Applying for work

Here is a personal letter I wrote for a work application:

Hello,

my name is René Brauer and I would like to apply for the position as: “Göteborgs hungrigaste julkortssorterare!” (translation: Gothenburg´s hungriest Christmas cards sorter).  I hope you can forgive me for writing in English, it is just easier for me to express the point I am trying to make.

Yes I fulfill all the job requirements needed for the advertised task. And by now you probably have read hundreds of similar personal letters where everyone describes themselves in the rhetoric used in your work advertisement. So I thought I use this opportunity to point out a dissonance in your rhetoric with scientific findings.

You advertise the position in fashion that you state that: 'you are looking for a hungry person'. This can have two different connotations; first it can mean physical hunger as a bodily function indicated the need for nourishment or metaphorical hunger in the sense of a motivation to do a task well for a promised reward.

Let´s start with the body’s requirement for nourishment, aka. hunger. Here we can differentiate between cognitive tasks and physical tasks, both requiring nourishment to function properly. While there are substances that can enhance brain functions like “amino acids tryptophan and tyrosine, caffeine and carbohydrate” (Lieberman 2003, p. 245) a general lack of sufficient nutrients is usually regarded with adverse effects on brain functions (ibid.). Common indicators of low blood sugar levels are tiredness, difficulties to concentrate etc. all associated with lower productivity. In regard to physical functions the same applies; while dietary supplements can have beneficial effects on physical performance (Williams 2005) general lack of sufficient nutrients inhibits maximum task utilization. Therefore physical hunger is adverse to the proper completion of specific tasks.

Now let’s turn to the metaphorical hunger, aka motivation. The common thinking is that the higher the reward the better task performance. This ‘common logic’ is not what scientific studies showed, they found “when money was used as an external reward, intrinsic motivation tended to decrease” (Deci 1971, p. 105). This was true for all tasks requiring some form of higher cognitive activity. The conclusion was drawn that monetary rewards had adverse effects on task enhancements, findings that were confirmed by subsequent studies. Therefore even in the sense of metaphorical hunger, this does not necessary lead to improvements in the task performed.    

I hope I could show to you that hunger in both senses does not improve your work results. Thank you for taking the time to read this and by the here shown level of reasoning I think you would agree that I am qualified for the position, looking forward to your reply.

References

Deci, E (1971) Effects of externally mediated rewards on intrinsic motivation, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Vol. 18. Is.1 pp. 105-115

Liberman, H R (2003) Nutrition, brain function and cognitive performance, Appetite. Vol. 40 Is. 3 pp. 245-254

Williams, M (2005) Dietary Supplements and Sports Performance: Amino Acids, Journal of the International Society of Sports Nutrition, Vol. 2 Is. 2 pp. 63-67

Spatial Affordances

          How I understand the concept of Spatial Affordances 

The concept of affordances was first introduced by Gibson (1979) referring to a quality inherent to the particular makeup of a material object. Affordances are usually regarded as action possibilities, making them actor dependent for their utilization. A common example is when becomes a staircase a a set of walls on a gradient? Because a staircase for an adult may as well represent a wall for a toddler, however the quality wall or staircase is only dependent on the user.

The concept of affordances has since been extended by other writers as well, most notably by Norman (1988) extending it into design and technology. Fridlund (2012) further extends the concept to include socio-technical affordances. He includes different social ideologies, practices, conventions (etc.) and technological advances which all culminate into creating a complex web of interaction that offers new affordances. Foucault (1975: 162-163) describes a transformation of warfare due to the invention of the rifle. This act transformed armies from being two advancing lines into single groups operating individually. He attributes this change to the greater accuracy of the rifle compared to the musket, this subsequently increased the value of each solider; however it also increased the vulnerability. Fridlund would describe this as socio-technical affordances.

However the concept of affordances has also been criticized, notably by Collins (2010). He claims that it is a somewhat simplification of the actual process, by providing an intellectual Band-Aid (Collins 2010: 51-52). Nevertheless he acknowledges the usefulness of the concept and succeeds to apply it avidly throughout his description of tacit knowledge. Collins is quite right in pointing out that affordances do not represent a classical rigid concept that is able to identify important factors a priori. However it is precisely this quality that makes it suitable to describe spatial issues, since space is the columniation of everything included within it (Hägerstrand 2009), consisting of a myriad of different aspects were space represents the loci where all these come to gather and materialize. Therefore spatial affordances have to be viewed as a combination of all the aforementioned concepts of affordances coming together in combination with their spatial relations to one another. Knowles and Healey (2006) describe the Iron Industry of 19th century Eastern United States in these terms (not explicitly in the language of spatial affordances). They claim that the technological superiority of mineral coal based furnaces over charcoal was not a simple product of one technologies superiority over another. But rather it represented a combination of factors like; location, availability, transports cost, iron quality, quality of the measuring equipment, social economic stability etc. all combining in eventually creating a superior technology of mineral coal based furnaces. These combination however where non-trivial and not predetermined to the people of that age, this made the choice to prefer one technology over another not an easy decision.

So spatial affordances are the product of different social processes, technological aspects, material affordances and their subsequent distribution in space all coming together in one location. This treatment of space is very similar to the treatment of space in ANT (Law 2002), were space depends on the object and action in question. Because space (and also time) are no abstractly removed social categories, they are composites of that what we understand as social. Without their ever-present influences social, technical or material constructs would not be able to exist. Building a house presupposes are certain temporal structuring of the work, of materials, this in turn gives rise to certain social phenomena that there are specialist in building the foundation, woodwork etc. representing a feedback loop were everything is dependent on each other.  Famously space has been described by Hägerstrabnd of having a double nature “in terms […] of graveyard and cradle of [all] creation” (Hägerstrand 1983: 239).

Other papers on spatial affordances:

Wineman, Jean D. (2009) Constructing Spatial Meaning Spatial Affordances in Museum Design, Environment and Behavior Volume 42 Number 1

References used in the description

Collins, Harry (2010) Tacit and Explicit Knowledge

Foucault, Michel (1975) Discipline and Punish

Fridlund, Mats (2012) Affording terrorism: Idealists and materialities in the emergence of modern terrorism, in Taylor & Currie, (ed.) Terrorism and Affordance

Gibson, James J. (1979) The Ecological Approach to Visual Perception

Hägerstrand, Torsten (1983) In serach for the sources of concepts, in A. Buttimer (ed.) The Practice of Geography

Hägerstrand, Torsten (2009) Tillvaroväven

Knowles, Anne Kelly and Richard G. Healey (2006) Geography, Timing, and Technology: A GIS-Based Analysis of Pennsylvania's Iron Industry, 1825-1875. Journal of Economic History 66 (3): 608-34.

Law, John (2002). Objects and Spaces. Theory, Culture & Society. Vol. 19 Is. 5/6 pp. 91–105

Norman, Donald (1988) The Design of Everyday Things

Is social importance a paradim for the social sciences?

My reading marathon continues, now I finished reading the Golem and Kuhn´s The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. Kuhn´s answer to accusations of relativism in the postscript was not very decisive, basically he said: “well if that is what it means to be a relativist, than I am a relativist”. However I did like his initial argument comparing the progression of science to Darwin’s natural selection, in claiming that there is no teleological cause to the progression of science. Meaning there can never be a Theory of Everything, as scientific progression does not function this way. 

But the most interesting lesson I take away from reading the book was a remark he made in the end of the book. He wrote: 

“Unlike the engineer, and many doctors, and most theologians, the scientist need not choose problems because they urgently need solution and without regard for the tools available to solve them. In this respect, also, the contrast between natural scientists and many social scientists proves instructive. The latter often tend, as the former almost never do, to defend their choice of a research problem … chiefly in terms of the social importance of achieving a solution. Which group would one then expect to solve problems at a more rapid rate?” (Kuhn 1970: 164 The Structure of Scientific Revolutions 2^nd edition)

There he remarks on the differences of mature sciences (with established paradigms) and other human endeavors. Now I clearly agree with Kuhn’s notion that the mature sciences have a highly efficient way of dealing and defining puzzles. However it struck me while reading this that ALL social science usually has to grapple with issues of social importance into defining their research. If this does not constitute a paradigm, than at least it is a paradigm-like mechanism defining social research conduct by deciding what areas of research are important and which are not. 

Social importance along with political correctness defines what is a ‘good-way-of-conduct’ and what is bad research. For example: feminism and sustainable development are clearly defining areas of inquiry for social scientists. However it also can decide what is bad research, like in the case of the The Bell Curve, which was condemned by finding a socially unacceptable result. 

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bell_Curve)

Now I don´t know if I kick in open doors here, but it seems to me that STS and SSK as of today has a pretty good understanding of the natural science in general, however the social sciences seem poorer understood. In a lecture about the Golem of Science Trevor Pinch remarked that science students (referring to natural science) are generally too busy doing science, to know what science ‘really’ is, remarking on the justification for the need of STS and SSK. 

(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=85Wi31ePsIw)

Now it seems to me that the same should be true for social science students, should it not? What is a proper way of conduct in the social science, lacking a paradigm like structure? How are debates resolved in the social sciences, lacking physical experiments? Pinch and Collins remarked in their book the Golem, just as a side note, that there are substantial differences between debates in physics and biology, what are the importance factors, how are they resolved etc. So why shouldn’t there be differences between let’s say physiology and economics?  

In a dreaming mood I envisioned a future, maybe 25 years from now, where the same work that today has been done on the natural science was done on the social sciences. That courses could be given to social science students, covering such subjects as: What is this thing we call social science? or the materiality of human geography, giving social science students a framework to their own disciplines similar to the courses today for natural science students.