Observer > 2001 > November
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142001Volume 14, Issue9November 2001

Presidential Column

John Darley
John Darley
Princeton University
APS President 2001 - 2002
All columns

In this Issue:
Sense-Making Before and After September 11

About the Observer

The Observer is the online magazine of the Association for Psychological Science and covers matters affecting the research, academic, and applied disciplines of psychology. The magazine reports on issues of interest to psychologist scientists worldwide and disseminates information about the activities, policies, and scientific values of APS.

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Up Front

  • Vanderbilt University

    Psychological Science at Vanderbilt University has a powerful new look and an enhanced presence bringing together vital capabilities to tackle important psychological issues. The Department of Psychology (Arts and Science) and the Department of Psychology & Human Development (Peabody College) are integrating select graduate and undergraduate degree programs to take advantage of the combined resources of over 50 faculty members. This process involves a number of key faculty hires.

  • Sense-Making Before and After September 11

    Very little seems to have changed in the little college town in which I live. The weather has turned cool, and the maples are turning red along the street that I travel to work. Tiny girls and tiny boys bicycle to elementary school, lost under their safety helmets, watched from a tactful distance at street crossings by their mothers and fathers. Farther down the street the buildings of the college appear, surrounded with the flurry of construction activity that never seems to quite get finished by beginning of term. Ordinary times. This is what my world is telling me, and I suspect it is what the regularities of your world is telling you also. But in fact a great deal has changed in all of our worlds since the morning of September 11th, and it seems worthwhile to try to say what some of these changes are. To do so, I will draw on the concept of sense-making, a concept used by our organizational psychologists to understand the actions of individuals in organizations as they confront the unexpected in their worlds. At all times, people are seeking to make sense of the meanings of changes in their social or physical environment.

Practice

  • Vanderbilt University

    Psychological Science at Vanderbilt University has a powerful new look and an enhanced presence bringing together vital capabilities to tackle important psychological issues. The Department of Psychology (Arts and Science) and the Department of Psychology & Human Development (Peabody College) are integrating select graduate and undergraduate degree programs to take advantage of the combined resources of over 50 faculty members. This process involves a number of key faculty hires.

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  • The East/West Conference on Health and Well Being

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