Linda Silka

Perceived difficulty, energization, and the magnitude of goal valence ☆

Abstract This paper examines the proposition that the mobilization of energy and consequent magnitude of valence of a potential outcome (e.g., goal) is a function of what the individual perceives can and must be done in order to attain or avoid the outcome. An outcome that is difficult to attain or avoid requires a relatively high level of energization and will be relatively attractive, if positive, or unpleasant, if negative. Outcomes that are easy or impossible to attain or avoid require little or no energization and will be relatively low in attractiveness, if positive, or low in unpleasantness, if negative. This formulation was supported by four experiments that demonstrated (a) attractiveness of a goal is a nonmonotonic function of perceived difficulty of attaining it; (b) unpleasantness of a potential negative outcome is a nonmonotonic function of perceived difficulty of avoiding it; (c) the nonmonotonic effect of perceived difficulty on goal attractiveness disappears once instrumental behavior has been completed; and (d) the nonmonotonic effect of perceived difficulty on unpleasantness of a potential negative outcome occurs in immediate but not distant anticipation of initiating instrumental behavior. Alternative explanations, theoretical problems, and implications are discussed.

Building on the Strengths of a Cambodian Refugee Community Through Community-Based Outreach

Literature and practice are limited on strategies to reach elder Southeast Asian refugees by using their strengths and resilience. This article presents the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention—funded Cambodian Community Health 2010 Program in Lowell, Massachusetts, as a case example and provides refugee history, project background, community survey results about strengths and risks, literature on strengths-based approaches, outreach activities, and evaluation. The focus is elimination of health disparities in cardiovascular disease and diabetes. “Community conversations” and a daylong forum with community leaders were used to develop plans for outreach. A Cambodian Elders Council provided information and guidance used to refine the program. Key findings highlight involving elders in organizing events, avoiding reliance on literacy, integrating health promotion with socialization, using ties with Buddhist temples, developing transportation alternatives, and utilizing local Khmer-language media. Implications include applicability to other refugee communities with low literacy, high levels of trauma, limited English, and strong religious involvement.

Artbotics: community-based collaborative art and technology education

The paper describes the formation and the progress of the Artbotics collaboration between disciplines in art and computer science. Its focus is on the pedagogy and issues of interdisciplinary undergraduate course development, particularly how to define and maintain the balance between Art and Science education.

You Just Can't Count on Things Anymore Perceptions of Increased Variability in the Present

The present studies investigate one possible explanation as to why things are sometimes viewed as having become more variable in the present than they were in the past. It is proposed that such perceptions arise when variable information in the present is contrasted with a heterogeneity-reducing summary for the past. In order to test this hypothesis, subjects in two studies were asked to compare a collection of individual items with either the prior average alone or with the prior range and average. It was found that when comparisons were made to the prior average alone, people were much more likely to conclude that variability had increased.

Environmental Communication and Refugee and Immigrant Communities: The Lowell Experience

Portions of the work described in this article were funded by National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences Environmental Justice Partnership Grant ES07718-04 and a U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Environmental Education Grant. Address correspondence to Linda Silka, Center for Family, Work, and Community, University of Massachusetts Lowell, 600 Suffolk Street, 1st Floor, South, Lowell, MA 01854-3629, USA. Environmental Communication and Refugee and Immigrant Communities: The Lowell Experience

Looking for Change

Intuitive change judgments often arise in an after-the-fact fashion. Perceivers do not ordinarily start out expecting to assess change in the future and so proceed to gather information about events in a uniform manner over time in order to have appropriate information at hand when an occasion for assessing change arrives. On the contrary, it is typically not until some occasion calling for a change judgment occurs that an interest in gauging change in a particular area comes into play.

Judging Change With Informal Data

When informal data serve as the basis for comparing the present with the past, what sorts of conclusions about change are likely to emerge? What characteristics of everyday information account for the features that are common to change judgments in different areas? These questions will be the focus of the present chapter as we examine how the character of change impressions can be understood as an outgrowth of the kinds of informal facts readily available to the intuitive perceiver.

Past and Future Directions for the Study of Change Judgments

We are now ready in this chapter to assess the ground that has been gained thus far in understanding intuitive change judgments and to survey the ground that lies ahead. The studies presented in the foregoing chapters by no means provide a comprehensive assessment of even the limited set of theses proposed here, but they do provide a systematic, if incomplete, guide to an important and otherwise unexplored topic. In the first part of the present chapter, our current understanding of change judgments will be summarized and laid out in systematic fashion. The second part of the chapter, which is devoted to outlining directions for future research, will describe a sampling of important problems that remain for investigation.

The Ubiquity of Intuitive Change Judgments

The humorist and social commentator James Thurber once wrote that we have changed so much that new fairy tales are needed to reflect the modern age. In his pointed revision of “Little Red Riding Hood,” the little protagonist no longer cowers in the corner and depends on her wits when confronted by the wolf; instead, Little Red Riding Hood now there is a new moral to the story: it’s not so easy to fool little girls nowadays as it used to be.

A Framework for the Study of Change Judgments

The chief aim of this chapter is to lay out a framework for the selection and analysis of problems in the study of everyday change judgments. This framework developed out of three general assumptions about the kinds of change judgments that are important to understand and about the underlying character of the intuitive perceiver’s approach to change. In the following section, these assumptions are discussed, along with their implications for the choice of a suitable approach to the topic of informal change judgments. The framework will then be outlined.