The Effect of Matching Contribution Offers and Legitimization of Paltry Contributions On Compliance

The use of a matching contribution offer in conjunction with legitimization of paltry contributions is examined in a door-to-door charitable solicitation context. Three hundred and twenty households were exposed to charitable contribution requests employing either legitimization of paltry contributions, a matching contribution offer, both, or a control. It was predicted that the matching funds offer, paired with legitimization of paltry donations, would increase both compliance rates and donation sizes and generate greater revenues than either tactic used singly. The results of a field experiment support this prediction.     

Individual-Centred Cognitive Counselling for Study Problems

An argument is developed for basing study counselling more closely on relevant principles of the cognitive psychology of studying. This can and should take into account the inter-relationships between study processes and the student's emotional state, and offer help with both in an integrated way. Finally, the advantages of an individual-centred approach are emphasised. A good grounding in relevant cognitive principles enables the counsellor to apply these to the problems of the individual student, rather than merely to offer standard advice on studying.     

Successful adaptation of gait in healthy older adults during dual-task treadmill walking

Dual-task methods have been used to demonstrate increased prioritization of walking performance over cognition in healthy aging. This is expressed as greater dual-task costs in cognitive performance than in walking. However, other research shows that older adults can prioritize cognitive performance over walking when instructed to do so. We asked whether age-related cognitive prioritization would emerge by experimentally manipulating cognitive difficulty. Young and older adults performed mental arithmetic at two levels of difficulty, alone or while walking. Electromyography and footswitches were used to measure muscle activity and stride parameters. Under high cognitive load, older adults increased their stride time, stride length, and hamstring activity, while maintaining their cognitive performance. Young adults showed negligible dual-task costs in each domain. The older adults appeared to successfully adapt their stride in response to high cognitive demands. The results have implications for neural models of gait regulation, and age differences in task emphasis.     

Antenatal predictors and use of coping strategies in labour

Abstract

One aim of antenatal preparation is developing coping strategies for use (luring labour. However, the existing literature suggests that attendance at classes is not associated with lower pain or distress, possibly because receiving training cannot be assumed to be associated with subsequent practice.

This study aimed to assess whether attenders at classes actually used their taught strategies in their labours, whether use was associated with psychological benefits and whether antenatal measures could predict subsequent use. Concepts from the theories of planned behaviour and self efficacy were used to attempt to predict use of three types of coping strategy.

Use was high for breathing strategies but poor for relaxation and posture. Proportion of use of breathing and relaxation showed weak associations with lower fear. Whilst intentions did act as significant predictors for use of posture and relaxation only small proportions of the variance were accounted for and other antenatal measures showed little predictive capacity.

Reasons why women in labour may fail to take behavioural consequences from their antenatal beliefs are considered. Predicting health-related behaviours where maintenance rather than just initiation is involved may require greater consideration of intra-situational and emotional factors. Modifications of antenatal preparation to facilitate use of strategies are discussed.     

Attributions in a Spiritual Healing Context: An Archival Analysis of a 1920s Healing Movement

Research on religious attributions has been limited by a preoccupation with disentangling “religious” from “naturalistic” attributions and a failure to capture the attributions that people make in response to meaningful events. Thirty years of research has shown that even under optimum conditions religious attributions are rare compared to naturalistic ones. This research draws on unique archival materials comprising letters written to the Panacea Society containing self‐reported effects of a spiritual healing treatment based on water‐taking practices. This analysis examined attributions over time among a sample of letter writers (N = 19) from the 1920s using the Leeds Attributional Coding System to examine patterns of attributions that correspondents made in response to improvement and worsening of health outcomes. In line with previous research, religious attributions were more common for positive outcomes than negative outcomes. Contrary to previous research, religious attributions accounted for the majority of attributions made compared with nonreligious attributions. We discuss the implications for future research in studying attributions in real‐life meaningful settings and in expanding the repertoire of attributions to include religious ritual and community.     

Evolutionary debunking arguments and the reliability of moral cognition

Recent debate in metaethics over evolutionary debunking arguments against morality has shown a tendency to abstract away from relevant empirical detail. Here, I engage the debate about Darwinian debunking of morality with relevant empirical issues. I present four conditions that must be met in order for it to be reasonable to expect an evolved cognitive faculty to be reliable: the environment, information, error, and tracking conditions. I then argue that these conditions are not met in the case of our evolved faculty for moral judgement.     

Dislocation dissociation in the intermetallic compound MoSi2

Abstract

The identity of dislocations which contribute to plastic deformation of polycrystalline MoSi₂ when compressed at 1400°C has been determined using transmission electron microscopy. It has been confirmed that dislocations with Burgers vectors lying parallel to ? 100 ? and ? 111 ? are activated in response to the applied stress. In addition, the deformation microstructure is characterized by the presence of networks containing dislocations with Burgers vectors parallel to ? 100], ? 110] and ? 111 ?. It has been shown that dislocations with Burgers vectors lying parallel to ? 111 ? are dissociated. A simple explanation has been developed to account for the occurrence of dissociation of particular dislocations, and on the basis of this model the dissociation is represented by

½? 111 ?→ ½? 111 ?+SISF+¼? 111 ?

where SISF stands for a superlattice intrinsic stacking fault. The SISF energy has been estimated from the separation of the partial dislocations to be about 261 mJ m^?2. Other observations of the dissociation of dislocations in MoSi₂ have been interpreted in terms of the model developed in the present work.