Navigating the New Normal: An S-O-R Perspective on Student Experiences of Environmental, Psychological, and Behavioral Changes During the COVID-19 Pandemic

2021 ◽  
pp. 027347532110651
Author(s):  
Aditya Gupta ◽  
Chiharu Ishida

Although higher education has weathered many past challenges, none can compare with the magnitude and velocity of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. Although students continued their academic careers despite hardships, as yet little is known about how they experienced and adapted to various pandemic-induced changes to their academic and personal lives. We address this gap through a qualitative exploration of student experiences of navigating the new normal which they were abruptly thrust into near the end of the Spring 2020 semester. Using a guided introspection methodology and a Stimulus-Organism-Response (S-O-R) framework, we unearth a dynamic process of psychological and behavioral changes that students experienced in response to the environmental changes brought about by the pandemic. We theorize that environmental dissolution and displacement trigger psychological reorientation, causing students to undertake behavioral practices of restructuration and reconfiguration that, over time, result in a degree of psychological revaluation. Our overall framework represents a fluid conceptualization that is not only more descriptive of real-world student progress but also more parsimonious in its account of key dimensions of student experience during the pandemic. We conclude by noting the implications of our framework for marketing educators and administrators, especially given the growing popularity of remote working.

2020 ◽  
Vol 1 ◽  
Author(s):  
Darby Proctor ◽  
Michelle Smurl

Abstract The relationship between zoo animals, particularly nonhuman primates, and visitors is complex and varies by species. Adding complexity to this relationship is the trend for zoos to host events outside of normal operating hours. Here, we explored whether a late-night haunted-house style event influenced the behavior of spider monkeys. We conducted behavioral observations both on event nights and nights without the event. The spider monkeys were active and outside more frequently on event nights compared to the control nights indicating that their typical nighttime behavior was altered. However, it is difficult to definitively conclude whether the behavioral changes were a result of the event being aversive or enriching. Our findings suggest that zoos should conduct behavioral observations of and collect physiological data from their animals, especially if they are sensitive to environmental changes, when implementing new events, including those occurring outside of normal operating hours to ensure high levels of animal welfare.


Author(s):  
Shusaku Sasaki ◽  
Hirofumi Kurokawa ◽  
Fumio Ohtake

AbstractNudge-based messages have been employed in various countries to encourage voluntary contact-avoidance and infection-prevention behaviors to control the spread of COVID-19. People have been repeatedly exposed to such messages; however, whether the messages keep exerting a significant impact over time remains unclear. From April to August 2020, we conducted a four-wave online survey experiment to examine how five types of nudge-based messages influence Japanese people’s self-reported preventive behaviors. In particular, we investigate how their behaviors are affected by repeated displays over time. The analysis with 4241 participants finds that only a gain-framed altruistic message, emphasizing their behavioral adherence would protect the lives of people close to them, reduces their frequency of going out and contacting others. We do not find similar behavioral changes in messages that contain an altruistic element but emphasize it in a loss-frame or describe their behavioral adherence as protecting both one’s own and others’ lives. Furthermore, the behavioral change effect of the gain-framed altruistic message disappears in the third and fourth waves, although its impact of reinforcing intentions remains. This message has even an adverse effect of worsening the compliance level of infection-prevention behaviors for the subgroup who went out less frequently before the experiment. The study’s results imply that when using nudge-based messages as a countermeasure for COVID-19, policymakers and practitioners need to carefully scrutinize the message elements and wording and examine to whom and how the messages should be delivered while considering their potential adverse and side effects.


2016 ◽  
Vol 12 (5) ◽  
pp. 1165-1180 ◽  
Author(s):  
Karsten Schittek ◽  
Sebastian T. Kock ◽  
Andreas Lücke ◽  
Jonathan Hense ◽  
Christian Ohlendorf ◽  
...  

Abstract. High-altitude cushion peatlands are versatile archives for high-resolution palaeoenvironmental studies, due to their high accumulation rates, range of proxies, and sensitivity to climatic and/or human-induced changes. Especially within the Central Andes, the knowledge about climate conditions during the Holocene is limited. In this study, we present the environmental and climatic history for the last 2100 years of Cerro Tuzgle peatland (CTP), located in the dry Puna of NW Argentina, based on a multi-proxy approach. X-ray fluorescence (XRF), stable isotope and element content analyses (δ13C, δ15N, TN and TOC) were conducted to analyse the inorganic geochemistry throughout the sequence, revealing changes in the peatlands' past redox conditions. Pollen assemblages give an insight into substantial environmental changes on a regional scale. The palaeoclimate varied significantly during the last 2100 years. The results reflect prominent late Holocene climate anomalies and provide evidence that in situ moisture changes were coupled to the migration of the Intertropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ). A period of sustained dry conditions prevailed from around 150 BC to around AD 150. A more humid phase dominated between AD 200 and AD 550. Afterwards, the climate was characterised by changes between drier and wetter conditions, with droughts at around AD 650–800 and AD  1000–1100. Volcanic forcing at the beginning of the 19th century (1815 Tambora eruption) seems to have had an impact on climatic settings in the Central Andes. In the past, the peatland recovered from climatic perturbations. Today, CTP is heavily degraded by human interventions, and the peat deposit is becoming increasingly susceptible to erosion and incision.


2021 ◽  
Vol 11 ◽  
Author(s):  
Janneke Schreuder ◽  
Francisca C. Velkers ◽  
Alex Bossers ◽  
Ruth J. Bouwstra ◽  
Willem F. de Boer ◽  
...  

Associations between animal health and performance, and the host’s microbiota have been recently established. In poultry, changes in the intestinal microbiota have been linked to housing conditions and host development, but how the intestinal microbiota respond to environmental changes under farm conditions is less well understood. To gain insight into the microbial responses following a change in the host’s immediate environment, we monitored four indoor flocks of adult laying chickens three times over 16 weeks, during which two flocks were given access to an outdoor range, and two were kept indoors. To assess changes in the chickens’ microbiota over time, we collected cloacal swabs of 10 hens per flock and performed 16S rRNA gene amplicon sequencing. The poultry house (i.e., the stable in which flocks were housed) and sampling time explained 9.2 and 4.4% of the variation in the microbial community composition of the flocks, respectively. Remarkably, access to an outdoor range had no detectable effect on microbial community composition, the variability of microbiota among chickens of the same flock, or microbiota richness, but the microbiota of outdoor flocks became more even over time. Fluctuations in the composition of the microbiota over time within each poultry house were mainly driven by turnover in rare, rather than dominant, taxa and were unique for each flock. We identified 16 amplicon sequence variants that were differentially abundant over time between indoor and outdoor housed chickens, however none were consistently higher or lower across all chickens of one housing type over time. Our study shows that cloacal microbiota community composition in adult layers is stable following a sudden change in environment, and that temporal fluctuations are unique to each flock. By exploring microbiota of adult poultry flocks within commercial settings, our study sheds light on how the chickens’ immediate environment affects the microbiota composition.


2021 ◽  
Vol 22 (3) ◽  
pp. 516-534
Author(s):  
Marcia Eugenio-Gozalbo ◽  
Guadalupe Ramos-Truchero ◽  
Rafael Suárez-López

Purpose Gardens are being used at all educational stages, because they provide with a real-world context for active and experiential learning. In Spain, there exists a movement in favor of their incorporation to higher education for a variety of purposes but prevalently as an innovative resource to teach sciences to pre-service teachers. The purpose of this study is assessing the impacts of such pedagogical practice on university students’ learning and behavioral changes in the areas of environmental and food citizenship, two key dimensions of contemporary citizenship that are essential to achieve sustainable societies. Design/methodology/approach Data was collected by means of an electronic, open-ended question survey completed by 170 students from 6 different universities where gardens are used. Answers were qualitatively analyzed using MAXQDA software to develop a system of content categories and subcategories in relation to reported learning and behavioral changes. Findings Widespread among universities was learning on organic agriculture practices, greater appreciation of agricultural labor, greater willingness to cultivate, higher awareness of environmental impacts of agriculture, improved behaviors regarding waste separation and enhanced fruit and vegetable consumption. Originality/value This work delves into how university gardens act as a vehicle through which students integrate knowledge and reflect on their environmental, food and consumption behaviors. Thus, it supports on evidences, the use of gardens at higher education to nurture two dimensions of contemporary citizenship essential to achieve sustainability.


Author(s):  
Letizia Gambrell-Boone

Organizational trauma, which results from a singular event or the sum of multiple experiences that occur over time, has an impact on the individuals and the collective that constitute the organization. For an organization to overcome its challenges and function in a new normal, leadership must play an integral role in engaging its individuals in a way that is explicit and intentional. The efforts of the leadership must first effectively describe the culture, as well as define leadership and its role. Undiagnosed and/or unresolved trauma (both crisis and systemic organizational trauma) within an institution may have exponential implications for both the person and the organization as a whole. To restore the organization to a state of wholeness, there must be an acknowledgement of organizational trauma as well as a committed approach to organizational healing. These efforts shift the organization from one that is experiencing organizational trauma to one that is considered to be a restorative community.


2020 ◽  
Vol 28 (3) ◽  
pp. 1189-1212
Author(s):  
Martin Zimmermann ◽  
Franz Wotawa

Abstract Having systems that can adapt themselves in case of faults or changing environmental conditions is of growing interest for industry and especially for the automotive industry considering autonomous driving. In autonomous driving, it is vital to have a system that is able to cope with faults in order to enable the system to reach a safe state. In this paper, we present an adaptive control method that can be used for this purpose. The method selects alternative actions so that given goal states can be reached, providing the availability of a certain degree of redundancy. The action selection is based on weight models that are adapted over time, capturing the success rate of certain actions. Besides the method, we present a Java implementation and its validation based on two case studies motivated by the requirements of the autonomous driving domain. We show that the presented approach is applicable both in case of environmental changes but also in case of faults occurring during operation. In the latter case, the methods provide an adaptive behavior very much close to the optimal selection.


2020 ◽  
Vol 8 (6) ◽  
pp. 868
Author(s):  
Ann M. Arfken ◽  
Juli Foster Frey ◽  
Katie Lynn Summers

Weaning is a period of environmental changes and stress that results in significant alterations to the piglet gut microbiome and is associated with a predisposition to disease, making potential interventions of interest to the swine industry. In other animals, interactions between the bacteriome and mycobiome can result in altered nutrient absorption and susceptibility to disease, but these interactions remain poorly understood in pigs. Recently, we assessed the colonization dynamics of fungi and bacteria in the gastrointestinal tract of piglets at a single time point post-weaning (day 35) and inferred interactions were found between fungal and bacterial members of the porcine gut ecosystem. In this study, we performed a longitudinal assessment of the fecal bacteriome and mycobiome of piglets from birth through the weaning transition. Piglet feces in this study showed a dramatic shift over time in the bacterial and fungal communities, as well as an increase in network connectivity between the two kingdoms. The piglet fecal bacteriome showed a relatively stable and predictable pattern of development from Bacteroidaceae to Prevotellaceae, as seen in other studies, while the mycobiome demonstrated a loss in diversity over time with a post-weaning population dominated by Saccharomycetaceae. The mycobiome demonstrated a more transient community that is likely driven by factors such as diet or environmental exposure rather than an organized pattern of colonization and succession evidenced by fecal sample taxonomic clustering with nursey feed samples post-weaning. Due to the potential tractability of the community, the mycobiome may be a viable candidate for potential microbial interventions that will alter piglet health and growth during the weaning transition.


2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Nichole-Lynn Stoll ◽  
Cherie J. Westbrook

Abstract Environmental changes are altering the water cycle of Canada’s boreal plain. Beaver dams are well known for increasing water storage and slowing flow through stream networks. For these reasons beavers are increasingly being included in climate change adaptation strategies. But, little work focuses on how environmental changes will affect dam building capacity along stream networks. Here we estimate the capacity of the stream network in Riding Mountain National Park, Manitoba, Canada to support beaver dams under changing environmental conditions using a modelling approach. We show that at capacity, the park’s stream network can support 24,690 beaver dams and hold between 8.2 and 12.8 million m3 of water in beaver ponds. Between 1991 and 2016 the park’s vegetation composition shifted to less preferred beaver forage, which led to a 13% decrease in maximum dam capacity. We also found that dam capacity is sensitive to the size of regularly-occurring floods—doubling the 2-year flood reduces the park’s dam capacity by 21%. The results show that the potential for beaver to offset some expected climatic-induced changes to the boreal water cycle is more complex than previously thought, as there is a feedback wherein dam capacity can be reduced by changing environmental conditions.


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