A Model of Online Protection to Reduce Children’s Online Risk Exposure: Empirical Evidence From Asia

Children are surrounded by a variety of digital media and are exposed to potential risks that come with such easy accessibility. Learning how to be safe online is an important consideration for both children and their caregivers. The present study proposes an integrated model of online safety based on constructs from protection motivation theory and the health belief model, namely perceived severity of (and susceptibility to) risk, online self-efficacy, online privacy concern, and digital literacy. The study comprised a survey conducted among 420 schoolchildren aged 9–16 years. Using partial least squares-structural equation modelling, the results illustrated the presence of a negative effect of ‘perceived severity of online risk’ toward online risks, whereas the effect of ‘digital literacy’ was found to be positive. Children whose perception of online risks was more severe were less exposed to online risks if they had higher ‘online privacy concerns’ than the children with higher ‘digital literacy’ who are more exposed to online risk. Results of the study show that engaging in safe online behaviour requires children to have a high perception regarding severity of online risks as well as knowledge of online privacy concerns. Online risks and opportunities occur in parallel. Consequently, the factors that increase or decrease risk may also increase or decrease the benefits.     

Does message framing affect changes in behavioural intentions in people with psoriasis? A randomized exploratory study examining health risk communication

Message framing is important in health communication research to encourage behaviour change. Psoriasis, a long-term inflammatory skin condition, has additional comorbidities including high levels of anxiety and cardiovascular disease (CVD), making message framing particularly important. This experimental study aimed to: (1) identify whether health messages about psoriasis presented as either gain- or loss-framed were more effective for prompting changes in behavioural intentions (BI), (2) examine whether BI were driven by a desire to improve psoriasis or reduce CVD risk; (3) examine emotional reactions to message frame; and (4) examine predictors of BI. A two by two experiment examined the effects on BI of message frame (loss vs. gain) and message focus (psoriasis symptom reduction vs. CVD risk reduction). Participants with psoriasis (n = 217) were randomly allocated to one of four evidence-based health messages related to either smoking, alcohol, diet or physical activity, using an online questionnaire. BI was the primary outcome. Analysis of variance tests and hierarchical multiple regression analyses were conducted. A significant frame by focus interaction was found for BI to reduce alcohol intake (p = .023); loss-framed messages were more effective for CVD risk reduction information, whilst gain-framed messages were more effective for psoriasis symptom reduction information. Message framing effects were not found for BI for increased physical activity and improving diet. High CVD risk was a significant predictor of increased BI for both alcohol reduction (β = .290, p < .01) and increased physical activity (β = ?.231, p < .001). Message framing may be an important factor to consider depending on the health benefit emphasised (disease symptom reduction or CVD risk reduction) and patient-stated priorities. Condition-specific health messages in psoriasis populations may increase the likelihood of message effectiveness for alcohol reduction.     

Beyond the broom cupboard: teaching assistants’ reflections upon the wider impact of their specialist dyslexia training

Whilst the government-commissioned Rose Report (2009) on provision and support for dyslexic learners in England called for the deployment of more specialist dyslexia teachers in mainstream schools, the reality seems to be that the job of teaching literacy to children with dyslexia is falling to teaching assistants (TAs). As a result, specialist training courses for TAs have been developed in England. Using the Coldwell and Simkins Training Impact Framework, the present study examines TAs participants’ perceptions of the impact of two such local authority-based training programmes, not just in terms of the impact upon their individual practice, but also in terms of their perceptions of the wider impact of their status as a trained ‘expert’ upon their schools’ policies, culture and practice. ‘Enabling’ and ‘blocking’ factors influencing this wider impact are identified, and implications for the deployment of specialist TAs and the design of their training courses are discussed.     

Musically tone-deaf individuals have difficulty discriminating intonation contours extracted from speech

Musically tone-deaf individuals have psychophysical deficits in detecting pitch changes, yet their discrimination of intonation contours in speech appears to be normal. One hypothesis for this dissociation is that intonation contours use coarse pitch contrasts which exceed the pitch-change detection thresholds of tone-deaf individuals (). We test this idea by presenting intonation contours for discrimination, both in the context of the original sentences in which they occur and in a "pure" form dissociated from any phonetic context. The pure form consists of gliding-pitch analogs of the original intonation contours which exactly follow their pattern of pitch and timing. If the spared intonation perception of tone-deaf individuals is due to the coarse pitch contrasts of intonation, then such individuals should discriminate the original sentences and the gliding-pitch analogs equally well. In contrast, we find that discrimination of the gliding-pitch analogs is severely degraded. Thus it appears that the dissociation between spoken and musical pitch perception in tone-deaf individuals is due to a deficit at a higher level than simple pitch-change detection.     

Worry and Pathological Worry in Patients with Psoriasis: Cross Sectional and Longitudinal Analyses of the Penn State Worry Questionnaire (PSWQ) in Four Samples of Patients

The purpose of the present study was to examine the psychometric properties of the Penn state Worry Questionnaire (PSWQ) in patients with psoriasis. A series of cross-sectional and longitudinal studies were undertaken to assess the reliability, stability and validity of the measure. Patients with psoriasis from four samples (consecutive attendees, anxious patients, depressed patients, and 6-month follow-up of consecutive attendees) completed the PSWQ and measures assessing related constructs of anxiety and depression (HADS) and coping (COPE). The clinical severity of patients psoriasis was also assessed by dermatologists using the Psoriasis Area and Severity Index (PASI). Exploratory factor analysis was undertaken and receiver operator characteristic (ROC) analyses were used to examine the clinical utility of the PSWQ cut-off score for normal and pathological worry. Exploratory factor analysis suggested that the PSWQ is essentially unidimensional in patients with psoriasis. Intraclass correlation demonstrated that, over a 6-month period, the reproducibility of the PSWQ total scale was good in patients with anxiety and moderate in patients with depression. ROC analysis suggested that the optimum cutoff differentiating pathological worry was > 60, which is commensurate with findings in adult mental health more generally. The PSWQ cutoff for pathological worry showed a lower specificity for depression than anxiety. The PSWQ is an appropriate measure of pathological worry in patients with psoriasis. The cutoff on the scale for pathological worry demonstrates appropriate conceptual overlap with subordinate distress categories of anxiety and depression.     

Season's greetings: adults' social contacts at the holiday season.

Close friends and family play an important role in adults' lives, but little is known about the implications of infrequent or peripheral social ties that adults maintain. Eighty-seven adults, ranging in age from 24 to 87 years (M = 51.25) provided information about their holiday card networks. Participants completed surveys for up to 25 cards that they received during one holiday season (n = 1,405 surveys completed) and provided the holiday greetings as well, if they were willing (n = 1,152 cards). Over half of the cards participants received were from individuals whom participants did not consider to be close friends or family members and whom they had not seen in over a year. Adults of all ages described emotional reactions to approximately one third of the cards they received. Younger adults tended to view their holiday greetings as a means of maintaining or building new social ties, whereas older adults were more likely to view their holiday greetings as a link to their personal past. Receiving a greater number of holiday cards and receiving cards from close social contacts were associated with increased feelings of social embeddedness. Similarities and differences between peripheral ties and close social ties are considered.     

Comparison of social time-out and activity time-out procedures in suppressing ethanol self-administration in alcoholics

The experiments compared the potencies of three different contingent time-out procedures for suppressing drinking in alcoholics, and also compared two different experimental methodologies for conducting such studies. In a residential research ward setting fourteen volunteer chronic alcoholics were given daily access to 17 alcoholic drinks provided that a minimum of 40 min elapsed between receiving successive drinks. Each drink contained 1 oz 95-proof ethanol in orange juice. During the baseline condition subjects were free to drink with no behavioral restrictions. However during the time-out conditions, specific behavioral restrictions were imposed on the subjects for the 40-min period following receipt of each drink. The results showed that Social time-out suppressed drinking to 71 per cent of baseline conditions, while Activity time-out and the combined Social and Activity time-out suppressed intake to 36 and 24 per cent, respectively. The study also demonstrated that similar experimental results were obtained when subjects were continuously exposed to the experimental conditions for a number of consecutive days. or intermittently exposed to different conditions in a mixed order over successive days.     

Processing load and memory for stereotype-based information

The present research considered the effects of stereotypes on judgmental and memorial processes. In particular, we investigated the heuristic utility of stereotype application in difficult or demanding information-processing contexts. Our results supported the prediction that stereotypical effects on memory are contingent upon the characteristics of the task environment. Whereas perceivers displayed preferential recall for stereotype-inconsistent information under low processing loads, this switched to a preference for consistent information as task demands increased. Likewise, target-based judgments were most stereotypic under high processing loads. Judgment-recall correlations supported the contention that, under high-loads, these inferences are related to the relative memorability of stereotypic information. We consider these findings in the wider context of stereotype-based effects on social cognition.     

Forms, uses and functions of children's favourite objects

In this study, the notion of a favourite object is used as a heuristic concept for things that children are occupied with and absorbed by. According to earlier studies, favourite objects can be grouped into four categories: forerunners of transitional objects, primary and secondary transitional objects, and favourite toys. This initial classification was compared to results of cluster analyses of characteristics of favourite objects among 32 preschool and 30 primary school children, corroborating the initial classification and specifying the typology. The distribution of types of objects was different for the two groups of children, but was not dependent on age within groups or, for the preschool children, on mental development. These results indicate that changes of favourite objects with mental maturation are slow.
The softness of the material of primary and secondary transitional objects and the preference for objects that could be kept close to the body suggest that the comforting character of these favourite objects has its root in the child's self-soothing actions with the object.     

Psychobiology of the near-miss in fruit machine gambling

Explanations involving the etiology of pathological gambling have tended to emphasize psychosocial factors. However, the possibility that psychobiological factors may be important in the development of pathological gambling behavior should not be ruled out. Psychobiological approaches are becoming ever more prominent with the three main lines of research being (a) a search for a physiological disposition and/or underlying biological substrate in pathological gamblers, (b) an examination of the role of arousal in gambling, and (c) speculation about endorphin-related explanations. The data from questionnaires and interviews with fruit machine gamblers suggest that both physiological and cognitive factors (e.g., the psychology of the near-miss) may be important in the explanation of excessive fruit machine gambling. Thus, if a gambler becomes physiologically aroused when he or she wins or nearly wins, it will stimulate further play, here termed the psychobiology of the near-miss.