Business owners' action planning and its relationship to business success in three African countries

A model of business success was developed with motivational resources (locus of control, self-efficacy, achievement motivation, and self-reported personal initiative) and cognitive resources (cognitive ability and human capital) as independent variables, business owners' elaborate and proactive planning as a mediator, and business size and growth as dependent variables. Three studies with a total of 408 African micro and small-scale business owners were conducted in South Africa, Zimbabwe, and Namibia. Structural equation analyses partially supported the hypotheses on the importance of psychological planning by the business owners. Elaborate and proactive planning was substantially related to business size and to an external evaluation of business success and was a (partial) mediator for the relationship between cognitive resources and business success. The model carries important implications for selection, training, and coaching of business owners.     

Associations between aspects of spiritual well-being, alcohol use, and related social-cognitions in female college students

This research explores relationships between aspects of spiritual well-being, alcohol use and related social-cognitions in college women. The sample included 151 female college students ranging in age from 18 to 25 years. Participants read a behavioral vignette depicting alcohol use by a student and completed a survey that included measures of alcohol use, counterfactual attributions and beliefs about drinking, as well as religious and existential aspects of spiritual well-being. Results suggested religious- and existential well-being to be inversely associated with indices of alcohol use and the likelihood of attending a social event where alcohol is present. Further, religious well-being was found to be negatively associated with beliefs concerning the social-effects of alcohol, while existential well-being was observed to be a significant predictor of a composite set of attributions related to alcohol prevention. Importantly, these data suggest religious and existential aspects of spiritual well-being as moderators of behavior as well as causal attributions and beliefs that represent a cognitive mechanism of alcohol prevention in college women. Use of counterfactual exercises as an educational technique, and potential barriers of religious and existential oriented prevention programs are briefly discussed.     

False memories for end-of-life decisions

OBJECTIVE: To examine people's false memories for end-of-life decisions. DESIGN: In Study 1, older adults decided which life-sustaining treatments they would want if they were seriously ill. They made these judgments twice, approximately 12 months apart. At Time 2, older adults and their self-selected surrogate decision makers tried to recall the older adults' Time 1 decisions. In Study 2, younger adults made treatment decisions twice, approximately 4 months apart. At Time 2, younger adults tried to recall their Time 1 decisions. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Percentage of participants who falsely remembered that their original treatment decisions were the same as their current decisions. RESULTS: In Study 1, older adults falsely remembered that 75% of their original decisions were the same as their current decisions; surrogates falsely thought that 86% of older adults' decisions were the same. In Study 2, younger adults falsely remembered that 69% of their original decisions were the same as their current decisions. CONCLUSION: Age alone cannot account for people's false memories of their end-of-life decisions; we discuss other mechanisms. The results have practical implications for policies that encourage people to make legal documents specifying their end-of-life treatment decisions.     

To help or not to help an outgroup member: The role of the target's individual attributes in resolving potential helpers' motivational conflict

When people are faced with the decision of whether or not to help an outgroup member, they often experience conflicting motivational tendencies due to the concurrent presence of factors prompting help and factors prompting non‐help. We argue that one way of how people deal with this conflict is by taking a closer look at the target's individual attributes, especially at those indicating the target's benevolence. Findings of Experiment 1 (N = 96), in which we manipulated intercultural dissimilarity between participants and a (fictitious) recipient of help and normative pressure to help as two factors affecting motivational conflict, support this basic assumption. Specifically, response latencies analyses confirmed that participants assigned a culturally highly dissimilar target spent more time on inspecting target‐related information when normative pressure, and thus motivational conflict, was high than when it was low. Experiment 2 (N = 141) extended these findings by demonstrating that providing potential helpers with explicit information about an outgroup member's benevolence increased helping intentions through reducing their negative interaction expectancies (and thus motivational conflict). As expected, this mediational relationship could only be observed for participants assigned a culturally highly dissimilar target. Experiment 3 (N = 46) replicated these mediation findings in a within‐subjects design. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Contingent capture in cueing: the role of color search templates and cue-target color relations

Visual search studies have shown that attention can be top-down biased to a specific target color, so that only items with this color or a similar color can capture attention. According to some theories of attention, colors from different categories (i.e., red, green, blue, yellow) are represented independently. However, other accounts have proposed that these are related—either because color is filtered through broad overlapping channels (4-channel view), or because colors are represented in one continuous feature space (e.g., CIE space) and search is governed by specific principles (e.g., linear separability between colors, or top-down tuning to relative colors). The present study tested these different views using a cueing experiment in which observers had to select one target color (e.g., red) and ignore two or four differently colored distractors that were presented prior to the target (cues). The results showed clear evidence for top-down contingent capture by colors, as a target-colored cue captured attention more strongly than differently colored cues. However, the results failed to support any of the proposed views that different color categories are related to one another by overlapping channels, linear separability, or relational guidance (N = 96).     

Working memory training improvements and gains in non-trained cognitive tasks in young and older adults

Previous studies on working memory training have indicated that transfer to non-trained tasks of other cognitive domains may be possible. The aim of this study is to compare working memory training and transfer effects between younger and older adults (n = 60). A novel approach to adaptive n-back training (12 sessions) was implemented by varying the working memory load and the presentation speed. All participants completed a neuropsychological battery of tests before and after the training. On average, younger training participants achieved difficulty level 12 after training, while older training participants only reached difficulty level 5. In younger participants, transfer to Verbal Fluency and Digit Symbol Substitution test was found. In older participants, we observed a transfer to Digit Span Forward, CERAD Delayed Recall, and Digit Symbol Substitution test. Results suggest that working memory training may be a beneficial intervention for maintaining and improving cognitive functioning in old age.     

How Emotional Media Reports Influence Attitude Formation and Change: The Interplay of Attitude Base,Attitude Certainty,and Persuasion

This study examined the influence of an emotionally arousing writing style on attitude formation and change. It has been proposed that different writing styles induce attitudes based on either affect or cognition and with either high or low certainty. Previous work indicates that the interplay of these attitude characteristics determines the persuasiveness of emotional and rational media appeals. To test the hypotheses, participants in an experimental study read articles from a magazine about a fictitious attitude object. In the first step, 4 different types of attitudes varying in base and level of certainty were induced through a respectively manipulated article. In the second step, these attitudes were challenged by an additional article, which presented either an emotional or rational persuasive appeal. The results supported hypotheses on attitude induction through media stimuli and 3 of 4 hypotheses regarding the persuasiveness of emotionally and rationally written articles.