Social Welfare and the Psychology of Food Sharing: Short‐Term Hunger Increases Support for Social Welfare

Do politically irrelevant events influence important policy opinions? Previous research on social welfare attitudes has emphasized the role of political factors such as economic self‐interest and ideology. Here, we demonstrate that attitudes to social welfare are also influenced by short‐term fluctuations in hunger. Using theories in evolutionary psychology, we predict that hungry individuals will be greedier and take more resources from others while also attempting to induce others to share by signaling cooperative intentions and expressing support for sharing, including evolutionarily novel forms of sharing such as social welfare. We test these predictions using self‐reported hunger data as well as comparisons of subjects who participated in relevant online studies before and after eating lunch. Across four studies collected in two different welfare regimes—the United Kingdom and Denmark—we consistently find that hungry individuals act in a greedier manner but describe themselves as more cooperative and express greater support for social welfare.     

Is parenthood a desirable adult role? An assessment of attitudes held by contemporary women

The purpose of this study was to explore contemporary women's perception of parenthood. The attitudes toward parenthood of 213 undergraduate females enrolled in family or women's studies courses were measured by an 11-item Likert-type scale. Major findings include (a) the expectation that parenthood will be among the subjects' adult roles, but will be delayed; (2) a rejection of the idea that motherhood is a prerequisite to women's happiness and fullfillment; (3) a confused perception of the effect of parenthood on the male; and (4) a suggestion that although these young women intend to parent, they assess their preparation to do so as limited.     

Agreeing in Ignorance: Mapping the Routinisation of Consent in ICT-Services

Many ICT services require that users explicitly consent to conditions of use and policies for the protection of personal information. This consent may become ‘routinised’. We define the concept of routinisation and investigate to what extent routinisation occurs as well as the factors influencing routinisation in a survey study of internet use. We show that routinisation is common and that it is influenced by factors including gender, age, educational level and average daily internet use. We further explore the reasons users provide for not reading conditions and policies and show that they can be grouped in meaningful ways that may delineate different types of routinsation.     

Understanding Adult Participant and Parent Empowerment Prior to Evaluation in the Undiagnosed Diseases Network

The burden of living with an undiagnosed condition is high and includes physical and emotional suffering, frustrations, and uncertainty. For patients and families experiencing these stressors, higher levels of empowerment may be associated with better outcomes. Thus, it is important to understand the experiences of patients with undiagnosed conditions and their families affected by undiagnosed conditions in order to identify strategies for fostering empowerment. In this study, we used the Genetic Counseling Outcome Scale (GCOS-24) to assess levels of empowerment and support group participation in 35 adult participants and 67 parents of child participants in the Undiagnosed Diseases Network (UDN) prior to their UDN in-person evaluation. Our results revealed significantly lower empowerment scores on the GCOS-24 in adult participants compared to parents of child participants [t(100)?=???3.01, p?=?0.003, average difference?=???11.12, 95% CI (??3.78, ??18.46)] and no significant association between support group participation and empowerment scores. The majority of participants (84.3%, 86/102) are not currently participating in any support groups, and participation rates were not significantly different for adult participants and parents of child participants (11.4 vs. 19.7%, respectively, FE p?=?0.40). Open-ended responses provided additional insight into support group participation, the challenges of living with undiagnosed conditions, and positive coping strategies. Future research will evaluate the extent to which empowerment scores change as participation in the UDN unfolds.