Street Smarts: Experiments in Urban Social Science

作为加强非正式环境中学习的总体战略的一部分，推进非正式STEM学习（AISL）项目资助了用于各种环境的创新研究、方法和资源。为了将社会心理学研究带入公共城市环境，Street Smarts项目将在旧金山市政厅前制作一个户外学习装置，为经常光顾该地区的不同观众提供服务。户外空间将充满展览，让公众参与社会观察和参与性体验，促进对社会两极分化、社会困境和社会规范的科学学习。这些展览不仅将让公众以第三人称体验社会和行为科学的内容，还将创造第一人称的参与和反思，因为参观者来检查他们自己在社会动态中的参与。通过在社交聚会场所添加展品和数字内容，“街头智慧”将利用社会心理学研究人员的观点和技能，构建和增强人们天生的社交好奇心。在这个过程中，参观者将获得新的社会观察技能，反思自己的感知和行为，同情不同社会身份的人，并增加他们对如何科学地研究社会行为，情感和思想的欣赏。该项目借鉴了在公共环境中创建非正式学习空间的日益增长的实践。公共空间项目（Project for public Spaces）、格尔设计（Gehl design）和探索博物馆公共空间工作室（Exploratorium’s Studio for public Spaces）等团体领导的公共利益城市设计复兴，旨在在世界各地的城市中创造人性化的、有意社交的、越来越有教育意义的聚会空间。该项目将为公众制作一份在线“观察人群指南”，并提供额外的材料，以支持专业人员创造社会科学学习经验。对社会现象的探究不仅对理解心理机制和原理至关重要，而且对维持一个有能力应对现实生活中的全球挑战的公民至关重要。该项目将以探索博物馆和其他机构开展的非正式学习研究为基础，并将其扩展到社会元认知领域。“街头智慧”将产生新的研究成果，研究如何设计体验，促进结构化的、准科学的社会观察技能，并培养对他人社会经历的同情。该研究将解决三个问题：(1)关于社会现象的公共展览是否比关于物理现象的公共展览更有可能吸引人们与陌生人互动，特别是那些在社会重要方面与自己不同的人？(2)公共空间的哪些类型的社会科学展览设计及其所促进的作用最有效地促进了社会科学思维技能？(3)哪些类型的社会科学展览设计及其促进的角色培养了对看起来彼此不同的人的同理心？为了回答这些问题，一项准实验研究将采用实时观察、访谈和对240名随机抽样的个体（每种治疗条件下80人）的调查。通过比较控制条件下的自然科学展览和处理条件下的社会科学展览，该项目将确定哪种类型的展览现象最能促进陌生人互动，保持用户角色不变。比较两种处理条件将支持研究用户角色对社会科学思维和共情的影响，保持展示现象类型不变。在所有情况下，我们将评估人口统计数据和参与者体验的各个方面，包括角色意识、社会科学思维水平和对其他用户的移情程度。分析将包括独立性卡方检验和线性回归，以确定展品设计和用户结果变量之间的关系。通过项目开发和研究，“街头智慧”将建立有关公众如何学习和反思社会现象的新知识，以及促进公共环境中学习的设计策略。

As part of its overall strategy to enhance learning in informal environments, the Advancing Informal STEM Learning (AISL) program funds innovative research, approaches and resources for use in a variety of settings. To bring research on social psychology to public urban environments, the Street Smarts project will produce an outdoor learning installation in front of San Francisco City Hall that will serve the diverse audiences that frequent the area. The outdoor space will be populated with exhibits that engage this public in social observation and participatory experiences, promoting learning about the science of social polarization, social dilemmas, and social norms. These exhibits will not only engage the public in third-person experience of social and behavioral sciences content, but also create first-person engagement and reflection as visitors come to examine their own participation in social dynamics. By adding exhibits and digital content to social gathering places, Street Smarts will frame and augment people's natural social curiosity with the perspectives and skills of social psychology researchers. In the process, visitors will acquire new social observation skills, reflect on their own perceptions and actions, empathize with others of different social identities, and increase their appreciation for how social behavior, emotion, and thought can be studied scientifically. This project draws from a growing practice of creating informal learning spaces in public environments. A renaissance of urban design in the public interest led by groups such as the Project for Public Spaces, Gehl Design, and the Exploratorium's Studio for Public Spaces aims to create human-scaled, intentionally social, and increasingly educational gathering spaces in cities across the world. The project will produce an online "Guide to People Watching" for the general public, with additional materials to support professionals in the creation of social science learning experiences.Inquiry into social phenomena is not only critical to understanding psychological mechanisms and principles, but is of fundamental importance in maintaining a citizenry capable of meeting real life global challenges. The project will build on and extend informal learning research into social metacognition conducted by the Exploratorium and others. Street Smarts will produce new research on how to design experiences that prompt structured, quasi-scientific social observation skills and foster empathy for the social experience of others. The research will address three questions: (1) Are public exhibits about social phenomena more likely than public exhibits about physical phenomena to engage people in interactions with strangers, particularly those who appear different from themselves in societally important aspects? (2) What types of social science exhibit designs for public spaces and the roles they promote most effectively promote social scientific thinking skills? And (3) What types of social science exhibit designs and the roles they promote foster empathy for people who appear to be different from one another? To answer these questions, a quasi-experimental research study will employ real-time observations, interviews, and surveys with 240 randomly-sampled individuals (80 in each treatment condition). By comparing physical science exhibits in the control condition to the social science exhibits in a treatment condition, the project will determine which type of exhibit phenomenon best promotes stranger interactions, holding user role constant. Comparing two treatment conditions will support an investigation of the effect of user role on social scientific thinking and empathy, holding type of exhibit phenomenon constant. In all conditions, we will assess demographics and aspects of participant experience, including awareness of roles, level of social scientific thinking, and degree of empathy for other users. Analyses will include chi-square tests of independence and linear regressions to determine relationships between exhibit designs and user outcome variables. Through project development and research, Street Smarts will build new knowledge about how the public learns about and reflects on social phenomena as well as design strategies to facilitate that learning in public settings.