Activities to Develop Systems Thinking
Six activities to develop systems thinking are described and discussion questions follow. The activities involve the creation and discussion of (1) to parts and back again, (2) points of view, (3) making a model, (4) what happens if? (5) how do they feel? and (6) playing the scene. The activities bear importantly on the ability […]
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). Read Full Text Here: An Application of…
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 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 […]
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. Read Full Text Here: Conversation in Research…
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 […]
Design and Systems – General Applications of Methodology
Praxiology starts from the point of view of effectiveness. It has three components: analysis of concepts involving purposive actions; critique of modes of action from the viewpoint of efficiency; and normative advisory aspects in recommendations for increasing human efficiency. The third volume of this series aims to make more visible tot he English readership the importance […]
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. Read Full Text Here: Developing a Systematic…
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 […]
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. Read Full Text Here: Doing Psychological…
Effects of film violence on subsequent operant conditioning
Viewing a violent film enhanced only the aquisition of a verbally reinfored word class that has a meaningful connection to the film. A nonviolent film and no film condition failed to produce this effect; however, the nonviolent film did influence conditioning. The findings suggested two potentially fruitful avenues of inquiry. (This piece is a collaboration […]
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 […]
Evolutionary Guidence Systems and Systems Design
A group of people working together with a common purpose can be conceptualized as a Human Activity System. The group can seek to become an Evolutionary Gudance System. When Systems Design is combined with these aspects of Systems Thinking and Methodology into a process for Systems Development, their integration represents an important and powerful advance […]
Learning by Design
As the teachers of children, we assume that learning occurs in the classroom, playground, and home, whether we instruct the children or not. It will and must occur for every human being responds to the environment by learning. In order to survive. However, we take an active and deciding role in the development and implementation […]
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 […]
Methodological Perspectives on Human Systems, Design, and Learning for a More Global Ethic
People working together with a common purpose can be conceptualized as a human activity system. The group can take a degree of command over its own learning through practive in and implementation of systems design. This process is one form of systems inquiry, which may have important ramifications fort he evolution of institutions, communities and […]
Openness in a General Process Model for Systems Design in Education
This paper explores openness-and a central concept in the theory of human activity systems-and applies this concept to the design of educational systems. Afrcr describing a hierarchy which includes five levels of openness, the authors present all argument for more open models of education which are necessary to match the complexities of contemporary life. (This […]
Qualitative Research Methods in Psychology and Human Science
Formerly titled Non-Experimental methods, this course emphasizes aspect of processing and interpreting data and obervations characteristic of those research methods that favor the generation and collection of written text, narrative accounts, graphics, and visual displays in the study of human phenomena. Several data collection and processing techniques and procedures are given special attention, such as […]
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 […]
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 […]
Writing the Essay That is a Critique of Research
There are many kinds of essays. The kind of essay that engages in the critique of a scientific research investigation, as represented in its published form of a research report, can be termed the research essay. Writing a research essay is a scholarly activity you will do repeatedly throughout your graduate studies at Saybrook Institute. To write […]
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 […]
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 […]
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. Read Full Text Here: Academic Program Evaluation…
Correspndance Logical Openness in Systems
From General Systems Theory, the open systems concept is re-examined introducing a hierarchy base on context, modeling communication and meta relation, and the concept of kinds of openness, A hierarchy is proposed in one kind of openness: logical. Logical openness is described and a dialectical, dynamic view is proposed in place of the static view. […]
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, […]
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 […]
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 […]
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. Read […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
Designing Cognitive Systems in the Systems Sciences for Human Betterment
This group report is a synopsis of our four-day conversation. Our conversation cinsisted of an exchange of information, discussion, and articulation of select constructs and knowledge domains pertinent to our focal topic. Philosophical foundations, the nonsystemic natuer of contemporary cognitive psychology, cognitive schemata, emergence, role of the researcher, transdisiplinarity, knowledge as a construct, centrality of […]