Perspectives on Systems Change Among Local Change Agents: A Comparative Study

Community organizers and activists draw on multiple traditions of community building and collective action in attempts to galvanize change. The diversity of perspectives on social change processes indicates corresponding differences in perspectives on systems and what is required to change them. Twenty‐two in‐depth interviews with community organizers and activists in the Midwestern USA were conducted to identify differences in perspectives on systems change efforts. Four models used by organizers were identified: action/issue‐centric, identity‐centric, relationship‐centric, and organizing‐development. Strategies for recruitment, issue selection, leadership determination, and action were compared across models. Analyses revealed that some models might be better suited to action on certain issues (e.g. identity‐centric models when organizing around homelessness), whereas others may have advantages for use in certain settings (e.g. relationship‐centric models in congregations). These findings suggest that practitioners and scholars should pay close attention to contextual factors and focal issues when determining strategies for creating systems change. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Working while studying at university: The relationship between work benefits and demands and engagement and well-being

We tested a role-conflict, depletion, and enrichment model, in which work-based benefits (enabling resources, psychological rewards, and psychological involvement) and work-based demands (time-, strain-, and behaviour-based demands, and hours worked) were antecedents to work–university conflict and work–university facilitation, which, in turn, were antecedent to students' academic engagement (dedication and vigour) and well-being (general and context-specific feelings about university). We also tested whether conflict and facilitation acted as mediators in the relationships between benefits and demands and the outcomes of engagement and well-being. The hypotheses were tested using 185 university students (77% female; mean age = 22.7 years) who were working while studying. Work-based benefits (enabling resources, rewards, and involvement) were associated with higher work–university facilitation; more time demands and fewer psychological rewards were associated with more work–university conflict; facilitation was associated with more engagement (dedication) and general well-being; and conflict was associated with more negative feelings towards the university. There were no mediation effects. Working while studying is related to students' engagement and well-being, although modest effects were explained by role-conflict theory.     

A bilateral advantage for maintaining objects in visual short term memory

Research has shown that attentional pre-cues can subsequently influence the transfer of information into visual short term memory (VSTM) (Schmidt, B., Vogel, E., Woodman, G., & Luck, S. (2002). Voluntary and automatic attentional control of visual working memory. Perception & Psychophysics, 64(5), 754–763). However, studies also suggest that those effects are constrained by the hemifield alignment of the pre-cues (Holt, J. L., & Delvenne, J.-F. (2014). A bilateral advantage in controlling access to visual short-term memory. Experimental Psychology, 61(2), 127–133), revealing better recall when distributed across hemifields relative to within a single hemifield (otherwise known as a bilateral field advantage). By manipulating the duration of the retention interval in a colour change detection task (1 s, 3 s), we investigated whether selective pre-cues can also influence how information is later maintained in VSTM. The results revealed that the pre-cues influenced the maintenance of the colours in VSTM, promoting consistent performance across retention intervals (Experiments 1 & 4). However, those effects were only shown when the pre-cues were directed to stimuli displayed across hemifields relative to stimuli within a single hemifield. Importantly, the results were not replicated when participants were required to memorise colours (Experiment 2) or locations (Experiment 3) in the absence of spatial pre-cues. Those findings strongly suggest that attentional pre-cues have a strong influence on both the transfer of information in VSTM and its subsequent maintenance, allowing bilateral items to better survive decay.