Does Perceived Message Effectiveness Cause Persuasion or Vice Versa? 17 Consistent Answers

Can perceived message effectiveness (PE) be considered a cause of actual effectiveness (AE)? If so, PE judgments can be used as valid indicators of the persuasiveness of messages in the preimplementation phase of campaigns. In addition, manipulating PE may be a viable persuasive strategy. But, if the reverse causal sequence obtains (AE→PE), then the strategy would be ineffective and the utility of PE in formative campaign research meaningless. Structural equation analysis of 2 cross‐sectional data sets (N= 202 and 204) concerned with fear appeals favored the PE→AE hypothesis. Two additional studies (N= 140 and 237), which employed a total of 13 public service announcements (PSAs), returned the same result. A fifth experimental study (N= 119) which utilized 2 PSAs provided further indication that PE→AE but not the reverse. At least under the conditions that characterize formative research, PE may be viewed as a causal antecedent of AE.     

The impact of virtuality on team effectiveness in organizational and non-organizational teams: A meta-analysis

We meta-analytically assess the virtuality-team effectiveness relationship using 73 samples of organizational teams (5738 teams) reporting on a wide range of productive (e.g. earnings), performance (e.g. customer ratings), social (e.g. cohesion), and team member (e.g. project satisfaction) outcomes. Our results suggest that in work organizations, virtuality is not a direct input—negative or positive—to team effectiveness. In contrast, using 109 samples of non-organizational teams (5620 teams), we show that virtuality is a significant negative input to team effectiveness. We also meta-analytically assess the issue of results generalizability from non-organizational to organizational settings, and find that overall, results from non-organizational studies largely fail to generalize to organizational virtual teams. Using moderator analysis, we explore a number of study features that may explain the poor results generalizability from non-organizational to organizational studies. We find that results from non-organizational studies using undergraduate students, short team duration, and laboratory settings drive the non-generalizability effect, whereas results from non-organizational studies using graduate students, longer team duration, and classroom settings produce results comparable to those of organizational studies of virtual teams. Theoretical, methodological, and practical implications are discussed.     

Assessment of postural control in patients with Parkinson’s disease: Sway ratio analysis

Analysis of the postural stability impairments in neurodegenerative diseases is a very demanding task. Age-related declines in posturographic indices are usually superimposed on effects associated with the pathology and its treatment. We present the results of a novel postural sway ratio (SR) analysis in patients with Parkinson’s disease (PD) and age-matched healthy subjects. The sway ratios have been assessed based upon center of foot-pressure (CP) signals recorded in 55 parkinsonians (Hoehn and Yahr: 1-3) and 55 age-matched healthy volunteers while standing quiet with eyes open (EO) and then with eyes closed (EC). Complementing classical sway measure abnormalities, the SR exhibited a high discriminative power for all controlled factors: pathology, vision, and direction of sway. Both the anteroposterior (AP) and mediolateral (ML) sway ratios were significantly increased in PD patients when compared to the control group. An additional SR increase was observed in the response to eyes closure. The sway ratio changes documented here can be attributed to a progressive decline of a postural stability control due to pathology. In fact, a significant correlation between the mediolateral SR under EO conditions and Motor Exam (section III) score of the UPDRS was found. The mediolateral sway ratios computed for EO and EC conditions significantly correlated with the CP path length (r = .87) and the mean anteroposterior CP position within the base of support (r = .38). Both indices reflect postural stability decline and fall tendency # in parkinsonians. The tremor-type PD patients (N = 34) showed more pronounced relationships between the mediolateral SR and selected items from the UPDRS scale, including: falls (Kendall Tau = .47, p < .05), rigidity (.45, p < .05), postural stability (retropulsion) (.52), and the Motor Exam score (.73). The anteroposterior SR correlated only with tremor (Kendal Tau = .77, p < .05). It seems that in force plate posturography the SR can be recommended as a single reliable measure that allows for a better quantitative assessment of postural stability impairments.     

Time and moral judgment

Do moral judgments hinge on the time available to render them? According to a recent dual-process model of moral judgment, moral dilemmas that engage emotional processes are likely to result in fast deontological gut reactions. In contrast, consequentialist responses that tot up lives saved and lost in response to such dilemmas would require cognitive control to override the initial response. Cognitive control, however, takes time. In two experiments, we manipulated the time available to arrive at moral judgments in two ways: by allotting a fixed short or large amount of time, and by nudging people to answer swiftly or to deliberate thoroughly. We found that faster responses indeed lead to more deontological responses among those moral dilemmas in which the killing of one to save many necessitates manhandling an innocent person and in which this action is depicted as a means to an end. Thus, our results are the first demonstration that inhibiting cognitive control through manipulations of time alters moral judgments.     

Squares in Fork Arrow Logic

In this paper we show that the class of fork squares has a complete orthodox axiomatization in fork arrow logic (FAL). This result may be seen as an orthodox counterpart of Venema's non-orthodox axiomatization for the class of squares in arrow logic. FAL is the modal logic of fork algebras (FAs) just as arrow logic is the modal logic of relation algebras (RAs). FAs extend RAs by a binary fork operator and are axiomatized by adding three equations to RAs equational axiomatization. A proper FA is an algebra of relations where the fork is induced by an injective operation coding pair formation. In contrast to RAs, FAs are representable by proper ones and their equational theory has the expressive power of full first-order logic. A square semantics (the set of arrows is U×U for some set U) for arrow logic was defined by Y. Venema. Due to the negative results about the finite axiomatizability of representable RAs, Venema provided a non-orthodox finite axiomatization for arrow logic by adding a new rule governing the applications of a difference operator. We address here the question of extending the type of relational structures to define orthodox axiomatizations for the class of squares. Given the connections between this problem and the finitization problem addressed by I. Németi, we suspect that this cannot be done by using only logical operations. The modal version of the FA equations provides an orthodox axiomatization for FAL which is complete in view of the representability of FAs. Here we review this result and carry it further to prove that this orthodox axiomatization for FAL also axiomatizes the class of fork squares.     

Role of psychosocial risk factors in predicting maternal and paternal depressive symptomatology during pregnancy

The aim of the present study was to investigate the role of several psychosocial risk factors in predicting depressive symptomatology during pregnancy in mothers and fathers, respectively. A total of 146 primiparous mothers and 105 primiparous fathers reporting a psychosocial risk condition were recruited independently from maternity and child health services, during the second trimester of pregnancy. All parents were evaluated for depressive symptomatology, anxiety, and perceived social support. Two hierarchical multiple regression analyses were performed to determine the role of psychosocial factors in predicting depressive symptomatology during pregnancy, in mothers and fathers. Marital dissatisfaction, personal history of depression, and personal trait anxiety were identified as significant predictors of depressive symptomatology during pregnancy, both in mothers and in fathers. Family history of substance abuse, conflictual relationship with the parents in the past year, and bereavement in the past year were identified as significant factors contributing to elevated depressive symptoms during pregnancy in mothers, but not fathers. In this study, several psychosocial risk factors were consistently related to an increase in maternal and paternal depressive symptoms during pregnancy; some of these factors seem to be specifically related to maternal depressive mood.