Activities to Develop Systems Thinking

An Application of Experiental Method in Psychology: What is it like to be a Stranger in a Foreign Land

Essential to our everyday life and applicable to research methodology in psychology, experience has both an active and passive side. An examination of the entries in the dictionary makes this duality clear (Table l2-l).

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Category Repetition and Proactive Inhibition in Short-term Memory

This study examined the effects of repeating a taxonomic category using the Wickens' modification of the Peterson-Peterson short-term memory technique. Word triads from seven taxonomic categories were presented in blocked fashion to human Ss for thirty-two trials. After each block of four trials of one category, the Ss in the control condition were shifted to a new category for the next four trials. In the experimental condition, other Ss received new word triads from the same category every other block.

A Conversation Design for Systemic Research on and Betterment of the Ethicality of Information Systems Embedded in Human Organizations

A general conversation design is described. It is a prototypical map that can be detailed and followed to facilitate human inquiry and foster improvements at the interface of social and information systems in human organizations. The design consists of four stages. The Es of praxiology is a conceptual scheme to articulate discussion, as are the use of case studies in the design. Two case study exemplars, one about the ethics of information systems and the other about ethics in research, serve to provide the substance by which participants can converse, and repeatedly traverse the four stages to generate a stream of discourse.

Conversation in Research Methodology for Human Activity Systems

Conversation is a collective form of human discourse that tends to be taken-for-granted in most systemic methods and methodologies. Several aspects of conversation that bear on the successful implementation of systemic research are discussed.

Describing Transcultural Activity in the Framework of the Systemic View

The purpose of this paper is to describe one arena that we have found productive to transcultural activity in the framework of the systemic view. We shall fulfill this aim in four parts. In the first section, we define two concepts, cultural and national, and some derivatives which follow from them. In the second section, we suggest a systemic approach of application for this conceptual scheme. In the third section, we describe one exemplary arena of our transcultural activity, which has drawn us together. And in the last section, we convey our perceptions and critical views toward our work, aII of which we hope are of value to those interested and engaged in such activites.

(This piece is a collaboration of authors)

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Design and Systems – General Applications of Methodology

Developing a Systemic Approach to Human Science Research Methodology

Six directions to advance research methods for human inquiry are described, illustrated, and discussed in relation to three levels of methodological complexity, which lead to the use of more generic, perspectivistic, and integrative means to construct methodologies for the conduct of collaborative, disciplined, and human oriented inquiry.

Disciplinarity in the Pursuit of Knowledge

From the perspective of systemics, Minati and Collen (1997) have described disciplirarity in terms of phases or forms of human activity to seek, develop, and produce knowledge. Disciplinarity manifests in four forms: singular, multiple, inter-relational, and boundary-breaking pursuits. Altlough there is the notion that knowledge resultant of each form is reflective of and delimited by its characteristic form, the presentation falls short in its depiction of the scheme as a whole to ue a higler order conceptual system.

Doing Psychological Research on the Internet

Some advantages and disadvantages of doing psychological research via the Internet are discussed, specifically bias, disclosure, resource utilization, and sampling.

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Effects of film violence on subsequent operant conditioning

Enhancing Systems Design Practice Through Creative Synergy

This report summarizes the efforts and conclusions of the Design Group at the Fuschl Conversation 1996. The week-long Fuschl Conversations were co-founded by Professor Bela Banathy and Professor Gerhard Chroust and, given financial support from the IFSR, have taken place bi-ennually since 1982. The ongoing theme of the Fuschl Conversations has been: 'How can we use the insights gained from systems science for the improvement of the human condition?'

(This piece is a collaboration of authors.)

Evolutionary Guidence Systems and Systems Design

Learning by Design

Logical Openness and the Ethics of Globality

In this brief presentation we discuss the relationship between openness and ethics. More specifically, our focus here is one form of openness, logical openness, previously described [4, 5, 11, 12], and its relevance to globality. We use the term gloablity to mean the emergent state of the Earth as a result of the impact of humanity on its biosphere. In this regard, globalizing refers to the processes of human interaction with and engagement in the biosphere, which are currently being described and disseminated as the trends of humanity [1,7,8,9, 15], because of the apparent reproductive and survival success af homo sapiens. Undoubtedly, this success is transforming rapidly almost every aspect of the biosphere. Whether the transformations are desirable and beneficial is the ethical question.

(This piece is a collaboration of authors)

Methodological Perspectives on Human Systems, Design, and Learning for a More Global Ethic

Openness in a General Process Model for Systems Design in Education

Qualitative Research Methods in Psychology and Human Science

The Seventh Annual International Conference of the International Systems Institue on the Comprehensive Design of Evolutionary Learning Systems

D-Gang is a research team that began as "Group D" or the Design Culture group in the ISI Conversation Events prior to the 1990's and has evolved over the yearly meetings through progressionof ever more finely tuned research foci. In 1990 and '91 we were concerned with defining the concept of a  "design culture"; by '92 the quest was for the principles and steps to guide designin communities; in '93 we focsed on the components for building a design culture (the design principles, the learning system, and the resources or "tools" of design); by '94 we evolved fromam a Group to a Gang and focused our efforts on the relational dynamics amoung the components previously identified, and in '95 we sought to consider what would be a deign culture that would enable trasnendence, and in the process, reached an impasse in our own transendence as a research team with unity of purpose.

Whether to Design and Plan a Life

The individual human being is the point of reference from which the design and plan of a life take shape. This paper examines the essental idea of design and plan as they may be applied to lifelong learning, with special attention given to individuation and lifestyle. Further, it discusses the idea of a personal guidance system for one's learning, professional and social development, which centers on a value base for organizing one's designing and planning activities.

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Writing the Essay That is a Critique of Research

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A Conversation Design for Systemic Research on and Betterment of tthe Ethicality of Information Systems Embedded in Human Organizations

A general conversation design is described. It is a prototypical map that can be detailed and foliowed to facilitate human inquiry and foster improvements at the interface of social and information systems in human organizations. The design consists of four stages. The Es of praxiology is a conceptual scheme to articulate discussion, as are the use of case studies in the design. Two case study exemplars, one about the ethics of information systems and the other about ethics in research, serve to provide the substance by which participants can converse, and repeatedly traverse the four stages to generate a stream of discourse.

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Design of a Conversation

This paper is a group report. which represents the summary of our conversation. It consists of six sections.

After general discussion about the topic of designing Fuschl type conversations. we hit upon the metaphor of Lighting the Fire. It became the central metaphor for our group process. The first section represents our exploration of the metaphor in regard to starting up a genuine conversation.

(This piece is a collaboration of authors)

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Academic Program Evaluation as Institutional Self-Study: Evaluating a Graduate Program of Psychology

Whether for program development, change or accreditation, academic program evaluation provides a very useful means of establishing and sustaining institutional self-study. The recent evaluation of the four graduate programs of the Humanistic Psychology Institute serves to model several important aspects of this process.

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Correspndance Logical Openness in Systems

Describing Transcultural Activity in the Framework of the Systemic View

The purpose of this paper is to describe one arena that we have found productive to transcultural activity in the framework of the systemic view. We shall fulfill this aim in four parts.  In the first section, we define two concepts, cultural and national, and some derivatives which follow from them. In the second section, we suggest a systemic approach of application for this conceptual scheme. In the third section, we describe one exemplary arena of our transcultural activity, which has drawn us together. And in the last section, we convey our perceptions and critical views toward our work, all of which we hope are of value to those interested and engaged in such activities.

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Designing an Evaluation System for Human Betterment: The Case of Human Participants in Research

Wherever humans are the subjects of research in the United States, those who use them are required to present their research procedures to an Institutional Review Board (RB) who scrutinize them for their potential of aversive impact on human participants. The IRB represents a kind of human activity system that exists to look out for the welfare of human participants in research. Their review of a proposed research project involves a process of evaluative inquiry.

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Effects of Hunger Upon Cardiac Deceleratory Response to Food Pictures

When people observe a series of dift'erent pictures, the greater the interest-value of a picture, the greater the attendant cardiac deceleration. It was therefore reasoned that when the same picture (or one of equal interest-value) is observed on two occasions, once when the observer is highly motivated to find the picture interesting and once when he is not, greater deceleration should occur when interest in the picture has been heightened.

(This piece is a collaboration of authors)

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Evolutionary Guidance Systems for the Systems Design of a Just Society For Future Generations

This symposium is to demonstrate the concept of the Evolutionary Guidance System(EGS.). The panel members have been part of an EGS at Saybrook Institute. They will report on their progress, and with the participation of and in dialog with the audience, make us of Banathy's- Systems Design Architecture to self-organize and consider further selected aspects of the conference theme.

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Provocative Dialogues on Review of Ethical Issues and Practices

Wherever humans are the objects and subjects of research, the projects that use them require prior scrutiny by a committee known in the United States as the Institutional Review Board (IRB). The board examines proposed research projects for their potential aversive impact of the research procedures on human participants. The IRB represents one kind of social system, and the process of review may be construed as a process of human science inquiry.

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Reflection

A conversation of the type we have held at Fuschl-am-See is a coming together of a few dozen people to engage in a human communication process of creation over 5 days. This type of conversation, it appears to me, involves five spaces,which, as a collective, forms its conceptual foundation. The five spaces can also be a useful conceptual framework for describing and mapping the structure and process of the conversation.

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Reflection and Metaphor in Conversation

Talking with one another is a prime medium through which most designing, planning, and learning takes place. Through our interacting and interrelating, we make visible, affirm, develop, maintain, change, and reaffirm our education systems. This short essay focuses specifically on two mental activities that can be used as effective methods with human communication to converse within an education community in order to facilitate changes in the system. I shall first define these methods, then provide a vivid example. Finally, I will describe two contexts in which they are being used for systemic change in education.

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The Effect of Food Deprivation on Cardiac Response and Subjective Rating During Visual Attention

Heart rate has been reported to decrease during attention to environmental events, assuming attention being uncomplicated by requirements of cognitive work and energetic motor activity. The explanatory association between cardiac deceleration and external attention is strengthened by the recent finding that the greater the attention-value of a stimulus, the greater the deceleration it produces. But attention to specific environmental events is a function of the perceiver's motivational state as well as of stimulus properties. Hence cardiac decelerations during the viewing of a class of objects should be greater when the subject is motivated to perceive them and less great when he is not so motivated.

Knowledge, Ethics, Quality, and Value in Human Organizations: A System Dynamic Approach

A work in progress is described that uses system dynamics to model the flow of knowledge in human organizations. The concept of the knowledge unit is proposed for simulation. The interest is to the study of the flows of knowledge for product and service processes, and relate them to quality factors and value thal can bring greater weight to societal ethicality and worth rather than solely monetary profitability.

A Conversation for Bettering Human Systems

The team focus is described and the preliminary synthesis provided of the individual input papers and email activity that occurred prior to meeting. Synopsis of the conversation over the four days it Presented. Bettering emerged as the prirrcipal theme interrelating all aspects of the conversation. Summary is given of the group presentation to and conversation with the other conversation teams. The meanings and.implications of bettering distinguished this conversation from the previous ones of this team.

Advancing Human Science

The purpose of this paper is to seek greater clarity about human science by scrutinizing some conceptual distictions. We shall see that such distinctions, whether for inquiry or pedagogy, have given rise to the current difficulties. The demarcations and their consequences have not provided greater clarity, but rather controversy over the nature of human science in both content and method. In this paper, I will be using the phrase "human science" as a generic, collective reference to those sciences and disciplines which penain directly to human beings.

Creative Living as Health, Health as Creative Living, and Case Study of Seemingly Insurmountable Challenge

A case study of profound challenge illustrates a bifurcation point in life between the positive and negative path, in which the subject has taken a creative approach to strategize and actualize his life course. The case is described by means of an invited lecture, followed by dialog between authors, both of which are discussed in reference to personal and therapeutic relevance, and methodological aspects of case study research.

(This piece is a collaboration of authors)

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Design Learning and Learning Design Systems

It is helpful for me to begin with a preliminary look at the question,"What does a system for design learning mean to me?" My search for an answer will be guided by some introductory thoughts about learning, design learning, and systems for design learning. After a brief consideration of these topics, I will discuss my general interest in the question.

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Designing a System for Design Learning: Designers and/or Learners?

Inthe third volume of this series, I addressed the question, "What does a system for design learning mean to me?" (collen, 1994). The purpose of this chapter is to continue this direction of personal inquiry further thoughts upon and extension of select aspects of my previous statement, and the process articulate the important relation between designer and learner.

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Designing Cognitive Systems in the Systems Sciences for Human Betterment