When celebrities talk,children listen: An experimental analysis of children's responses to TV ads with celebrity endorsement

Two studies tested the effects of TV ads with celebrity endorsement on the product preference and understanding of 8- to 14-year-old boys. Study 1 compared two ads for a model racer. One had celebrity endorsement (by a famous race driver) and footage of real automobile racing featuring the celebrity (live action); the second had neither feature. Study 2 employed one ad for a different brand of model racer edited to generate a 2 (endorser presence) by 2 (inclusion of live racetrack action) factorial design. A total of 415 boys were exposed to one of the experimental ads or a control ad, embedded in a new animated children's adventure program. Preference for the advertised brand of model racer (pre- and postviewing) and a number of cognitive variables were assessed. Exposure to endorsement led to increased preference for the toy and belief that the celebrity was expert about the toy. Live action led to exaggerated estimates of the physical properties of the toy and the belief that the ad was not staged. The 8- to 10-year-olds associated the glamour of the endorser with the toy and were more reliant on his advice than were 11- to 14-year-olds. However, the two age groups were not differentially affected by the ads. Contrary to the speculation of many researchers, understanding about advertising intent and techniques and cynicism about ads had almost no influence on product preference after viewing.     

On the forgetting of word associations: Parkin et al. reconsidered

Summary This paper represents an extension of Levinger and Clark's (1961) study, in which it was shown that associations to emotional stimuli were more readily forgotten than those to neutral stimuli, and a replication of Parkin, Lewinsohn and Folkard's (1982) study which demonstrated the reversal of this effect with delayed retention testing. The aim of the present two experiments was to replicate the results of the latter under conditions with minimal deviations from the methodology of either study. The present data indicated that more associations to emotional stimuli were forgotten regardless of the length of the interpolated retention interval. The results are seen as being inconsistent with the Parkin et al. reinterpretation of the Levinger and Clark paradigm and, therefore, as calling for further replication.     

Paradox,truth and logic part I: Paradox and truth

Conclusion The discussion of the semantics of inconsistent truth theories now comes to a pause. The preceding is of course but a sketch; many interesting questions remain to be answered. The second part of this essay, however, will not seek to answer them. Rather, I will turn to the discussion of the proof theory of truth theory: the local and global logic of truth.Under the first heading, I show how to replace the inductive construction of models with an appropriate infinitary proof theory, and relate this on the one hand to the so-called dependence approach to inductive truth theories (Davis, 1979; Yablo, 1982) and on the other to van Fraassen's fact semantics for relevance logic.Under the second heading, I offer formals systems which capture the inferences valid in all approximate models. Not surprisingly, these turn out to be relevant logics.With formalism in hand, I discuss finally the extent to which the gap and/or glut approach can in fact be said to solve the paradoxes; that is, to allow us to say that the very language we are speaking is of the sort described in our theory.     

The effects of verbal reinforcement of intrinsic motivation for sex-linked tasks

Recent studies have demonstrated that positive verbal feedback enhances males' intrinsic motivation for a task, while decreasing that of females. This result has been attributed to differential socialization forces which make the controlling aspects of rewards more salient for females as opposed to males, for whom the informational aspects are prepotent. A weakness in this conclusion stems from the use of a masculine sex-linked task in prior experiments, producing a result which may be due to gender congruence/incongruence rather than to socialization differences. Two laboratory experiments were performed to examine the effects of verbal praise on intrinsic motivation, controlling for sex-typing of the experimental activity. Experiment I found that verbal praise increased females' and males' intrinsic motivation on both a feminine and masculine task, and intrinsic motivation was higher for sex-appropriate than sex-inappropriate tasks. The sexes did not show a differential pattern of response to praise. In Experiment 2, verbal praise also enhanced sex-role traditional females' intrinsic motivation on the same activity used in prior research. These results suggest that socialization content has changed sufficiently to make concerns about competence and self-determination equally salient for females and males.     

The Intergenerational Transmission of Party Preferences in Multiparty Contexts: Examining Parental Socialization Processes in the Netherlands

Research shows that parents have a strong influence on the party preferences of their children. Yet little is known about how such preferences are transmitted in multiparty systems with weak party identification and high electoral volatility. We propose a model of intergenerational transmission that includes both direct effects of parents' party preferences on those of their children, as well as indirect effects through left–right and issue positions. We test this model with original survey data of Dutch adolescents (14–20 years old) and their parents (N = 751 adolescent-parent pairs). We find two paths through which parents exert influence on the party preferences of their adolescent children. On the first path, parental party preferences function as a direct predictor of adolescent party preferences. On the second path, adolescent left–right and issue positions function as a mediator between parental left–right and issue positions and adolescent party preferences, with the effect of left–right positions being stronger than that of issue positions. The frequency with which adolescents discuss political topics with their parents moderates these effects.     

Commitment and Reasons – A Comment on Ruth Chang, ‘Three Dogmas of Normativity’

Ruth Chang has argued convincingly that we must recognize that some choices will not involve strict, univocal comparison of options. How, then, can such choices be made well? Chang suggests that commitment is a fundamental way of ‘putting one's very self’ behind a normative consideration, thereby ‘endow[ing] that consideration with the normativity of a reason’. This view challenges what Chang deems to be three dogmas of normativity, and the current comment critically assesses the relation of her view to the first and third of these dogmas. I suggest some alternative ways of thinking about these dogmas, which enable us to see how her work might uncover a fourth dogma, and which can, I believe, lend strength to a position very close to Chang's.     

Anticipation across modalities in children and adults: Relating anticipatory alpha rhythm lateralization,reaction time,and executive function

The development of the ability to anticipate—as manifested by preparatory actions and neural activation related to the expectation of an upcoming stimulus—may play a key role in the ontogeny of cognitive skills more broadly. This preregistered study examined anticipatory brain potentials and behavioral responses (reaction time; RT) to anticipated target stimuli in relation to individual differences in the ability to use goals to direct action (as indexed by measures of executive function; EF). A cross-sectional investigation was conducted in 40 adults (aged 18–25 years) and 40 children (aged 6–8 years) to examine the association of changes in the amplitude of modality-specific alpha-range rhythms in the electroencephalogram (EEG) during anticipation of lateralized visual, tactile, or auditory stimuli with inter- and intraindividual variation in RT and EF. Children and adults exhibited contralateral anticipatory reductions in the mu rhythm and the visual alpha rhythm for tactile and visual anticipation, respectively, indicating modality and spatially specific attention allocation. Variability in within-subject anticipatory alpha lateralization (the difference between contralateral and ipsilateral alpha power) was related to single-trial RT. This relation was more prominent in adults than in children, and was not apparent for auditory stimuli. Multilevel models indicated that interindividual differences in anticipatory mu rhythm lateralization contributed to the significant association with variability in EF, but this was not the case for visual or auditory alpha rhythms. Exploratory microstate analyses were undertaken to cluster global field power (GFP) into a distribution-free temporal analysis examining developmental differences across samples and in relation to RT and EF. Anticipation is suggested as a developmental bridge construct connecting neuroscience, behavior, and cognition, with anticipatory EEG oscillations being discussed as quantifiable and potentially malleable indicators of stimulus prediction.     

Context-dependent alarm responses in wild vervet monkeys

Animal Cognition - The alarm calls of nonhuman primates are occasionally cited as functionally equivalent to lexical word meaning in human language. Recently, however, it has become increasingly...     

A rich palette of Bible use: A theoretical and empirical contribution from the context of Protestant Christian primary schools in the Netherlands

The aim of this study is to gain empirical knowledge about how the Bible functions in the context of Protestant Christian primary schools in the Netherlands. It presents the results of an empirical explorative and qualitative study on the perceptions of teachers and school administrators (directors and internal supervisors) on the goals of Bible use in Protestant primary education, as well as the roles of teachers and pupils, and how these can be understood in terms of religious pedagogical models and theories. Five small focus group interviews with teachers and six interviews with school administrators revealed a variety of goals teachers hold regarding Bible use in education and a variety of divisions of teacher–learner roles in this regard. The findings also show some particular characteristics when compared with secondary schools.