneous absorption through skin and assuming the highest release rate and continuous watch wearing conditions. In the worst possible imagined situation, the maximum possible annual skin dose equivalent rate is estimated to be in the range of 6.7 mSv-67 mSv over a 10 cm 2 area. Both the dose estimates are far less than the respective limits recommended by ICRP for the public at large.

Linguistic Phenomena and Language Selection in the REM Dreams of German‐English Bilinguals

Sixteen German‐English bilinguals were studied in a sleep laboratory for four nonconsecutive nights each. Half were native English speakers living in Zürich, and half native German speakers living in Atlanta. Presleep thought samples were solicited each evening and REM dream reports each night; subjects judged the waking appropriateness of their imagined speech and language phenomena, and also identified waking sources of their dream imagery, the following mornings. Incidences of dreaming and of speech therein generally were similar to those of monolinguals. Whether sessions were conducted in German (two nights) or English (two nights) did directly influence language selection in subjects' dreams. Judged appropriateness of language selection to imagined events was very high for thought samples, and high for REM dreams. Sources for thought samples were generally consonant with the language dominant at study site; for REM dreams this relationship was considerably weaker. Judged waking appropriateness to imagined situations was more strongly related to language selection than was the language reference of the supposed sources of those situations.

The psychophysiology of disgust: Differentiating negative emotional contexts with facial EMG

The goals of this study were (a) to examine differing views on the relationship between self-report of emotion and physiological expression of emotion, (b) to differentiate between negative emotional contexts during imagery using facial electromyogram (EMG), and (c) to describe the facial muscle patterning and autonomic physiology of situations that involve expelling or avoiding disgusting sensory stimulation. Fifty subjects imagined situations eliciting disgust, anger, pleasure, and joy in 8-s trials using a tone-cued imagery procedure. Heart rate, skin conductance level, and facial EMG at the corrugator, zygomatic, and levator labii superioris/alesque muscle regions were recorded during imagery, and self-reports of emotion were collected after imagery trials. Self-reports of emotion produced results consistent with the affective categorization of the images. Activity at the levator labii region was higher during disgust than during anger imagery. Corrugator region increase characterized the negative as compared with the positive emotional contents, and activity at the zygomatic region was higher during joy imagery than during the other three emotions. Heart rate acceleration was greater during disgust, anger, and joy imagery than during pleasant imagery. Disgust imagery could be discriminated from anger imagery using facial EMG, and the expressive physiology of disgust was occasioned by the action set of active avoidance or rejection of sensory stimulation.

The Effects of Bystander Sex and Visibility of Victim on Intended Helping

Two studies involving imagined emergencies were conducted with a dependent measure of intended helping. Manipulations included sex of bystander and victim, and visibility of victim. The hypothesis that greater visibility of victims would elicit greater intended helping was confirmed; however, the effect was attributable to male bystanders only. Discussion centered on “personalism” and sex-role factors as mediators of the level of intended helping. The validity of using imagined situations was also discussed.

A Man in the Wheatfield by Robert Laxalt

Reviews 171 Finally, it’s all up to us, as readers, to complete the puzzle, to seethe big picture, to protest the system which has savaged nearly everyone. In that, the book may be more a homily than a novel. LORA K. REITER Ottawa University A Man in the Wheatfield. By Robert Laxalt. (Reno: University of Nevada Press, 1987. 185 pages, $16.00.) A Man in the Wheatfield, firstpublished in 1964, centers on Smale Calder, an American who moves into a desert village, makes no friends and asks for none, runs a gas station, and has a passion for capturing rattlesnakes and keep­ ing them as pets in his backyard. Closely aligned with Calder is Father Savio Lazzaroni who since childhood has had a foreboding dream of a man in a wheatfield, a black featureless figure whom he knows to be the embodiment of evil. He thinks he has identified the image when he meets Calder, probably because of the serpents. The theme is a parable of good and evil, and the dream of Father Lazza­ roni tends to make the narrative a fable. Professor Laxalt gives the reader several imagined situations realistically detailed which are told quietly and chillingly. Most of the characters are more than traditional types, and the reader asks, “How is evil to be known?” If the author ends by convincing us that Calder, the serpent handler, is an inverted symbol for innocence, he also signifies that the agency for evil is itself neutral and undesigning. The surprise ending may not be so surprising to many. The huge old rattler, in the depths of the stone temple, may be symbolic of Father Lazzaroni, who clings to the gloomy sanctuary of his church to preach malice against the compassionate Calder, whose communication with the serpents he thinks is a ceremony of evil. In the final scenes, “the priest realized that he was seeing his first pure human being, without guise and without fear, as beautiful as his sim­ plicity and as ugly as the very snakes he loved” (168). The burning of the serpents and their agony, the weeping, dying Calder with the brute snake in his hands, and the priest, who recognizes the vision of the man in the wheat­ field of his dream is his own countenance, make this a good story about the nature of man in all times and places, set this time in an American desert, among men who do not understand and often do not like each other. DORYS CROW GROVER East Texas State University ...

On symbolic temporal information: Beliefs about the experience of duration

Judgments on the subjective duration of simple and complex imagined situations are studied. Four facets, concerning the evaluation of the situation (pleasant/unpleasant) and the characteristics of its events (many/few, variable/monotonous, difficult/easy), are taken into account. These facets proved significant for duration judgments in previous studies in which subjects were exposed to situations varying with respect to one of them. In this paper, we study whether these time-perception facets have comparable effects on the symbolic temporal basis of duration judgments. that is, whether they allow one to account for differences in the beliefs about duration experience in imagined situations. Two approaches were chosen: (1) Three groups of subjects compared the durations of all possible pairs of situations characterized by facet elments x and y. The confusion probabilities could be scaled in one dimension for all groups. The facet elements defined intervals that were hierarchically nested. (2)The facets allowed us to distinguish 24 structuples. For each of them, a concrete situation was described in writing. Seventy-six subjects rated the subjective durations of the situations. The structuples led to a partial order that corresponded well to the duration ratings. Moreover, three of the facets showed significant main effects, and the fourth interacted significantly with two others. Finally, the facets were useful in explaining the similarity structure of the duration ratings.

Communication styles and marital satisfaction in Israeli and American couples.

This study examined the conflict-related communication styles of American and Israeli couples and how these communication styles related to marital satisfaction in the two groups. An Israeli sample was recruited from Israeli couples currently living in New York City; the American sample was selected from the friendship circles of the Israeli couples. In spite of the close social ties of the two groups, we predicted that the conflict-related communication styles of the Israelis would be less calm and rational than those of the Americans and that such rational modes of communication would be positively associated with marital satisfaction for the Americans but not for the Israelis. The principle instruments were Straus' Conflict Tactics Scale, Ryder's Imagined Situation Inventory, and Spanier's Dyadic Adjustment Scale. Results largely confirmed the hypotheses. Israeli couples were more apt to be verbally aggressive (but less physically violent) and less apt to behave calmly during marital conflict, but these communication styles did not relate to marital satisfaction as strongly for the Israelis as for the Americans. These findings are discussed as a demonstration of the importance of considering cultural context when treating families.

Helping Behavior among Preschool Children: An Observational Study

BAR-TAL, DANIEL; RAVIV, ALONA; and GOLDBERG, MARTA. Helping Behavior among Preschool Children: An Observational Study. CHILD DEVELOPMENT, 1982, 53, 396-402. The present study describes helping behavior of preschool children. 156 children between the ages of 18 and 76 months were observed 3 times for 10 min each, during their free play activity. The observers coded each helping act (whether it was performed in play or in reality) and noted its form (sharing, giving, aiding, and comforting), circumstances (self-initiation, compliance, and imitation), and condition (no promise of a reward, promise of social reward, promise of tangible reward and threat). The children were divided into 5 age groups. The results showed that, in general, helping behavior did not increase with age. But, with age, children performed fewer helping acts in imaginative play situations and more real helping acts. Also, with age, children performed more real comforting acts and fewer real giving acts. With regard to the other categories, no age differences were found.

Some notes on systems models and modelling

Abstract This paper discusses the basic concepts of models and modelling. The difference in information contents between a model and the real or imagined situation it is intended to represent is pointed out, and the fact that a model should not be divorced from its intended purpose is strongly emphasized. The act of modelling is defined and discussed. It is concluded that even though formalized approaches to modelling (such as the systems approach) exists ; modelling, as well as the use of models, remains very much an art rather than a science.

Desensitization, behavior rehearsal, then reality: A preliminary report on a new procedure

A combination of systematic desensitization and group role playing (behavior rehearsal) is presented as applied to a young male veteran with a severe anxiety reaction who responded poorly to conventional, insight-oriented group and individual psychotherapy. Unusual resistance to role playing as preparation to meet difficult encounters at home was eliminated by progressive relaxation training and working through a hierarchy of fantasy scenes. It was then possible to bridge a wide gap between imaginative anxiety-arousing interpersonal situations and real life encounters by the reinforcement furnished in a role-playing group. This combination of two mutually reinforcing therapeutic methods may prove effective in situations where either treatment modality employed alone fails.

PREFERRED HANDEDNESS AS A FACTOR IN THE ABILITY TO FORM A SET BASED ON IMAGINAL SITUATIONS

An experimental study is summarized in which the ability to form a set based on imaginal situations was studied under two conditions: when the imaginal situation is in direct conflict with the preferred handedness of the individual, and when the imaginal situation conforms to the preferred handedness of the individual. A fixated set resulting from the imagined situation of handling objects differing in size manifested itself in the subjects' subsequent perception of objectively equal objects or balls as being unequal. Set was more readily established in those subjects whose handedness conformed with the imaginal situation.

On the psychological nature of stage impersonation.

The hypothesis examined in the present paper is that it is fixated set evolved on the basis of picturing to oneself the particular imaginary situation imposed by the play that constitutes the foundation on which stage impersonation rests. Findings are presented of some experiments on the ability to evoke a set on the basis of an imagined situation. The subjects in these experiments were grouped as follows: (a) gifted actors and promising students of the Tbilisi Theatrical Institute; (b) persons unconnected with the theatre; and (c) persons incapable of stage impersonation. The data suggest a high correlation between the ability to evolve a set on the basis of imagination and the capacity for stage impersonation.