Money talks in attention bias modification: Reward in a dot-probe task affects attentional biases

Attention bias modification (ABM) aimed at correcting dysfunctional biases in anxiety patients has met with only mild success. Inspired by recent studies showing large effects of financial reward upon attention shifts, we contrasted effects of traditional dot-probe ABM and reward upon attention biases in a between-subject 2 × 2 design. Twenty-seven participants in group cognitive behavioural therapy (GCBT) for social anxiety disorder (SAD) were randomly assigned to undergo six sessions of a dot-probe task consisting of ABM or placebo ABM along with random or high reward following neutral stimuli. There was no influence of ABM on participants' attention bias over and above the influence of GCBT. Reward, however, had a strong influence on attention bias. Neither ABM nor reward reduced SAD symptoms over and above the effects of GCBT. The results add to the growing evidence that benefits of ABM through dot-probe training are unreliable but suggest on the other hand that rewarding attention may strongly influence dysfunctional attention biases.     

Collaborative consumption: determinants of satisfaction and the likelihood of using a sharing economy option again

Collaborative consumption, often associated with the sharing economy, takes place in organized systems or networks, in which participants conduct sharing activities in the form of renting, lending, trading, bartering, and swapping of goods, services, transportation solutions, space, or money. In this paper, a framework on the determinants of choosing a sharing option is developed and tested with two quantitative studies by applying partial least squares path modeling analysis. In study 1, users of the B2C car sharing service car2go (N = 236), and in study 2, users of the C2C online community accommodation marketplace Airbnb (N = 187) are surveyed. The results reveal the satisfaction and the likelihood of choosing a sharing option again to be predominantly explained by determinants serving users' self‐benefit. Utility, trust, cost savings, and familiarity were found to be essential in both studies, while service quality and community belonging were identified solely in study 1. Four proposed determinants had no influence on any of the endogenous variables. This applies to environmental impact, internet capability, smartphone capability, and trend affinity. Finally, research and managerial implications are discussed. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Change-oriented behavior: A meta-analysis of individual and job design predictors

We propose and meta-analytically test a theoretical model of individual and job-based predictors of change-oriented behaviors. Meta-analytic tests (106 effect sizes, N = 28,402) demonstrate that employee's proactive personality is a stronger predictor of change-oriented behavior than the five-factor model (FFM) personality traits of openness and extraversion. Also, enriched job characteristics (autonomy, complexity, and task significance) are more important in predicting change-oriented behavior, than un-enriched job characteristics (routinization and formalization). Finally, we establish work engagement as a mediator that provides an explanation for how and why proactive personality and enriched job characteristics predict change-oriented behavior. We provide both theoretical and empirical integration of the literature with practical implications for managing change-oriented behaviors, which are increasingly recognized as important to both organizational effectiveness and employee career management.     

What is the Problem with Fundamental Moral Error?

Quasi-realists argue that meta-ethical expressivism is fully compatible with the central assumptions underlying ordinary moral practice. In a recent paper, Andy Egan has developed a vexing challenge for this project, arguing that expressivism is incompatible with central assumptions about error in moral judgments. In response, Simon Blackburn has argued that Egan's challenge fails, because Egan reads the expressivist as giving an account of moral error, rather than an account of judgments about moral error. In this paper I argue that the challenge can be reinstated, even if we focus only on the expressivist's account of judgments about moral error.