Why theatre-based research works? Psychological theories from behind the curtain

While many scholars have demonstrated the effectiveness of theatre-based knowledge mobilization, fewer studies have examined its psychological dimensions. This article examines some psychological theories that may account for the success behind theatre-based knowledge mobilization. Drawing from the Canadian Experience Project, a study about the labor market challenges of skilled immigrant workers, we show how theatre-based research dissemination efforts attempt to achieve optimal stress by using aesthetic distance processes. We maintain that this psychological capacity to attune to audience members, especially evident in forum theatre, makes theatre a particularly effective means for knowledge mobilization.     

Avoidance of eye gaze by adults who stutter

PurposeAdults who stutter are at significant risk of developing social phobia. Cognitive theorists argue that a critical factor maintaining social anxiety is avoidance of social information. This avoidance may impair access to positive feedback from social encounters that could disconfirm fears and negative beliefs. Adults who stutter are known to engage in avoidance behaviours, and may neglect positive social information. This study investigated the gaze behaviour of adults who stutter whilst giving a speech.Method16 adults who stutter and 16 matched controls delivered a 3-min speech to a television display of a pre-recorded lecture theatre audience. Participants were told the audience was watching them live from another room. Audience members were trained to display positive, negative and neutral expressions. Participant eye movement was recorded with an eye-tracker.ResultsThere was a significant difference between the stuttering and control participants for fixation duration and fixation count towards an audience display. In particular, the stuttering participants, compared to controls, looked for shorter time at positive audience members than at negative and neutral audience members and the background.ConclusionsAdults who stutter may neglect positive social cues within social situations that could serve to disconfirm negative beliefs and fears.Educational objectives: The reader will be able to: (a) describe the nature of anxiety experienced by adults who stutter; (b) identify the most common anxiety condition among adults who stutter; (c) understand how information processing biases and the use of safety behaviours contribute to the maintenance of social anxiety; (d) describe how avoiding social information may contribute to the maintenance of social anxiety in people who stutter; and (e) describe the clinical implications of avoidance of social information in people who stutter.     

Grafting Orchids and Ugly: Theatre, Disability and Arts-Based Health Research

Theatre-based health policy research is an emerging field, and this article investigates the work of one of its leaders. In 2005, prominent medical geneticist and playwright Jeff Nisker and his collaborators produced Orchids, his play concerning pre-implantation genetic diagnosis, to research theatre as a tool for engaging citizens in health policy development. Juxtaposing Orchids with a concurrent disability theatre production in Vancouver entitled Ugly, I argue that disability theatre suggests important means for building inclusiveness in this kind of research and complicates Nisker’s own call for international guidelines to delimit how journalists, playwrights, filmmakers, physicians and other media authors share genetics-based narratives in public.     

Flow within theatrical consumption: The relevance of authenticity

Despite its relevance and potential for explaining various arts consumption phenomena, examination of flow within that context has been limited. This study aims to expand knowledge about arts consumer behaviour by integrating flow construct into an explanatory model that examines the relationships among authenticity of core and peripheral aspects of the arts experience, flow, enjoyment, and intention to recommend. Data were collected from 219 theatre audience members through a self‐administered questionnaire and analysed with structural equation modelling. Results show that authenticity concerning the core product positively influences flow and enjoyment, whereas authenticity of venue is instrumental in providing the audience with enjoyment. Flow experienced in theatre is conducive to enjoyment, which, in turn, has a positive effect on intention to recommend. Managers of arts organisations can make inferences from study findings for developing customer communication and education strategies, designing performing arts venues, and managing customer feedback mechanisms. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Editors’ Overview: Neuroethics: Many Voices and Many Stories

Advances in neuroscience continue to enhance understanding of the brain and provide new tools to take advantage of that understanding. These changes are poised to profoundly alter society. Given that the impact will be felt not only by neuroscientists, but by diverse members of society, it is imperative that conversations engage all stakeholders. Doing so will allow for the sharing of diverse views and perspectives to understand and frame the science, better educate and prepare the public for new developments, and provide a shared approach to identifying and resolving ethical challenges. These were the goals of Neuroethics Week, staged in 2007 by the Center for Ethics in Science and Technology in San Diego, and are the basis for the contributions to this special issue of Science and Engineering Ethics.     

From the “reel” world to the “real” world: subjective experiences of violent fictional entertainment

Fictional violence holds strong appeal for a wide audience. Given this appeal and the public’s concern about it, researchers have extensively investigated whether there is a direct effect of exposure to fictional violence on individuals’ aggressive behaviours. In the present research, we aimed to contribute to the comparatively smaller body of research concerned with factors that motivate individuals to engage with fictional violence. We interviewed 10 adults about their own subjective understanding of the reasons why they engage with fictional violence. We used thematic analysis to explore participants’ talk about their subjective experiences of their motivations. We interpret our findings to indicate that individuals make sense of their engagement with fictional violence as a means to understand the real world, to regulate arousal, and to experience a just world. We discuss the practical implications of these findings and directions for future research.     

Developmentalism And The Child In Nineteenth-Century Science

In recent years, public science events have been designed as a means to foster a dialogue between science and the public and to contribute to ongoing policy processes. Regardless of their tangible outcome, such events rely on a certain framing, reconfigure scientific knowledge and conceptualise the public in specific ways. These constructs are exemplified by a science festival that was held in the train station hall in Zurich. Novel insights can be gained from a spatial, an object and an actor-related approach borrowed from the artistic context: the discussions about the White Cube can be adapted to contribute to the analysis of the science festival. When we look into the spatial situation created to foster exchange about scientific knowledge, we find how the exhibition display is taking care of minor details. While the organisers transformed the station hall into a laboratory, they created a kind of dialogic situation that filled an authority gap as it equally enabled exchange. The objects put in place in the exemplary case helped to design a customer–supplier relationship between the public and science. Under the umbrella of the science event, a range of diverse research endeavours was homogenised and unified. The audience, finally, was invited to familiarise itself with scientific knowledge. However, they were allocated a consumer role that obliged them to remain guests in the laboratory environment of the station hall. Thus, public science events may be successful in attracting large attendance and allowing more experiences with science, but while they create novel forms of familiarisation with science for visitors, they do not necessarily remedy public doubts about science and technology.     

Activist Theatre: The Effects of Community Performance on System Justification and Willingness to Engage in Activism

System justification is a motivation to legitimize the status quo that disables individuals from changing oppressive social systems. Community performance has long been used as a tool to illuminate and challenge such systems of power. The goal of the present study was to provide an empirical test of the effectiveness of community performance in the context of gender‐based oppression. Specifically, the present study tested whether a community performance could decrease audience members' system justification and increase intentions to engage in collective and virtual action to correct these oppressive systems. The performance consisted of 18 community‐created pieces performed by 11 actresses before an audience of 165 members of the college and local communities across three days. A total of 153 audience members participated in the study. Results indicated that a 50‐min performance reduced system justification while increasing willingness to take collective and virtual‐based action. Limitations and implications are discussed. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A Study of Volunteer Clients Who Experienced Live Sessions of Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy in Front of a Public Audience

This is a study of the responses of 100 selected subjects who gave their reactions to experiencing a live session of Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy (REBT) with Albert Ellis in front of a public audience. Ninety-seven of the respondents found their session helpful; only 13 felt uncomfortable discussing their problems in public; 99 of them felt that Dr. Ellis focused on their main problem; 94 of them reported that they somewhat or very much used Dr. Ellis's suggestions; 90 of them felt that the members of the audience suggestions were helpful; and 93 of them said that they would like to work with Dr. Ellis again at a public therapy session. Limitations of this study are discussed.     

Twenty-First Century Science as a Relational Process: From Eureka! To Team Science and a Place for Community Psychology

In this paper we maintain that twenty-first century science is, fundamentally, a relational process in which knowledge is produced (or co-produced) through transactions among researchers or among researchers and public stakeholders. We offer an expanded perspective on the practice of twenty-first century science, the production of scientific knowledge, and what community psychology can contribute to these developments. We argue that: (1) trends in science show that research is increasingly being conducted in teams; (2) scientific teams, such as transdisciplinary teams of researchers or of researchers collaborating with various public stakeholders, are better able to address complex challenges; (3) transdisciplinary scientific teams are part of the larger, twenty-first century transformation in science; (4) the concept of heterarchy is a heuristic for team science aligned with this transformation; (5) a contemporary philosophy of science known as perspectivism provides an essential foundation to advance twenty-first century science; and (6) community psychology, through its core principles and practice competencies, offers theoretical and practical expertise for advancing team science and the transformation in science currently underway. We discuss the implications of these points and illustrate them briefly with two examples of transdisciplinary team science from our own work. We conclude that a new narrative is emerging for science in the twenty-first century that draws on interpersonal transactions in teams, and active engagement by researchers with the public to address critical accountabilities. Because of its core organizing principles and unique blend of expertise on the intersection of research and practice, community psychologists are well-prepared to help advance these developments, and thus have much to offer twenty-first century science.     

WHY WE SHOULD CARE ABOUT EVOLUTION AND NATURAL HISTORY

Historians play it safe. Complex issues are dissected while analytical distance keeps stakeholders at bay. But the relevance of historical research may be lost in caution and failure to engage with a wider audience. We can't afford that. We have too much to offer and too much at stake. We need to take the discussion of science and religion beyond our own professional circles. Peter Harrison's The Territories of Science and Religion gives us an opportunity to do so. We can use his book to understand why people consistently get the relation wrong. However, we need to take the next step ourselves, involve historians in the common academic goal, across disciplines, to make sense of the world around us and make that combined knowledge truly useful. Evolution and natural history might help to that effect.     

Neuroscience and Ethics: Intersections

This essay will address the ethical issues that have emerged in the first considerations of the newly emerging stem cell technology. Many of us in the field of bioethics were deliberating related issues as we first learned of the new science and confronted the ethical issues it raised. In this essay, I will draw on the work of colleagues who were asked to reflect on early stages of the research (members of the IRBs, the Geron Ethicist Advisory Board, and the National Bioethics Advisory Commission) as the field debated the issues of consent, moral status, use of animal tissues, abortion, use of fetal tissue, and the nature and goals of entrepreneurial research. In this new capacity, ethicists weighed the problem of privacy, the role of justice considerations, and the issues of the marketplace in science. At this point, it is clear that far more issues remain unresolved than are settled, that there is largely unexplored territory ahead, and that the single most important task that faces us as a field is a steady call for ongoing conversation and public debate.     

Making the audience a key participant in the science communication process

The public communication of science and technology has become increasingly important over the last several decades. However, understanding the audience that receives this information remains the weak link in the science communication process. This essay provides a brief review of some of the issues involved, discusses results from an audience-based study, and suggests some strategies that both scientists and journalists can use to modify media coverage in ways that can help audiences better understand major public issues that involve science and technology. Carol L. Rogers is editor of the interdisciplinary journal Science Communication.     

Epistemic dependence in interdisciplinary groups

In interdisciplinary research scientists have to share and integrate knowledge between people and across disciplinary boundaries. An important issue for philosophy of science is to understand how scientists who work in these kinds of environments exchange knowledge and develop new concepts and theories across diverging fields. There is a substantial literature within social epistemology that discusses the social aspects of scientific knowledge, but so far few attempts have been made to apply these resources to the analysis of interdisciplinary science. Further, much of the existing work either ignores the issue of differences in background knowledge, or it focuses explicitly on conflicting background knowledge. In this paper we provide an analysis of the interplay between epistemic dependence between individual experts with different areas of expertise. We analyze the cooperative activity they engage in when participating in interdisciplinary research in a group, and we compare our findings with those of other studies in interdisciplinary research.     

When history constrains identity: Expressing the self to others against the backdrop of a problematic past

Negative histories threaten collective identity. Much research has focussed on how group members strategically defend against such threats. However, within certain groups such defence is difficult—because the group's past actions were unambiguously negative and because these were public and continue to frame relations with outgroups. We explored the consequences of this form of identity constraint on the individual's experience of the self. Two studies varied the salience of the past as German participants expressed their national identity to either an ingroup (German) or outgroup (English) audience. In both studies expressing German identity to an outgroup audience when the past was salient resulted in a more fragmented sense of self and reduced self‐esteem. This effect was mediated through a perceived inability to enact the self. Results are discussed with respect to the power of context to constrain identity expression, and the consequences of this for the self. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

John Polkinghorne and the Task of Addressing a "Messy" World

As a physicist-theologian, John Polkinghorne has done a great service for the community of scholars engaged in the theology-and-science dialogue as well as for a broader audience of interested persons. We examine Polkinghorne's theological method to see what it suggests about his understanding of the function of systematic theology and his philosophy of science. His strong emphasis on rationality in theology corresponds to his epistemological discussions. Polkinghorne links his methodology to "thinking," so "experience" seems relegated to the minds, and not the lives, of the believers. Consequently, his theology does not easily engage ethical, political, and cultural landscapes where the concrete contexts of particular people's lives engage their faith. The challenge for those of us in religion-and-science is to come to grips with this messy, complicated world.     

Gender,Fear, and Public Places: How Negative Encounters with Strangers Harm Women

Research repeatedly shows that women are frequent targets of sexual harassment in public, ranging from catcalls to sexual assault. However, we know very little about the impacts of less obviously gendered rude behavior. Using nationally representative survey data from Australia (N = 1621), we investigated gender differences in the experience of generic public incivilities such as tailgating, pushing in crowded spaces, and yelling or cursing. We employed a series of logistic regression models to assess the relationship between gender and stranger incivility and to adjust for key demographic and event attributes. Results demonstrated that women were significantly more likely to report recent experiences of public incivility than were men and that women were significantly more likely to report negative impacts on their emotional well-being, particularly when the rude stranger was a man. Findings also showed that women were significantly more likely than were men to report limiting their use of public places as a result of experiencing public incivility. Much like sexual harassment, generic forms of uncivil behavior exact a gender-specific tax on women’s access to public places, compromising women’s capacity to fully engage in the public sphere. Implications for research and policy are discussed.     

The ethics of distress: Toward a framework for determining the ethical acceptability of distressing health promotion advertising

Distressing health promotion advertising involves the elicitation of negative emotion to increase the likelihood that health messages will stimulate audience members to adopt healthier behaviors. Irrespective of its effectiveness, distressing advertising risks harming audience members who do not consent to the intervention and are unable to withdraw from it. Further, the use of these approaches may increase the potential for unfairness or stigmatization toward those targeted, or be considered unacceptable by some sections of the public. We acknowledge and discuss these concerns, but, using the public health ethics literature as a guide, argue that distressing advertising can be ethically defensible if conditions of effectiveness, proportionality necessity, least infringement, and public accountability are satisfied. We do not take a broad view as to whether distressing advertising is ethical or unethical, because we see the evidence for both the effectiveness of distressing approaches and their potential to generate iatrogenic effects to be inconclusive. However, we believe it possible to use the current evidence base to make informed estimates of the likely consequences of specific message presentations. Messages can be pre‐tested and monitored to identify and deal with potential problems. We discuss how advertisers can approach the problems of deciding on the appropriate intensity of ethical review, and evaluating prospective distressing advertising campaigns against the conditions outlined.     

Avoiding Empty Rhetoric: Engaging Publics in Debates About Nanotechnologies

Despite the amount of public investment in nanotechnology ventures in the developed world, research shows that there is little public awareness about nanotechnology, and public knowledge is very limited. This is concerning given that nanotechnology has been heralded as 'revolutionising' the way we live. In this paper, we articulate why public engagement in debates about nanotechnology is important, drawing on literature on public engagement and science policy debate and deliberation about public policy development. We also explore the significance of timing in engaging the public, and we make some suggestions concerning how to effectively engage publics. Our conclusions indicate the significance of scientific researchers, policy makers and representative consumer groupings in public reasoning towards a better public policy framework for debate about technological development.