Through the eyes of dieters: Biased size perception of food following tempting food primes

Why do some dieters succeed in controlling their diet while others do not? This research focused on a perceptual process—size perception of food objects—that may moderate the success of dieters in self-control dilemmas. We assessed successful and unsuccessful dieters' size perception of palatable food (Study 1) and diet-food (Study 2) after pre-exposing them to tempting food primes. Dieters perceived palatable food as bigger when primed with tempting food (vs. control prime), regardless of self-regulatory success in dieting (Study 1). Palatable food thus looms larger for both unsuccessful and successful dieters when in a “hot” state. In contrast, the perceived size of diet-food was increased by a tempting food prime only for successful dieters, but decreased for unsuccessful dieters (Study 2). These results are interpreted in terms of differences in the mental accessibility of competing goals (eating enjoyment vs. dieting) in successful vs. unsuccessful dieters. Indeed, when the dieting goal was made accessible for all dieters by a diet prime, even unsuccessful dieters perceived diet-food as bigger (Study 2). This research provides insight into a perceptual process that may be detrimental or beneficial in resolving self-control conflicts in the domain of eating and dieting behavior—and probably other domains of self-control as well.     

As pleasure unfolds. Hedonic responses to tempting food

Why do chronic dieters often violate their dieting goals? One possibility is that they experience stronger hedonic responses to tempting food than normal eaters do. We scrutinized hedonic processing in dieters and normal eaters (a) by manipulating food preexposure and (b) by assessing both immediate and delayed hedonic responses to tempting food with an adapted affect-misattribution procedure. Without food preexposure, dieters showed less positive hedonic responses than normal eaters (Study 1). When preexposed to tempting-food stimuli, however, dieters exhibited more positive delayed hedonic responses than normal eaters (Studies 1 and 2). Furthermore, delayed hedonic responding was meaningfully related to self-reported power of food and state cravings (Study 2). These findings suggest that dieters experience difficulties in down-regulating hedonic affect when in a "hot" state and that self-regulation research may benefit from a greater emphasis on temporal dynamics rather than static differences.     

Learning, risk attitude and hot stoves in restless bandit problems

This research examines decisions from experience in restless bandit problems. Two experiments revealed four main effects. (1) Risk neutrality: the typical participant did not learn to become risk averse, a contradiction of the hot stove effect. (2) Sensitivity to the transition probabilities that govern the Markov process. (3) Positive recency: the probability of a risky choice being repeated was higher after a win than after a loss. (4) Inertia: the probability of a risky choice being repeated following a loss was higher than the probability of a risky choice after a safe choice. These results can be described with a simple contingent sampler model, which assumes that choices are made based on small samples of experiences contingent on the current state.     

Gendered Ways to Motivation Gains in Groups

Recent studies have demonstrated motivation gains of low performing group members even beyond the level of an individual work baseline (e.g., Weber and Hertel, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 93:973–993, 2007). We expected that the underlying mechanisms of these motivation gains, i.e., social indispensability and social competition, are moderated by individuals’ gender. Moreover, these gender effects were assumed to be moderated by partner anonymity. Predictions were tested with mostly undergraduate German students (N?=?213) working in same-gender groups in a computer-supported environment. Results revealed that motivation gains due to social indispensability were more likely for women, whereas motivation gains due to social competition were more likely for men. Furthermore, women compared to men showed higher motivation gains in anonymous conditions compared to conditions with an acquainted partner.     

Paper-and-pencil and web-based testing: the measurement invariance of the Big Five personality tests in applied settings

This study investigates the measurement equivalence of a five-factor measure of personality across two groups applying for jobs, who completed the same questionnaire using either a paper-and-pencil (n = 429) or a web online answer format (n = 651). The data were collected using the Big Five Questionnaire-2 (BFQ-2; which is a measure of the Five Factor Model) of personality traits. Multiple-group confirmatory factor analysis was used to test for the equivalence of factor covariance and mean structures of the BFQ-2. Findings suggested that the Five Factor Model scales have the same measurement unit and origin across applicants using different administration modes. However, latent means were slightly higher for applicants who responded in a web and unproctored condition than for applicants who completed a paper-and-pencil version of the same test. Practical implications for personality assessment are discussed.     

Mind-body dualism and the compatibility of medical methods

In this paper we analyse some misleading theses concerning the oldcontroversy over the relation between mind and body presented incontemporary medical literature. We undertake an epistemologicalclarification of the axiomatic structure of medical methods. Thisclarification, in turn, requires a precise philosophical explanation ofthe presupposed concepts. This analysis will establish two results: (1)that the mind-body dualism cannot be understood as a kind of biologicalvariation of the subject-object dichotomy in physics, and (2) that thethesis of the incompatibility between somatic and psychosomatic medicineheld by naturalists and others lacks solid epistemologicalfoundation.     

Self-focused attention,performance expectancies,and the intensity of effort: Do people try harder for harder goals?

Many theories argue that goal striving is more intense when people have optimistic expectancies for achieving the goal and when attention is self-focused. Brehm’s motivational intensity theory, however, predicts that the intensity of motivation is only as high as necessary, so people will try harder for difficult tasks than for easy tasks, all else equal. The present experiment compared these two approaches by manipulating two levels of self-focused attention (low and high self-awareness, via a mirror) and two levels of task difficulty (easy and difficult). Effort was assessed as cardiovascular reactivity, particularly change in systolic blood pressure. Neither high self-focus nor an easy task per se caused increased effort; instead, high self-focus significantly increased systolic reactivity when the task was difficult. Effort was thus higher despite less optimistic goal expectancies, a finding that is predicted by Brehm’s motivational intensity theory but not by traditional self-regulation models.     

Self-Characterization and Attachment Style: A Creative Method of Investigating Children's Construing

This study had the aims of evaluating the self-characterization technique as a research instrument with school-age children and investigating whether and how representations of self and others vary as a function of age, gender, and attachment style. Self-characterizations completed by 103 Italian children, 47 boys and 56 girls, aged between 7 and 11 years, were analyzed using an ad hoc coding grid. The Separation Anxiety Test was administered to evaluate children's attachment style. Age predicted the process of construing as well as specific content features of the texts, such as level of abstraction and the type of construct used. In addition, gender was related to the construing process and the expression of emotion, whereas attachment style was associated mainly with stability of self-image and representation of relationships, and in consequence, the emotional aspects of identity.     

Is the Right Anterior Temporal Variant of Prosopagnosia a Form of ‘Associative Prosopagnosia’ or a Form of ‘Multimodal Person Recognition Disorder’?

The construct of associative prosopagnosia is strongly debated for two main reasons. The first is that, according to some authors, even patients with putative forms of associative visual agnosia necessarily present perceptual defects, that are the cause of their recognition impairment. The second is that in patients with right anterior temporal lobe (ATL) lesions (and sparing of the occipital and fusiform face areas), who can present a defect of familiar people recognition, with normal results on tests of face perception, the disorder is often multimodal, affecting voices (and to a lesser extent names) in addition to faces. The present review was prompted by the claim, recently advanced by some authors, that face recognition disorders observed in patients with right ATL lesions should be considered as an associative or amnestic form of prosopagnosia, because in them both face perception and retrieval of personal semantic knowledge from name are spared. In order to check this claim, we surveyed all the cases of patients who satisfied the criteria of associative prosopagnosia reported in the literature, to see if their defect was circumscribed to the visual modality or also affected other channels of people recognition. The review showed that in most patients the study had been limited to the visual modality, but that, when the other modalities of people recognition had been taken into account, the defect was often multimodal, affecting voice (and to a lesser extent name) in addition to face.     

Voluntary Engagement in an Open Web-Based Encyclopedia: Wikipedians and Why They Do It

The online encyclopedia Wikipedia is a highly successful “open content” project, written and maintained completely by volunteers. Little is known, however, about the motivation of these volunteers. Results from an online survey among 106 contributors to the German Wikipedia project are presented. Both motives derived from social sciences (perceived benefits, identification with Wikipedia, etc.) as well as perceived task characteristics (autonomy, skill variety, etc.) were assessed as potential predictors of contributors' satisfaction and self-reported engagement. Satisfaction ratings were particularly determined by perceived benefits, identification with the Wikipedia community, and task characteristics. Engagement was particularly determined by high tolerance for opportunity costs and by task characteristics, the latter effect being partially mediated by intrinsic motivation. Relevant task characteristics for contributors' engagement and satisfaction were perceived autonomy, task significance, skill variety, and feedback. Models from social sciences and work psychology complemented each other by suggesting that favorable task experiences might counter perceived opportunity costs in Wikipedia contributors. Moreover, additional data reported by Wikipedia authors indicate the importance of generativity motives.