Dependency in consumer media relations: an application to the case of teleshopping

• This paper analyses the teleshopping issue in terms of the Media Dependency Theory. The objective is to verify whether dependency relations between television shoppers and the television medium and television shopping are key variables to explain watching and buying behaviour. A model is proposed that integrates the dependency‐viewing‐purchase relation, tested on a sample of Spanish television shoppers. The results of the study confirm the direct relationship between the antecedents of dependency, dependency and future intentions of behaviour.

Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Preference for negative emotions

This research demonstrates that preference for emotions sometimes cannot be equated with a positive-negative valence dimension. Participants were asked to make choices between pairs of affect-inducing options opposite in valence but equal in activation. The results showed that in absence of contextual cues or situational constraints, choices followed a pleasure-maximizing principle. However, when information was provided about a context cueing appropriateness of certain emotions over others, a preference reversal was observed so that negative emotions were preferred over positive emotions. These results are discussed in relation to current theories of pleasure-maximizing choice and behavior.     

Cross-validating the Berlin Affective Word List

We introduce the Berlin Affective Word List (BAWL) in order to provide researchers with a German database containing both emotional valence and imageability ratings for more than 2,200 German words. The BAWL was cross-validated using a forced choice valence decision task in which two distinct valence categories (negative or positive) had to be assigned to a highly controlled selection of 360 words according to varying emotional content (negative, neutral, or positive). The reaction time (RT) results corroborated the valence categories: Words that had been rated as “neutral” in the norms yielded maximum RTs. The BAWL is intended to help researchers create stimulus materials for a wide range of experiments dealing with the emotional processing of words.     

The hoarding dimension of OCD: psychological comorbidity and the five-factor personality model

Although hoarding has been associated with several psychological disorders, it is most frequently linked to obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). The present study assessed hoarding obsessions and compulsions in 204 individuals with OCD, and evaluated how hoarding was related to obsessive-compulsive symptom severity, psychological comorbidity, and personality as measured by the five-factor model. Results indicated that hoarding in OCD is a dimensional variable that is positively associated with dysphoria, total number of lifetime Axis I disorders, and lifetime histories of bipolar I, PTSD, and body dysmorphic disorder. Hoarding was negatively correlated with the NEO-Personality Inventory-Revised (NEO-PI-R) factor of Conscientiousness and positively associated with the NEO-PI-R factor of Neuroticism. When all personality and psychopathology variables were entered into a regression equation, dysphoria, bipolar II disorder, Conscientiousness, age, and Extraversion emerged as significant predictors of hoarding severity. Recommendations are made for clinicians and for future research.     

Development of the false-memory illusion

The counterintuitive developmental trend in the Deese-Roediger-McDermott (DRM) illusion (that false-memory responses increase with age) was investigated in learning-disabled and nondisabled children from the 6- to 14-year-old age range. Fuzzy-trace theory predicts that because there are qualitative differences in how younger versus older children and disabled versus nondisabled children connect meaning information across the words on DRM lists, certain key effects that are observed in adult studies will be absent in young children and in learning-disabled children. Data on 6 such adult effects (list strength, recall inflation, delayed inflation, delayed stability, thematic intrusion, and true-false dissociation) were used to investigate this hypothesis, and the resulting data were consistent with prediction.     

Associative and propositional processes in evaluation: an integrative review of implicit and explicit attitude change

A central theme in recent research on attitudes is the distinction between deliberate, "explicit" attitudes and automatic, "implicit" attitudes. The present article provides an integrative review of the available evidence on implicit and explicit attitude change that is guided by a distinction between associative and propositional processes. Whereas associative processes are characterized by mere activation independent of subjective truth or falsity, propositional reasoning is concerned with the validation of evaluations and beliefs. The proposed associative-propositional evaluation (APE) model makes specific assumptions about the mutual interplay of the 2 processes, implying several mechanisms that lead to symmetric or asymmetric changes in implicit and explicit attitudes. The model integrates a broad range of empirical evidence and implies several new predictions for implicit and explicit attitude change.     

Goal orientation, motivational climate, and dispositional flow of high school students engaged in extracurricular physical activity

The purpose of this study was to examine the role of goal orientation, motivational climate, and dispositional flow in physical education lessons on extracurricular involvement in physical activity. Questionnaires were administered to 1,103 (792 athletes; 311 nonathletes) secondary school students (M age = 14.3 yr., SD = 0.7). Analysis showed significant mean differences between groups on goal orientation and dispositional flow in physical education lessons, but none for perception of motivational climate. These findings suggest that dispositional variables are related to extracurricular involvement in physical activity.     

The priority heuristic: making choices without trade-offs

Bernoulli's framework of expected utility serves as a model for various psychological processes, including motivation, moral sense, attitudes, and decision making. To account for evidence at variance with expected utility, the authors generalize the framework of fast and frugal heuristics from inferences to preferences. The priority heuristic predicts (a) the Allais paradox, (b) risk aversion for gains if probabilities are high, (c) risk seeking for gains if probabilities are low (e.g., lottery tickets), (d) risk aversion for losses if probabilities are low (e.g., buying insurance), (e) risk seeking for losses if probabilities are high, (f) the certainty effect, (g) the possibility effect, and (h) intransitivities. The authors test how accurately the heuristic predicts people's choices, compared with previously proposed heuristics and 3 modifications of expected utility theory: security-potential/aspiration theory, transfer-of-attention-exchange model, and cumulative prospect theory.     

The influence of landmark salience in a navigation task: an additive effect between its components

In 2 experiments, rats were trained in a Morris pool to find a hidden platform in the presence of 1 landmark. After acquisition, the rats were tested without the platform. Experiment 1 tested whether the size of a landmark and its relative distance from the platform are additive effects. On test, the rats' best performance was with a near and big landmark; intermediate performance was with either a near and small landmark or a far and big one; and the worst performance was with a far and small landmark. The results of Experiment 2 suggested that the different distances from the goal of the 2 landmarks might not be sufficient to explain the previous results.     

What the voice reveals: within- and between-category stereotyping on the basis of voice

The authors report research that attempts to shift the traditional focus of visual cues to auditory cues as a basis for stereotyping. Moreover, their approach examines whether gender-signaling vocal cues lead not only to between-category but also to within-category gender stereotyping. Study 1 showed that both men and women vary within category in how feminine their voices sound and that perceptions of vocal femininity are highly consensual. Furthermore, the measured acoustic characteristics that differed between gender were also related to perceptions of within-gender femininity. Subsequent studies demonstrated that variability in vocal femininity affects gender stereotyping when the targets are all of the same gender (Study 2) and when the targets are of different genders (Study 3). In the latter case, evidence of both category-based and feature-based stereotyping was found. Mediation analyses showed that the relationship between acoustics and stereotyping was in part due to femininity.