Poison-drinking in obedience to the faith: a phenomenological study of the experience

In Appalachia, there are certain Christian sects who handle venomous serpents in their church services. Although their serpent handling has received some attention, another of their practices, poison-drinking, has all but escaped the concern of investigators. Addressing this issue, this study included phenomenological interviews with seven believers who ingested strychnine at church. A hermeneutic analysis of their transcribed interviews discovered four major themes that emerged across all protocols to describe the structure of meaning in the experience of poison-drinking: (1) Desire to Drink; (2) “God Moving on Me” (in terms of Anointing and “Insurance” against Harm); (3) Already “Snake Bit”; and (4) “Victory”/“Devil Troubling My Mind”. These interdependent themes are discussed in relation to the existential grounds of body, others, time, and world.     

Testing an integrated model of the work–family interface in Chinese employees: A longitudinal study

The purpose of this study was to examine an integrated model of the work–family interface (WFI) linking work–family demands (workload and family conflict), resources (supervisory support and family support) and role satisfaction in a Chinese context. The four‐factor structure of WFI comprises direction of influence (work to family vs family to work) and types of effect (work–family conflict vs work–family enrichment). A longitudinal design was used to collect data from 409 Chinese employees at three time points, separating measures of antecedents (T1), WFI (T2) and outcomes (T3) in time. The results based on structural equation modelling (SEM) reveal that: (1) the direction and types of effect were two underlying dimensions of the WFI, supporting the four‐factor structure; (2) demands were more strongly related to conflict, while resources were more strongly related to enrichment; (3) work–family conflict and enrichment were related to role satisfaction, regardless of the direction of influence.     

Tracing children's vocabulary development from preschool through the school‐age years: an 8‐year longitudinal study

In this 8‐year longitudinal study, we traced the vocabulary growth of Chinese children, explored potential precursors of vocabulary knowledge, and investigated how vocabulary growth predicted future reading skills. Two hundred and sixty‐four (264) native Chinese children from Beijing were measured on a variety of reading and language tasks over 8 years. Between the ages of 4 to 10 years, they were administered tasks of vocabulary and related cognitive skills. At age 11, comprehensive reading skills, including character recognition, reading fluency, and reading comprehension were examined. Individual differences in vocabulary developmental profiles were estimated using the intercept‐slope cluster method. Vocabulary development was then examined in relation to later reading outcomes. Three subgroups of lexical growth were classified, namely high‐high (with a large initial vocabulary size and a fast growth rate), low‐high (with a small initial vocabulary size and a fast growth rate) and low‐low (with a small initial vocabulary size and a slow growth rate) groups. Low‐high and low‐low groups were distinguishable mostly through phonological skills, morphological skills and other reading‐related cognitive skills. Childhood vocabulary development (using intercept and slope) explained subsequent reading skills. Findings suggest that language‐related and reading‐related cognitive skills differ among groups with different developmental trajectories of vocabulary, and the initial size and growth rate of vocabulary may be two predictors for later reading development.     

Customer's perceived value of waiting time for service events

The authors address the effects of money gain and loss on individually perceived value as predicted by prospect theory in a time gain‐and‐loss context. Three experiments were conducted. Experiment 1 results support the prospect theory concept of value function. According to Experiment 2 results, the amount of money involved exerted different impacts on individual perceptions—specifically, study participants preferred gaining $1 on one occasion to gaining 50 cents over two occasions and preferred losing $1 one time to losing 50 cents twice. Further, the combined results indicate that the study participants held different perceptions of the value of “short time” versus “little money”—that is, they preferred saving an extra 2 minutes on one occasion to saving 1 minute on two occasions and preferred waiting an extra 1 minute two times to waiting an extra 2 minutes one time. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Consumer perceptions of bundles and time‐limited promotion deals: Do contracts matter?

Marketers use various types of deals to positively influence consumers' product evaluations. Across two experiments, we manipulated print advertisements to examine whether the commonly used deal content of both bundling and time‐limited promotions affect consumers' perceived confusion, risk and value. In study 1, the influence of this content was tested in the context of a 2‐year telecommunications (telco) contract. Here, consumers associated a three‐item bundle with greater perceived value than a single item, but perceived value was reduced and risk heightened when it was only available for a limited time. We speculate that this is because of the long‐term nature of the contract. Study 2 removed the contract restriction, examining the bundling of a video game console and game(s), again with a time‐limited promotion. However, in this context, we failed to locate any interaction effects. It appears that consumers further appraise the drawbacks of a long‐term telco contract when accompanied by a time‐limited promotion and may perceive the switching costs for study 1 three‐item telco bundle to be particularly risky. Our studies represent the first empirical investigation of the effect on consumers' perceptions of offering a bundle in conjunction with a time‐limited promotion. Testing these effects in contract and no contract conditions adds to the contribution of our studies by delineating a boundary condition. From a managerial perspective, our findings are thought‐provoking in respect to information integration, or how consumers process different deal content together. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The effects of affective and cognitive elaborations from Facebook posts on consumer attitude formation

This research investigates the effects of affect and cognition in consumers' information processing of branded content on Facebook pages. A model was suggested to delve into the elaboration process leading to consumer attitude formation. A 2 (purchase‐decision involvement: low versus high) × 2 (product categories: hedonic versus utilitarian) × 2 (sources of Facebook posts: brand posts versus consumer posts) between‐subjects experiment was conducted online. The validated model demonstrates the main effects that affective elaboration significantly supersedes cognitive elaboration in forming attitudes toward the posts and attitudes toward the brand. Post hoc analyses show further evidence of the interaction effects that affective elaboration is the dominant influencer when consumers process brand‐related information in Facebook posts across situations. Theoretical implications for future research and managerial suggestions for social media marketing are discussed. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

From Ideology to Feeling: Discourse,Emotion, and an Analytic Synthesis

Recent arguments in the social sciences exhort a turn to affect and, either explicitly or by implication, a move away from or beyond the earlier turn to language. This conveys a presumption that the site and logic of discursive investigation must inevitably be different to the site and logic of affective investigation. Instead, this article suggests that a nonreductive psychosocial understanding of both discourse and affect needs a way of dissolving the dualism which inhabits and motivates much current debate around discursive and affective “fields.” This article illustrates a route towards dismantling the apparent segregation of discourse and affect in the call to an affective turn. The data come from a project exploring women’s talk of success and failure. Analysis here focuses on affective-discursive practices in discussion of “failed attempts to control body weight” set within the context of contemporary western neoliberal ideology. Discourse and affect are both approached as semiotic, relational practice. As such, affect is made accessible to analysis via concepts already familiar in studies of discursive practice in social psychology, including the reproduction and negotiation of ideologies and the management of trouble. This analytic focus on practical deployments in interaction enables epistemological and ontological psychosocial arguments to be grounded in practical discursive-affective accomplishments.     

A comparison of individuals with unanswered callings to those with no calling at all

The purpose of this research was to compare the life-, job-, and health-related experiences of those who perceive an unanswered occupational calling to those who (1) are living a calling and (2) perceive no calling at all. Surveys containing measures of callings, work engagement, job involvement, career commitment, life and job satisfaction, turnover intentions, physical health and emotional well-being were administered to 378 American academics. As expected, academics with an answered occupational calling tended to report better job attitudes and domain-specific satisfaction and less withdrawal intentions than those who reported an unanswered occupational calling or no calling at all. Furthermore, those who did not have a calling to a particular vocation reported better life-, job-, and health-related outcomes than those experiencing an unanswered calling. Surprisingly, only those academics experiencing an unmet calling reported significantly poorer physical and psychological health as compared to the other two calling groups. These results are consistent with the self-determination theory, which predicts that those who are able to satisfy their basic psychological needs reap benefits in terms of psychological growth, optimal functioning, and wellbeing. The study contributes to the literature on callings by showing that having a calling is a benefit only if it is met, but can be a detriment when it is not as compared to having no calling at all.