Effects of awe on consumer preferences for healthy versus unhealthy food products

This research investigates how a discrete positive emotion (awe) impacts consumers' decisions on food choices. We probe and demonstrate that the experience of awe enhances consumer preferences for healthy versus unhealthy products. In a series of three studies, we find that awe, compared with a neutral emotion, increases consumers' likelihood to choose healthy products over unhealthy products (Study 1). Consumers' processing styles drive the observed awe effect (Study 2), whereby awe increases reliance on analytic processing, which leads to preferences for healthy products. Moreover, the experience of awe exerts a stronger influence on product choices among consumers with a chronic intuitive rather than analytic processing style (Study 3). Theoretical contributions to the research on awe, information processing, and healthy food preference, as well as practical implications for consumers and marketers, are discussed.     

How parents introduce new words to young children: The influence of development and developmental disorders

This study documents how parents weave new words into on-going interactions with children who are just beginning to speak. Dyads with typically developing toddlers and with young children with autism spectrum disorder and Down syndrome (n = 56, 23, and 29) were observed using a Communication Play Protocol during which parents could use novel words to refer to novel objects. Parents readily introduced both labels and sound words even when their child did not respond expressively or produce the words. Results highlight both how parents act in ways that may facilitate their child's appreciation of the relation between a new word and its referent and how they subtly adjust their actions to suit their child's level of word learning and specific learning challenges.     

Implicit shopping: Attitudinal determinants of the purchasing of healthy and unhealthy foods

Implicit attitudes, evaluations that can occur without effort, quickly and without conscious intent, have been shown to predict self-reported diets and objectively measured food choices within the laboratory. We present two studies which extend the literature by demonstrating that implicit attitudes predict objective purchasing of healthy and unhealthy foods. Both Study 1 (N?=?40) and Study 2 (N?=?36) utilised an online shopping paradigm and concerned purchasing of fruit and chocolate. In both studies, implicit attitudes predicted purchases. Explicit attitudes towards buying or eating fruit versus chocolate did not predict purchase behaviour. These studies represent an original test of whether implicit attitudes predict healthy consumer behaviour, which involves participants paying for products. This research provides the strongest evidence yet that implicit attitudes play a role in predicting health food purchases. A comprehensive model of health behaviour should take into account the role of implicit attitudes.     

Implicit shopping: attitudinal determinants of the purchasing of healthy and unhealthy foods

Implicit attitudes, evaluations that can occur without effort, quickly and without conscious intent, have been shown to predict self-reported diets and objectively measured food choices within the laboratory. We present two studies which extend the literature by demonstrating that implicit attitudes predict objective purchasing of healthy and unhealthy foods. Both Study 1 (N=40) and Study 2 (N=36) utilised an online shopping paradigm and concerned purchasing of fruit and chocolate. In both studies, implicit attitudes predicted purchases. Explicit attitudes towards buying or eating fruit versus chocolate did not predict purchase behaviour. These studies represent an original test of whether implicit attitudes predict healthy consumer behaviour, which involves participants paying for products. This research provides the strongest evidence yet that implicit attitudes play a role in predicting health food purchases. A comprehensive model of health behaviour should take into account the role of implicit attitudes.     

The accessibility of characters in single sentences: proper names,common nouns,and first mention

Accessibility of characters in two-character sentences (e.g., The butler helped Calvin at the wedding reception) was investigated with a probe recognition task. Probes were either the first character (e.g., butler) or the second character (e.g., Calvin) in a sentence and were designated by proper names or common nouns crossed with name or noun nonprobes. Results show that (1) probes in first position are more accessible than those in second position, but not when noun probes are paired with name nonprobes, (2) characters designated by names are generally more accessible than those designated by nouns, and (3) the first name in a sentence is more available than other characters, regardless of position. Thus, accessibility of characters in a sentence seems dependent on discourse function, with named characters seen as main characters, rather than on nondiscourse-related factors, such as temporal distinctiveness.     

Resisting temptation of unhealthy food: interaction between temptation-elicited goal activation and self-control

Counteractive control theory suggests that the cognitive accessibility of a goal in response to a temptation cue predicts self-regulation of behaviour consistent with that goal. The current study provided a novel test of this effect in the eating domain, exploring the moderating role of trait self-control. A sample of 124 women (18–25 years) completed a lexical decision task to assess cognitive accessibility of the weight-management goal after food temptation priming. Eating self-regulation was operationalised as unhealthy snack food intake measured in a task disguised as a taste-test. Participants completed trait self-control and temptation experience intensity measures. Cognitive accessibility predicted lower food intake, but only among high self-control participants. The relationship was mediated by temptation experience intensity: participants with high cognitive accessibility felt less tempted, and subsequently ate less food. Results suggest that changing the processes underlying the temptation experience, rather than the cognitive accessibility of a goal may more effectively enhance self-regulation among low self-control individuals.     

Age of acquisition and the recognition of brand names: On the importance of being early

Research in cognitive psychology has shown that words, objects and faces learned early in life are recognized more fluently than similar items learned later. Experiment 1 shows that early acquired brand names are recognized more quickly than later acquired brands. Experiment 2 shows that the age of acquisition effect extends to accessing semantic knowledge about brands. In Experiment 3, older participants were faster at recognizing early learned brands that are now extinct than more recent, active brand names. Early surviving brands were recognized quickest of all. The significance of these effects for manufacturers and marketing are discussed.     

The massage in the medium: Transfer of connotative meaning from typeface to names and products

All text must be written in some particular style of lettering, known as its typeface or font. If it is once accepted that different typefaces generate their own connotations then every written word originates two meanings. Three experiments demonstrate that people who are asked to evaluate names and products are affected by transfer of meaning from the typeface in which they are presented. The meaning of the word is pulled towards the meaning of the typeface (assimilation), rather than pushed away from it (contrast). Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Using videotape modeling to prepare children psychologically for surgery: influence of parents and costs versus benefits of providing preparation services

Sixty pediatric patients having first-time elective surgery participated in this study. Surgery preparation using videotape procedures was employed. The research design included two viewing conditions (with parent present and without parent present) and three treatment procedures (adult-narrated videotape, peer-narrated videotape, and control/no-videotape condition). Results suggested that children who viewed the videotape with their parent present exhibited less preoperative arousal compared to children who did not. The patients undergoing preparation using the videotape model exhibited less arousal, less self-reported anxiety, and less behaviorally rated anxiety when compared to patients who did not view the videotape preparation. There was no difference between the patients who viewed the adult-narrated versus the peer-narrated videotape. In addition, parents who viewed the videotape or whose children viewed the videotape without them exhibited less arousal prior to the operation than parents who did not and whose children did not view the videotape preparation. Finally, a cost-benefit analysis revealed that preparation services could reduce individual and overall medical costs.     

The benefits of anticipatory grief for the parents of dying children

Abstract

The authors develop a strategy for intervening into rigidly homeostatic systems. Central to the task is the identification of system rules, which often reveal themselves around “nodal themes.” The authors describe four types of nodal themes and offer clues to identifying them within families. Finally, they suggest ways of using system rules and nodal themes in the development of paradoxical interventions.     

Promoting healthy food consumption among young children: Evaluation of a multi-component nutrition education program

This study was an outcome evaluation of a multi-component nutrition education program for African American kindergarten and first grade students attending an under-resourced urban school. The program focused on increasing fruit and vegetable knowledge and vegetable consumption during school lunch. It included a classroom-based knowledge change component, a lunchtime-based behavior-change component, and a home component. This program was unique in that natural helpers in the school (i.e., paraprofessionals) were enlisted as agents of behavior change. Findings indicated that the program was considered socially valid from the perspectives of students, teachers, and paraprofessional community assistants. Implementation integrity was acceptable for the classroom intervention, but highly variable for the lunchtime intervention. Program outcomes demonstrated that knowledge change was high, but behavior change was variable. Inconsistent behavioral effects appeared to be related in part to the variable level of intervention integrity. The challenges of promoting intervention integrity with paraprofessionals were discussed, and strategies for improving integrity were outlined.     

Adolescent problem behavior: the influence of parents and peers

This paper presents evidence that the Patterson et al. (1992) model of development of antisocial behavior in children generalizes to the development of a wide array of problem behaviors during later adolescence and that youth antisocial behavior, high-risk sexual behavior, academic failure and substance use form a single problem behavior construct. Structural equation modeling methods were applied to 24-month longitudinal data from 204 adolescents and parents. The model fit the data well, accounting for 52% of the variance in adolescent problem behavior. Specifically, families experiencing high levels of conflict were more likely to have low levels of parent-child involvement. These family conditions were related to poor parental monitoring and association with deviant peers one year later. Poor parental monitoring and associations with deviant peers were strong proximal predictors of engagement in an array of problem behaviors at two-year follow-up.     

Married women's work status: The influence of parents and husbands

The working or nonworking status of married women free of the financial need to work was studied in relation to the balance between their instrumental and expressive needs and in relation to their own and their husbands' attitudes towards women's roles. Also studied were women's needs and attitudes towards women's roles in relation to their parents' child-rearing practices, needs, and attitudes towards women's roles. These variables were rated by 67 working and 48 nonworking women on three sets of scales, each set composed of items reflecting instrumental (I) and expressive (E) orientations. A single score for each set of scales reflected the balance between the sum of the I and E ratings, or (I-E). In 10 of 13 possible correlations, the subjects' I-E needs and attitudes towards women's roles were significantly related to their parents' I-E child-rearing practices, needs, and attitudes towards women's roles. The work status of the subjects was significantly related to their own I-E needs, to their own and their husbands' attitudes towards women's roles, and to whether their mothers worked.     

Parent-child physical play: The effects of sex and age of children and parents

Physical play is an important vehicle for differential socialization of boys and girls into appropriate sex roles. The aim of the study was to examine developmental changes in patterns of parent-child physical play as a function of the sex of parent and child. Three hundred ninety families with a total of 746 children ranging in age from under 1 year to 10 years were contacted by telephone and questioned about the frequency of physical-play interactions with their children. The results indicated that the strongest variable affecting the frequency of physical play was the age of the child. This developmental effect was curvilinear, with comparatively low levels prior to age one, a peak in the early childhood years, and the decline thereafter. Fathers tended to engage in more physical play than mothers. Effects of child sex were less evident, but tended to indicate that girls participated more often in nonstrenuous physical games with their parents, such as pattycake and being bounced on the parent's knee, while boys participated more often in activities such as wrestling and ball playing. There was a modest but significant tendency for older parents to engage less often in physical play with their children at each age level. The implications of parent-child physical play for sex role typing were noted.     

Transracial adoption: Questions on heritage for parents,children and counsellors

The placement of black children in white families in the US and UK once constituted the majority of transracial adoptions. This is reflected in much of the research to date, and the (sometimes negative) findings continue to influence policy and practice. More recently, in Asia and Latin America, need and demand have led to a relaxation of intercountry adoption laws. Transracial adoptions by Caucasian parents are increasing in number and type; questions about how to facilitate adjustment must be readdressed. These parents of transracially adopted children face the task of striking a balance between racial awareness and cultural integration. Most want to protect their adoptive child's sense of self using knowledge of biological family and county of origin but, at the same time, they must settle the child into a new, sometimes alien, community. This paper provides guidelines for counselling all transracially adoptive families who are concerned about adjustment, but particular reference is made to questions on heritage raised by Caucasian parents of Asian children.     

Attention,brightness contrast,and assimilation: The influence of relative area

A model of information transmission in the visual system which describes the effect of attention on apparent brightness is examined. This model states in part that the luminance of the portion of the visual field which captures the attention is overweighted in arriving at an overall average luminance level across the visual field. As this average must be computed with respect to both luminance and relative area, it is hypothesized that increasing the relative area of the portion of the visual field that captures the attention will result in a greater effect on the apparent brightness of all parts of the visual field. Two predictions, which involve the effect of relative area on apparent brightness, are experimentally tested and confirmed.     

The effectiveness of early head start for 3-year-old children and their parents: lessons for policy and programs

Early Head Start, a federal program begun in 1995 for low-income pregnant women and families with infants and toddlers, was evaluated through a randomized trial of 3,001 families in 17 programs. Interviews with primary caregivers, child assessments, and observations of parent-child interactions were completed when children were 3 years old. Caregivers were diverse in race-ethnicity, language, and other characteristics. Regression-adjusted impact analyses showed that 3-year-old program children performed better than did control children in cognitive and language development, displayed higher emotional engagement of the parent and sustained attention with play objects, and were lower in aggressive behavior. Compared with controls, Early Head Start parents were more emotionally supportive, provided more language and learning stimulation, read to their children more, and spanked less. The strongest and most numerous impacts were for programs that offered a mix of home-visiting and center-based services and that fully implemented the performance standards early.