Tove I. Dahl

The importance of place for learning about peace: residential summer camps as transformative thinking spaces

Do camps provide a particular kind of thinking space where learning that lasts is facilitated? The argument is built around the concept of transformative learning that involves understanding who we are or wish to be and how we grow accordingly. The nature of such learning is explored through its conceptual relationship with changes in attitudes and values, and through the particular kinds of learning opportunities that camps offer as youth‐centred thinking spaces found in the ‘grey zones’ of mainstream institutions that may facilitate such changes. The discussion is extended with a brief presentation of ongoing research designed to explore the nature of peace‐related learning that may be occurring at the Concordia Language Villages – a programme focused on facilitating responsible global citizenship through language and cultural immersion.

Is it language relearning or language reacquisition? Hints from a young boy’s code-switching during his journey back to his native language

Do we reacquire or relearn latent native languages? How can we tell? The language used by a 4-year-old ‘language reactivator’ in his preschool setting was audio recorded for several weeks upon return to the language community of his latent native language. Through a sociocultural lens focusing particularly on the use of code-switching and mixing during the language reactivation process, we analyzed how this young boy spoke, how that gradually changed over time and how he used the social and linguistic resources around him to facilitate that. The type and content of the boy’s code-switching and mixing showed time- and proficiency-related patterns that were both similar to and different from what one would expect of bilingual and of non-native language learners. Furthermore, the boy showed resourcefulness in how he used the linguistic resources around him — interacting primarily with interlocutors who had some competence in both his active and latent native languages early on until he developed sufficient proficiency to interact in the reactivated target language with his monolingual peers thereafter. This suggests a degree of learner mindfulness that distinguishes the language reactivation process from what one might expect were the process purely a matter of reacquiring bilingual proficiency.

The Training of Doctoral Students of Psychology in the United States

This article describes both formal and informal aspects of doctoral training of psychology students in the United States. We first describe admission procedures and the financial support of doctoral students and then discuss the various milestones in a typical doctoral program. There follows an overview of what is expected of doctoral students and a description of the working environment (e.g., faculty and fellow students) in doctoral programs. Finally, we provide a brief analysis of the doctoral training system in the United States. One question of particular importance is whether the close supervision associated with many doctoral programs prepares the student adequately for supervising researchers and developing a research program of his/her own after graduation.

Visual excitement: analyzing the effects of three Norwegian tourism films on emotions and behavioral intentions

ABSTRACT Commercial films are important for deciding where to travel. Nonetheless, surprisingly little is known scientifically about which emotions tourist commercials trigger while watching them and how similarly or differently online vs. post hoc self-reported emotions affect travel intentions. In an experimental study, 142 tourists were randomly allocated into one of three groups. The first group was exposed to a tourist commercial film, the second group watched a different tourist commercial film and the third group saw a short amateur ski film. A subsample was also shown a popular comedy film. Online emotions were captured using FaceReader software that analyzed facial expressions. Self-reported emotions were measured with a questionnaire distributed immediately after each film. Results showed that tourist films elicited hardly any facial expressions at all, and that there was no correlation between those elicited and the same emotions measured with the post-film questionnaire. In contrast, the comedy film elicited higher levels of facial expressions and many of those emotions correlated significantly with those reported in the questionnaire afterwards. Finally, online more than self-reported emotions predicted future intentions to visit.

What’s in a face? Perhaps some elements of both eudaimonic and hedonic well-being

The idea that eudaimonic well-being (EWB) should be distinguished from the more widespread notion of hedonic well-being (HWB), has stirred up disagreement among happiness researchers. Siding with EWB researchers, this study provides theoretical and empirical arguments supporting the distinctiveness and usefulness of a EWB dimension. A path model with data from Norwegian university students (N = 184) showed that, when requested to draw both a happy face and a sad face, indicators of HWB were associated with a preference for working with the happy rather than the sad face. Indicators of EWB were uncorrelated with this hedonic bias. Eudaimonic feeling states were associated with the level of creativity involved in the drawings, while hedonic feelings were not. Finally, participants who draw bigger faces also felt more pleasure during the act of drawing. Eudaimonic feelings were unrelated to the size of the drawing.

Whizzing through the High North: Motorists' Psychological Experience of the Countryside

Abstract Exposure to natural environments can positively influence us, yet it is unknown whether that is also the case for people who drive through natural environments, often at fast speeds. What restorative impact might driving through High North countrysides have on motorists and how might that affect their feelings of curiosity and interest relevant for the desire to explore where they are? Psychological mechanisms that may contribute to transforming rural spaces into such eudaimonically engaging places were explored with questionnaire data collected from 98 motorists in the North American High North. They were grouped by mindset (journey and/or destination) and then compared in terms of four aspects of perceived restorativeness (being away, extent, fascination and compatibility), emotion (positive and negative) and their effect on two curiosity measures (exploration and absorption) and affective interest. We found that travel mindset was related mostly to perceived restorativeness, particularly among those who were more destination-oriented, and to interest. Regression analyses revealed that feelings of restorativeness also enhanced the predictability of curiosity and interest, though the four aspects of perceived restorativeness did so in different ways. The complexity of these experiences is discussed in terms of their theoretical value and possible implications for practice.

Is Our Fascination With Museum Displays More About What We Think or How We Feel

ABSTRACT What is the cognitive and emotional nature of fascination? Drawing on theories of cognitive and emotional interest, we explored the nature of visitor fascination (i.e., intense interest) at two High North museums in Norway. In Study 1, we found interesting and informative patterns related to which museum displays 20 teenage visitors experienced as particularly fascinating and why, along with the cognitive and affective qualities associated with those fascinations. We pursued these findings in more detail with 60 new visitors in Study 2. Through path modeling we were then able to capture the dynamics of when each of the following variables mattered to museum display experiences and in what ways: (1) display-relevant prior knowledge and interest, (2) the cognitive accessibility and emotional pleasure of museum display experiences, and (3) cognitive and affective interest outcomes. Implications for theories of interest and future research for exhibit design are discussed.

The northernmost Cognitive Science Laboratory

The University of Tromsø is situated in the town of Tromsø in Norway (69.4 N) and it is the world’s northernmost university. Hence, the Cognitive Science Laboratory of the Department of Psychology at the University of Tromsø is also the world’s northernmost laboratory of its kind. The University of Tromsø is the fourth and most recent university to be established in Norway. The department of Psychology is also relatively ‘‘young’’ (being established in 1983) and a rather international group of researchers and teachers have formed or currently form our departmental staff. Collectively, our academic backgrounds originate from various universities in Norway as well as from Belgium, Britain, Canada, Chile, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Sweden, and the USA. Among the various parallel projects that are currently run in the cognitive science laboratory, some do take advantage of the geographical location of the university by dealing with the effect of ‘‘extreme’’ latitudes and unusual seasonal patterns of daylight on cognitive and perceptual processing (e.g., Brennen et al. 1999; Brennen 2001). However, our interests, taken collectively, span a rather wide range of topics revolving around key questions in cognitive science, like attention (and its disorders: spatial neglect, ADHD), memory, visual imagery, perception of objects and faces, comprehension and learning, and the organization of knowledge. Moreover, a range of methods are currently used to address the above themes, e.g., studies of brain-damaged patients, eye-tracking, computational modeling, human operant conditioning, and classic cognitive/behavioral methods. The cerebral basis of spatial vision

Skiing and Thinking About It: Moment-to-Moment and Retrospective Analysis of Emotions in an Extreme Sport

Happiness is typically reported as an important reason for participating in challenging activities like extreme sport. While in the middle of the activity, however, participants do not seem particularly happy. So where does the happiness come from? The article proposes some answers from a study of facially expressed emotions measured moment-by-moment during a backcountry skiing event. Self-reported emotions were also assessed immediately after the skiing. Participants expressed lower levels of happiness while skiing, compared to when stopping for a break. Moment-to-moment and self-reported measures of emotions were largely unrelated. These findings are explained with reference to the Functional Wellbeing Approach (Vittersø, 2013), which argues that some moment-to-moment feelings are non-evaluative in the sense of being generated directly by the difficulty of an activity. By contrast, retrospective emotional feelings are more complex as they include an evaluation of the overall goals and values associated with the activity as a whole.

The Emotional Traveler: Happiness and Engagement as Predictors of Behavioral Intentions Among Tourists in Northern Norway

Recent theories on emotion suggest that a limited set of core feelings are the cornerstone of subjective experiences. The article proposes to bring this perspective more deeply into the study of tourist experiences and behavioral intentions. It argues that two distinct categories of positive feelings are of particular importance when analyzing the experiences of travelers. The first category reflects feelings such as happiness, pleasure, and satisfaction. The second category reflects feelings such as engagement, interest, and absorption. With questionnaire data from 505 visitors to two popular sites in Northern Norway, the current study investigated the degree to which visitors’ on-site feelings of happiness and engagement predict intentions to revisit to, or recommend to others, the destination. Results showed that engagement, but not happiness, predicted the visitors’ intention to revisit. Engagement further predicted intentions to recommend the site to others. Feelings of on-site happiness also predicted recommendation intentions. The implications of the theoretical perspective and empirical results presented in the article are discussed.