Examining the Role of Peer Influence and Self-Control on Downloading Behavior

In the Chilean school system, classrooms are stable settings and constitute a closed socialization context. Through multilevel analysis, this article examines the association between classroom composition and students' marijuana consumption. Under the theoretical assumption that social control mechanisms work into social learning peer processes, our results indicate that, as an imposed environment, the classroom may encourage or discourage marijuana use among students. The results suggest that individual marijuana use is strongly associated with school bonding and marijuana tolerance at the classroom level. The strength of these associations depends on the flexibility and stability of the classroom structure.     

Examining the Effects of Family and School Social Capital on Delinquent Behavior

In this article we evaluate and compare the effects of social capital at home and social capital at school on the frequency of involvement in delinquent behavior in the previous year. Using data from the first wave of the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (Add Health, 1994–95; N = 8,100), a nationally representative survey of youth in the United States, we find that social sources of capital in the family exert a stronger negative influence on delinquency than school-based sources of capital, net the effects of other common correlates of this type of adolescent behavior.     

Behavior Therapy and Callous-Unemotional Traits: Effects of a Pilot Study Examining Modified Behavioral Contingencies on Child Behavior

The conduct problems of children with callous-unemotional (CU) traits (i.e., lack of empathy, lack of guilt/lack of caring behaviors) are particularly resistant to current behavioral interventions, and it is possible that differential sensitivities to punishment and reward may underlie this resistance. Children with conduct problems and CU (CPCU) are less responsive to behavioral punishment techniques (e.g., time-out), whereas reward techniques (e.g., earning points for prizes or activities) are effective for reducing conduct problems. This study examined the efficacy of modified behavioral interventions, which de-emphasized punishment (Condition B) and emphasized reward techniques (Condition C), compared with a standard behavioral intervention (Condition A). Interventions were delivered through a summer treatment program over 7 weeks with an A-B-A-C-A-BC-A design to a group of 11 children (7–11 years; 91% male). All children were diagnosed with either oppositional defiant disorder or conduct disorder, in addition to attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder. Results revealed the best treatment response occurred during the low-punishment condition, with rates of negative behavior (e.g., aggression, teasing, stealing) increasing over the 7 weeks. However, there was substantial individual variability in treatment response, and several children demonstrated improvement during the modified intervention conditions. Future research is necessary to disentangle treatment effects from order effects, and implications of group treatment of CPCU children (i.e., deviancy training) are discussed.     

The Influence of Creativity on Incongruity-Resolution and Nonsense Humor Comprehension

Both creativity and humor are high-level cognitive functions and complex concepts. Although creativity and humor are generally deemed positively correlated, it has been difficult to explicitly identify their relationship with each other. The cognitive process of creativity includes divergent thinking, insight, and remote association, whereas humor comprehension includes incongruity resolution and nonsense humor. The difference between the 2 types of humor is in whether individuals can understand the content of jokes through logical deduction. This study explored the relationship of the different dimensions of cognitive creativity and incongruity-resolution and nonsense humor comprehension. Furthermore, we examined the influence of divergent thinking, insight, and remote association on incongruity-resolution and nonsense humor comprehension. The scores from 103 participants on a divergent thinking questionnaire, an insight problem-solving task, and the Chinese compound remote associate problems test were used to analyze their comprehension of incongruity resolution and nonsense humor. The results showed a positive correlation between remote association and incongruity-resolution humor comprehension, as well as a positive correlation between insight and nonsense humor comprehension. These findings indicate that each dimension of cognitive creativity has a particular way of connecting to various types of humor comprehension.     

Examining the Impact of Technology on Exhibitionistic Behavior

Contemporary sexual behavior cannot be fully understood without considering the effects of smartphones and social networking websites, both of which have provided additional avenues for consensual sexual activity. However, technology has also created new ways to engage in deviant behavior that may be similar to exhibitionism (exposing one’s genitals to unsuspecting individuals). Participants completed a survey about traditional exhibitionistic behaviors (flashing) and technological sexual behaviors such as sending sexually explicit pictures. A small percentage of participants reported engaging in both technological and traditional exhibitionistic behavior, which may be indicative of an electronic manifestation of deviant sexual behavior.     

Examining the Influence of Self-Efficacy on Message-Framing Effects: Reducing Salt Consumption in the General Population

Health-promoting messages can be framed in terms of the gains associated with healthy behavior or the losses associated with unhealthy behavior. Studies show inconsistent results as to which type of framing is more effective. In this study, we investigated whether participants' self-efficacy to decrease salt intake would moderate the effects of gain- and loss-framed messages promoting a low-salt diet on information acceptance, intention, and behavior. We hypothesized that loss-framed messages would more effectively decrease salt intake than gain-framed messages, but only when participants had high self-efficacy. A total of 575 adults, recruited from an Internet panel, took part in the study. Half of the participants received self-efficacy enhancing information, whereas the other half received no such information. After this self-efficacy manipulation, half of the participants received a gain-framed and half of the participants received a loss-framed message promoting a low-salt diet. Information acceptance and intention were assessed at immediate posttest and salt consumption was assessed at a 3-week follow-up. The results revealed the hypothesized effect on behavior. However, the interaction between self-efficacy and framing on salt consumption was not mediated by measures of information acceptance and intention to reduce salt intake. Our results suggest that messages stressing losses may be more effective than messages stressing gains in decreasing salt intake but only in persons with high self-efficacy to do so.     

国外亲子关系和同伴关系对行为倾向影响的研究

详细介绍了国外亲子关系和同伴关系对儿童和青少年三种主要行为倾向影响研究的主要进展,并对此进行简要的评述     

建言类型对领导者建言采纳的影响：面子与幽默的作用

以说服和面子理论为基础,通过两个研究探讨领导者建言采纳行为的影响因素及作用机制。结果发现：相对于促进型建言,抑制型建言给领导带来的面子威胁更大,且领导者感知面子威胁在建言类型与建言采纳之间起部分的中介作用。而幽默类型与水平影响领导者感知面子威胁的程度,积极幽默水平越高,领导者感知面子威胁的程度越低,其建言采纳可能性越高。这表明领导者感知面子威胁在建言类型与建议采纳间起中介作用,幽默调节了此中介效应。     

Examining Ethicality Judgements of Theft Behavior: The Role of Moral Relativism

Purpose

The purpose of this study was to investigate whether situational factors predict ethicality judgments of theft behavior, and whether the effect of situational factors is moderated by moral relativism.

Design/Methodology/Approach

Data were obtained across two laboratory experiments using undergraduate business students attending a Canadian university (n = 372). Student participants viewed a videotaped vignette of an employee informed that he had been caught stealing sales commission. In the vignettes, we manipulated two situational factors: whether or not (a) the theft has monetary consequences for the organization, and (b) similar theft is commonplace within the organization.

Findings

In Experiment 1, both situational factors interacted with moral relativism in the prediction of ratings of unethical conduct. In Experiment 2, using a within-participant research design, we achieved an interaction between the organizational consequences manipulation and moral relativism, although we obtained a considerably stronger effect size for the interaction compared to the first experiment.

Implications

We discuss implications of our findings and suggest avenues for future research. In particular, we consider the possibility that managers may not share a common frame-of-reference when considering the ethicality of theft. This could affect whether and the extent to which theft behavior is reprimanded.

Originality/Value

Our study contributes to research on employee theft, and also adds incrementally to our understanding of how both situational factors and moral relativism jointly influence perceptions of theft behavior.

     

Negative Perfectionism: Examining Negative Excessive Behavior in the Workplace

The present paper explores the concept of negative perfectionism in the workplace. Negative perfectionism is unremitting and compulsive behavior in the process of striving to meet one's goals. We proposed that 4 types of negative or excessive behavior result from negative perfectionism in organizational settings: compulsive behavior, neurotic behavior, imposter behavior, and narcissistic behavior. Self-concept-based motivation theory was used as a framework for understanding how inaccuracies or inconsistencies between the evaluation of one's behavior in the workplace (goal-setting behavior) and the type of feedback cues to which one decides to attend (feedback-seeking behavior) might lead to these types of negative or excessive behaviors. Personal and managerial implications of negative perfectionism in organizational settings are discussed.

. . . when personal characteristics grate harmfully on others or significantly derail the success of the persons themselves, psychologists regard them not just as personality traits, but as personality disorders.

—Miller (1998)     

Evolutionary Persistence of Ground Squirrel Antisnake Behavior: Reflections on Burton's Commentary

The evolutionary persistence construct considers the possibility that animals retain perceptual biases and behavioral relics from former historic periods of natural selection. As critiqued by Burton (this issue), this construct is suspect because it assumes that perceptual biases can be carried by the animal before it reaches the environment, a view contrary to those who consider behavior to be organism-environment transactions. Burton further argues that the laboratory study result showing that California ground squirrels from habitats where their snake predators are virtually absent behaved like squirrels from a snake-abundant habitat could be an artifact of laboratory conditions. A more parsimonious explanation than evolutionary persistence is that snakes are perceived as general- ized anxiety-provoking stimuli, not as specific predators. In response to this critique, evidence is presented that ground squirrel antisnake behavior is indeed functionally specialized for dealing with snakes. Additional study of squirrel populations provides further evidence that antisnake behavior is generally intact in ground squirrel populations experiencing prolonged relaxed selection for many thousands of years. The implications of the evolutionary persistence construct for the theoretical structure of animal-environment mutualism, ideas of direct per- ception, and the role of memory and cognition in different time scales are discussed.     

The Effect of Humor on Memory: Constrained by the Pun

In a series of experiments, we investigated the effect of pun humor on memory. In all experiments, the participants were exposed to knock-knock jokes in either the original form retaining the pun or in a modified form that removed the pun. In Experiment 1, the authors found that pun humor improved both recall and recognition memory following incidental encoding. In Experiment 2, they found evidence that rehearsal is not the cause of the humor effect on memory. In Experiments 3 and 4, the authors found that the constraints imposed by puns and incongruity may account for the humor effects observed. Puns constrain and limit the information that can fit in the final line of a joke and thus make recall easier.     

Stimuli, Reinforcers, and the Persistence of Behavior

This article reviews evidence from basic and translational research with pigeons and humans suggesting that the persistence of operant behavior depends on the contingency between stimuli and reinforcers, and considers some implications for clinical interventions.     

Contextual Connections Within Puns: Effects on Perceived Humor and Memory

The supposition that perceived humor or cleverness would be enhanced by adding separate content to the alternative meanings of a pun was explored, using Tom Swifties as the research vehicle. Because detecting a punning word relationship might induce arousal, requiring more effort and attentional resources for processing than noting a contextual connection, memory strength for adverbs was also examined using a recognition procedure. Five studies were conducted in which college students were asked to judge 24 Swifties (content counterbalanced across participants) in which presence of pun and context were manipulated. The punning relationship was primarily responsible for perceived humor and cleverness. Presence of a pun also enhanced memory strength (d') as long as the familiarization task focused on humor and cleverness. Coherent context enhanced perceived cleverness inconsistently. It was suggested that a coherent contextual connection may make a greater contribution in more lengthy forms of pun-based word play, such as fables or “shaggy dog” stories.     

Embodied Cognition and Humor: The Impact of Weight Sensations on Humor Experience and the Moderating Role of Gender

Research in the field of embodied cognition has shown that incidental weight sensations influence people’s evaluation of different issues. The present study expands the scope of weight-related embodiment research and investigates whether experienced funniness of cartoons is affected by haptic sensorimotor experiences. We found an interaction between gender and weight sensations (light versus heavy clipboard) on the experienced funniness of nonsense cartoons. The experienced funniness in male recipients was enhanced by heaviness, but this effect was reversed in the group of females. The effect was also present when inferring the funniness experience of other recipients. Moreover, the participants’ general mood was worsened by heaviness. Weight did not affect the extent to which serious social issues are considered with humor, but men showed a stronger tendency to do so. Overall, the results expand the current scope in embodiment research, highlight the necessity to consider inter-individual differences in this field and introduce new aspects to humor research.     

Context and Animal Behavior III: The Relationship Between Early Development and Evolutionary Persistence of Ground Squirrel Antisnake Behavior

California ground squirrel pups are frequent prey of northern Pacific rattlesnakes and Pacific gopher snakes. Although pups innately recognize that snakes are dangerous, they exhibit adult-like antisnake behaviors that are perilous. For the most part, adults apply antisnake behaviors to directly or indirectly protect pups. Two experiments using video investigated the evolutionary and developmental stability of antisnake behavior with the aim of identifying genetic and epigenetic factors that could account for its precocious, but dangerous expression. In Experiment 1, adult squirrels from Folsom Lake where rattlesnake and gopher snakes are abundant were compared with squirrels from Lake Tahoe and Mount Shasta where these snakes are absent and whose ancestors may have experienced relaxed selection from snakes spanning an estimated 300,000 years. Squirrels interacted with a caged rattlesnake or gopher snake for alternate 5-min trials in a laboratory setting. The results of this experiment revealed that the antisnake behaviors of Lake Tahoe and Mount Shasta squirrels were not substantially different from the Folsom Lake squirrels, a finding that suggests low heritability. In Experiment 2, lab-born pups from Folsom Lake were alternately exposed for 5-min trials to a caged gopher snake and guinea pig. The findings from this experiment indicated that visual recognition of snakes had a sharp onset at 40 to 41 days of age, the first day each pup showed evidence of pattern vision. In other rodents, this developmental period shortly after eye opening coincides with major dendritic growth and leveling off interneural connectivity in visual cortex. In ground squirrels, the early expression of antisnake behaviors that function more effectively in adults than in pups could reflect the requirements shaped by natural selection for the reliable emplacement of neural circuitry subserving snake recognition during the initial, less variable period of neuronal outgrowth.     

The Unconscious Consumer: Effects of Environment on Consumer Behavior

In this article, we argue that consumer behavior is often strongly influenced by subtle environmental cues. Using grocery shopping as an example (or a “leitmotif,” if you wish), we first argue that the traditional perspective on consumer choice based on conscious information processing leaves much variance to be explained. Instead, we propose that many choices are made unconsciously and are strongly affected by the environment. Our argument is based on research on the perception–behavior link and on automatic goal pursuit.     

The Relationship of Physiological Arousal with Demand and Withdraw Behavior: Examining the Accuracy of the Escape-Conditioning Hypothesis

The escape-conditioning model suggests that husbands experience greater physiological arousal during marital conflict than their wives. This greater arousal is hypothesized to lead to withdrawal from conflict in order to lessen the arousal. The present results, based on a U.S. sample of 64 heterosexual couples, found no support for this model. During problem-solving discussions, husbands did not exhibit greater skin conductance and did not report greater arousal than their wives. Furthermore, skin conductance was negatively linked to withdraw behavior. These results, while not consistent with the escape-conditioning model, are in line with recent studies that have explicitly examined gender differences in other types of physiological arousal during marital conflict.     

Humor as an Optics: Bergson and the Ethics of Humor

Although the ethics of humor is a relatively new field, it already seems to have achieved a consensus about ethics in general. In this paper, I implicitly (1) question the view of ethics that stands behind many discussions in the ethics of humor; I do this by explicitly (2) focusing on what has been a chief preoccupation in the ethics of humor: the evaluation of humor. Does the immoral content of a joke make it more or less humorous? Specifically, I analyze whether a sexist joke is more humorous because of its sexism. Contra recent trends in the ethics of humor, I answer this question affirmatively. To this end, the paper presents a detailed and novel reading of Bergson's philosophy of humor, which I argue connects most easily and significantly to the alternate view of ethics I have in mind.