Affective Images of Climate Change

Climate change is not only a scientific phenomenon, but also a cultural one. Individuals’ opinions on climate change are often based on emotion rather than on scientific evidence. Therefore, research into the emotional characteristics of the imagery that the non-expert public find relevant to climate change is important in order to build a database of effective climate change imagery, which can then be used by scientists, policymakers, and practitioners in mobilizing climate adaptation and resilience efforts. To this end, we collected ratings of relevance to climate change as well as emotional arousal and valence on 320 images to assess the relationship between relevance to climate change and the emotional qualities of the image. In addition, participants’ environmental beliefs were measured, to investigate the relationship between beliefs and image ratings. The results suggest that images rated highly relevant to climate change are higher in negative emotional valence and emotional arousal. Overall, images were rated as being more relevant to climate change by participants with higher pro-environmental disposition. Critically, we have compiled the mean relevance, valence, and arousal ratings of each of these 320 images into a database that is posted online and freely available (https://affectiveclimateimages.weebly.com; https://www.nmu.edu/affectiveclimateimages) for use in future research on climate change visuals

THE QUESTION OF QUESTIONING: STUDYING THE SENSEMAKING PROCESS IN AMBIGUOUS SCENARIOS

Often, we quickly form and maintain theories (frames) about ambiguous situations, but there are circumstances where we need to change these frames. The Data-Frame Model of Sensemaking suggests that the first step to changing one’s frame is to question it. But how does one question their frame? Counterfactual thinking is one possible strategy to encourage questioning a frame, through prompting consideration of mutability within the situation and generating alternative frames. Through seven studies, this research explores people’s ability to question their frames naturally, tests a conceptual model of the role of counterfactual factors like mutability, ambiguity, and availability of alternatives in the questioning process, experimentally tests three mutability-based strategies to promote questioning one’s frame, and finally applies one of these strategies to the academic hiring context. This dissertation also reviews the literature on sensemaking, counterfactual thinking, motivated reasoning, and decision-making heuristics, and how these theories are related to the process or need for questioning a frame

Changing Perspectives: Examining Factors Related To Counterfactual Thinking In Ambiguous Social Judgments

There is much diversity in how people form theories and perspectives about situations. There are many instances today in which people may want others to question their perspectives as a first step to changing them. Aspects of counterfactual thinking such as mutability and availability may be involved in questioning a perspective. We explore this in an exploratory study (n = 80) using ambiguous social judgment scenarios. We performed path analysis on the data to compare four models, three of which are based on counterfactual generation. The best fitting model showed that availability was a mediator for mutability to predict our measure of questioning an initial perspective

Effects of repeated implicit bias training in a North American university

Although implicit bias training programs have become common, the effects of these programs on employee attitudes and behaviours are still unclear, particularly when it comes to the efficacy of repeated, mandatory training. Additional understanding of these programs’ efficacy is needed for setting effective training policy. We measured the effects of training in a mandatory bias literacy program for academic staff involved in personnel decisions at an American public university, specifically by examining the relationship among bias-related knowledge, attitudes, and behaviours and two training variables: the number of times training had been completed, and the time since last training. Time since training had a beneficial effect on behavioural intentions whereas training repetition showed a slight detrimental effect. Results of demographic factors investigated indicated effects of gender, amount of personnel-related committee service, and years at the university on training outcomes. Implications of these results for training policy at universities are discussed

Debate sobre estudios postcoloniales y subalternos

A partir de los comentarios a la reseña elaborada por Ian S. Mclean sobre el libro: Cuerpos incas y el cuerpo de Cristo. El Corpus Christi en Cuzco colonial, Perú, escrito por Carolyn Dean, surge un debate sobre los Estudios Postcoloniales y Subalternos, que se desarrolló entre el 12 de agosto y el 3 de septiembre de 2001, a través de la lista de correo electrónico de H-Latam, grupo de discusión dedicado a la historia latinoamericana. En él participaron destacados especialistas en el tema, quienes analizaron, entre otras cuestiones, el uso de la jerga y las formas de escritura, la novedad de sus planteamientos, sus influencias filosóficas y epistemológicas, su pretensión de captar el punto de vista de los vencidos y subordinados, la pertinencia de unas ideas originalmente desarrolladas para el estudio del colonialismo inglés y luego aplicadas al colonialismo español en América Latina