Tuesdays at APA: Emotions and Planning

Tuesday, August 27, 2013


The more planners engage in collaborative participation the more
they should expect to find people making judgments about the
future tied to current emotional attachments. How do planners
anticipate this and prepare activities and plans that encourage
and foster emotional shifts?


Most planners and plans provide argument and evidence to inform
clients about future changes giving reasons in support of
different alternative responses. But these do not work in the
face of emotional attachments to familiar and popular practices.
The use of narrative and storytelling offers a way for
professionals to anticipate and counter client attachments.
Professor Charles Hoch, from the University of Illinois at
Chicago, shared some highlights from his research about the
effects of emotions on planning processes and discussed the power
of narrative in planning.