The “pinpointing effect” vs. the “diffusion effect” of peer influence

Classroom teachers are learning to employ the peer group to “shape up” dissidents. However, singling out a child may produce undesirable side effects such as emotional behavior, resentment, etc. Can the same result be obtained by rewarding the class for ignoring the target behavior of everyone in the room? Twelve subjects were selected from six middle school classes, two from each class. Each entire class was rewarded for increased ignoring of the target behavior (whispering): in the three P (pinpointed) classes, for ignoring the whispering of Designated (target) subjects; in the three D (diffusion) classes, for ignoring whispering by all class members. The results indicate that a peer group can decrease reinforcement of a disruptive behavior and thereby decelerate it in a singled-out child (Pinpointing Effect) or a behavior emitted by any child in class (Diffusion Effect) with equal effectiveness. However, patterns in the data suggest that peers ignored P-Designated subjects most, D subjects next most, and P-Undesignated subjects the least and that this pattern of ignoring was mirrored in the pattern of deceleration of the target behaviors in the three groups. These patterns suggest that the Pinpointing Effect may be stronger than the Diffusion Effect, but further study is needed.     

“Translated,it is: …” — An Ethics of Transreading

Inspired by Friedrich Nietzsche's idea of philology and William Gass's concept of transreading, Huiwen (Helen) Zhang employs “transreader” to suggest the integration of four roles in one: reader, translator, writer, and scholar. “Transreader” recognizes that close reading, literary translation, creative writing, and cultural hermeneutics are interdependent activities with intertwined goals: to transfer, transvalue, transform, and transcend the canon. From this perspective, Lu Xun, China's Nietzsche, is a twentieth‐century transreader of the canon, and his prose poem “Revenge (The Second)” delivers a self‐referential ethics of transreading. Zhang's transreading of this poem shows why slow reading is today more necessary than ever, in what sense translation is a universal dilemma, how humanity grows when its expression grows more subtle, and that transreading opens a space for genuine communication.     

The Necessity of Being “Un-Disciplined” and “Out of Control”: Design Action and Systems Thinking

This paper introduces; design, integrated with systems thinking, as a necessary if not sufficient means for meeting the challenge of how to create or recreate organizations and institutions which better serve the needs and desires of clients, customers, and stakeholders in a rapidly changing world. As a way of moving conceptual thinking into concrete action, design is dramatically different from the scientific or artistic traditions, which primarily describe or explain the natural or phenomenal world. Three key points that will be explained are: (1) The limits of problem-solving strategies when applied to complex organizational change leave design the strategy of choice; (2) The designer's role is animated by other expression rather than self expression; and (3) From within this role, designers engage in the task of creating the un-natural world by being un-disciplined using systems thinking and by being out-of-control as part of the creative process of design.     

Keep the “H”

This commentary advocates “keeping the H” in “human performance technology” to help make it clear to nonpractitioners what human performance consultants do. There are different types of performance (e.g., financial performance) and different means of achieving performance (e.g., engineering) that are outside the average human performance technologist's repertoire. Though the human performance technologist should target business results and intervene at more than just the individual level, ultimately, their emphasis is improving human work.     

The relative effects of pre- and postattention directing devices on learning from a “walk-through” museum exhibit

Twenty-eight seventh and eighth grade students were randomly assigned to two treatments and a control as they entered the Florida State Museum. All subjects were given set induction materials saying in effect: (1) Treatment-Study the wall panel which is part of the cave exhibit and describes the many biologic relationships and organisms in the cave at the cave entrance. Continue into the cave and study the habitat. When you exit the cave you will be given a test to see how much you learned; (2) Treatment II-Enter the cave and study that habitat. When you exit at the other end, study the wall panel which is part of the cave exit and describes the many biologic relationships and organisms in the cave. After studying this panel you will be given a test to see how much you learned; (3) Control-You will take a walk through exhibits depicting a variety of Florida Habitats and later see a film on the Habitats of Florida that are represented in the museum. Then you will be given a test to determine how much you know about one type of habitat. Both treatments and the control spent equivalent time at their tasks and were confronted with either the cave exhibit as described or the equivalent control experiences. A 25 item criterion test was designed to measure the acquisition of conceptual and factual knowledge and specific attentional factors relative to both the cave and the instructional panel. A Kr-20 indicated that this instrument had a reliability coefficient of 0.80. It was anticipated that the panel, used as an attention directing and controlling device prior to entering the cave (Treatment I) or upon exiting the cave (Treatment II), would function as a forward-shaping or backward review prompting adjunct, hence both should be significantly more effective than the control. This was confirmed (df 2,28; F 8.09) p < 0.01. It was also expected that the forward shaping panel would be more effective than the backward review panel in the tradition of inserted questions in prose research. Although the differences were in this direction, they were not significant (p≤ 0.10).