Experimental test of a planning intervention for forming a ‘higher order’ health-habit

Abstract

Objective: Habit-formation interventions may help individuals initiate and maintain behaviour change. This paper proposes and empirically tests the idea that it is possible for individuals to form ‘higher-order habits’, or behaviours that can be executed in more than one way, and still be habitual.

Design: Participants (N?=?82) were healthy adults randomly assigned to an action-and-coping-planning intervention for forming a ‘higher-order habit’ of filling half of their dinner plates with fruits and vegetables or a control condition. Key measures were collected at baseline and 1, 2 and 3 weeks post-baseline. Participants submitted 3 pictures per week of their dinner plates via snapchat/email.

Main Outcome Measures: Intrinsic motivation, habit strength and behavioural frequency for filling half their dinner plates with fruits and vegetables.

Results: Intervention participants reported significantly greater habit strength at each follow-up time point. Controls did show some degree of habit formation, despite not fully forming a habit. Behavioural automaticity increased despite consuming a variety of fruits/vegetables; results did not depend on participants’ intrinsic motivation to consume fruits/vegetables.

Conclusion: It may be possible for individuals to form ‘higher-order’ habits, which may be particularly important in health contexts, in which many target behaviours are complex and can be seen as higher-order.     

From ‘Intersex’ to ‘DSD’: a case of epistemic injustice

Synthese - The 2005 International Consensus Conference on Intersex resulted in a substantive revision of the lexicon and guidelines for treating intersex conditions. The speed with which the new...     

Repetition of ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ responses with a different number of response alternatives in study and test trial

The reinforcement values of ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ upon subsequent repetition of the response have been explained by the subject's independent memory for his previous response and its outcome ‘right’ or ‘wrong’. Detailed analyses on the data of recent experiments suggest that an increasing number of response alternatives for each stimulus makes the recall of the response and the outcome ‘right’ no longer independent. Therefore it was predicted that for a given number of response alternatives at the Test Trial, the likelihood that a subject will repeat a response called ‘right’ at the study Trial will be a function of the number of response alternatives at the Study Trial. The results were confirmatory. The explanation of these results was based on there being a larger informational value in the outcome ‘right’ with an increasing number of response alternatives.     

Sleep and theology: ‘An half adieu to the world’

The study of sleep has become a field of widespread interest. It engages many disciplines from neuroscience to sociology, philosophy to evolutionary biology. It features in the lifestyle sections of newspapers and websites often because of its connections with mental and physical wellbeing. Yet theology has, in the most part, remained silent on the subject, despite many Biblical references to sleep in both the Old and New Testaments. There is a theological story to be told about sleep ? as a gift, and not an affliction ? despite the unfortunate occasional conflation of sleep with sloth. It is a state of grace and not of sin. It refreshes and renews yet can never be earned; all we can do is to be in a posture of receptivity so that it falls upon us. Sleep is profoundly precarious and sometimes frustratingly elusive and is suggestive of the fragility and vulnerability of human existence. When it comes to us, sleep transforms our experience of waking life. The eschatological character of sleep points us to reflect on mortality and resurrection. This article argues that it is possible to speak of a ‘theology of sleep’, but that it is not to be found in a coherent body of teaching or theological exploration. Rather, a theology of sleep is found articulated in Christian practices such as the Office of Compline, the keeping of vigils and the Examen of Consciousness, and in evening hymnody and prayers before bed. The author will suggest that the word theosomnia encapsulates this understanding of sleep.     

The experiences and understandings of obesity: Families’ decisions to attend a childhood obesity intervention

Objectives: This study investigated the families’ experiences of a childhood obesity intervention and sought to understand factors that influence attendance and lifestyle behaviours.

Design: Eleven semi-structured interviews were conducted and analysed using Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis.

Results: Four themes emerged highlighting the differences and similarities between attendees and non-attendees perceptions of childhood obesity, perceptions of the intervention, practical barriers and overcoming hurdles to attending and, availability and suitability of local facilities.

Conclusions: The findings relate to identity and health communication. For some families attending an obesity intervention may challenge social and individual identities, which may have an impact on subsequent behavioural decisions. Those who attend the obesity intervention may experience a shift in identity, which may or may not initially be perceived as a positive outcome. Public Health and those involved in treatment interventions should aim to bridge the gap between people’s in-group identities and those associated with particular lifestyle behaviours. In order to be effective, services must meet the needs of their clients and address any preconceived negative perceptions by carefully considering how health information is presented, how it is understood and most importantly how identity may affect motivation to engage in, and sustain, new behaviours.     

It’s good to do good and receive good: The impact of a ‘pay it forward’ style kindness intervention on giver and receiver well-being

Despite the popularity of the ‘pay it forward’ (PIF) concept in textbooks and popular culture, to date, no study has tested the effectiveness of a brief, one-time PIF activity on the well-being of those who do good and those who receive good. To test this, 83 undergraduates (‘givers’) performed random kind acts for 1.5 h. PIF resulted in a wide range of well-being benefits for givers (e.g. greater positive and lower negative affect), with females showing greater positive affect benefits. Receivers of kindness (N = 1014) also benefited as evidenced by greater smiling behavior and more sincere smiles vs. controls (N = 251). Of the 48 receivers who completed a follow-up online questionnaire, the majority indicated that they would also PIF, with almost 40% indicating that they already had. Results indicate that a one-time brief PIF intervention can have broad benefits for those involved.     

Applying Deutsch’s concept of good explanations to artificial intelligence and neuroscience – An initial exploration

Artificial intelligence has made great strides since the deep learning revolution, but AI systems remain incapable of learning principles and rules which allow them to extrapolate outside of their training data to new situations. For inspiration we look to the domain of science, where scientists have been able to develop theories which show remarkable ability to extrapolate and sometimes even predict the existence of phenomena which have never been observed before. According to David Deutsch, this type of extrapolation, which he calls “reach”, is due to scientific theories being hard to vary. In this work we investigate Deutsch’s hard-to-vary principle and how it relates to more formalized principles in deep learning such as the bias-variance trade-off and Occam’s razor. We distinguish internal variability, how much a model/theory can be varied internally while still yielding the same predictions, with external variability, which is how much a model must be varied to predict new, out-of-distribution data. We discuss how to measure internal variability using the notion of the Rashomon set and how to measure external variability using Kolmogorov complexity. We explore what role hard-to-vary explanations play in intelligence by looking at the human brain, the only example of highly general purpose intelligence known. We distinguish two learning systems in the brain – the first operates similar to deep learning and likely underlies most of perception while the second is a more creative system capable of generating hard-to-vary models and explanations of the world. We make contact with Popperian epistemology which suggests that the generation of scientific theories is a not an inductive process but rather an evolutionary process which proceeds through conjecture and refutation. We argue that figuring out how replicate this second system, which is capable of generating hard-to-vary explanations, is a key challenge which needs to be solved in order to realize artificial general intelligence.     

An experimental test of Jameson and Hurvich’s theory of brightness contrast

Two hundred and fifty-two brightness functions for seven simultaneously presented black, gray, and white squares on black, gray, and white backgrounds approximated power curves with positive exponents when illuminance was varied in seven steps over 1.9 log fL. Mean exponents were significantly larger for whiter vs blacker squares and for squares on the white vs the gray background. Mean exponents also increased more for squares on white than on black or gray backgrounds. Finally, a white replacing a black background elicited increasingly larger decremental responses as the squares varied from black to white. Jameson and Hurvich’s opponent-process theory, tested by the experiment, was not predictive.     

‘Humane intervention’: the international protection of animal rights

This paper explores the international implications of liberal theories which extend justice to sentient animals. In particular, it asks whether they imply that coercive military intervention in a state by external agents to prevent, halt or minimise violations of basic animal rights (‘humane intervention’) can be justified. In so doing, it employs Simon Caney's theory of humanitarian intervention and applies it to non-human animals. It argues that while humane intervention can be justified in principle using Caney's assumptions, justifying any particular intervention on behalf of animals is much more difficult – and in present circumstances impossible. If these claims are correct, a number of important conclusions follow. First, all states lack legitimacy because of the horrors that they inflict upon animals. As a result of this, all states are prima facie liable to intervention by external agents. To remedy this situation, all states have the responsibility to massively transform their relationship with non-human animals, and to build international institutions to oversee the proper protection of their most basic rights.     

Predicting e-bike users’ intention to run the red light: An application and extension of the theory of planned behavior

Electric bike (e-bike) users in China have a high red light running (RLR) rate, contributing to a large number of accidents. This paper aims to examine the psychological motivation of e-bike users’ RLR intentions. A survey questionnaire was designed employing the construct of theory of planned behavior (TPB). The survey was performed in Chengdu, China in November 2016. We found that users older than 40 identify themselves as more cautious riders. Younger riders have higher intention to run the red light. E-bike users with car drivers’ licenses regard running the red light as a more difficult task to perform, and regard this behavior as more morally wrong. Hierarchical regression was used to analyze the data. The results showed that demographic variables (age, marriage status, and college degree), TPB variables (attitude and perceived behavioral control) and extended variables (moral norm and self-identity) are significant predictors for the intention of RLR behavior. The results could provide reference for designing more effective interventions and safety education programs for reducing e-bike users’ RLR rate.     

‘Cost in Transliteration’: The neurocognitive processing of Romanized writing

Romanized transliteration is widely used in internet communication and global commerce, yet we know little about its behavioural and neural processing. Here, we show that Romanized text imposes a significant neurocognitive load. Readers faced greater difficulty in identifying concrete words written in Romanized transliteration (Romanagari) compared to L1 and L2. Functional neuroimaging revealed that the neural cost of processing transliterations arose from significantly greater recruitment of language (left precentral gyrus, left inferior parietal lobule) and attention networks (left mid-cingulum). Additionally, transliterated text uniquely activated attention and control areas compared to both L1 (cerebellar vermis) and L2 (pre-supplementary motor area/pre-SMA). We attribute the neural effort of reading Romanized transliteration to (i) effortful phonological retrieval from unfamiliar orthographic forms and (ii) conflicting attentional demands imposed by mapping orthographic forms of one language to phonological-semantic representations in another. Finally, significant brain-behaviour correlation suggests that the left mid-cingulum modulates cognitive-linguistic conflict.     

Perceived impact of online written feedback on students’ writing and learning: a reflection

In this reflective study, I perceive the impact of my own written feedback on students’ academic writing skills in particular and on learning in general. Anchored on Schon’s reflection-on-action (ROA) framework, my reflection arose from a content analysis of my written feedback on 80 student drafts and 44 feedback responses. I found that my written feedback is of two types: focus on form and focus on meaning. Coding the feedback led to an identification of six feedback functions: instructive/using imperatives (18.36%); suggestive (15.31%); asking questions/probing (23.98%); stating a personal opinion (6.12%); corrective (29.59%); and affirming/negating (6.63%). The categorisation of feedback according to these functions was influenced by Wolsey’s feedback functions (2008) which was adapted by Alvarez, Espasa and Guasch. Results revealed that I employ corrective feedback, probing questions and instructive feedback more frequently than suggestive feedback, personal statement or affirmation/negation. I also found that my feedback on form (59%) is higher than my feedback on meaning (41%). I explain the relationship of these findings by identifying some confounding factors that enabled me to interrogate my assumptions, along with a discussion of their implications.     

Fifty Shades of Feminism: An Analysis of Feminist Attitudes and ‘Grey Behaviors’

This paper discusses the results of an MTurk survey (n = 479) that was designed to determine how acceptable Americans find the behaviors outlined in the Fifty Shades of Grey series, especially when they self-identify with feminist ideologies. The behaviors that this series eroticizes clearly reflect interpersonal violence. This coupled with the series’ unprecedented international success raises concerns for many scholars. We asked men and women to rank the level of acceptability on a ‘Grey Behavior’ scale, which included measures of control of person outside the context of ‘kinky’ sex. Furthermore, we asked subjects to rank their attitudes regarding the basic tenants of the feminist ideology in order to determine if support of gender equality influenced these perceptions of acceptability. Our findings suggest that despite the popularity of the book, neither men nor women report these behaviors as personally acceptable.     

On Writing Religion, ‘Gay’ and ‘Straight’: An Open Letter to Björn Krondorfer

Abstract

The key issue for this paper is the role of writing in both the production of and instabilities in prophetic masculinity. I draw upon three sources: the work of Lévi-Strauss concerning the "writing experiment," Christina Pettersen's exploration of the role of writing in constructing the ruling class in colonial Greenland, and some of my older work concerning the auto-referentiality of references to writing and scribal activity in the Hebrew Bible. Armed with these theoretical strings, the paper has two phases—what may be called "organizing the sausage-fest" and "too many dicks at the writing desk." The first concerns the production of masculinity, the second its problems.     

An experimental test of Jameson and Hurvich’s theory of brightness contrast1

Two hundred and fifty-two brightness functions for seven simultaneously presented black, gray, and white squares on black, gray, and white backgrounds approximated power curves with positive exponents when illuminance was varied in seven steps over 1.9 log fL. Mean exponents were significantly larger for whiter vs blacker squares and for squares on the white vs the gray background. Mean exponents also increased more for squares on white than on black or gray backgrounds. Finally, a white replacing a black background elicited increasingly larger décrémentai responses as the squares varied from black to white. Jameson and Hurvich’s opponent-process theory, tested by the experiment, was not predictive.