The Effects of Shopping Well-Being and Shopping Ill-Being on Consumer Life Satisfaction

Individuals hold two distinct sets of beliefs about shopping activities: Positive beliefs regarding the degree to which shopping contributes to quality of life (shopping well-being), and negative beliefs related to the degree to which shopping activities result in overspending time, effort, and money (shopping ill-being). Shopping well-being and shopping ill-being are conceptualized as independent constructs in that shopping ill-being is not treated as negative polar of a single dimension. That is, one can experience both shopping well-being as well as shopping ill-being, simultaneously. We hypothesized that (1) shopping well-being is a positive predictor of life satisfaction, (2) shopping ill-being is a negative predictor of life satisfaction, and (3) shopping well-being does contribute to life satisfaction under conditions of low than high shopping ill-being. The study surveyed 1035 respondents in the UK. The study results supported hypotheses 1 and 3, not Hypothesis 2. The paper discusses the implications of these findings for retailers, macro-marketers, and policy makers.     

Just following orders? The rhetorical invocation of ‘obedience’ in Stanley Milgram's post‐experiment interviews

Recent research has begun to challenge the received idea that Milgram's ‘obedience’ experiments are demonstrations of obedience as typically understood (i.e., as social influence elicited in response to direct orders). One key warrant for explaining the studies in terms of obedience has been the post‐experiment interviews conducted with participants. The present study uses data from archived audio recordings of these interviews to highlight the extent to which participants used rhetorical strategies emphasising obedience when pressed by the interviewer to account for their behaviour. Previous research that has used these accounts as reports of underlying processes misses the extent to which they performed particular social actions in the context of their production. It is concluded that the standard social psychological version of ‘obedience’ is present in the experiments after all, but in a rather different way than is typically assumed—rather than an empirical finding, obedience is a participants' resource.     

Structural Barriers to Inclusion in a Latino Immigrant New Destination: Exploring the Adaptive Strategies of Social Service Organizations in South Carolina

A growing number of Latino immigrants are settling in immigrant new destinations with restrictive anti-immigrant policies. Poverty and legal status create obstacles to social and economic inclusion in these places. Theoretically, local social service providers are in a structural position to ameliorate these obstacles, but the localized nature of service delivery in the USA requires that immigrants physically travel to access these supports. A growing literature on new destinations has begun to identify barriers to inclusion in immigrant new destinations, but few have explored how local mainstream social service providers are developing strategies to address these concerns. Building on the immigrant new destinations literature and the expansion of immigration enforcement to these areas, this qualitative study examines barriers to services in South Carolina from the perspective of local organizations. In-depth interviews with leaders from 50 direct service providers yield several themes related to structural barriers and organizational strategies to respond to these barriers. Cutting across these themes are limitations imposed by state-level policies and the impact of social exclusion due to marginalized legal status. We discuss the implications of this context for social service providers and the social inclusion of low-income Latino immigrants in South Carolina.     

“I'm Having a Little Struggle With This,Can You Help Me Out?”: Examining Impacts and Processes of a Social Capital Intervention for First‐Generation College Students

Social capital plays a key role in college and career success, and research indicates that a dearth of on‐campus connections contributes to challenges first‐generation college students face in effectively navigating the college environment. This study investigates a novel intervention that focuses on the development of skills and attitudes to empower first‐generation college students to cultivate social capital and on‐campus connections during the transition to college. A mixed methods, explanatory design was used to evaluate impacts and processes of the intervention among first‐generation college students (n = 164) in the context of an ethnically diverse, urban, public university in the Northeast. Results indicated that students who participated in the intervention demonstrated improved attitudes and behaviors around seeking support in college, closer relationships with instructors, and higher GPAs at the end of their first year in college. These results suggest the potential benefits of a relatively scalable approach to supporting the needs of first‐generation college students.     

A dysphoric's TALE: The relationship between the self-reported functions of autobiographical memory and symptoms of depression

Autobiographical memory (AM) is believed to serve self, social and directive functions; however, little is known regarding how this triad of functions operates in depression. Using the Thinking About Life Experiences questionnaire [Bluck, S., & Alea, N. (2011). Crafting the TALE: Construction of a measure to assess the functions of autobiographical remembering. Memory, 19, 470–486.; Bluck, S., Alea, N., Habermas, T., & Rubin, D. C. (2005). A TALE of three functions: The self–reported uses of autobiographical memory. Social Cognition, 23, 91–117.], two studies explored the relationship between depressive symptomology and the self-reported frequency and usefulness of AMs for self, social and directive purposes. Study 1 revealed that thinking more frequently but talking less frequently about past life events was significantly associated with higher depression scores. Recalling past events more frequently to maintain self-continuity was also significantly associated with higher depressive symptomology. However, results from Study 2 indicated that higher levels of depression were also significantly associated with less-frequent useful recollections of past life events for self-continuity purposes. Taken together, the findings suggest atypical utilisations of AM to serve self-continuity functions in depression and can be interpreted within the wider context of ruminative thought processes.     

The Adverse Influence of Permissive Parenting on Personal Growth and the Mediating Role of Emotional Intelligence

In this research the presumed negative associations between permissive parenting and both adolescents' emotional intelligence and personal growth were examined. Previous studies have demonstrated a positive association between emotional intelligence and personal growth as well as a negative association between permissive parenting and personal growth. The authors extend previous research by testing a hypothesized process model through which permissive parenting negatively predicts scores on an ability measure of emotional intelligence that, in turn, predicts personal growth. The results indicated that emotional intelligence is both negatively associated with permissive parenting and that individual differences in emotional intelligence predict increased personal growth. In addition, we found that permissive parenting's negative influence on subsequent personal growth is mediated by emotional intelligence. It is suggested that permissive parenting might adversely influence the development of emotional intelligence by limiting both the number of challenging emotional experiences and the extent to which parents directly facilitate emotional growth.     

Phonetic Symbolism and Memory for Advertisements

This study investigated whether phonetic symbolism within brand names influences the memory of advertisements. Participants both saw and heard brand names with front vs. back vowels paired with small vs. large products in a congruent vs. incongruent fashion. When later given several unexpected memory tasks, it was found that congruent (vs. incongruent) pairings led to enhanced brand name and product recall as well as the efficiency of both brand name and paired recognition. These findings are consistent with a theory of cross‐modal processing involving perceptual unification. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Teacher Job Stress and Satisfaction in Urban Schools: Disentangling Individual-, Classroom-, and Organizational-Level Influences

Schools remain among the most frequent providers of children’s mental health services, particularly in low-income urban settings. Several decades of research have focused on training teachers to implement evidence-based interventions for minimizing disruptive behavior. Studies consistently demonstrate robust improvements in student behavior and learning; however, the impact on teachers’ work-related stress or satisfaction is not well understood. Six urban, high-poverty elementary schools were randomly assigned to a school mental health services model (Links to Learning; L2L) for referred, disruptive students or to services and professional development as usual (SAU). Teachers (n = 71, K-4 general education teachers) in L2L schools participated in professional development and consultation in two universal and two targeted interventions to reduce disruptive behaviors and promote learning. Teachers (n = 65) in SAU schools participated in professional development as usual. Multiple regression models examined teacher reports of individual-level self-efficacy, classroom-level student functioning, and school-level organizational health as predictors of stress and satisfaction. Findings revealed no significant difference between conditions on teacher work-related stress or satisfaction. Organizational health was the strongest predictor of stress and satisfaction. Training on and implementation of evidence-based classroom interventions did not appear to significantly impact teachers’ work-related stress or satisfaction. Instead, findings point to organizational climate and teacher connectedness as potential levers for change, supporting prior work on teacher stress and satisfaction in schools. The significance of targeting organizational factors may be particularly significant in urban school districts.     

Changing Attitude and Moral Obligation: Their Independent Effects on Behavior

It was hypothesized that the study of religion should distinguish between attitudes and religious values/moral obligations such that both aid in predicting religiously relevant behavior and changing either will change behavior. However, if they are distinct, then changing one will not necessarily change the other. For the 195 religious participants, attitudes predicted a church-sponsored blood donation and moral obligations increased that prediction. Using both posttest only and pre-post control group designs, an intervention to shift the effect underlying the attitude increased participants' attitude and donating behavior while a religious values intervention increased moral obligations and behavior. Zero to 4 percent of the control groups donated blood, while 13 to 48 percent of the intervention groups donated blood. Results confirm that psychology of religion should distinguish moral obligations from attitude because (1) additional prediction, (2) changing one does not necessarily change the other, and (3) changes based on religious values impact moral obligations.     

Impact and the art of motivation maintenance: The effects of contact with beneficiaries on persistence behavior

We tested the hypothesis that employees are willing to maintain their motivation when their work is relationally designed to provide opportunities for respectful contact with the beneficiaries of their efforts. In Experiment 1, a longitudinal field experiment in a fundraising organization, callers in an intervention group briefly interacted with a beneficiary; callers in two control groups read a letter from the beneficiary and discussed it amongst themselves or had no exposure to him. One month later, the intervention group displayed significantly greater persistence and job performance than the control groups. The intervention group increased significantly in persistence (142% more phone time) and job performance (171% more money raised); the control groups did not. Experiments 2 and 3 used a laboratory editing task to examine mediating mechanisms and boundary conditions. In Experiment 2, respectful contact with beneficiaries increased persistence, mediated by perceived impact. In Experiment 3, mere contact with beneficiaries and task significance interacted to increase persistence, mediated by affective commitment to beneficiaries. Implications for job design and work motivation are discussed.