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I'm being overwhelmed and learned way more than 3 things. For the sake of expediency and just processing this stuff, here are 3: Construal Theory, Pro-environmental Behavior, and 4 Ways of Knowing Something Construal Level Theory From Wikipedia: “The more distant an object is from the individual, the more abstract it will be thought of, while the closer the object is, the more concretely it will be thought of.” On the face of it, this seems like a no duh. But, when you consider the impacts of this it has some important ramifications. The biggest one that I can relate to is that we do a poor job of trying to predict the future and how we will behave and what we will value in the future. CLT uses several dimensions to explain events, including: temporal, spatial, hypothetical distances and social distances. Basically, the further “away” something is (in any of the dimensions listed above) the less we think, or even value, the details. There are high and low level types of construal and both affect our engagement with the world in different ways- low focuses on the details and high thinks more abstractly. The difference between the two and how and why we mix them up leads to all kinds of cognitive biases and mistakes we make unconsciously like: stereotyping, categorizing, temporal discounting, procrastination, self-control, social conflict, to name a few. Pro-Environmental Behaviors I found a paper that rocked my world. It is called “Mind the Gap: Why do people act environmentally and what are the barriers to pro-environmental behavior?” by Anja Kollmuss & Julian Agyeman This paper is a meta-analysis of models to explain environmental education. They aren’t really advocating for one over the other, merely sharing the different ones that have been developed. The reason it is called Mind the Gap is that the way environmental education has been taught is basically: knowing leads to caring. But research has shown there is a significant gap between knowledge and action. This paper tries to explore the different ways and reasons why it is more complex. Below are a bunch of figures increasing in complexity of trying to explain this:      One of the more accessible theories is a simple equation.
Stern et al. propose that environmental concern is caused by a combination of these three factors: Motivation= V (egoistic orientation) + V (social orientation) + V (biospheric orientation) This final quote describes perfectly my own difficulties with understanding environmental issues (and probably a big reason why I am in graduate school): “Environmental awareness is constrained by several cognitive and emotional limitations. Cognitive limitations of environmental awareness include: 1) Non-immediacy of many ecological problems…2) Slow and gradual ecological destruction…3) Complex Systems…” Additionally, we have a complexity of emotional involvement that manifest itself in: “1) Emotional non-investment (a) lack of knowledge and awareness (b) emotional reactions …” Finally, we feel as if we have no “locus of control” (we don’t feel like we have the ability to make any change) and our responsibilities and priorities are affected as well. 4 Ways of Knowing I learned that there are 4 Ways of Knowing Something:
I’ve looked this up and there are apparently all kinds of theories about this. Some folks say there are 8 different ways and others only 1. However, I find this useful as a tool to help explain how different knowledge is “known” and by whom it is “known” by. One of the thoughts that I had is what happens when we include augmented reality? What happens when we add the prosthetics of faster-than-human-leg legs? The experience of running is heightened. Or, what about improving our own eyes? Currently, we can only see a small sliver of the electromagnetic spectrum. What happens when we increase our eyesight and see the whole spectrum? How would our “knowledge” change if we can see regularly in ultraviolet, infrared, or radio waves? This will change our experiential knowledge but it is one we currently live in now. I’m also thinking of virtual reality: what if we can change genders, turn into a bird, alter gravity, or exist in 4-dimensions?
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Utah Wilflie Tech: http://wfscjobs.tamu.edu/jobs/wildlife-technician-utah-2/
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Located within the realm of Psychology, Self-Determination Theory (SDT – but also very different from STDs) focuses on motivations – both conscious and unconscious – that influence choices and behaviors. SDT revolves around inherent growth tendencies that provide agency and commitment toward the fulfillment of a goal or simply a desire. The three needs that are innate to SDT are Competence, Relatedness, and Autonomy. If these needs are met than optimal growth is allowed and full function of that desire or goal is actualized. Competence is mastering or the drive toward mastery of a skill or behavior. Relatedness is connecting with others and Autonomy is the drive to be in charge (or believe you are in charge of) your own life and actions. The interesting part of this is even if you know that you are not in control of yourself, as long as you are in harmony with your ‘integrated self’ (not totally sure what that is yet) then you can have a degree of autonomy. Summarized from the Wikipedia page on STD, there are three elements of STD. To meet these needs, they need ‘nurturing’ from the social environment: 1. Humans are inherently proactive with their potential and mastering their inner forces (such as drives and emotions) 2. Humans have inherent tendency toward growth development and integrated functioning 3. Optimal development and actions are inherent in humans but they don’t happen automatically Additionally, there are Intrinsic and Extrinsic motivations. Intrinsic Motivations are the drives to seek out challenges for development within the social realm or intellectually. Extrinsic Motivations are exactly that – outside the self. For example: your boss telling you what to do, reframing what your boss tells you to do so that you make it important to your own values, anticipating what your boss will tell you what to do, and then doing what you believe the mission of the company is because you’ve integrated the company’s mission into your own personal values. Nomothetic and Idiographic Idiographic: relating to the study or discovery of particular scientific facts and processes, as distinct from general laws. Nomothetic: relating to the study or discovery of general scientific laws. I’m finding these terms similar and applicable to qualitative vs quantitative research. Similar to Inductive vs Deductive (or bottom up vs top down). As a person that this school is training to be a qualitative researcher, I’m finding that all of my research is Idiographic and Inductive. I am not testing a theory, I am not testing how much of something or another. Where I spend my time is in uncovering the phenomena, similar to an old-school naturalist or an investigative journalist. However, one of my questions this week is what separates an investigative journalist from a qualitative researcher. I gathered a couple answers but they aren’t very satisfying. The best answer so far is that my findings are rigorously reviewed by my committee, peers, and colleagues formally before they can be considered new knowledge. I will try to uncover more answers though …
Below are the three things I learned this week. They are Tilden's 6 Principles of Interpretation, HDR for photography, and Hume's Naturalistic Fallacy.  Tilden’s 6 Principles of Interpretation I have a certificate in Informal Science Education, a certificate in Museum Interpretation, was a docent for two different museums (soon to be three!), an “Information Ambassador” for the San Diego Zoo, and ran a little Nature Center for 8 years. In all that time and all that training I never came across the man who first organized and ‘codified’ interpretation. Freeman Tilden was hired by the National Park Service when most people would be retiring. After a whole career spanning at least three decades of being an international reporter for several media outlets, Tilden then spent another three or so decades working with the National Park Service to study and improve their interpretation activities. Several papers, books, lectures, and internal NPS work led to his philosophy. Out this philosophy came his 6 Principles I outlined below. I have no idea how I have never come across this guy before but I suppose that is one of the reasons I am graduate school…
HDR and “Shooting to the Right”  A great example of HDR from: https://gardencottageprints.wordpress.com/2013/04/21/hdr-and-how-the-process-works/ Technically I am in graduate school so this belongs here but I did not learn this from school. I learned these photo techniques from extracurricular activities and a very instructive 2 hour lunch with a great photographer. HDR: high dynamic range. I'm fascinated by this (google HDR pics and you’ll see why). It’s awesome. Basically the idea is that our eye is better than a camera (our eye catches a larger range of light where a camera catches a little more than a third of what our eye does) so to get a photo that the eye can relate to better you shoot at least 3 shots. One shot is normal, one shot is underexposed, and the other is overexposed. Then you combine all three. Newer cameras do it automatically if you set it up that way but most cameras allow you set it up in "bracketing function" and Lightroom has a method to make it work. There is a downside and it is that it doesn't work terrific with blue or white skies (forests, grey skies, lower light, is do-able). It requires stationary shots of all three and is best indoors or semi-indoors. It creates vibrant photos with depth and substance and I can’t wait to play with. Regarding “shooting to the right,” I learned a year ago how to read and edit with my histogram but I didn’t know the importance (or reason) to shoot with the histogram. I've watched a couple youtube videos of how to read a histogram and that has helped. On a histogram, the left is how much darkness you have in a shot and the right is how much light. There is no ideal histogram bell curve, just whatever works. However, the further right the majority of your curve is the more 'information' (pixels, wavelengths, color, etc) it contains. As the scale moves more right you get more information in a logarithmic growth. This means there is literally more than 10x more information of shots w a histogram heavy on a right curve. This allows you a lot more flexibility when you edit, crop for production, etc. It basically gives you more to work with. Hume’s Naturalistic Fallacy This is going to be a very brief statement because it is the kernel of thought that will evolve into at least two presentations I’m going to give and to how I think about conservation in general. Basically, Hume says we cannot get an “ought” from an “is.” This is profound to me because I have been working under the assumption that you can get value out of fact and more knowledge but that is not true a priori. This has huge ramifications for dealing with valuing species and habitat that I will explore later. For now, I will quote Gorke’s book The Death of Our Planet’s Species that I read last year but am re-approaching with a different eye: “Even more remarkable is the observation that in the more theoretical field of environmental ethics naturalistic fallacies are repeatedly presented without explicitly questioning Hume’s Law. This is revealed, for example, by the original purely descriptive concept of ‘ecological balance,’ which literature on environmental ethics almost always describes as an ecologically ideal state to which we should aspire. I can envision two reasons for such clearly unintended violations of Hume’s Law. First, with relationships between humans and nature the naturalistic fallacy seems to be more difficult to recognize than in the case of a relationship between one human and another. To consult nature as an advisor when dealing with nature is apparently more plausible than when dealing with another human. Second, in public discourse the terms “ecology” and “ecological” are employed so often in an ideological, political, or even moral sense that it is no wonder that their use results in misunderstandings and erroneous interpretations. // But it would be a mistake to think that naturalistic fallacies are a purely academic problem and of no significance for discussions about the environment or the practical problems of nature and species protection. Uncritically blurring the discrepancies between is and ought, facts and values, continually leads to considerable confusion in many different areas of society and also results in ecologically veiled ideologies and illusions.” (Gorke, p. 50)
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