Regulatory focus as a predictor of attitudes toward partitioned and combined pricing

Partitioned pricing is a widely used pricing strategy, but little is known about the buyer characteristics that influence its effectiveness. The current research contributes to the pricing literature by investigating the impact of regulatory focus on the perceived attractiveness of partitioned and combined pricing. In four studies, we hypothesized and found support for the idea that promotion focused individuals perceive partitioned prices to be more attractive than combined prices, while prevention focused individuals do not differentiate between the two pricing types. Our results also show that regulatory focus influences consumers' information processing style, which in turn leads to important differences in attitudes towards partitioned and combined pricing. Specifically, promotion focused consumers are more likely to engage in global processing and global processing is linked to preferences for partitioned (versus combined) prices.     

Explaining Muslim Americans’ Opinions on Salient Issues

Despite numerous individual success stories of living the American dream, the Muslim American community still remains one of the most misunderstood and underrepresented minorities in the United States. This study investigates the views of this community by mapping and explaining members' investigates on a number of issues of social and political import. It shows that the issue attitudes of Muslim Americans are rather uniform on some social and non-social issues but very diverse on others. Moreover, it also shows that the differences of opinion that were uncovered can be explained by a variety of factors including a respondent's ethnic or national origin and how committed a respondent is to the practice of Islam, defined by the frequency of mosque attendance. While these results are temporally limited, they do show that this is a very diverse community and set a strong foundation for further quantitative and qualitative investigations of how Muslim Americans' religious practices, ethnic backgrounds, and socio-economic characteristics affect their essential social and political beliefs.     

Determinants of brand switching: the role of consumer inferences,brand commitment,and perceived risk

Previous research in the area of price discounts has generated a rich, but diverse and mixed body of literature. This research examines the role of consumer's brand commitment and product category risk in influencing the nature as well as valence of the inferences generated by consumers in response to price discounts. Our results provide insights regarding how consumers' responses to competitor inducements vary depending upon their brand commitment for the incumbent brand and perceived risk. Furthermore, we show that higher commitment consumers could resist an inducement from a competitor when they are able to generate negative, marketer‐related inferences. Our research suggests that consumers' inferences are critical than pure economic benefits in determining the effectiveness of discounts.     

Effects of posttraining treatments in the posterior cingulate cortex on short- and long-term memory for inhibitory avoidance in rats

Adult male Wistar rats were bilaterally implanted with indwelling cannulae in the caudal region of the posterior cingulate cortex. After recovery, animals were trained in a step-down inhibitory avoidance task (3.0-s, 0.4-mA foot shock) and received, right after training, a 0.5-microl infusion of vehicle (phosphate-buffered saline, pH 7.4), of the GABA(A) receptor agonist muscimol (0.1 or 0.5 microg), of the cAMP-dependent protein kinase (PKA) stimulant Sp-cAMPS (0.1 or 0.5 microg), or of the PKA inhibitor Rp-cAMPS (0.1 or 0.5 microg). Animals were tested twice, 1.5 h and, again, 24 h after training, in order to examine the effects of these agents on short- and long-term memory, respectively. Muscimol (0.5 but not 0.1 microg) hindered retention for both short- and long-term memory (p <.05). Rp-cAMPS (0.1 or 0.5 microg) hindered retention for short-term memory (p <.05). In addition, these animals showed lower, but not significantly lower, latencies than controls in the test session for long-term memory (p >.10). A trend toward an amnesic effect on long-term memory was also observed after Sp-cAMPS infusion at 0.1 microg (p <.10). These results show that strong stimulation of GABAergic synapses in the caudal region of the rat posterior cingulate cortex right after training impairs short- and long-term memory (the latter less dramatically). The same occurs by inhibiting PKA activity with regard to STM and possibly to LTM.     

How children perceive fractals: Hierarchical self-similarity and cognitive development

The ability to understand and generate hierarchical structures is a crucial component of human cognition, available in language, music, mathematics and problem solving. Recursion is a particularly useful mechanism for generating complex hierarchies by means of self-embedding rules. In the visual domain, fractals are recursive structures in which simple transformation rules generate hierarchies of infinite depth. Research on how children acquire these rules can provide valuable insight into the cognitive requirements and learning constraints of recursion.     

Sociodemographic risk and early environmental factors that contribute to resilience in executive control: A factor mixture model of 3-year-olds

Young children at sociodemographic risk generally demonstrate lower executive control (EC), although with substantial heterogeneity across children. Given this marked variability, there may be some at-risk children who display higher EC and may be buffered from or resilient to the effects of sociodemographic risk who can be studied to identify the contributory factors. In this study, factor mixture modelling was used to determine whether subgroups of 3-year-old children existed based on their observed performance on a battery of EC tasks. Results indicated 2 latent groups: One characterized by lower EC and the other by higher EC. Both sociodemographically at-risk and low-risk children were represented in each group, yielding 4 risk-status-by-EC groups, where at-risk higher EC children were termed the resilient group. Proximal household enrichment (e.g., exposure to learning materials, varied enriching experiences, academic and language stimulation, parental responsivity) distinguished the resilient group from lower performing children of similar risk status, whereas distal financial resources and proximal social network resources did not distinguish these two groups. Results suggest potential intervention targets to promote optimal EC development, particularly among children at risk.     

Accelerating heterogeneous nucleation to increase hardness and electrical conductivity by deformation prior to ageing for Cu-4 at.% Ti alloy

ABSTRACT

Deformation bands, especially shear bands were intentionally formed in supersaturated Cu-4 at.% Ti alloy by groove-rolling with 75% area reduction. Cold deformation prior to the ageing process changed the precipitation behaviour of the alloy. The deformed structure with shear bands was maintained, without showing recovery and recrystallisation, even after prolonged ageing at 450°C for more than one day. The thermally stable shear bands act as nucleation initiation sites and prevent the expansion of discontinuous cellular precipitates. The hardness reached a value of 305?Hv and an electrical conductivity of 15% IACS (IACS?=?International Annealed Copper Standard. 100% IACS is defined as the conductivity corresponding to a volume resistivity at 20°C of 17.241?nΩ), compared to 283?Hv and 13% IACS for conventional solid-solutioned and peak-hardened alloy. In addition, the ageing time to reach the highest hardness was shortened from 720 to 180?min at 450°C.     

Subjective Well-Being and Hedonic Editing: How Happy People Maximize Joint Outcomes of Loss and Gain

Hedonic editing refers to the decision strategy of arranging multiple events in time to maximize hedonic outcomes (Thaler in Market Sci 4:199–214, 1985). The present research investigated the relationship between subjective well-being and hedonic editing. In Study 1, we gave participants pairs of social or financial events and asked them to indicate their preferences regarding the sequence and interval length between the two events. Compared to participants with lower subjective well-being, those with higher subjective well-being preferred to experience a social gain (e.g., chatting with a close friend) temporally closer to a financial loss, suggesting that happy individuals are more inclined than less happy individuals to use positive social events as cross-domain buffers against loss. In Study 2, participants were asked to select the type of positive event they would want to experience after a negative event. Happy individuals displayed a stronger preference for social events. Implications and directions for future research are discussed.     

Does personality matter in exercise participation?

This research extends previous work by demonstrating how the relationships between social cognition and exercise are influenced by different personality types. The theory of planned behaviour forms the basis of our theoretical model, and the Big Five personality framework was used to determine personality types. Data were collected from a quota sample of 512 Malaysian adults. The results suggest that an individual's personality can prevent him or her from exercising. For example, an extrovert is likely to be driven by affect and self‐confidence in their capability to exercise, and thus are more likely to participate in exercise. Those who are more conscientious (and less neurotic) feel more in control and thus possess a greater ability to exercise in comparison with their less conscientious and more neurotic counterparts. Our findings demonstrate the importance of considering personality factors in exercise research and caution us about underestimating the relationship between perceived control, attitude and its potential behavioural outcomes that could lead to a misinterpretation of its true impact. Our core contribution lies in identifying the underlying causes of social cognition differences in a moderating capacity, which has potential to yield important theoretical and practical implications. This study sets the ground for social marketers to improve their understanding of exercise behaviour and, in turn, consumer welfare. Ultimately, they could be in a better position to develop effective health intervention and educational programmes. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.