Online shopping hesitation.

This study was designed to understand which factors influence consumer hesitation or delay in online product purchases. The study examined four groups of variables (i.e., consumer characteristics, contextual factors perceived uncertainty factors, and medium/channel innovation factors) that predict three types of online shopping hesitation (i.e., overall hesitation, shopping cart abandonment, and hesitation at the final payment stage). We found that different sets of delay factors are related to different aspects of online shopping hesitation. The study concludes with suggestion for various delay-reduction devices to help consumers close their online decision hesitation.     

Developing a model for online support group use,empowering processes and psychosocial outcomes for individuals living with HIV/AIDS

This study examined the mechanism through which online support group (OSG) participation may promote patient empowerment among 340 individuals living with HIV/AIDS. Results from structural equation modelling revealed that greater use of OSGs was associated with more frequent occurrence of the empowering processes as measured by receiving useful information, receiving social support, finding positive meaning and helping others. Receiving useful information and finding positive meaning were related to higher levels of adaptive coping and lower levels of maladaptive coping, while receiving social support and helping others were related to higher levels of self-care self-efficacy, which in turn was related to higher levels of adaptive coping, and lower levels of maladaptive coping. Finally, higher levels of maladaptive coping were related to poorer quality of life, while higher levels of adaptive coping were related to better quality of life. Results suggest that OSG participation may offer some benefits for those living with HIV/AIDS.     

Group Preference and Convergent Tendencies in Small Groups: A Content Analysis of Group Brainstorming Performance

This study examined the impact of preference for working in groups on interaction during a brainstorming session. Groups of 4 people were composed based on their individual group preference scores (i.e., high or low preference for working in groups). These groups worked as 4 independent individuals (nominal participants) or as an interactive group of 4. It was hypothesized that convergent tendencies promoted in interactive settings would hinder group brainstorming performance and that high group preference would enhance these convergent tendencies. These predictions were generally supported by the findings.     

Group decision process and incrementalism in organizational decision making

In two studies examining resource allocation, support is found for the notion that group decisions are affected in systematic ways depending on whether or not there was individual consideration of the problem before meeting as a group. Specifically, compared to no prior consideration groups, prior consideration groups (1) escalate their commitment more in progress (i.e., ongoing) decisions, and (2) are less willing to concentrate resources on a single project in adoption (i.e., resource utilization) decisions. The findings challenge the blanket assertion that promoting divergent views in a group decision context is always related to better decisions.     

Group Psychotherapy With Ego Impaired Children: The Significance of Peer Group Culture in the Evolution of a Holding Environment

In this paper, we will attempt to delineate the process by which peer group culture emerges and develops among groups of ego impaired children. The process of culture building in groups, as will be illustrated in a detailed case presentation, is critical for the child's development of skills for structuring and ordering the internal and external worlds. By definition, ego impaired children lack the ability to organize their internal experience. The challenge of group treatment with these children is to provide a situation in which their maladaptive efforts to organize volatile affects and impulses can be tolerated and structured. If they are provided with an adequate holding environment, the children learn to create cultural structures (i.e., therapeutic group culture), for the representation of salient aspects of their emotional lives creates the basis for internal organization. Their growing capacity to build integrating structures, at first collectively within the group, (Pfeifer and Weinstock-Savoy, 1984), which previously could only be provided by the therapist functioning as an auxiliary ego.     

Developing a model for online support group use, empowering processes and psychosocial outcomes for individuals living with HIV/AIDS

This study examined the mechanism through which online support group (OSG) participation may promote patient empowerment among 340 individuals living with HIV/AIDS. Results from structural equation modelling revealed that greater use of OSGs was associated with more frequent occurrence of the empowering processes as measured by receiving useful information, receiving social support, finding positive meaning and helping others. Receiving useful information and finding positive meaning were related to higher levels of adaptive coping and lower levels of maladaptive coping, while receiving social support and helping others were related to higher levels of self-care self-efficacy, which in turn was related to higher levels of adaptive coping, and lower levels of maladaptive coping. Finally, higher levels of maladaptive coping were related to poorer quality of life, while higher levels of adaptive coping were related to better quality of life. Results suggest that OSG participation may offer some benefits for those living with HIV/AIDS.     

Small‐Group Research in Social Psychology: Topics and Trends over Time

Research on small groups has a long history within social psychology. Unfortunately, interest in studying social processes within small groups has diminished over time despite predictions of its resurgence. Moreland, Hogg, and Hains (1994 ) computed an index of interest in small groups in the major social psychology journals between 1975 and 1993, finding an increase in the mid 1980s and early 1990s. This increase was due largely to the influence of European and social cognition approaches, which do not focus on intragroup processes. We replicated their procedures through 2006 and found that these trends have persisted. Over half of the group‐related research published from 1975 to 2006 involved intergroup relations (e.g., social identity, stereotyping), whereas other topic areas (i.e., group composition, structure, performance, conflict, and ecology) that involve intragroup processes were largely ignored. The implications of these trends for the fields of small groups and social psychology are discussed.     

Sober social networks: The role of online support groups in recovery from alcohol addiction

In the context of addiction research, positive recovery outcomes are affected by the quality of people's social interactions and perhaps to an even greater extent, by the defining norms of the groups they identify with—that is, using versus recovery groups. Here, we examine the role of online supportive networks in the process of recovery from alcohol addiction. We analyse the relationship between negative and positive aspects of recovery capital (i.e., self‐stigma, and respectively, positive recovery identity and self‐efficacy) as they relate to well‐being outcomes among alcohol users in an online recovery support group. Based on a computerised linguistic analysis of the naturally occurring data extracted from an online recovery support group (i.e., 257 posts made by 237 group members), we found that self‐stigma negatively predicts self‐efficacy and well‐being, and social identification with a recovery identity mediates these relationships. Overall, these findings highlight that positive engagement with supportive recovery networks is central to an effective and sustainable recovery.     

Group entitativity and group perception: associations between physical features and psychological judgment

Two experiments tested whether the perceived entitativity of groups (i.e., cohesiveness) influences judgments about those groups, in terms of both their observable physical properties and underlying psychological traits. Entitativity was manipulated with groups whose members were similar or dissimilar in skin color. Experiment 1 demonstrated that beliefs about entitativity elicited more accurate judgments of skin color for entitative than nonentitative social groups, although memory for individual members of entitative groups was relatively impoverished. Experiment 2 revealed that entitative groups were viewed as not only physically similar but also psychologically homogeneous and elicited strong negative trait and behavioral judgments. Together, these findings suggest that physical properties (e.g., similarity) can create perceptions of psychological "groupness" that have important consequences for group perception.     

Dimensions of online behavior: toward a user typology.

Online behavior refers to organized (e.g., search) and unorganized (e.g., browse) interactions with both human (e.g., chat) and nonhuman (e.g., database) elements in online environments. The salient features of online behavior are conceptualized as sociability (human connection motives), utility (efficiency orientation), and reciprocity (cognitive stimulation and active involvement). Recently published factor analytic studies support the validity of these three dimensions of online behavior. The proposed Brief Test of Online Behavior (BTOB) contains five rating scale items that determine user position on each dimension of online behavior (i.e., 15 items in total). A typology of online behavior emerges as BTOB scores position users in the three-dimensional space created by the intersection of sociability, utility, and reciprocity. Subsequent research may validate the proposed dimensions of online behavior, establish practical applications of the BTOB, and connect type of user with cognitive, social, and emotional outcomes. For example, users who score high on sociability and reciprocity but low on utility may learn best in interactive and stimulating online environments, which necessarily include self-regulating software.     

A focused attention intervention for coping with ostracism

Ostracism—being excluded and ignored—thwarts satisfaction of four fundamental needs: belonging, self-esteem, control, and meaningful existence. The current study investigated whether training participants to focus their attention on the here-and-now (i.e., focused attention) reduces distress from an ostracism experience. Participants were first trained in either focused or unfocused attention, and then played Cyberball, an online ball-tossing game for which half the participants were included or ostracized. Participants reported their levels of need satisfaction during the game, and after a short delay. Whereas both training groups experienced the same degree of need-threat in the immediate measure, participants who were trained in focused attention showed more recovery for the delayed measure. We reason that focused attention would not reduce the distress during the ostracism experience, but it aided in recovery by preventing participants from reliving the ostracism experience after it concludes.     

An assessment of age differences in theory of mind using the virtual assessment of mentalizing ability

ABSTRACT

Prior research has shown that older adults perform more poorly than young on tasks that assess theory of mind (ToM). However, these studies have used tasks that are performed “offline” (i.e., requiring a second-person perspective) as opposed to “online” (i.e., requiring a first-person perspective). Therefore, the present study was designed to establish whether age-related ToM difficulties are also evident when an “online” measure of ToM is used. Forty younger and 40 older adults completed the Virtual Assessment of Mentalizing Ability (VAMA) along with two conventional ToM tasks. No age differences were evident on the conventional measures, but older adults had lower accuracy on the VAMA relative to their younger counterparts. The overall pattern of errors did not differ between the groups. These data provide no evidence that age effects are reduced when stimuli are used that are more likely to engage the mentalizing processes elicited in real life social interactions.     

Adolescent Internet use: What we expect, what teens report

As adolescent Internet use grew exponentially in the last decade, with it emerged a number of correspondent expectations. Among them were the following: (1) that gender predicts usage, i.e., that boys spend more time online, surfing the web and playing violent games, while girls chat or shop online; (2) that Internet use causes social isolation and depression, especially for teens; and (3) that adolescents use the Internet for anonymous identity experimentation. These expectations were based on research with earlier technologies when the Internet was less diffused in the adolescent population. By means of highly detailed daily reports of adolescents' home Internet usage and peer-related adjustment, the present research sought to compare these expectations with the actual experiences of early and mid-adolescents in 2000 and 2001. Participants were 261 7th and 10th graders from suburban California public schools who completed four consecutive end-of-day reports on their school-based adjustment and Internet activity (including detailed logs of instant messages). Results challenge prevailing expectations regarding gender, well-being, and identity play. For the most part, adolescent boys' and girls' online activities have become more similar than different. On average, boys and girls alike described their online social interaction as (1) occurring in private settings such as e-mail and instant messages, (2) with friends who are also part of their daily, offline lives, and (3) devoted to fairly ordinary yet intimate topics (e.g., friends, gossip). No associations were found between Internet usage and well-being. Online pretending was reported to be motivated by a desire to play a joke on friends more often than to explore a desired or future identity, but participants reported a range of pretending content, contexts, and motives.     

Online Victimization,Womanism, and Body Esteem among Young Black Women: A Structural Equation Modeling Approach

Digital media use represents a central part of young adults’ daily life, within which social interactions increasingly center on visual content. While visual content, such as representations of self, may facilitate positive social interactivity, it may also increase susceptibility to harmful social interactions, such as appearance-related online victimization. Black women’s bodies are often the target of gendered racial microaggressions and sexual victimization which can contribute to body image concerns. Still, the online victimization–body esteem link among Black women remains unexamined. This study used structural equation modeling to examine the associations between four categories of online victimization (i.e., general online victimization, online individual racial victimization, online vicarious racial victimization, online sexual victimization) and body esteem. We further examined whether womanism, an identity-based factor, moderated the relationship between online victimization and body esteem. A sample of 1,595 young Black women completed an online survey. Results showed that online sexual victimization was significantly negatively associated with body esteem and that high levels of womanism buffered the harmful impact of general online victimization on body esteem. Future research is needed to examine Black women’s and gender expansive people’s experiences with online gendered racial victimization along with other forms of online intersectional oppression.

     

Group decision making in hidden profile situations: dissent as a facilitator for decision quality

The effect of diversity in individual prediscussion preferences on group decision quality was examined in an experiment in which 135 three-person groups worked on a personnel selection case with 4 alternatives. The information distribution among group members constituted a hidden profile (i.e., the correct solution was not identifiable on the basis of the members' individual information and could be detected only by pooling and integrating the members' unique information). Whereas groups with homogeneous suboptimal prediscussion preferences (no dissent) hardly ever solved the hidden profile, solution rates were significantly higher in groups with prediscussion dissent, even if none of these individual prediscussion preferences were correct. If dissent came from a proponent of the correct solution, solution rates were even higher than in dissent groups without such a proponent. The magnitude of dissent (i.e., minority dissent or full diversity of individual preferences) did not affect decision quality. The beneficial effect of dissent on group decision quality was mediated primarily by greater discussion intensity and to some extent also by less discussion bias in dissent groups.     

Experimentation with Group Techniques with Ego-Disturbed Mothers

Abstract

Psycho–educational groups (PEGs) have been shown to be a particularly effective form of treatment for patients classified under the rubric of severely and persistently mentally ill (SPMI). However, recent surveys suggest that certain professionals, such as nurses and clinical psychologists, called on to conduct these groups may have limited to no training. This study tested three methods (self–instructional, workshop, and workshop plus clinical supervision) designed to provide on-the-job training to practicing clinicians. Specifically, training was based on two manuals; one that operationalized the basic knowledge and skills needed to run an effective PEG and the second being a commonly used PEG program for symptom management targeted at SPMI patients. Eight nurses from four adult units at a state psychiatric hospital initially received self–instructional or workshop training and then conducted a 12–session symptom management PEG composed of four to five SPMI patients (e.g., schizophrenia, schizoaffective or major depression disorders). In a second wave of additional training, nurses received workshop training or clinical supervision and then conducted a second PEG. Differences between training methods were assessed by nurse– and patient–completed measures that tapped the knowledge and skills emphasized in the symptom management and PEG (nurses only) manuals. Results indicated limited support for the superiority of the workshop method on the nurse measures alone. Implications for training working professionals in group treatments and assessing outcomes with chronic SPMI patients are discussed.     

青少年自伤网络展示的动机及其影响

自我伤害行为是一种复杂且危险的心理病理行为,它会给个体的身心带来不同程度的损害。自伤是在多种因素的共同作用下产生,且在青少年中发生率最高。随着互联网的普遍使用,网络已经成为青少年生活中不可或缺的部分,近年来研究者开始关注到青少年的自伤网络展示行为。研究显示,许多自伤青少年会在网络上展示自己的自伤行为;个体一般是在多种动机的作用下对自己的自伤行为或经历进行展示;这些展示的内容既可能会让更多的人模仿或强化自伤,也可能会为自伤者提供社会支持,有助于他们减少自伤行为。     

Friend networking sites and their relationship to adolescents' well-being and social self-esteem.

The aim of this study was to investigate the consequences of friend networking sites (e.g., Friendster, MySpace) for adolescents' self-esteem and well-being. We conducted a survey among 881 adolescents (10-19-year-olds) who had an online profile on a Dutch friend networking site. Using structural equation modeling, we found that the frequency with which adolescents used the site had an indirect effect on their social self-esteem and well-being. The use of the friend networking site stimulated the number of relationships formed on the site, the frequency with which adolescents received feedback on their profiles, and the tone (i.e., positive vs. negative) of this feedback. Positive feedback on the profiles enhanced adolescents' social self-esteem and well-being, whereas negative feedback decreased their self-esteem and well-being.     

Separating fact from fiction: an examination of deceptive self-presentation in online dating profiles

This study examines self-presentation in online dating profiles using a novel cross-validation technique for establishing accuracy. Eighty online daters rated the accuracy of their online self-presentation. Information about participants' physical attributes was then collected (height, weight, and age) and compared with their online profile, revealing that deviations tended to be ubiquitous but small in magnitude. Men lied more about their height, and women lied more about their weight, with participants farther from the mean lying more. Participants' self-ratings of accuracy were significantly correlated with observed accuracy, suggesting that inaccuracies were intentional rather than self-deceptive. Overall, participants reported being the least accurate about their photographs and the most accurate about their relationship information. Deception patterns suggest that participants strategically balanced the deceptive opportunities presented by online self-presentation (e.g., the editability of profiles) with the social constraints of establishing romantic relationships (e.g., the anticipation of future interaction).