Computer-based Implementation of Social Panorama According to Lucas Derks. Computer-based Services on the Internet

Index

Summary

Introduction

Brief description of social panorama

Assess the quality of the relationship

Design of the graphic experiment

Development of the questionnaire

Execution

Results

Development items

Disturbance variables

Comments from the participants

Correlations and Internal Consistency

Graphic relationship quality

Conclusion and outlook

Bibliography

Summary

Against the background of the steadily increasing use of computer-based services on the Internet, a preliminary online study was carried out to implement a computer-based psychological counseling method. A graphical experiment for PC and handheld devices was developed using social panorama, wherein participants can compile their relationships visually. With the help of audio instructions, users can position onscreen their relationship constellations two-dimensionally. This graphic representation model was correlated to the results of a questionnaire on relationship quality. A random sample of 96 people was evaluated qualitatively and quantitatively. The preliminary study showed a strong connection between the constructs of sympathy, emotional support, influence on decisions and the visualized closeness of a person and that relationship quality can be recorded objectively, reliably and internally valid with this automated, auditory-graphic method.

Introduction

The present preliminary study deals with the question of usability of computer-based consulting methods and examines a form of implementation. For this purpose, an experiment was carried out that runs elements of Social Panorama according to Lucas Derks (cf. Derks, 2000) interactively on the user's screen and reviews its reliability. Social panorama is successfully used practically in psychological counseling and coaching. The aim is to test if and to what extent a user can graphically reproduce the quality of his social relationships using a computer.

Evidence was sought of how the transformation of a psychological counseling method into a computer-based form can be implemented best.

For this purpose, a graphical experiment was developed to be used online, in which relationships can be arranged intuitively. This was embedded into a questionnaire enquiring about the quality of relationships on a Likert scale, containing items on further development, target group recording and suspected confounding variables. Correlations were also sought after between graphic representation and the questioned relationship quality.

Brief description of social panorama

In Social Panorama it is assumed that we personify people and things and represent them in so-called mental space. Mental space is the visual and often unconscious idea of an “inner landscape”. Personifications are the ideas we have of a person, an object or ourselves. In doing so, we transfer parts of our self, such as visual self-confidence, self-awareness and an inner voice with needs to the personifications (cf. Derks, 2000).

A basic principle of social panorama is that every personification is projected into a specific place in mental space. The place where we see a personification is an indication of the relationship we have with the idea of the person or this part of ourselves. Changes in the place of a personification can lead to a change in the subjective experience of the relationship (cf. Derks, 2000). In order to explore a person's social panorama in a first step, Derks has developed a procedure to familiarize the client with the concept. First, they should close their eyes and then concentrate on a specific social context. Then a certain person or group should be localized (left / right, up / down) and pointed to the position. Then the client opens his eyes again (cf. Derks, 2000).

Since verbal interventions are used in a counseling setting, pre-recorded audio instructions should also be used in the presented computer version. The personifications should be evoked and transferred to a graphic surface. This results in two graphically determined items:

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Assess the quality of the relationship

According to our own research, there was no usable questionnaire to quantitatively assess the quality of a relationship. The ego-centered network according to Asendorpf was therefore used to create items to record the quality of relationships (see Asendorpf, 2015, p. 126).

The ego-centered network is understood to mean the listing of significant caregivers for a person in a relationship matrix. In it, the person assesses their relationships in terms of several aspects over the past month. Four of these aspects were selected and translated into simple items:

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Design of the graphic experiment

The experiment is structured according to a within-subjects design as shown in Figure 1 (cf. Döring; Bortz, 2016, pp. 209f.). The test person should be in different emotional states but must carry out the same instructions or answer questions. For this purpose, audio instructions are used to ask for three different people, each with a different quality of relationship. This represents the IV, the independent variable. Person P1 should “like” the test subject, P2 “dislike” and P3 “know but neither like nor dislike”. This allows to speak of a gradation into positive, negative and neutral. The illustration on the first page of this article shows a screenshot of the graphical experiment towards the end of the run.

Graphically, the test person is outlined in white in the center. Ears and nose should make the line of sight as simple as possible. The personifications are shown as green (P1), red (P2) and gray (P3) points. They can be moved to any location within a frame on the screen using the mouse or finger. The dashed circles are used to compare the distances. There are control symbols with which the user can signal whether the current visualization task was unsuccessful (blue circle), should be repeated (yellow arrows to the left) or was successfully completed (green arrow). In the experiment, the graphic and operating elements are shown and hidden, as necessary. The instructions to the user are only spoken, the screen only contains symbols and no text .

The audio instructions were spoken by one of the writers and recorded in a recording studio. Elements from hypnotherapeutic conversation were used in the text design (cf. Mohl, 2010, p. 825ff.). This is explicitly aimed at the listener filling in missing aspects with their own content. Trance-enhancing language was also used in different intensities (cf. Mohl, 2010, p. 823f.). It was spoken more slowly than normal. At situations where the user is asked to use his imagination, the speech was lower and deeper.

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In order to enable the participants to perform at their own pace - as is also possible in the face-to-face consultation - the sound of a singing bowl was used as an acoustic marker to indicate that the system is now waiting for the user. By tapping a finger, pressing a key or clicking the mouse - even with your eyes closed - you could move on to the next instruction.

During programming, care was taken to ensure that the experiment is as portable as possible, i.e. that it works on as many computers and handheld devices with all operating systems and browsers as possible. In addition to the mandatory HTML language (see W3C, 2017), the scripting language JavaScript (see W3C, 2017b) and the graphics language SVG (Scalable Vector Graphics) are used (see W3C, 2011). By using SVG, the graphical experiment was responsive, so it was graphically adapted to the respective end device (see W3Schools, 2017).

Development of the questionnaire

The questionnaire completed online at the end of the graphical experiment contained the following categories of questions:

- Relationship items as described above.
- Development items for information on the further development of the experiment.
- Items for recording interference variables
- Target group items to record the target group reached.

Attention was paid to an appropriate layout as well as clear, unambiguous language. The entire questionnaire with short, clear instructions could be completed in 10 minutes.

Execution

Before the actual preliminary study, two pretests were carried out, each of which led to slight changes in the graphic implementation and adjustments to items. The item difficulty was determined and turned out to be completely sufficient for the purpose of a preliminary study (cf. Döring; Bortz, 2016, p. 270ff.).

The preliminary study itself was carried out between September 29, 2017 and October 7, 2017. An arbitrary random sample was chosen, since for the purpose of this fundamental attempt at realization no inference-statistically secured results were sought that would have to be generalized to a specific population. Participants were acquired through e-mails to private contacts, a call in a student WhatsApp group and various Facebook groups. The number of participants was 108 people. After adjusting for several incomprehensible technically faulty cases and two cases that answered no to the control question “Did you honestly carry out the experiment?”, N = 96 valid cases remained.

Results

The graphic experiment can be regarded as successful. There were no fundamental problems. Participants were able to operate the program and produced data that had a clear pattern related to the instructions.

Development items

A development item was used to ask how well “all people in this world” could be visualized in a preliminary exercise. Another item was how well one could concentrate on the experiment. It was also asked how well people succeeded in transferring people from the mere imagination to the graphic representation. The focus of the answers was on the scales used for these questions in the upper third.

Disturbance variables

No significant influence on the result could be determined for any of the suspected confounding variables, namely the participant's environment, the device on which he had carried out the experiment, and previous experience in psychological counseling or psychotherapy.

Comments from the participants

23 of the participants responded to the open question “Would you like to tell us anything else?”. The statements have been summarized in 5 categories:

Graphics: Problems with the graphical representation were missing details in the representation of oneself and the persons to be placed and a lack of clarity regarding the function of the arrow symbol. There were also difficulties in estimating the distance without specific distance information.

Audio: Problems with the audio were mainly related to the singing bowl sound. One person did not realize that it should be used at the beginning, another wished that this first gong would be gone for a quick start. One person asked for more specific instructions as to which people are to be introduced. Much praise went to the speaking voice.

Operation/usability: In the comments it was occasionally pointed out that the implementation on the smartphone was difficult and made it difficult to concentrate. In addition, the required click, which guides through the experiment, was not considered to promote concentration. But there was also praise for this individual speed adjustment.

Effect: Some comments suggest an effect of the experiment. “All people in this world” were felt very close to themselves and a physical reaction felt when they came closer. One person thought as "like so much I could eat you" and "shoot onto the moon" when positioning people.

General: Other problems concerned the people to be placed. It was not clear whether unknown or deceased people could be set. Some participants report the problem that they do not know a negative person.

Correlations and Internal Consistency

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In the correlation matrix of the relationship items, relationships can be explained, which can be seen in Table 1.

There are large, negative correlations between the DISTANCE, i.e. the distance at which the study participants placed the people, and the respective relationship items, apart from CONTACT. This item measures something other than the relationship quality, or the item was simply not understood due to unclear wording.

The relationship found is thus:

If a person is more personable, more influential in the lives of the study participants, and gives them more emotional support, then it will be localized more closely.

The internal consistency, which can be expressed by Cronbach's alpha, checks whether similar response behavior is shown for the same content. It is α = 0.84. The high value shows that all questions about the quality of relationships except for CONTACT are very homogeneous in terms of content. Without the item CONTACT, Cronbach's alpha even reaches α = 0.92 (cf. Döring; Bortz, 2016, p. 443ff.).

Graphic relationship quality

The perceived closeness to people could be determined visually. The scatter plots in Figure 2 show the positions of the people placed on the screen at the end of the graphical experiment. P1 as a positive person was clearly located “near” and almost exclusively “in front”. P2 as a negative person varies greatly, both in terms of distance and direction. P3, the neutral person, was placed rather “medium distance” away and tended to be in front. The perceived quality of the relationship is thus clearly expressed in the proximity presented. A tendency to the left or right cannot be seen. For the positive person P1 and the neutral person P3, there is a clear frontal focus in the localization. The scattering of the angles is smallest at P1 and largest at P2.

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Conclusion and outlook

This preliminary study enabled fundamental knowledge for the practical implementation of psychological counseling methods in computer-based form.

The graphical experiment can be viewed as objective, reliable and internally valid in its realized form. Objectively, because the computer as the test leader cannot be influenced. Reliable because it can be used reliably regardless of the environment. And internally valid, because it unequivocally measures the construct of relationship quality as it is considered in this study.

Aspects of Social Panorama according to Lucas Derks could also be identified as applicable: A person you “like” is clearly “close” in your imagination.

The results encourage further research into how computers can be used for psychological interventions. The computer as an inherently emotionless entity has neither emotional nor economic consequences to fear. This incorruptibility could make him an ideal advisor.

The availability for those in need could be significantly improved through automation and online applicability of counseling offers in the home environment.

The main task, however, would have to be found out which areas of psychological counseling should be given to people and which could be taken over by computers.

Bibliography

Asendorpf, J. (2015). Persönlichkeitspsychologie für Bachelor. 3. Auflage 3, Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer.

Derks, L. (2000). Das Spiel sozialer Beziehungen: NLP und die Struktur zwischenmenschlicher Erfahrung. 1. Auflage, Stuttgart: Klett-Cotta.

Döring, N.; Bortz, J. (2016). Forschungsmethoden und Evaluation in den Sozial- und Humanwissenschaften. 5. vollst. überarb., aktual. und erw. Auflage, Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer.

W3C (World Wide Web Consortium) (2011): Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) 1.1 (Second Edition). https://www.w3.org/TR/SVG11/ (24.09.2017).

W3C (World Wide Web Consortium) (2017). HTML 5.1 2nd Edition, W3C Recommendation https://www.w3.org/TR/html51/ (14.10.2017).

W3C (World Wide Web Consortium) (2017b). W3C Standards, JavaScript https://www.w3.org/TR/tr-technology-stds#tr_Javascript_APIs (24.09.2017).

W3Schools (2017). Responsive Web Design. https://www.w3schools.com/html/html_responsive.asp (24.09.2017).

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