I want it and I want it now: Using a temporal discounting paradigm to examine predictors of consumer impulsivity

This paper proposes a new model of consumer impulsivity, using type of good, a person's endorsement of materialistic values, and identity deficits as predictors. Traditional decision making and psychological accounts see impulsive behaviour as a general overweighing of short‐term gratification (I want that dress now) relative to longer‐term concerns, irrespective of consumer good. Our proposal is that consumers' impulsivity (a) differs according to type of good and (b) is linked systematically to a combination of materialistic values and high identity deficits. Beginning with Study 1, three experiments, using a temporal discounting paradigm, show consistently that discount rates are higher for goods that are seen as highly expressive of identity (e.g., clothes) than goods not expressive of identity (e.g., basic body care products). For materialistic consumers, identity deficits predict discount rates for identity‐expressive goods (Study 2), and discount rates change for materialistic individuals when their identity deficits are made salient (Study 3). These findings support a conceptualization of consumer impulsivity as identity‐seeking behaviour.     

Young German children's early syntactic competence: a preferential looking study

Using a preferential looking methodology with novel verbs, Gertner, Fisher and Eisengart (2006) found that 21-month-old English children seemed to understand the syntactic marking of transitive word order in an abstract, verb-general way. In the current study we tested whether young German children of this same age have this same understanding. Following Gertner et al. (2006), one group of German children was tested only after they had received a training/practice phase containing transitive sentences with familiar verbs and the exact same nouns as those used at test. A second group was tested after a training/practice phase consisting only of familiar verbs, without the nouns used at test. Only the group of children with the training on full transitive sentences was successful in the test. These findings suggest that for children this young to succeed in this test of syntactic understanding, they must first have some kind of relevant linguistic experience immediately prior to testing--which raises the question of the nature of children's linguistic representations at this early point in development.     

The impact of thin models in music videos on adolescent girls' body dissatisfaction

Music videos are a particularly influential, new form of mass media for adolescents, which include the depiction of scantily clad female models whose bodies epitomise the ultra-thin sociocultural ideal for young women. The present study is the first exposure experiment that examines the impact of thin models in music videos on the body dissatisfaction of 16–19-year-old adolescent girls (n = 87). First, participants completed measures of positive and negative affect, body image, and self-esteem. Under the guise of a memory experiment, they then either watched three music videos, listened to three songs (from the videos), or learned a list of words. Affect and body image were assessed afterwards. In contrast to the music listening and word-learning conditions, girls who watched the music videos reported significantly elevated scores on an adaptation of the Body Image States Scale after exposure, indicating increased body dissatisfaction. Self-esteem was not found to be a significant moderator of this relationship. Implications and future research are discussed.     

A Qualitative Investigation of Women's and Men's Body Image Concerns and Their Attitudes Toward Aging

In-depth interviews were conducted with 42 women and men (aged 22–62 years) to explore their relationships with their bodies. The particular focus was age-related changes in body image and attitudes toward the body aging, an area that has received little research attention to date. Thematic analysis revealed distinctive gender differences. Men commonly conceptualized their bodies as a holistic entity, whereas women commonly had compartmentalized conceptualizations. They also construed the importance of their bodies differently: men tended to focus on functionality, and women tended to focus on display. These findings may help to explain gendered consequences of body dissatisfaction. Accounts about the aging of the body support a “double standard of aging.” Women viewed aging most negatively in terms of its impact on appearance, whereas men reported a neutral or even positive impact on appearance.     

Consumer culture ideals,extrinsic motivations,and well‐being in children

Internalising the consumer culture ideals of materialism and appearance has been shown to be negatively related to adults' well‐being. Similarly, adults who strive towards these ideals for extrinsic reasons, such as to improve their image or status, have been shown to have lower levels of well‐being than those who strive towards them for intrinsic reasons, such as to help others or support healthy relationships. However, to date, there is little evidence that these links exist in children. In the present research, we use new, age‐appropriate scales to test our predictions derived from self‐determination theory that being extrinsically motivated to achieve materialistic and appearance ideals will predict their internalisation, which, in turn, will negatively predict children's well‐being. An initial pilot study found that extrinsic motives were negatively related to well‐being in a sample of 150 children aged 8–11 years but that intrinsic motives were not. In our main study, we modelled materialism and appearance as indicators of a single underlying consumer culture construct, and, in a sample of 160 youths aged 8–15 years, found support for our hypothesis that being extrinsically motivated to achieve these consumer culture ideals predicts their internalisation, which negatively predicts well‐being. We discuss the possible mechanisms involved in these processes and the implications of these findings for future research. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Familiar Verbs Are Not Always Easier Than Novel Verbs: How German Pre‐School Children Comprehend Active and Passive Sentences

Many studies show a developmental advantage for transitive sentences with familiar verbs over those with novel verbs. It might be that once familiar verbs become entrenched in particular constructions, they would be more difficult to understand (than would novel verbs) in non‐prototypical constructions. We provide support for this hypothesis investigating German children using a forced‐choice pointing paradigm with reversed agent‐patient roles. We tested active transitive verbs in study 1. The 2‐year olds were better with familiar than novel verbs, while the 2½‐year olds pointed correctly for both. In study 2, we tested passives: 2½‐year olds were significantly below chance for familiar verbs and at chance for novel verbs, supporting the hypothesis that the entrenchment of the familiar verbs in the active transitive voice was interfering with interpreting them in the passive voice construction. The 3½‐year olds were also at chance for novel verbs but above chance with familiar verbs. We interpret this as reflecting a lessening of the verb‐in‐construction entrenchment as the child develops knowledge that particular verbs can occur in a range of constructions. The 4½‐year olds were above chance for both familiar and novel verbs. We discuss our findings in terms of the relative entrenchment of lexical and syntactic information and to interference between them.     

The effect of priming materialism on women's responses to thin-ideal media

Consumer culture is characterized by two prominent ideals: the 'body perfect' and the material 'good life'. Although the impact of these ideals has been investigated in separate research literatures, no previous research has examined whether materialism is linked to women's responses to thin-ideal media. Data from several studies confirm that the internalization of materialistic and body-ideal values is positively linked in women. After developing a prime for materialism (N= 50), we present an experimental examination (N= 155) of the effects of priming materialism on women's responses to thin-ideal media, using multiple outcome measures of state body dissatisfaction. Priming materialism affects women's body dissatisfaction after exposure to thin media models, but differently depending on the dimension of body image measured. The two main novel findings are that (1) priming materialism heightens the centrality of appearance to women's self-concept and (2) priming materialism influences the activation of body-related self-discrepancies (BRSDs), particularly for highly materialistic women. Exposure to materialistic media has a clear influence on women's body image, with trait materialism a further vulnerability factor for negative exposure effects in response to idealized, thin media models.