Impact of daily mood, work hours, and iso-strain variables on self-reported health behaviors

Four hundred and twenty-two employees completed daily diaries measuring positive affect, negative affect, work hours, and health behaviors (snacking, smoking, exercise, alcohol, caffeine consumption) on work days over a 4-week period. In addition, measures of job demands, job control, and social support (iso-strain variables) were completed on 1 occasion. Multilevel random coefficient modeling was used to examine relationships between the job characteristics, daily work variables, and self-reported health behaviors. Results indicated a more important role for within-person daily fluctuations than for between-persons variations in predicting health behaviors. Whereas negative affect was negatively related to health behavior for both men and women, work hours had negative impacts for women only. Iso-strain variables showed few main effects and a modest number of interactions with daily variables (mainly for men). Findings point to the limited impact of stable features of work design compared to the effects of daily work stressors on health behaviors.     

"Trust me...": psychological and behavioral predictors of perceived physician empathy

A sociocognitive model of distal and proximal predictors of empathic judgments was tested among 100 physicians. The authors hypothesized that physician perceived control would affect empathy ratings via physician communication style. Specifically, physicians with high perceived control would use more open communication and be rated as more empathic. Physicians with low perceived control would use a controlling communication style and be rated as less empathic. Physicians completed a medical attribution questionnaire prior to a structured patient consultation exercise, during which patients and assessors rated physician empathy. The exercise was audiotaped, transcribed, and content analyzed for verbal behaviors. Support was found for the hypotheses; however, patients, but not medical assessors, associated empathy with reassurance and provision of medical information.     

Smoking, mood regulation, and personality: an event-sampling exploration of potential models and moderation

The aim of the present study was to test potential models of smoking-related changes in mood and how these are moderated by personality (behavioral activation and inhibition systems). Three models yielding distinct predictions regarding mood changes associated with cues to smoking and effects of ingestion were identified: the negative reinforcement model, the appetitive-incentive model, and the incentive-sensitization model. Seventy participants provided baseline data on personality and mood, and subsequently monitored their smoking behavior over 48 hours using an event-contingent diary--eliciting reports of mood state immediately prior to, and after, each cigarette smoked. MANOVA and multilevel modeling indicated that mood (hedonic tone and energetic arousal) improved significantly (p<.001) from baseline to pre-smoking, but did not change from pre- to post-smoking, thereby supporting the incentive-sensitization model. Further multilevel analyses indicated that significant variability in hedonic tone was moderated by the behavioral activation system.     

The ability to process emotional information predicts loss aversion

On the basis of previous research it was hypothesized that alexithymia is associated with a higher tolerance for losses. This hypothesis is extended to explore whether the putative link between loss aversion and alexithymia remains once traits associated with risk taking (sensation seeking) and broad based personality traits (the Big 5) are controlled. Participants (N = 260) completed indices of alexithymia, sensation seeking and the Big 5 and both a riskless (endowment effect) and risky (lottery task) measure of loss aversion. It was found that the higher the alexithymia score the lower the loss aversion for both riskless and risky decisions even when sex, sensation seeking and the Big 5 are taken into account. The implications for this finding are discussed in the light of a neurological explanation of the relationship between alexithymia and loss aversion.     

Blood, sex, personality, power, and altruism: factors influencing the validity of strong reciprocity

It is argued that the generality of strong reciprocity theory (SRT) is limited by the existence of anonymous spontaneous cooperation, maintained in the absence of punishment, despite free-riding. We highlight how individual differences, status, sex, and the legitimacy of non-cooperation need to be examined to increase the internal and ecological validity of SRT experiments and, ultimately, SRT's external validity.     

Do we make decisions for other people based on our predictions of their preferences? evidence from financial and medical scenarios involving risk

Abstract

The ways in which the decisions we make for others differ from the ones we make for ourselves has received much attention in the literature, although less is known about their relationship to our predictions of the recipient’s preferences. The latter question is of particular importance given real-world occurrences of surrogate decision-making which require surrogates to consider the recipient’s preferences. We conducted three experiments which explore this relationship in the medical and financial domains. Although there were mean discrepancies between surrogate predictions and choices, we identified a predictive relationship between the two. Moreover, when participants took high risks for themselves, it seems that they were not willing to do so for others, even when they believed that the recipient’s preferences were similar to their own. We discuss these findings relative to current theories and real-world instances of surrogate decision-making.