Are boycott motives rationalizations?

Previous models of boycott motivation are incomplete because they only consider beliefs and attitudes. This article argues that consumers' proximity to the consequences of the critical actions of a company is the primary trigger of the desire to boycott. As consumers need to justify this desire, they search for supportive arguments. Thus, the arguments consumers give to explain why they are boycotting or not are pre‐decisional rationalizations rather than independent rational considerations. Consequently, the paper suggests that scholars need to respecify the antecedents identified in prior studies. These constructs are mediator variables of the indirect influence of proximity on boycott participation. The paper tests the assumptions on the basis of survey data gathered from 544 consumers using the example of a real boycott that was called in response to factory relocation. The model proposed was tested by means of partial least squares regression analysis. The mediation hypotheses were examined using simple and multiple mediation tests. The empirical study confirms that boycott motives are mainly rationalizations of a pre‐existing desire to boycott, which is contingent on proximity. Managerial implications and avenues for further research are proposed. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Subjective Difficulty of Movements With Ongoing Visual Control

Objective difficulty of a single-component visually controlled movement may be defined by Fitts's (1954) Index of Difficulty, which is a measure of difficulty in the sense that movement time is linearly related to the objective measure. For movements that have multiple components, it becomes difficult to determine an objective measure of task difficulty due to unknown interactions between components of the movement and interactions with other factors. Thus, it may be necessary to use indirect methods for allocating a measure of task difficulty. The purpose of the study was to determine whether participants could validly construct a subjective measure of the movement difficulty and whether this measure was related to the known objective measure of difficulty. Experiments showed that for single-component movements, there was a close relationship between measures of subjective and objective difficulty. With two-component visually controlled movements it was found that subjective difficulty could be related to objective difficulty, but not as simply as for single-component tasks.     

Effects of Adult Attachment Style on the Perception and Search for Social Support

Effects of adult attachment style on the perception of and search for social support were examined. One hundred and fifty undergraduate students completed self-report scales tapping their attachment styles, the extent to which they perceive the availability of emotional and instrumental support from significant figures (father, mother, same-sex friend, opposite-sex friend, romantic partner), and the extent to which they look for instrumental and emotional assistance in times of need. Findings showed that secure persons perceived higher levels of emotional and instrumental support from the assessed figures and reported seeking more emotional and instrumental support than avoidant and ambivalent persons did. Results are discussed in the context of an attachment perspective of social support.     

Age Differences in Day-To-Day Speed-Accuracy Tradeoffs: Results from the COGITO Study

We examined adult age differences in day-to-day adjustments in speed-accuracy tradeoffs (SAT) on a figural comparison task. Data came from the COGITO study, with over 100 younger and 100 older adults, assessed for over 100 days. Participants were given explicit feedback about their completion time and accuracy each day after task completion. We applied a multivariate vector auto-regressive model of order 1 to the daily mean reaction time (RT) and daily accuracy scores together, within each age group. We expected that participants adjusted their SAT if the two cross-regressive parameters from RT (or accuracy) on day t-1 of accuracy (or RT) on day t were sizable and negative. We found that: (a) the temporal dependencies of both accuracy and RT were quite strong in both age groups; (b) younger adults showed an effect of their accuracy on day t-1 on their RT on day t, a pattern that was in accordance with adjustments of their SAT; (c) older adults did not appear to adjust their SAT; (d) these effects were partly associated with reliable individual differences within each age group. We discuss possible explanations for older adults’ reluctance to recalibrate speed and accuracy on a day-to-day basis.     

Declining Religious Authority? Confidence in the Leaders of Religious Organizations, 1973–2010

One view of secularization is that it can be conceived of as declining religious authority. Although studies conducted in the 1990s suggested that confidence in the leaders of religious organizations—a promising indicator of religious authority—decreased in the 1970s and 1980s, research has not examined recent trends. The goals of this study are to (1) examine trends in confidence using data from the early 1970s through 2010 and (2) use recent advances in age-period-cohort analysis to provide a more robust empirical examination of these trends. Using data from the cumulative General Social Surveys, 1973–2010, the results suggest that, even after considering age effects, period declines in confidence have continued, but declines by birth cohort were primarily among those born in the boomer and early post-boomer generations (roughly 1945–1970) relative to those born earlier (pre-1945) or later (post-1970). Moreover, these effects appear to be due mainly to differences in religious participation, especially among more recent cohorts. In particular, there has been a rebound in confidence among members of the younger generation who attend religious services.     

Variability in Children’s Working Memory Is Coupled With Perceived Disturbance: An Ambulatory Assessment Study in the School and Out-of-School Context

The detrimental effect of noise on cognitive performance particularly for younger children has been repeatedly demonstrated in numerous experimental and few field studies. We examined whether children’s daily working memory (WM) performance is affected by daily perceived disturbance in the school and out-of-school context. In an ambulatory assessment study, 110 third and fourth grade students completed WM tasks and reported on their perceived disturbance on smartphones three times daily in and out of school for four weeks. Disturbance varied systematically within children and increased levels of disturbance were associated with decreased WM performance, independent of context.     

The impact of social relationships on Ugandan children’s sharing decisions

Recent studies provided evidence for an impact of social relations on preschool children’s sharing behavior. Children have been shown to be more generous towards friends than nonfriends or strangers. As evidence comes largely from studies with western children, little is known about cross-cultural differences and commonalities in this pattern. Here, we show that preschool and elementary school aged Ugandan children show high levels of generosity independent of the social relationships with the recipient. This finding points to societal differences in early sharing. The results are discussed in terms of a formative impact of cultural traditions on the early development of sharing in the preschool years.     

The Gettier Intuition from South America to Asia

Journal of Indian Council of Philosophical Research - This article examines whether people share the Gettier intuition (viz. that someone who has a true justified belief that p may nonetheless fail...     

Why Conclusions Should Remain Single

This paper argues that logical inferentialists should reject multiple-conclusion logics. Logical inferentialism is the position that the meanings of the logical constants are determined by the rules of inference they obey. As such, logical inferentialism requires a proof-theoretic framework within which to operate. However, in order to fulfil its semantic duties, a deductive system has to be suitably connected to our inferential practices. I argue that, contrary to an established tradition, multiple-conclusion systems are ill-suited for this purpose because they fail to provide a ‘natural’ representation of our ordinary modes of inference. Moreover, the two most plausible attempts at bringing multiple conclusions into line with our ordinary forms of reasoning, the disjunctive reading and the bilateralist denial interpretation, are unacceptable by inferentialist standards.