Brand personality,self‐congruity,and preference: A knowledge structures approach

Using the construct of brand personality to measure automobile and soft drink personalities, two studies represented self‐congruity by combining brands and the self‐image into Pathfinder associative networks (Schvaneveldt et al., 1989 ). Self‐congruity, the number of links between the self and each brand, was predictive of preference and ideal brand. Because brand personality and self‐image are knowledge structures, and facets of brand personality also describe the self, self‐congruity can be represented and measured in networks. This approach could be helpful to marketers studying how the self is related to each brand and how brands interrelate. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Contextualizing Acculturation: Gender, Family, and Community Reception Influences on Asian Immigrant Mental Health

This article investigates differences in the mental health among male and female immigrants from an ecological perspective, testing the influences of both individual acculturation domains and social contexts. Data from the first nationally representative psychiatric survey of immigrant Asians in the US is used (N = 1,583). These data demonstrate the importance of understanding acculturation domains (e.g., individual differences in English proficiency, ethnic identity, and time in the US), within the social contexts of family, community, and neighborhood. Results demonstrate that among immigrant Asian women, the association between family conflict and mental health problems is stronger for those with higher ethnic identity; among immigrant Asian men, community reception (e.g., everyday discrimination) was more highly associated with increases in mental health symptoms among those with poor English fluency. Findings suggest that both individual domains of acculturation and social context measures contribute to immigrant mental health, and that it is important to consider these relationships within the context of gender.     

Fishing for happiness: the effects of generating positive imagery on mood and behaviour

Experimental evidence using picture-word cues has shown that generating mental imagery has a causal impact on emotion, at least for images prompted by negative or benign stimuli. It remains unclear whether this finding extends to overtly positive stimuli and whether generating positive imagery can increase positive affect in people with dysphoria. Dysphoric participants were assigned to one of three conditions, and given instructions to generate mental images in response to picture-word cues which were either positive, negative or mixed (control) in valence. Results showed that the positive picture-word condition increased positive affect more than the control and negative conditions. Participants in the positive condition also demonstrated enhanced performance on a behavioural task compared to the two other conditions. Compared to participants in the negative condition, participants in the positive condition provided more positive responses on a homophone task administered after 24h to assess the durability of effects. These findings suggest that a positive picture-word task used to evoke mental imagery leads to improvements in positive mood, with transfer to later performance. Understanding the mechanisms underlying mood change in dysphoria may hold implications for both theory and treatment development.     

Same items, different order: effects of temporal variability on infant categorization

How does variability between members of a category influence infants’ category learning? We explore the impact of the order in which different items are sampled on category formation. Two groups of 10-months-olds were presented with a series of exemplars to be organized into a single category. In a low distance group, the order of presentation minimized the perceptual distance between consecutive exemplars. In a high distance group, the order of presentation maximized the distance between successive exemplars. At test, only infants in the High Distance condition reliably discriminated between the category prototype and an atypical exemplar. Hence, the order in which infants learnt about the exemplars impacted their categorization performance. Our findings demonstrate the importance of moment-to-moment variations in similarity during infants’ category learning.     

A pilot study of performance in young and middle-aged adults on verbal recall

The objective was to explore whether middle-aged adults (M age = 48.9 yr.; n = 26) differed on verbal recall from young adults (M age = 26.3 yr.; n = 26). Little data exist on the performance of middle-aged, healthy adults. Groups of young and middle-aged adults recalled words from the Rey Auditory Verbal Learning Test across six trials during a single session. The same 15 words were used for recall in Trials 1-5. Prior to the sixth trial, 15 distractor words were presented. Participants then recalled the original set of 15 words. No significant differences occurred on any of the recall trials. Although the power of this study was low, the effect of age is apparently quite small.     

Does the "eyes lead the hand" principle apply to reach-to-grasp movements evoked by unexpected balance perturbations?

A fundamental principle that has emerged from studies of natural gaze behavior is that goal-directed arm movements are typically guided by a saccade to the target. In this study, we evaluated a hypothesis that this principle does not apply to rapid reach-to-grasp movements evoked by sudden unexpected balance perturbations. These perturbations involved forward translation of a large (2 × 6 m) motion platform configured to simulate a “real-life” environment. Subjects performed a common “daily-life” visuo-cognitive task (find a telephone and make a call) that required walking to the end of the platform, which was triggered to move as they approached a handrail mounted alongside the travel path. A deception was used to ensure that the perturbation was truly unexpected. Eleven of 18 healthy young-adult subjects (age 22-30) reached to grasp or touch the rail in response to the balance perturbation. In support of the hypothesis, none of these arm reactions was guided by concurrent visual fixation of the handrail. Seven of the 11 looked at the rail upon first entering the environment, and hence may have used “stored” central-field information about the handrail location to guide the subsequent arm reaction. However, the other four subjects never looked directly at the rail, indicating a complete reliance on peripheral vision. These findings add to previous evidence of distinctions in the CNS control of volitional and perturbation-evoked arm movements. Future studies will determine whether similar visuo-motor behavior occurs when the available handhold is smaller or when subjects are not engaged in a concurrent visuo-cognitive task.     

��I��ll Get That for You��: The Relationship Between Benevolent Sexism and Body Self-Perceptions

Benevolent sexism has been shown to have negative consequences for women. In the present study, we investigated whether there were differences in reports of body self-perceptions between 93 college women in the southeastern United States who either witnessed or did not witness a staged act of benevolent sexism. Because we believed that benevolent sexism could make beauty norms more salient, we hypothesized that women who witnessed benevolent sexism would report higher levels of self-objectification, body surveillance, and body shame. Women who witnessed benevolent sexism did report higher levels of surveillance and shame, constructs associated with self-objectification, but not higher general levels of self-objectification. This research provides more evidence of the negative effects benevolent sexism has on women.     

The Contribution of Self‐Efficacy in Assessing Interests Using the Self‐Directed Search

Using the variables self‐efficacy, self‐estimates, and self‐competencies in a hierarchical multiple regression and confirmatory factor analysis, the present study provided strong support for 3 of 6 RIASEC (Realistic, Investigative, Artistic, Social, Enterprising, and Conventional) interest domains regarding Holland's (1997) assertion that it is unnecessary to administer a separate measure of self‐efficacy when using the Self‐Directed Search (SDS; Holland, Powell, & Fritzsche, 1994) to measure interests in career counseling. Implications for the interpretation of SDS scores in light of self‐efficacy assessment are discussed.