Lay theories and consumer perceptions of dietary supplements

Consumers lack awareness and concern of potential adverse reactions, interactions, and inappropriate usage associated with dietary supplements. The lack of strict governmental regulation of supplements accompanied by consumers' lack of knowledge often results in them relying on ordinary lay (naïve) beliefs and theories when making supplement‐based decisions. We use an accessibility–diagnosticity framework to explore the impact of lay theories/beliefs on consumers' perceptions and judgments of dietary supplements. Two experiments prime two lay theories relevant to dietary supplement decision making: “less is more” (LIM: Study 1) and “no‐pain no‐gain” (NPNG: Study 2). Supplement form (single‐ vs. multi‐ingredient) is also manipulated in both studies, and Study 2 includes a Food and Drug Administration disclaimer intervention. Findings show that when a LIM lay theory is primed (Study 1), supplement form is a diagnostic cue. Specifically, consumers perceive that multi‐ingredient supplements possess more severe adverse side effects compared with single‐ingredient supplements. In the presence of an NPNG mindset (Study 2), supplement form was not diagnostic in the decision process, and a disclaimer intervention that draws attention to the lack of government regulation and testing of supplements was ineffective at influencing perceived side effect severity and attitude. The data confirm that lay theories impact dietary supplement decision making and that the observed effects are consistent with an accessibility–diagnosticity framework. Implications for public policy are also discussed.     

Lay perceptions of ethnic prejudice: causes,solutions, and individual differences

We assessed lay perceptions of the causes of and solutions to ethnic prejudice, and determined whether individual differences related to intergroup relations (social dominance orientation, right‐wing authoritarianism) and to cognitive style (personal need for structure, need for cognition) were predictive of these perceptions. Results revealed clear and coherent lay beliefs about the causes of and solutions to ethnic prejudice, and significant relations between perceived causes and solutions. Systematic relations between the intergroup‐relevant individual differences and these perceptions also emerged, in ways that may serve to justify and legitimize ethnic bias. Implications for the justification and maintenance of ethnic bias and for intervention programmes are discussed. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Teachers' and coaches' role perceptions for supporting young people's mental health: Multiple group path analyses

Teachers and youth sports coaches are in prominent positions to support young people and their mental health. However, the way these professionals perceive their roles is likely to be a powerful influence on such behaviour. This article investigates and compares the effect of four types of role perceptions—role breadth, instrumentality, efficacy, and discretion—on teachers' and coaches' engagement in helping behaviour that supports young people's mental health through promotion, prevention, and early intervention. An online survey was completed by 117 teachers and 131 coaches. Results from three multiple group path analyses revealed role breadth, instrumentality, and efficacy significantly influenced teachers' and coaches' helping behaviour. The extent to which role perceptions predicted helping behaviour did not differ between teachers and coaches. Assisting teachers and coaches to carry out promotion, prevention, and early intervention behaviour increases young people's access to mental health support and may help to reduce the burden of mental health problems among Australian young people.     

Lay people's and police officers' attitudes towards the usefulness of perpetrator voice identification

Expert and lay knowledge of factors that affect the identification of a voice is an area of research that is still relatively unexplored. Much more research has focused on eyewitness identification and eyewitnesses' common knowledge. However, results from ‘eyewitnessing’ studies may not be directly applicable to ‘earwitnessing’. The present study examines how knowledgeable British lay people and police officers were concerning earwitness identification performance. One hundred nine participants (i.e. 49 lay people and 60 police officers) responded to a specially designed questionnaire. Results showed respondents to be more knowledgeable than expected, although police officers were no more knowledgeable than the general population. The existence of meta‐knowledge is discussed in relation to previous studies. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

HIV/AIDS and health care workers: contact with patients and attitudes towards them

Data on a range of variables associated with contact with patients with HIV/AIDS and attitudes towards them were collected from 174 Scottish health care workers. Measures of attitudes and contact (overall, social and physical) were derived from the scales devised by Pleck et al. (1988). The measure of overall contact was not significantly related to attitudes, but those with predominantly social contact with patients with HIV/AIDS had more positive attitudes towards them. This relationship was moderated by occupational characteristics, concern about working with people of unknown HIV status and neuroticism. With all these variables controlled, including social contact, those who had not received in-service training relating to HIV/AIDS had more negative attitudes. The results are discussed with regard to the measurement of social contact with patients, salient beliefs, the occupational characteristics associated with attitudes, and in-service education.     

Health care practitioners' perceptions of public mental health care in the Eastern Cape,South Africa

This qualitative study explored the perceptions of health care practitioners (HCPs) concerning public mental health care in the Eastern Cape Province of South Africa. Data were collected from thirteen purposively selected HCPs using in-depth unstructured interviews (males?=?6, females?=?7). Data were transcribed verbatim and later thematically analysed. The findings suggest that mental health professionals perceive mental health services to be both inadequate and of suboptimal quality. Specifically, they perceived public mental health care to have lower priority, to be poorly resourced and lacking in patient-oriented care qualities.     

Psychology,health and health care

This article traces the development of the World Health Organization's emphasis on psychological and behavioural factors in health and notes its encouragement of recognition of these factors by member states. The article further outlines the reasons for this increasing recognition and stresses the important role of psychological and behavioural factors in the maintenance of health and prevention of illness.     

Young people's perceptions and experiences of leaving high school early: an exploration

Research suggests it is important for students to feel a sense of belonging to their school. Students who do not belong at school often attempt to satisfy this need through membership in antisocial groups, or they drop out from school altogether. The current study explored the perceptions and experiences of the school context held by young people who have left school early. Twelve young people aged 16–19 years were interviewed on their experiences of school and their wellbeing as a result of leaving school early. Constructionist grounded theory methodology formed the basis of the data analysis. The early leaving process was identified as having three phases; exclusion from school, the transition into workforce and the ‘now’ phase. The results identified factors in the school context that contributed to early student withdrawal. Furthermore, the research has implications for creating a ‘normative narrative’ (Rappaport, 2000 ) in relation to early school leavers. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Lay concepts of health and illness from a developmental perspective

Abstract

The concepts of children, adolescents and their mothers with regard to different aspects of health and illness in general and five specific diseases were explored in this study. An exploration with fully standardised questions and open answers was subjected to a content analysis. A reliable rating system was developed to score the sophistication of the answers. The study included 99 Ss of the age groups 5, 8, 12 and 16 years, as well as 48 mothers of the children. Many children and adolescents were able to define health positively (well-being) and not merely as the absence of illness. The definition of illness in general was frequently composed of somatic symptoms and disorders, feeling poorly and things one would like to accomplish but can't. The causality explanations of illness in general were dominated by contagion. The concepts of the older children and the mothers were richer, more elaborated, less concrete and less action-oriented than those of the younger children. However, abstract formulations and complex aspects of illness were very rarely expressed. In addition, concepts regarding the characteristics (definition, symptoms, causality, treatment and prevention) of five diseases (cold, measles, heart infarction, cancer and AIDS) were measured. The pattern of results was strongly influenced by age. By and large, the development of most disease concepts was linear with significant differences between age groups. Conversely, within a given age group, significant differences were found in the cognitive level of disease characteristics, either with respect to the same disease or between different diseases (“horizontal shifts”).     

Young people's perceptions of their vocational guidance needs: I. Priorities and pre-occupations

In spring 1981, 1,712 pupils in the third, fourth and fifth years of secondary education at 20 comprehensive schools in England completed a questionnaire about the priorities they gave to different aspects of vocational choice and preparation. Fifth-year pupils were followed up one year later, and perceived needs again recorded. Consistency between year-groups, and between fifth-year and follow-up, was high, suggesting that the perceived needs of even the third-year group were based on a realistic appraisal of the tasks they faced in entering employment. Systematic differences in ranked priority were found, however, with those who had left school giving much greater priority to work experience and less to discussions with family and teachers than those still at school. All ages reported considerable anxiety about finding work, with levels of rated anxiety on the other items being greatest amongst the third-year pupils.     

Organizational tenure,work environment perceptions,and employee mental health

The mediating effect of organizational “time investments” on the relationship between work environment perceptions and mental health was explored in two work settings. Participants were 257 managerial-level employees in a line organization and 214 in a staff setting. Results support the hypothesis of greater “responsivity” to perceived organizational stimuli for longer tenured employees, but only in the line setting. The mixed findings in the staff organization suggest that other characteristics of the environment (e.g., systems function) and of its members (e.g., organizational versus occupational identification) need to be considered. Implications for the social responsibilities of organizations to their members are offered in conclusion.     

Spirituality,health care,and bioethics

This article explores the relationship of spirituality to health care and bioethics in terms of the need and efforts of people to make sense of their lives in the face of illness, injury, or impending death. Moving beyond earlier associations with specific religious traditions, spirituality has come to designate the way in which people can integrate their experiences with their sense of ultimate meaning and related values. The holistic model of health care also affirms that one should not simply treat a body in pain, but respond to the suffering of the whole person within his or her full life. A narrative emphasis in ethics also maintains that ethical decisions occur within the framework of interacting life-stories, each of which embodies a certain core vision and set of values. In each instance it is the life stories of people, their lived narratives, that provide a common thread. The telling of these stories and the discernment of the lived spirituality they contain may assist persons in the process of achieving understanding, making decisions, and finding purpose in the experience of illness, injury, or disability.Maureen Muldoon, Ph.D., is Associate Professor in the Department of Religious Studies, University of Windsor, Windsor, Ontario, and Norman King, Ph.D., is Professor in the same department.     

Facial redness,expression, and masculinity influence perceptions of anger and health

Past research has found that skin colouration, particularly facial redness, influences the perceived health and emotional state of target individuals. In the current work, we explore several extensions of this past research. In Experiment 1, we manipulated facial redness incrementally on neutral and angry faces and had participants rate each face for anger and health. Different red effects emerged, as perceived anger increased in a linear manner as facial redness increased. Health ratings instead showed a curvilinear trend, as both extreme paleness and redness were rated as less healthy than moderate levels of red. Experiment 2 replicated and extended these findings by manipulating the masculinity of both angry and neutral faces that varied in redness. The results found the effect of red on perceived anger and health was moderated by masculine face structure. Collectively, these results show that facial redness has context dependent effects that vary based on facial expression, appearance, and differentially impact ratings of emotional states and health.     

Kant,health care and justification

An argument based on Kant for access to health-care for all is a most helpful addition to prior discussions. My paper argues that while such a point of view is helpful it fails to be persuasive. What is needed, in addition to a notion of the legislative will, is a viewpoint of community which sees justice as originating not merely from considerations of reason alone but from a notion of community and from a framework of common human experiences and capabilities.     

Perceptions of pain and perceptions of health

Perceptions of pain and perceptions of overall health status are complex phenomena. While logically and empirically linked, the direction of influence between the two is uncertain. Is pain one among the many indicators people take into account as they evaluate their general health status? Or are global health perceptions stable aspects of experience which underlie and color more transient experiences such as pain? These are especially interesting questions given recent evidence regarding the power of subjective health assessments in mortality prediction. The relationship between pain and perceptions of health was examined in a sample of 200 randomly selected clients of an outpatient rehabilitation center. Respondents were given a complete musculoskeletal examination by their physician followed by an extensive arthritis pain assessment administered by the staff nurse; instruments used were from the U.S. Public Health Service National Health and Nutrition Examination (NHANES-I). Other data collected by self-report included symptoms elicited by a body systems review, diagnosed chronic disease, functional disability, self-ratings of global health, evaluations of past and future health, and demographic factors. Regression analysis showed that (1) pain had an independent effect on self-perceptions of health net of other health status covariates, (2) self-perceptions of health had an independent effect on pain net of other health status covariates, (3) individuals who evaluated both their past and future health as poor reported more present pain, and (4) individuals who felt their health would be worse in the future reported poorer present health. Findings show that reports of present pain and present global health status were linked to each other and that the sense of an overall health trajectory influenced the interpretation, evaluation, and reporting of current states, both specific and general.     

Attachment,perceptions of care and caregiving to romantic partners and friends

Across two studies, we examined the extent to which adults' caregiving responses reflect the quality of care received from their attachment figures. Study 1 showed that romantic caregiving reflected the quality of perceived parental and partner care. Moreover, perceived partner care mediated the link between parental care and romantic caregiving, suggesting that one's parental care affects the type of care one seeks or receives from partners, which in turn affects one's romantic caregiving. This describes a possible process for the intergenerational transmission of caregiving styles. Romantic attachment anxiety was associated with compulsive caregiving to partners. Study 2 examined causal mechanisms by priming a representation of perceived peer care and examining its effect on caregiving responses. As hypothesized, caregiving responses reflected the quality of primed peer care and were associated with attachment orientation. Findings provide evidence that individuals mentally represent the thoughts, feelings and behaviours of the care‐seeker and the caregiver during interactions and both influence one's caregiving to partners and friends. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Justice, health care, and the elderly

Concern over rising health costs in the United States has led to an intensifying policy debate over health care for the elderly and a rethinking of questions on intergenerational justice and the claims of the aged on social resources. Major contributions to this debate have been made by Daniel Callahan in his Setting Limits (Simon & Schuster; 1987) and by Norman Daniels in his Am I My Parents' Keeper? (Oxford University Press; 1988). Brock reviews Callahan's and Daniels' work, identifying the central focus of both as the age-group problem of resource allocation. He sees Callahan as calling upon a communitarian political philosophy and Daniels as arguing from a tradition of political liberalism. While disagreeing in part with both authors, Brock identifies compatible elements in their arguments that contribute significantly to the public debate over health care and the aged.