Individual differences in sensitivity to health communications: consideration of future consequences.

There are reliable individual differences in the extent to which people consider the long- and short-term consequences of their behaviors. Such differences, assessed by the Consideration of Future Consequences (CFC) Scale (A. Strathman, F. Gleicher, D. S. Boninger, & C. S. Edwards, 1994), are hypothesized to influence the impact of a persuasive communication. In an experimental study, the time frame of occurrence of positive and negative consequences of engaging in a new colorectal cancer-screening program was manipulated in a sample of two hundred twenty 50-69-year-old men and women. CFC moderated (a) the processing of short- versus long-term consequences and (b) the persuasive impact of the different communications on behavioral intentions. Low CFC individuals produced more positive thoughts and were more persuaded when positive consequences were short term and negative consequences were long term. The opposite was true for high CFC individuals.     

Do the “Eyes” Have It? A Program Evaluation of Jane Elliott's “Blue‐Eyes/Brown‐Eyes” Diversity Training Exercise1

The effectiveness of Jane Elliott's well‐known “blue‐eyes/brown‐eyes” exercise in reducing college students’ stereotyping and prejudice was assessed. College students were randomly assigned to either the exercise group or a comparison group. Blue‐eyed and brown‐eyed exercise participants were given discriminatory versus preferential treatment, respectively; a procedure purportedly designed to sensitize participants to the emotional and behavioral consequences of discrimination. Participation in the exercise was found to be associated with White students (a) indicating significantly more positive attitudes toward Asian American and Latino/Latina individuals, but only marginally more positive attitudes toward African American individuals; and (b) reporting anger with themselves when noticing themselves engaging in prejudiced thoughts or actions—negative affect that theoretically could prove to be either helpful or detrimental in promoting long‐term reduction of stereotyping and prejudice.     

Do Narrative Engagement and Recipients’ Thoughts Explain the Impact of an Entertainment-Education Narrative on Discouraging Binge Drinking?

Previous research suggests that narrative engagement (NE) in entertainment-education (E-E) narratives reduces counterarguing, thereby leading to E-E impact on behavior. It is, however, unclear how different NE processes (narrative understanding, attentional focus, emotional engagement, narrative presence) relate to different thought types (negative or positive; about the narrative form or about the target behavior) and to E-E impact. This study explores these relations in the context of alcohol binge drinking (BD). Participants (N = 172) watched an E-E narrative showing negative BD consequences, thereby aiming to discourage BD. The main findings were that the E-E narrative had a positive impact on discouraging BD on almost all assessed BD determinants such as beliefs and attitude. It was shown that attentional focus, emotional engagement, and narrative presence were associated with BD-discouraging impact, albeit on different BD-related determinants. No evidence was found that negative thoughts about BD mediated these associations. From this, we conclude that attentional focus, emotional engagement, and narrative presence were important for E-E impact but that negative thoughts about BD did not play a role therein. The study’s empirical and practical implications are discussed.     

Some psychological effects associated with positive and negative thinking about stressful event outcomes: was Pollyanna right?

This study investigated psychological effects associated with tendencies to focus one's thinking on positive versus negative outcomes of concluded stressful events, called respectively, positive and negative thinking. Four questions were addressed: (a) whether positive and negative thinking benefit or reduce psychological well-being, (b) whether these effects are transitory or enduring, (c) whether they are limited to thoughts about an event's impact on oneself or generalize to thoughts about an event's external consequences, and (d) whether tendencies to think positively or negatively about prior stressors influence psychological vulnerability to the impact of future ones. College students completed an event-outcome appraisal questionnaire designed to make salient positive and negative thoughts about the outcomes of recent stressful events. Subjects' well-being was then assessed both immediately after the salience manipulation and again 8 weeks later. Positive thinking increased the well-being that subjects reported immediately after their thoughts were assessed, but was unrelated to the well-being they reported after an 8-week delay. This suggests that although thinking positively about past event outcomes may temporarily lead to perceptions of increased well-being while the thoughts are salient, it has no enduring influence. In contrast, negative thinking was associated with lower reported well-being not only when the thoughts were salient but after a delay as well. Psychological effects associated with both types of thinking were due mostly to self-relevant thoughts rather than to externally relevant ones. Negative thinking about prior stressor outcomes appeared to increase vulnerability to the impact of later ones on several aspects of well-being. Overall, results for negative thinking are consistent with evidence reported after an 8-week delay. This suggests that although thinking positively effects that persist over time. However, positive thinking does not seem to have beneficial effects that continue once these thoughts are no longer salient.     

The Effect of Consideration of Future Consequences on Quality and Quantity Aspects of Job Performance1

This study extended prior research on consideration of future consequences (CFC) by exploring its influence on quality and quantity aspects of job performance. CFC is an individual‐differences variable reflecting the importance a person assigns to the immediate vs. future consequences of his or her actions. We hypothesized that individuals with a high future orientation would produce higher quality work, while low‐CFC participants would produce greater quantities. Participants took part in a data‐entry task where they were asked to enter as many words as they could (quantity) while maintaining the highest accuracy (quality) possible. Results supported the primary hypothesis. Workplace implications of the findings are discussed, particularly with respect to selection and the design of performance incentive systems.     

Thought-action fusion in individuals with OCD symptoms.

Rachman (Rachman, S. (1993). Obsessions, responsibility, and guilt. Behaviour Research and Therapy, 31, 149-154) suggested that patients with OCD may interpret thoughts as having special importance, thus experiencing thought-action fusion (TAF). Shafran, Thordarson and Rachman (Shafran, R., Thordarson, D. S. & Rachman, S. (1996). Thought-action fusion in obsessive compulsive disorder. Journal of Anxiety Disorders, 710, 379-391) developed a questionnaire (TAF) and found that obsessives scored higher than non-obsessives on the measure. In the current study, we modified the TAF to include a scale that assessed the "likelihood of events happening to others" as well as ratings of the responsibility and cost for having these thoughts. Replicating previous findings, we found that individuals with OC symptoms gave higher ratings to the likelihood of negative events happening as a result of their negative thoughts. Individuals with OC symptoms also rated the likelihood that they would prevent harm by their positive thoughts higher than did individuals without OC symptoms. These results suggest that the role of thought-action fusion in OCs may extend to exaggerated beliefs about thoughts regarding the reduction of harm.     

Snatching defeat from the jaws of victory: self-esteem differences in the experience and anticipation of success

Successes--defined broadly as meeting important standards or receiving positive evaluations--are widely assumed to be enjoyed equally by people with high self-esteem (HSEs) and low self-esteem (LSEs). Three studies examined the contradictory hypothesis that HSEs react more favorably to success than do LSEs and that success brings about certain unfavorable consequences for LSEs. Undergraduate participants reacted to a laboratory-manipulated success (Studies 1 and 2) or imagined highly positive events in the future (Study 3). Self-esteem differences emerged in anxiety, thoughts about the self, and (in Study 3) thoughts about non-self-related aspects of the event. LSEs were more anxious than HSEs after succeeding, success improved HSEs' self-relevant thoughts but not LSEs', and LSEs focused more on success's negative aspects.     

Social Distance,Framing, and Judgment: A Construal Level Perspective

Drawing upon construal level theory, this research investigates the influence of social distance on individuals’ responses to persuasive messages. Experiment 1 (N= 133) demonstrates that the persuasive impact of a gain frame becomes stronger when people make judgments for socially distant (e.g., others) versus proximal entities (e.g., selves). On the other hand, the persuasive impact of a loss frame remains the same across different levels of social distance. Experiment 2 (N= 135) shows that the persuasiveness of a societal frame becomes stronger when people make judgments for socially distant versus proximal entities, whereas the persuasiveness of an individual frame is unaffected by social distance. Experiment 3 (N= 80) provides evidence that mental salience of positive and societal outcomes of an action increases as social distance increases, whereas mental salience of negative and individual outcomes remains the same across different levels of social distance.     

The Use of Deception as a Compliance-Gaining Strategy

This study argues that the persuasive message behaviors of truthful and deceptive communicators may differ strategically. Participants (N = 283) responded to three interpersonally oriented persuasive situations and wrote out instances of compliance-gaining messages. Approximately half the respondents were required to use deception in their persuasive messages. A comparison of truthful and deceptive compliance-gaining messages revealed significant differences in the types of persuasive messages generated: Truthful persuaders composed messages involving positive and negative sanctions; deceptive persuaders composed messages based on rationale or explanation.     

Should persuasion be affective or cognitive? The moderating effects of need for affect and need for cognition

Three experiments tested the hypothesis that need for affect and need for cognition influence receptivity to affect- and cognition-based persuasive messages. Experiment 1 found that an affective message elicited more positive attitudes among individuals high in need for affect and low in need for cognition, whereas a cognitive message elicited more positive attitudes among individuals low in need for affect and high in need for cognition. Experiment 2 found that individual differences in need for affect influenced receptivity to an affect-based (but not cognition-based) message, whereas individual differences in need for cognition influenced receptivity to a cognition-based (but not affect-based) message. Experiment 3 found that individual differences in need for affect were associated with increased recognition of information from an affect-based (but not cognition-based) message, whereas individual differences in need for cognition were associated with increased recognition of information from a cognition-based (but not affect-based) message. Overall, the studies point to the importance of individual differences in need for affect and need for cognition in understanding how individuals respond to different types of persuasive messages.     

Beyond Fear Appeals: Negative and Positive Persuasive Appeals to Health and Self-Esteem

The present research was designed to extend our knowledge of fear appeals and attitude change in two directions. The first purpose was to compare a traditional negative, or fear, appeal to its counterpart, an appeal emphasizing the positive consequences of accepting a communicator's recommendation. The second purpose was to test the assumption of the theory of protection motivation that people are motivated to protect themselves from psychological and social, as well as physical, threats. The results disclosed that, compared to a no-message control condition, the traditional negative appeal to health was more persuasive than the positive appeal. A positive appeal to self-esteem, however, was superior to a negative appeal to self-esteem. Several implications for health psychology were discussed. First, the traditional negative appeals to health may be more persuasive than positive appeals. Second, people may be persuaded to adopt healthy lifestyles for reasons other than health per se (i.e., to enhance self-esteem). The following tentative conclusions were based on unexpected findings and should be interpreted with caution. The decision to use a positive or negative appeal should consider the number of available adaptive responses. Finally, the data suggested that mass media health campaigns should use both negative and positive appeals.     

A preliminary investigation of cognitive flexibility for emotional information in major depressive disorder and non-psychiatric controls

Clinical research suggests that individuals with major depressive disorder (MDD) are cognitively inflexible, exhibiting ruminative, rigid, and automatic thoughts within a negative schema. However, existing neuropsychological research on cognitive flexibility in this population has not employed emotional stimuli. Because research suggests that the performance of individuals with MDD is modulated when emotional stimuli are used, this study investigates the impact of emotional stimuli on cognitive flexibility performance through a novel emotional modification of the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test. Controls were less flexible when stimuli were positive and individuals with MDD were less flexible when stimuli were negative relative to the controls. These divergent styles of responding to emotional information may contribute to the relative risk or protection from depressed mood.     

Using images to increase exercise behavior: prototypes versus possible selves

This study investigated the impact of health-related prototypes and possible selves on exercise behavior. In addition, this study examined if these effects might be moderated by individual differences-specifically social comparison (SC) and consideration of future consequences (CFC). One hundred and fifty-two students participated in all three waves of the study-premanipulation, manipulation, and follow-up. As expected, results indicated that individuals who were high on SC and exposed to a prototype manipulation increased their exercise behavior at follow-up. Furthermore, individuals who were future-oriented and exposed to a possible selves manipulation increased their exercise behavior at follow-up. Overall, results revealed that health images have an important impact on health behavior. Implications for behavior change are discussed.     

Predicting Cognitive and Social Consequences of Emotional Episodes: The Contribution of Emotional Intensity, the Five Factor Model, and Alexithymia

Emotional events are followed by recurrent thoughts (rumination) and talking about the event (social sharing of emotion). Factors that can account for variations in these consequences were examined (emotional intensity, the Five Factor Model, and two factors of alexithymia). In two samples, participants reported the most negative emotional event of recent months and in one sample also reported the most positive one. Results indicated that emotional intensity predicted social sharing and rumination, while neuroticism was positively related to intrusive thoughts about negative events and extraversion to rumination and social sharing about positive events. Difficulty describing feelings was negatively related to social sharing for negative events and reduced fantasy to rumination for positive events.     

Inhibitory control and affective valence processing in dementia of the alzheimer type

Emotional and traditional Stroop effects were contrasted in individuals with Alzheimer's disease (AD) and age‐equated, non‐demented individuals to examine (a) differences in the speed of processing emotional versus neutral words; and (b) the extent to which the emotional valence influences interference effects. Individuals with moderate AD experienced larger traditional Stroop interference effects than did healthy elderly or individuals with mild AD. Emotional Stroop effects were evident among individuals with moderate AD and significantly greater than elderly and individuals with mild AD who exhibited minimal effects. For negative words, significant differences were only observed between individuals with moderate AD and healthy elderly. Emotional Stroop effects among individuals with AD were not statistically different for positive and negative words. The impact of stimulus intensity level and AD‐associated changes to the prefrontal cortex and amygdala on emotional Stroop effects requires further investigation.     

Implicit measurement of positive and negative future thinking as a predictor of depressive symptoms and hopelessness

Research using explicit measures has linked decreased positive future thinking, but not increased negative future thinking, with clinical depression. However, individuals may be unable or unwilling to express thoughts about the future, and can be unaware of implicit beliefs that can influence their behavior. Implicit measures of cognition may shed light on the role of future thinking in depression. To our knowledge, the current study presents the first implicit measure of positive and negative future thinking. A sample of 71 volunteers (38 healthy; 33 with sub-clinical depression) completed both implicit and explicit measures of positive and negative future thinking. The findings indicate differences in the evaluation of both positive and negative future events between the two groups. However, group differences were more pronounced on the implicit measure. These findings point to the potential utility of an implicit measure of future thinking in mental health research and clinical practice.     

Promotion orientation explains why future-oriented people exercise and eat healthy: evidence from the two-factor consideration of future consequences-14 scale

The authors extended research linking individual differences in consideration of future consequences (CFC) with health behaviors by (a) testing whether individual differences in regulatory focus would mediate that link and (b) highlighting the value of a revised, two-factor CFC-14 scale with subscales assessing concern with future consequences (CFC-Future) and concern with immediate consequences (CFC-Immediate) proper. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses of the revised CFC-14 scale supported the presence of two highly reliable factors (CFC-Future and CFC-Immediate; αs from .80 to .84). Moreover, structural equation modeling showed that those high in CFC-Future engage in exercise and healthy eating because they adopt a promotion orientation. Future use of the two-factor CFC-14 scale is encouraged to shed additional light on how concern with future and concern with immediate consequences (proper) differentially impact the way people resolve a host of intertemporal dilemmas (e.g., health, financial, and environmental behavior).     

Negative Threat Appeals and Earthquake Preparedness: A Person-Relative-to-Event (PrE) Model of Coping With Threat1

Individual preparation, or the lack thereof, for the occurrences of external events that threaten the well-being of individuals is an issue of worldwide concern. The present studies were designed to investigate the impact of a particular type of persuasive communication (i.e., fear-arousing or negative threat appeals) on preparedness behavior regarding the possible occurrence of a damaging earthquake. A general model of coping, the person-relative-to-event (PrE) model, emphasizing the relationship between level of appraised threat and person resources, was applied to this issue. It was predicted that negative threat appeals using combinations of levels of factors that cause a person to appraise their resources as sufficient in quantity and quality to obviate or minimize the negative consequences of a threatening earthquake would increase levels of earthquake preparedness to a greater extent than would communications that do not. Results of Study I were partially supportive of these predictions. In Study 2, patterns of changes in preparedness behavior fit predictions generated by the PrE model to a greater extent when felt responsibility for preparing for the occurrence of an earthquake was high than when it was low. Implications of the research and theory underlying this investigation are discussed.     

Attachment-related strategies during thought suppression: ironic rebounds and vulnerable self-representations

The authors conducted 2 studies of attachment-related variations in thought suppression. Participants were asked, or not asked, to suppress thoughts about a relationship breakup and then to perform a Stroop task under high or low cognitive load. The dependent variables were the rebound, of previously suppressed separation-related thoughts (Study 1) and the accessibility of self-traits (Study 2). Under low cognitive load, avoidant individuals did not show any rebound of separation-related thoughts and activated positive self-representations. Under high cognitive load, avoidant participants failed to suppress thoughts of separation and were more likely to activate negative self-representations. Attachment anxiety was associated with high activation of negative self-representations and unremitting separation-related thoughts. The results are discussed in terms of the hidden vulnerabilities of avoidant individuals.