Receiving advice on matters of taste: Similarity, majority influence, and taste discrimination

People routinely consider the opinions of others prior to making decisions on matters of taste (e.g., a restaurant or movie). Our theoretical framework highlights the role of two sources, social (majority) influence and similarityamong advisors, in such decisions. We suggest that individuals’ use of these sources depends on their taste discrimination. While highly discriminating judges seek the opinion of a similar advisor rather than the majority opinion, less discriminating judges do so less. In four studies participants made musical choices based on recommendations. The studies document the great appeal of behavioral similarity and the role of demographic similarity. They also provide evidence for the discrimination hypothesis. A formal simulation is developed to account for the relationship between taste discrimination and the predictive accuracy of the majority and of similar advisors. The results shed light on theories of advice utilization and social influence, and are connected with applications involving personalized recommendation systems.     

Institutional and Noninstitutional Influences on Information and Communication Technology Adoption and Use Among Nonprofit Organizations

In this study, nonprofit organizations (NPOs) in New Zealand were surveyed to explore influences on adoption and use of information and communication technologies (ICTs). We sought to extend existing research by considering “institutional” influences alongside organizational and environmental features and by examining how institutional forces affect optimal use of ICTs. Findings suggest that NPOs adopting and using ICTs tended to be self‐perceived leaders or those who scanned the environment and emulated leaders and tended to have organizational decisionmakers with the expertise to enable adoption and use. Furthermore, optimal fit of ICTs tended to be spurred by institutional forces if accompanied by self‐perceived leadership and appropriate organizational resources. Implications for practice and theory are explored.     

Exploiting the Wisdom of Others to Make Better Decisions: Suspending Judgment Reduces Egocentrism and Increases Accuracy

Although decision makers often consult other people's opinions to improve their decisions, they fail to do so optimally. One main obstacle to incorporating others' opinions efficiently is one's own opinion. We theorize that decision makers could improve their performance by suspending their own judgment. In three studies, participants used others' opinions to estimate uncertain quantities (the caloric value of foods). In the full‐view condition, participants could form independent estimates prior to receiving others' opinions, whereas participants in the blindfold condition could not form prior opinions. We obtained an intriguing blindfold effect. In all studies, the blindfolded participants provided more accurate estimates than did the full‐view participants. Several policy‐capturing measures indicated that the advantage of the blindfolded participants was due to their unbiased weighting of others' opinions. The full‐view participants, in contrast, adhered to their prior opinion and thus failed to exploit the information contained in others' opinions. Moreover, in all three studies, the blindfolded participants were not cognizant of their advantage and expressed less confidence in their estimates than did the full‐view participants. The results are discussed in relation to theories of opinion revision and group decision making. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Mother–Stranger Comparisons of Social Attention in Jealousy Context and Attachment in HFASD and Typical Preschoolers

Affective bonding, social attention, and intersubjective capabilities are all conditions for jealousy, and are deficient in autism. Thus, examining jealousy and attachment may elucidate the socioemotional deficit in autism spectrum disorders (ASD). Jealousy was provoked in 30 high-functioning children with ASD (HFASD) and 30 typical children (ages 3–6 years) through two triadic social (storybook-reading) scenarios – mother-child-rival and stranger-child-rival. A control nonsocial scenario included mother/stranger-book. For both groups, higher jealousy expressions emerged for mother than stranger, and for social than nonsocial scenarios. Attachment security (using Attachment Q-Set) was lower for HFASD than typical groups, but attachment correlated negatively with jealous verbalizations for both groups and with jealous eye gazes for HFASD. Implications for understanding jealousy’s developmental complexity and the socioemotional deficit in ASD are discussed.     

Consumer's doppelganger: A role model perspective on intentional consumer mimicry

This paper focuses on the consumer's doppelganger effect, the inclination of consumers to intentionally mimic other individuals' consumption behaviors. Taking a role model perspective, we look at the inclination of Israeli teenage girls to resonate with role models with whom they have unidirectional (study 1; N = 152) and bidirectional (study 2; N = 343) relationships. The findings demonstrate that consumers' doppelgangers have a strong inclination to intentionally emulate other individuals' consumption behavior when they perceive them as consumer role models, an assessment that is rooted in their view of these individuals as relevant. The contributions of this research relate to the study of mimicry, role modeling, and family consumption. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Couple dynamics of change-resistant smoking: toward a family consultation model

Smoking is North America's leading cause of preventable morbidity and mortality. Although effective cessation treatments exist, their overall effect is modest, and they rarely reach the high-risk, health-compromised smokers who need them most. Surprisingly, despite evidence that marital relationship variables predict the success of cessation efforts, family systems ideas have had little impact on current intervention research. We review and critique the cessation literature from a systemic viewpoint, illustrate two couple-interaction patterns relevant to the maintenance of high-risk smoking, and outline a family-consultation (FAMCON) intervention for couples in which at least one partner continues to smoke despite having heart or lung disease. Taking into account ironic processes and symptom-system fit, FAMCON focuses on the immediate social context of smoking, aiming to interrupt well-intentioned "solutions" that ironically feed back to keep smoking going, and to help clients realign important relationships in ways not organized around tobacco usage. Currently in its pilot-testing phase, FAMCON is an adjunctive, complementary approach designed to include collaboration with primary-care physicians and to make smokers more amenable to other, evidence-based cessation strategies.     

Efficient reasoning about rich temporal domains

We identify two pragmatic problems in temporal reasoning, the qualification problem and the extended prediction problem, the latter subsuming the infamous frame problem. Solutions to those seem to call for nonmonotonic inferences, and yet naive use of standard nonmonotonic logics turns out to be inappropriate.Looking for an alternative, we first propose a uniform approach to constructing and understanding nonmonotonic logics. This framework subsumes many existing nonmonotonic formalisms, and yet is remarkably simple, adding almost no extra baggage to traditional logic.We then use this framework to propose a solution to the qualification problem. We also outline a solution to the extended prediction problem, and speculate on a possible connection between the above discussion and the concept of causation.     

Social Values, Conformity, and Dress

This study examined the influence of social values on the importance of various clothing features. A model is hypothesized in which social values lead to differing needs for group identification, affiliation, and conformity, which influence clothing feature importance. In general, social values are associated with a high need for affiliation and group identification, conformity, and a greater emphasis on both the utilitarian and the display aspects of clothing (style and brand name).