Surprise

About: Surprise is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 4371 publications have been published within this topic receiving 99386 citations.

The more he looked inside the more Piglet wasn't there: what adopting a sociocultural perspective can help us see

Abstract: Introduction One day when Pooh Bear had nothing else to do, he thought he would do something, so he went round to Piglet's house to see what Piglet was doing. It was still snowing as he stumped over the white forest track, and he expected to find Piglet warming his toes in front of his fire, but to his surprise he saw that the door was open, and the more he looked inside the more Piglet wasn't there (Milne, 1974, p. 1). When we as teachers and researchers look, what do we see? Do we expect to see Piglet warming his toes--and is this in fact what we do see? Or is it that, like Pooh, the more we look the more we understand that what we expected to see is not there? Indeed, the more we look, the more we see remarkable things that we never noticed before. As early childhood professionals within Australia, many of us developed our understanding of early childhood education from the perspective of acknowledging the importance of the 'individual' child, who passes through universal, sequential stages of development, such as those expounded by Piaget (1973), or in Developmentally Appropriate Practices (Bredekamp, 1987). However, in some circumstances, this has resulted in a tendency to 'see' only certain things when we look at children, such as when they begin to show interest in peers, how well they can put pegs into a board, or when they 'begin to understand turn-taking'. This reflects a perspective in which: The focus is on the individual child who, irrespective of context, follows a standard sequence of biological stages that constitute a path to full realisation or a ladder-like progression to maturity ... Despite frequent talk about a holistic perspective, in this construction the child is frequently reduced to separate and measurable categories, such as social development, intellectual development, motor development. Consequently, processes which are very complex and interrelated in everyday life are isolated from one another and viewed dichotomously, instead of viewing them as intrinsically related functions that all work together in the production of change (Dahlberg, Moss and Pence, 1999, p. 46). This approach derives from a long tradition of research that informs early childhood theory and practice. Such research, dominated by preconceived ideas of what children are and know, has been conducted primarily by Euro-North American developmental psychologists, who have scientifically constructed powerful normative models of development (Woodhead, 2000). What has resulted in both teaching and research is the adoption of a somewhat deficit view of many children --those who have not reached a particular 'universal' milestone or achieved a nominated outcome, or those whose life experiences do not match those of the dominant culture. Thus, there is much concerning the diversity, complexity and richness of children's lives that is overlooked. In an attempt to make children 'fit the boxes' of norms we may lose sight of what is really occurring in their lives, and no longer notice that the door is open and Piglet is no longer there. Increasingly, however, challenges are being made to the concept of the 'universality' of childhood and children. Many are drawing attention to the diversity and complexity of childhood, and disputing the idea that decontextualised, universal norms, rules and 'truths' based on Euro-North American or Minority world views are relevant for all children (see, for example, Penn, 2000; Woodhead, 2000; Grieshaber & Cannella, 2001). Authors such as Rogoff (1990), for example, have suggested that a contextual approach to development allows for multiple directions and courses of growth, and that 'development involves progress towards local goals and valued skills' (Rogoff, 1990, p. 57). Furthermore, the relatively recent interest in the ideas of Vygotsky has provided a useful contrast to the 'universalist' framework interpreted from Piaget's work, while postmodern perspectives have been influential in examining some of the existing assumptions about childhood (see, for example, Dahlberg, Moss & Pence, 1999). …

Your Money and Your Brain

Abstract: This trade book on neuroeconomics presents the latest findings from neuroscience, psychology, and behavioral economics. It seeks to explain one of the central puzzles in financial behavior: why individual and professional investors alike so persistently fail to learn from their own mistakes. 'Your Money and Your Brain' combines the findings of neuroimaging labs around the world with empirical studies in behavioral finance and case studies of actual decisions by both retail and professional investors. The book is organized around the theme of the emotions aroused by financial decision-making - among them, greed, confidence, surprise, regret and happiness. Each chapter concludes with practical recommendations on how individuals and investment firms can improve their financial decision-making.

The Surprise Element: Jumps in Interest Rates

Abstract: That information surprises result in discontinuous interest rates is no surprise to participants in the bond markets. We develop a class of Poisson-Gaussian models of the Fed Funds rate to capture surprise effects, and show that these models offer a good statistical description of short rate behavior, and are useful in understanding many empirical phenomena. Jump (Poisson) processes capture empirical features of the data which would not be captured by Gaussian models, and there is strong evidence that existing Gaussian models would be well-enhanced by jump and ARCH-type processes. The analytical and empirical methods in the paper support many applications, such as testing for Fed intervention effects, which are shown to be an important source of surprise jumps in interest rates. The jump model is shown to mitigate the non-linearity of interest rate drifts, so prevalent in pure-diffusion models. Day-of-week effects are modelled explicitly, and the jump model provides evidence of bond market overreaction, rejecting the martingale hypothesis for interest rates. Jump models mixed with Markov switching processes predicate that conditioning on regime is important in determining short rate behavior.

’Intensifying the surprise as well as the school’: Stephen Greenblatt interviewed by Noel King

Abstract: (1994). ’Intensifying the surprise as well as the school’: Stephen Greenblatt interviewed by Noel King. Textual Practice: Vol. 8, No. 1, pp. 114-127.