Hi, I'm Lonny Douglas Meinecke
Cognitive Psychology Adjunct & PhD Student
(Dissertation Stage) - My research focus is to question whether this affinity for our own thoughts and utterances is truly as amazing as we say it is... because each time a child is born, or we fall helplessly in love, or we stand in awe of God and this Nature, thoughts and words fail us altogether...
lonnymeinecke@gmail.com / (501) 204-4530
Curriculum Vitae
Education
Psychology (Cognition & Instruction)
PhD (in dissertation phase)Grand Canyon University - Graduation: August 2017
General Psychology
Master of ScienceGrand Canyon University - Graduated February 2013
Information Technology (honor grad)
Bachelor of ScienceUniversity of Phoenix - Graduated June 2011
English/French
Associate of ArtsWest Valley College - Graduated June 1976
Awards
Governor's Scholar Award
State of California - June 1974
Austin Warburton Citizenship Award
City of Santa Clara - June 1974
Four year scholarship
California Scholarship Federation - June 1974
Teaching and Work Experience
King University, Social Psychology
Adjunct Faculty - January 2017 - February 2017
Instruction and facilitation of online undergraduate and professional studies in the field of social psychology, within the behavioral and health sciences department. Ensuring course goals are met and helping learners overcome unexpected difficulties.
King University, Lifespan Development
Adjunct Faculty - October 2016 - November 2016
Instruction and facilitation of online undergraduate and professional studies in the field of human lifespan development, within the behavioral and health sciences department. Ensuring course goals are met and helping learners overcome unexpected difficulties.
King University, Applied Psychology
Adjunct Faculty - July 2016 - August 2016
Instruction and facilitation of online undergraduate and professional studies in the field of applied psychology, within the behavioral and health sciences department. Ensuring course goals are met and helping learners overcome unexpected difficulties.
King University, Cognitive Psychology
Adjunct Faculty - November 2015 - December 2015
Instruction and facilitation of online undergraduate and professional studies in the field of cognitive psychology, within the behavioral and health sciences department. Ensuring course goals are met and helping learners overcome unexpected difficulties.
King University, Applied Psychology
Adjunct Faculty - July 2015 - September 2015
Instruction and facilitation of online undergraduate and professional studies in the field of applied psychology, within the behavioral and health sciences department. Ensuring course goals are met and helping learners overcome unexpected difficulties.
Grand Canyon University, CIRT
Research Assistant - July 2015 - December 2015
Researching and co-writing of literature review, helping develop survey instruments for Critical Success Factors in Online Education at CIRT (Center for Innovation in Research and Teaching)
Study.com
Lesson Writer - March 2015 - September 2016
Designing and composing educational lessons in computers and information technology for a popular online higher education site (previously named Education Portal) following specific requirements.
UC Berkeley (online), Science of Happiness
"Sennsei"/Teaching Assistant - September 2014 - December 2015
Leading conversations, increasing course depth for the Wellness Dojo inside the Sennseis community in support of the Greater Good Science Center (GGSC) and AARP’s Life Reimagined.
New Sunrise, Inc.
Technical and Document Translation (volunteer) - July 2007 - Present
Document translation and domain research, technical support, Java translation tools, and Web assistance/translation for a charity to help impoverished areas of Central America.
Odd by Nature, Inc., Greenville, NC
Instructional Designer (volunteer) - January 2014 - December 2014
Created practicum/internship video for graduate biology students, and instructional video about companion animals for autism spectrum at a wildlife refuge/animal rescue/education-practicum site.
The 3DO Company, Hotz Corp., Lion Entertainment
Programmer/software engineer - October 1995 - May 2003
Software engineer, utility programming in C/C++ (PS2, PC). Subjects included art converters, sound systems, geometry exporters, and entertainment software level design tools.
Publications and Papers
Critical Success Factors in Online Education
Co-researcher - July 2015 - December 2015
Instruction and facilitation of online undergraduate and professional studies in the field of cognitive psychology, within the behavioral and health sciences department. Ensuring course goals are met and helping learners overcome unexpected difficulties.
Silence: Because What's Missing is Too Absent to Ignore
Article Co-author - March 2015
Instruction and facilitation of online undergraduate and professional studies in the field of applied psychology, within the behavioral and health sciences department. Ensuring course goals are met and helping learners overcome unexpected difficulties.
Nonhuman Audience & Autism Spectrum Disorder
Instructional Designer - April 2014
Designing and composing educational lessons in computers and information technology for a popular online higher education site (previously named Education Portal) following specific requirements.
How to Choose an Internship/Practicum Site
Instructional Designer - March 2014
Leading conversations, increasing course depth for the Wellness Dojo inside the Sennseis community in support of the Greater Good Science Center (GGSC) and AARP’s Life Reimagined.
Languages
English - Native Language
French - moderate reading proficiency
Spanish – moderate reading/translation proficiency
Memberships
American Psychological Association
(Division 24, Electronic and Social Media Committee member)
Psi Chi International Honor Society
Association of Humanistic Psychology
Certification
Teaching Assistant Certificate – UC Berkeley’s Greater Good Science Center and Sennseis
Blackboard Essential Training (License FB7591)
RCR for Social and Behavioral Science – CITI (License 13339006)
Students in Social/Behavioral Research – CITI (License 13339005)
References
DISSERTATION HUB (pick one)
DISSERTATION HUB (synopsis)
Dissertation Synopsis
The focus of this research is to ask whether - when faced with a hard choice - the human species would rather that intelligent things survive (reverence for itself), rather than that Life of any kind survive (reverence for Life). This question extends work by the Fiske social cognition lab at Princeton on the societal competition for mental status rather than appreciation for physical existence. This suggests the practice of unnatural selection by the human species (egocentrism), whereas natural selection is practiced by every other (biocentrism). This can be questioned using scientific methods, to explore an irrational struggle to preserve mental phenomena instead of biological phenomena. This study will explore the research gap by asking whether the human species has been practicing something we might call cognitive idolatry.
04/24/2016
Unnatural Selection: A Theory of Cognitive Idolatry
This research will propose three questions.
- Is there more emphasis on the well-being and survival of mental phenomena than on the well-being and survival of living things? This concept is titled Psychological Favor.
- Is there a demand to prioritize mental aims (quasi-needs) over biological needs? This concept is titled Psychological Demand.
- Is there an unnatural belief that mental attributions do not perish even though those who make attributions and those they refer to always perish? This concept is titled Psychological Onus.
These questions will help demonstrate an uncanny reverence for thought and an inexplicable apathy for living things. They will demonstrate an unnatural attraction to introspection instead of spending time among living things. An online survey that asks which type of phenomena ought to survive (human ideals or living things) can be analyzed using McNemar chi-square analysis to see if there is indeed a prejudicial favor for the survival of human phenomena (revered thoughts and works) instead of living things not made by humankind.
DISSERTATION HUB (Downloads)
Dissertation Downloads
Here are some downloadable files from this research. It changes pretty often, so feel free to check back here regularly.
Dissertation Documents
*** Upload a File ***DISSERTATION HUB (links)
Dissertation Links
Here are some links to key places on the Web for this research.
DISSERTATION HUB (resources)
Dissertation Resources
A list of useful resources in the field of Cognitive Psychology will eventually go here.
The Cognitive Psychology Network (tbd)
DISSERTATION HUB (mindmap)
Dissertation MindMap
DISSERTATION HUB (model)
Dissertation Model
This is the current model for this dissertation research regarding an unnatural preference for mental phenomena. Prejudice and mixed emotions seem to be underpinned by a sort of idolatry of human thought, language, and writing, while perceiving living things as here for human thoughts to dominate. Beneath this demand for psychological favor, seems a once simpler openness, kindness, and conditionless regard for living things - and even one another.
Dissertation Prejudice Model
Proposed revision to Fiske/Princeton model
Publications
FIELD RESEARCH
Psychological Favor: Trust
Mythical Cliff ProspectusPremise: We are more attached to our thoughts than we are to the life happening all around us. We place more trust in these self-managed (untrustworthy) thoughts, and somehow remain more suspicious of one another's genuine (trustworthy) feelings. I sometimes call this preference transactional awareness (solemn time), versus playful awareness (non-serious time), because it's more about making deals than being together.
- For some odd reason, we take as given that Life
begins
with human mental life. My research indicates to me, thatLife
ends there. Empathy ends there. Apathy and anxiety and antipathy begin there. Mental life begins when/because we cannot get to real life, not when we can (key point). It is more lasting than genuine awareness, but is never satisfied. - Our tiny children and other species do not need as much mental life - it isn't that they are not as developed as us. They trust what they feel to be true. They do not doubt everything until it repeats itself. We prefer mental phenomena to actual phenomena, because we can control it better (we don't have to share our mental life with our neighbors). We each possess private worlds (as both neurons and neuronal phenomena), and this, unfortunately, creates all sorts of conflicts. (There can only be One shared world after all, one of Everything).
- But… we can carry these Preferred Worlds around… which makes them quite handy, but which also depreciates our one, shared, spontaneous moment completely. It makes the lasting Self's needs and the lasting Self's worth more urgent than our fleeting neighbor's unfulfilled needs. Or to simply be grateful to briefly have a neighbor, and perhaps find our worth when that neighbor's needs are met freely by us.
For any of us, perhaps our greatest potential regret may be that of not seizing the moment and honoring it for what it is when it is here
- Jon Kabat-Zinn, from Coming to our Senses: Healing Ourselves and the World through Mindfulness
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The weather - we trust facts more than feelings
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Example - test and see what the participant does at the front door just before going outside
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Why?
These are some of the measurable phenomena I believe our study can bring to light - a terrible prejudice against living things, held by domineering mental phenomena (invariant thoughts) It seems to fit the Fiske model of social prejudice brilliantly (I think!). And what might be nice, is how |
MY RESEARCH BLOG
Contact
Address
25 Cullerendo Way
Phone
(501) 204-4530
lonnymeinecke@gmail.com