Historically, at least 3 methodological problems have dogged experimental social psychology: the experimental control–mundane realism trade-off, lack of replication, and unrepresentative sampling. We argue that immersive virtual environment technology (IVET) can help ameliorate, if not solve, these methodological problems and, thus, holds promise as a new social psychological research tool. In this article, we first present an overview of IVET and review IVET-based research within psychology and other fields. Next, we propose a general model of social influence within immersive virtual environments and present some preliminary findings regarding its utility for social psychology. Finally, we present a new paradigm for experimental social psychology that may enable researchers to unravel the very fabric of social interaction.

The paper discusses some of the main contributions to the theory of communities of practice (COP theory), especially as it relates to organizational learning. The paper does not attempt a full overview but concentrates on the notion of power relations. Early COP theory, was formulated as part of situated learning theory, and promised to work on issues of social context and unequal power relations. Foucault’s work and actor network theory (ANT) is introduced and forms the basis of a constructive critique of COP theory. If it appears that ANT and COP theory are in agonistic dispute, then the point of the paper is to seek a path of rapprochement through an emphasis on Foucaultian notions of practice, power and force-relations. [All comments welcome] Paper for presentation at the 3 rd International Conference on “Organizational

Infodrome is a thinktank for the Dutch government: a “programme of studies, reports, evaluations, conferences and other activities focussed on contributing on the design of policy of government in the information society”. The purpose is to accomplish insights that are useful to formulating policies for the next Dutch Cabinet. Infodrome was installed by dr. Rick van der Ploeg, the Dutch State Secretary of Education, Culture and Science, authorised by the Dutch Cabinet for a period of two years. Infodrome is led by a steering group with the State Secretary as its chairman and the directors of the Dutch planning agencies as members. The steering group is advised by a supervisory committee in which al the Dutch Ministries are represented on directorate level. The Programme Bureau is located in the offices of the KNAW (Royal Dutch Academy of Sciences) in Amsterdam. 2 VOORWOORD

The cooperation between designers, engineers and scientists in the human–computer interaction (HCI) community is often difficult, and can only be explained by investigating the different paradigms by which they operate. This study proposes a paradigm model for designers, engineers and scientists, using three barriers to separate the professions. We then report on an empirical study that attempted to validate the understand/transform world barrier in the paradigm model using an online questionnaire. We conclude that the used ‘Attitude About Reality ’ scale was unsuitable for measuring this barrier, whereas information about the educational background of the participants was a good predictor for the self-reported profession (designer, engineer or scientist). Interestingly, among the three professions, engineers appear to be the cohesive element, since they often have dual backgrounds, whereas very few participants had dual science/design backgrounds. Engineers could, therefore, build a bridge between designers and scientists, and through their integrative role, could guide the HCI community to realizing its full potential.

Historically, at least 3 methodological problems have dogged experimental social psychology: the experimental control–mundane realism trade-off, lack of replication, and unrepresentative sampling. We argue that immersive virtual environment technology (IVET) can help ameliorate, if not solve, these methodological problems and, thus, holds promise as a new social psychological research tool. In this article, we first present an overview of IVET and review IVET-based research within psychology and other fields. Next, we propose a general model of social influence within immersive virtual environments and present some preliminary findings regarding its utility for social psychology. Finally, we present a new paradigm for experimental social psychology that may enable researchers to unravel the very fabric of social interaction. Allport’s (1985) well-accepted definition of social psychology as “an attempt to understand and explain how the thought, feeling, and behavior of individuals are influenced by the actual, imagined, or implied presence of others ” (p. 3) points to the breadth of the discipline.

In this article a theory of self-directed learning is presented based on social constructivistic starting points. Social constructivism focuses on the exchange of perspectives on reality between people who are willing to maintain and strengthen each other's identities. For learning this means that perspectives and perspective taking are important processes in learning. Moreover collective meaning construction is essential. Learning is described as a social-interactive, contextual, constructive, self-regulated and reflective process. The theory focuses on three kinds of learning functions (preparatory, executive and closing) as building blocks that can be used in three different ways: in guided environments, in self-directed learning and in situations where learning is a side effect of other activities only. Learning functions are psychological processes and activities that people execute when learning, be it consciously or unconsciously. The three ways to learn (guided, self-directed, unconsciously) are described as three different ways to organize the same learning functions in different ways. We describe the success factors for these three ways to learn. Skills of self-directed learning are also different for the three ways to learn. In guided environments, skills of learner control consist mostly of executive learning functions. The skills for self-directed learning (or action learning in working situations) are described next. Here the preparatory and closing learning functions tend to dominate. Finally, skills of experiential learning are described. In this way of learning the key skill is to design and look for environments that may lead to unconscious forms of learning where the learning functions follow from action automatically.

Addressing climate change: Psychology’s contribution

social constructionism theory. Cooperrider attributes Ken Gergen’s work on social constructionism as the inspiration for Appreciative Inquiry. In layman’s terms, social constructionism argues that people create their reality through daily interactions with others. The culture of any group of people in history was created through ongoing conversations with others. For OD the implication is that organizations can change the organizational culture by changing the conversations. Come prepared to discuss how you or organizations you work with have changed by having ongoing conversations with one another.

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