Exploring the effect of regulatory focus on ad attitudes: the moderating roles of message sidedness and argument quality

This research explores the interaction effects of message sidedness and argument quality of ads on how either promotion‐focused or prevention‐focused individuals engender their ad attitudes. Two hundred and forty undergraduates were randomly assigned to a 2 (regulatory focus: prevention‐focus/promotion‐focus) × 2 (message sidedness: one‐sided messages/two‐sided messages) × 2 (argument quality (AQ): weak/strong) between‐subjects design. Results indicate that promotion‐focused individuals tend to engender more favourable attitudes to weak AQ ads than strong AQ ads, whereas prevention‐focused individuals tend to engender more favourable attitudes to strong AQ ads than weak AQ ads. In addition, results indicate more favourable attitudes for one‐sided messages over two‐sided messages for promotion‐focused individuals, as well as more favourable attitudes for two‐sided messages over one‐sided messages for prevention‐focused individuals. Furthermore, one‐sided messages result in more favourable ad attitudes when linked with weak AQ for promotion‐focused individuals; in contrast, two‐sided messages elicit more favourable ad attitudes when linked with strong AQ for prevention‐focused individuals. Results suggest that message sidedness and argument quality are closely related to regulatory focus, which has a direct impact on ad attitudes. Practical implications, theoretical contributions, limitations and directions for future research are discussed.     

Sleep quality in healthy and mood-disordered persons predicts daily life emotional reactivity

Disordered sleep has been linked to impaired emotional functioning in healthy and depressed individuals. Little is known, however, about how chronic sleep problems influence emotional reactivity in everyday life. Participants with major or minor unipolar depressive disorder (n?=?60) and healthy controls (n?=?35) reported on sleep and emotional responses to daily life events using a computerised Experience Sampling Method. We examined whether impaired sleep quality influenced emotional reactivity to daily events, and if this relationship was altered by unipolar mood disorders. Among healthy individuals, sleep difficulties were associated with enhanced negative affect (NA) to unpleasant events and a dulled response to neutral events. However, among mood-disordered persons, sleep difficulties were associated with higher NA across all types of everyday life events. Impaired sleep quality differentially affects daily life emotional reactions as a function of depression.     

Preventing Contagion With Avian Influenza: Disease Salience,Attitudes Toward Foreigners,and Avoidance Beliefs1

Building on an evolutionary approach to out‐group avoidance, this study showed relations between perceived disease salience and beliefs in the efficacy of avoiding foreigners as protective measures in the context of a real‐life pandemic risk; i.e., avian influenza. People for whom avian influenza was salient and who held unfavorable attitudes toward foreigners were more likely to believe that avoiding contact with foreigners protects against infection. This finding suggests that individual differences in social attitudes moderate evolved mechanisms relating threat of disease to out‐group avoidance.     

Prospective patterns of resilience and maladjustment during widowhood

Using prospective longitudinal data on an older sample beginning prior to the death of a spouse, G. A. Bonanno et al. (2002) distinguished 5 unique trajectories of bereavement outcome: common grief, chronic grief, chronic depression, depression followed by improvement, and resilience. These trajectories having been identified, the aims of the current study were to examine differences in how respondents in each group reacted to and processed the loss. Specific hypotheses were tested regarding differences in coping, meaning making, context, and representations of the lost relationship. Results suggest that chronic grief stems from the upheaval surrounding the loss of a healthy spouse, whereas chronic depression results from more enduring emotional difficulties that are exacerbated by the loss. Both the resilient and the depressed-improved groups showed remarkably healthy profiles and relatively little evidence of either struggling with or denying/avoiding the loss.     

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.     

The interaction effect of ad appeal and need for cognition on consumers' intentions to share viral advertisements

Viral advertising has become a popular form of persuasive communication to promote brands on social media. Extant research on viral advertising has focused mostly on evaluating content characteristics as drivers of virality, but very few studies have examined the potential influence of consumers' personality variables that affect their information processing and subsequent ad‐sharing behavior. By taking a consumer‐centric approach, two experimental studies were conducted to examine how consumer's need for cognition (NFC: high vs. low) interacts with message appeal (emotional vs. informational) used in the branded viral advertisements and extent of brand information (high vs. low brand prominence) present in the branded viral advertisement to influence consumers' intentions to share viral advertisements. As compared with low‐NFC individuals, high‐NFC individuals reported higher sharing intentions for viral ads that use informational appeal and also for an emotional viral ad where brand prominence is high. This finding is consistent with the elaboration likelihood model (ELM). Further, the results of these studies show an interesting finding that contradicts the existing understanding originating from ELM; that is, high‐NFC individuals reported higher sharing intentions for viral ads with an emotional appeal as compared with low‐NFC individuals, even when the brand prominence is low. Possible explanations and implications of the findings are discussed in this paper.     

Driving it Home: How Workplace Emotional Labor Harms Employee Home Life

To date, the majority of research on emotional labor has focused on outcomes that occur in the workplace. However, research has yet to consider the possibility that the daily effects of emotional labor spill over to life outside of work, even though a large body of literature examining the spillover from work life to home life indicates that work experiences influence employees after they leave the workplace. Accordingly, we examined the influence of day‐to‐day surface acting on 3 types of theoretically derived stress outcomes experienced at home: emotional exhaustion, work‐to‐family conflict, and insomnia. In an experience sampling field study of 78 bus drivers, we found that daily surface acting was connected to increases in each of the outcomes noted above. Moreover, surface acting had an indirect effect on emotional exhaustion and insomnia via state anxiety.     

what helps and hinders workers in managing change

This research responds to calls for increased understanding of workers' experiences of their work and work contexts. Informed by positive psychology, this study focused on a seldom‐studied subset of working individuals who self‐identified as doing well with change affecting their work and on strategies that helped or hindered them in doing well, factors that would have helped, and their experiences of change within the context of volatile and changing work situations. Using the enhanced critical incident technique methodology, the authors extracted 790 incidents from 45 participant interviews. These data were organized into the following 10 categories: support from friends and family, support from colleagues, support from professionals, personal attitudes/traits/emotional set, self‐care, internal framework and boundaries, taking action, skill/role competence, management style and work environment, and personal life changes/issues. The implications of these categories for research, theory, practice, and organizations are discussed.     

Incivility at work,upset at home? Testing the cross‐level moderation effect of emotional dysregulation among female nurses from primary health care

Workplace incivility is a growing problem in nursing. However, most studies that explore this psychosocial risk and its consequences do so considering a single level and a between‐person perspective. The aims of the study were to explore whether the effects of experiencing incivility during work‐time could explain the daily levels of well‐being of nurses at home; and to analyze if that relationship could be moderated by their levels of emotional dysregulation as a trait. This is a multilevel study with diary methodology. The study was carried out in 18 primary health‐care centers belonging to Madrid and the Basque Country, in Spain. Ninety‐four nurses completed a general questionnaire and 54 of them a diary booklet over five consecutive working days in two different moments, immediately after work and at bedtime. The results showed that nurses’ emotional dysregulation moderated the relationship between daily workplace incivility and daily fatigue, and positive affect at night at home. However, there were no direct effects of daily incivility on these outcome variables. In conclusion, the presence of difficulties in emotional regulation among nurses can increase the negative effects of daily workplace incivility on their health and well‐being.     

Prefer feeling bad? Subcultural differences in emotional preferences between Han Chinese and Mongolian Chinese

As a multi‐ethnic country that is comprised of diverse cultural systems, there has been little research on the subcultural differences in emotional preferences in China. Also, little attention has been paid to examine how explicit and implicit attitudes towards emotions influence emotional preferences interactively. In this study, we manipulated explicit attitudes towards emotions among Han (N = 62) and Mongolian Chinese individuals (N = 70). We assessed participants' implicit attitudes towards emotions to explore their contributions to emotional preferences. (a) Han Chinese had lower preferences for pleasant emotions than Mongolian Chinese after inducing contra‐hedonic attitudes towards emotions, and (b) after priming contra‐hedonic attitudes towards emotions, the more Han Chinese participants evaluated pleasant emotions as negative implicitly, the less they preferred to engage in pleasant emotional activities. These findings contribute to the growing literature of subcultural differences and demonstrate that explicit and implicit attitudes towards emotions interactively influence individuals' emotional preferences between different subculture groups.     

Longitudinal development of manual motor ability in autism spectrum disorder from childhood to mid‐adulthood relates to adaptive daily living skills

Many individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) exhibit motor difficulties, but it is unknown whether manual motor skills improve, plateau, or decline in ASD in the transition from childhood into adulthood. Atypical development of manual motor skills could impact the ability to learn and perform daily activities across the life span. This study examined longitudinal grip strength and finger tapping development in individuals with ASD (n = 90) compared to individuals with typical development (n = 56), ages 5 to 40 years old. We further examined manual motor performance as a possible correlate of current and future daily living skills. The group with ASD demonstrated atypical motor development, characterized by similar performance during childhood but increasingly poorer performance from adolescence into adulthood. Grip strength was correlated with current adaptive daily living skills, and Time 1 grip strength predicted daily living skills eight years into the future. These results suggest that individuals with ASD may experience increasingly more pronounced motor difficulties from adolescence into adulthood and that manual motor performance in ASD is related to adaptive daily living skills.     

Emotional difficulties in seventh grade children in Denmark

The present study investigates the prevalence of emotional difficulties and quality of life in a sample of 834 children from 56 seventh grade (aged 12-14 years) classes. Data was derived from a study of mental well-being developed by the National Council for Children, Denmark. The sample selection ensured that the children were nationally representative. Data was collected using the Strength and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ) and the Health Behaviour in School-aged Children (HBSC). Results indicated that 10.8% of children had concerns regarding emotional difficulties (6.6% definite concern; 4.2% some concern), and that significantly more girls than boys (44 girls and 10 boys) reported this concern. A novel finding was that emotional difficulties were related to children's perception of having low quality of life. Findings furthermore suggested that children's perception of a low home economy, less time spent on leisure activities, and female gender were all associated with emotional difficulties.     

Testing the Ideology of Openness: The Comparative Effects of Talking,Writing, and Avoiding a Stressor on Rumination and Health

A persistent assumption across the psychological literature is that talking and writing about one's stress is inherently more beneficial than avoiding it. This study compared the effects of these stress management strategies on personal and relational health. Two hundred and fifty‐one dating individuals focused on a stressor that was a current source of rumination. Writing about one's stressor for 5 consecutive days (without talking about it) decreased anxiety the most. Talking continuously about one's stressor to a dating partner harmed the relationship more than writing about or avoiding it. The effect of talking repeatedly about one's stressor on relationship quality and brooding, however, depended upon the emotional support received from one's dating partner and the ability to reappraise (positively or neutrally) the stressor.     

School violence and teacher professional disengagement

Background. Most studies of school violence have focused on students. Consequently, precursors and consequences of violence experienced by teachers are less well documented. Previous research indicates that (a) verbal victimization, student misbehaviour and perceived violence at school impair teacher emotional well‐being, (b) support from principal and colleagues reduces these difficulties and fosters well‐being, (c) well‐being impacts on professional involvement. However, it is still not clear how those variables relate to each other. Aims. To test and compare – through structural equation modelling – two models of the relationships between perceived school support, exposure to school violence, subjective well‐being and professional disengagement. To test – through multigroup analysis – the buffering effect of school support between school violence and well‐being. Sample. Participants in this study were 487 French‐speaking teachers (57% female) randomly selected from 24 secondary schools in Belgium. Method. Participants completed a questionnaire on school leadership, relationships with colleagues, verbal victimization, students' misbehaviour, perceived violence, depression, somatization, anxiety and professional disengagement. Results. The results support a model in which perceived school support has a direct effect on exposure to school violence, subjective well‐being and professional disengagement, while the effect of school violence on disengagement is totally mediated by well‐being. No evidence of a moderating effect of school support was found. Conclusions. The results of this study suggest that the negative emotional impact of some forms of school violence could be an important factor in a teacher's intention to leave, and that school support could be even more important for both teacher emotional well‐being and professional disengagement.     

Psychosocial Issues That Face Patients With Charcot-Marie-Tooth Disease: The Role of Genetic Counseling

Charcot-Marie-Tooth (CMT) disease is a hereditary debilitating progressive muscular atrophy and sensory neuropathy of the distal extremities. CMT is usually nonlife threatening. Signs of the disease usually present in childhood or in young adulthood and the level of disability can be variable within and between families. Research addressing specific psychosocial and emotional issues faced by individuals with CMT is limited. Fourteen adults with a clinical and/or molecular diagnosis of CMT (ages 32–74 years) consented to an audio taped interview. The format of the interview was based around an informal questionnaire to prompt and guide the interviewee to describe their experiences of living with a disabling genetic disorder. The interviews focused on their experiences of first symptoms and diagnosis, their life experience with CMT, their limitations due to disability and the role of genetic counseling. This study identifies and explores life issues that individuals with CMT may face, specifically grief over the loss of independence, emotional pain and stress such as embarrassment and guilt of passing on a gene mutation, impact on quality of life, the impact of wearing orthopedic devices, and fear of progressive disability. Our findings suggest that that there are emotional and psychosocial issues specific to affected individuals at different life stages and genetic counselors need to be aware of these issues in order to provide age appropriate support and advice to individuals affected by CMT.     

Making sense of being fat: A hermeneutic analysis of adults’ explanations for obesity

This hermeneutic‐phenomenological study of individuals enrolled in a hospital weight management clinic is an account and analysis of the experiences of being overweight, dieting and weight cycling through in‐depth life history interviews. Participants explored their earliest recollections involving family attitudes towards food, multiple experiences with dieting and weight cycling and how they explained their weight problems to themselves. Analysis revealed that mealtimes became the arena within which control battles were waged between parent and child; food became associated with control and eating subsequently became a way to gain control over other aspects of life. Eating also became a way to numb the pain associated with child abuse, to substitute for human needs for relationship and belonging and emotional cycles of eating were identified. Insights emergeing from the interview process suggest the value of considering a psychodynamic approach to understanding emotional eating.     

Politics,concern for future generations,and the environment: Generativity mediates political conservatism and environmental attitudes

Climate change and pollution impact those alive today as well as future generations, suggesting that attitudes toward future generations may be linked with environmental attitudes. Despite the widespread impact of the environmental on human lives, there is considerable partisan divide in the United States with regards to environmental issues. We investigated relationships between political conservatism, generativity, and environmental attitudes in two studies (N = 429 and N = 618). Political conservatism was associated with lower pro‐environmental attitudes; however, political conservatism was also associated with higher generativity and had a positive indirect effect on pro‐environmental attitudes through higher generativity. More politically conservative individuals may have greater concern for future life and thereby have more pro‐environmental attitudes even while having lower pro‐environmental attitudes overall. These results likely reflect partisan polarization with regard to environmental issues. Pro‐environmental messages may be more persuasive for conservatives if they are linked to concerns about future generations.     

Effect of Acceptance Expectations on the Employment Development of Individuals With Disabilities: The Self‐Fulfilling Prophecy Applied

The author examined what and how factors affect the employment status of Taiwanese college students with disabilities in the 1st year after graduation. The results demonstrated that (a) perceived acceptance by society and the employment market (ASEM) was the major factor affecting the employment status of individuals with disabilities (IWDs); (b) perceived ASEM influenced IWDs' psychological states, attitudes, and life‐planning styles, as well as their attitudes and strategies in job searching; and (c) the effect of IWDs' acceptance expectations on their employment development can be explained by the self‐fulfilling prophecy.     

General and acculturation‐related daily hassles and psychological adjustment in first‐ and second‐generation South Asian immigrants to Canada

According to Lay and Nguyen (1998), in addition to the general daily hassles encountered by most people, immigrants often face chronic difficulties specific to the acculturation experience, including conflicts with family members, members of the ethnic ingroup, and members of ethnic outgroups. Moreover, it has been suggested that the children of immigrants born in Canada (i.e., second‐generation immigrants) may experience different acculturative stressors from their parents (i.e., first‐generation immigrants). This study examined general and acculturation‐related daily hassles in 74 first‐ and second‐generation South Asians in Canada. Participants completed a questionnaire that assessed their experience of different types of daily hassles (general, family, ingroup, and outgroup), acculturation attitudes, and level of psychological adjustment. Second‐generation individuals reported significantly more ingroup hassles and marginally lower self‐esteem than first‐generation immigrants. For first‐generation immigrants, more ingroup hassles predicted greater depression, and for second‐generation individuals, increased ingroup hassles predicted lower self‐esteem and more outgroup hassles predicted greater depression. The results emphasize the importance of considering the acculturation experience of second‐generation individuals as being unique to that of first‐generation immigrants.     

A Preliminary Investigation of Quality of Life Satisfaction Reports in Emerging Adults With and Without Developmental Coordination Disorder

Developmental coordination disorder (DCD) affects around 5% of the population and is diagnosed on the basis of poor motor coordination. Although we know rather little about the lifetime consequences of this disorder, it is clear that significant difficulties remain through adolescence and into adulthood for the majority. It is also clear that significant psychosocial consequences exist for many individuals with DCD. In the current study, quality of life satisfaction was investigated in a group of emerging adults with and without DCD using the Quality of Life Satisfaction Questionnaire (Endicott et al. Psychopharmacology Bulletin, 29, 321–326, 1993). Overall, the group of adults with DCD reported significantly lower levels of quality of life satisfaction across all domains on the scale. This finding has important implications for consideration of early and later intervention for these individuals, as well as for studies to consider the risk and protective factors at play in long-term outcome with respect to both the motor skills and psychosocial aspects of this disorder.