Volatile Psychological Dynamics in Social Interactions Attitudes and Emotions React Asymmetrically to Interaction Shifts Between Agreement and Disagreement
Does agreement or disagreement alone strongly influence people’s thoughts and emotions, or does cognitive and affective reaction relate more to shifts in agreement and disagreement? The present study investigated how attitudes and emotions respond to the evolution of different patterns of agreement and disagreement in an interaction. Combining conventional methods with novel dynamic systems techniques, we found that people’s attitudes and emotional valence undergo significant change and become less stable when disagreement replaces agreement in an interaction. However, the same reaction does not occur when agreement replaces disagreement. Findings also reveal that the attitudes and emotions do not respond to disagreement alone, but react to the interaction transitioning from an exchange based on agreement to one defined by disagreement. These results provide insight into how attitudes and emotions evolve as social interactions undergo change and confirm key ideas from dynamic systems theories about social...
We are experiencing times of great triteness, specially from the point of view of some fundamental concepts for the exercise of communicational and educational practices in our time. The concept of virtual learning environments - AVA - is one of them. The article seeks to dysmistify the concept, illustrating its potentiality from the emergence of cyberspace, showing concrete possibilities of creation and AVA management using free of charge resources from the cyberspace itself. Furthermore, I attempt to draw the attention of educators over the quality of some AVA, performing a critical analysis of a course made available free of charge in Internet, in which I signal problems and triteness of concepts and practices referring toto the education, communication and technologies interface.