Personality and Values Based Materialism: Their Relationship and Origins

This research investigates the developmental processes by which consumers become more or less materialistic. It begins with a review of Inglehart's work in this area, and then applies his theories to explain conceptions of materialism developed by Richins and Belk. Inglehart predicts that the subjective experience of economic deprivation and insecurity during one's formative years leads to adult materialism. Early subjective experiences of deprivation and insecurity strongly predict materialism as conceptualized by Belk, but are not related to materialism as conceptualized by Richins. Inglehart also allows for the social influence of family and peers to shape materialistic orientations. Findings indicate that the formative social influence of family and peers predicts both Belk's and Richins's materialism. This difference between Belk's and Richins's materialism is explained on the grounds that Belk's materialism reflects personality whereas Richins's reflects personal values.     

Advertisement–programme congruence in memory of sexual fragrance advertisements

The current study explored the effect of sexual content in advertisements and the programme–advertisement congruence on the memory of sexual and nonsexual advertisements. Seventy participants (41 females and 29 males) were randomly allocated to one of four conditions. They viewed either The Bachelorette (sexual programme) or I'm a Celebrity… Get Me Out of Here! (nonsexual programme) with sexual or nonsexual fragrance advertisements placed within the programme. The order of the advertisements was counterbalanced across participants to control for order effects. Free and cued recall of the advertisements were assessed. As predicted, there was a main effect of advertisement type, with the sexual advertisements better recalled than the nonsexual advertisements. Contrary to our prediction, the sexual content of the programme did not have an effect on advertisement recall. There was an interaction between the advertisement type and programme type; sexual advertisements were remembered better when embedded within a sexual programme. Limitations of this study are considered.     

The Relations of Cognitive Triad, Dysfunctional Attitudes, Automatic Thoughts, and Irrational Beliefs with Test Anxiety

Previous research has highlighted the important role of cognition in anxiety, including test anxiety. The present study explores the role of cognitive distortions and irrationality in test anxiety by studying the relationships among cognitive triad (core beliefs), dysfunctional attitudes (intermediate beliefs), negative automatic thoughts, irrational beliefs, debilitating test anxiety, and facilitating test anxiety in 138 undergraduates. Multiple regression analyses showed that only the cognitive triad as a whole was a significant predictor of debilitating anxiety. Specifically, negative view of self was a significant predictor of debilitating anxiety. The results supported an expansion of the current cognitive conceptualizations of test anxiety to include the importance of negative self-view. Other implications are also discussed.     

Were you paying attention to where you looked? The role of executive working memory in visual search

Recent evidence has indicated that performing a working memory task that loads executive working memory leads to less efficient visual search (Han & Kim, 2004). We explored the role that executive functioning plays in visual search by examining the pattern of eye movements while participants performed a search task with or without a secondary executive working memory task. Results indicate that executive functioning plays two roles in visual search: the identification of objects and the control of the disengagement of attention.     

Examining college students' food security coping strategies and experiences during the COVID-19 pandemic

College students' food situations may have been disrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic, which could have affected their health and well-being. However, little is known about how the pandemic impacted students' food experiences and how students coped with food-related disruptions, particularly from the student's own perspective. This study reviews data from 571 undergraduates who attended public colleges during Fall 2021 and Spring 2022 and wrote a narrative about the pandemic's impact on their food experiences. Most students indicated they experienced a wide range of food difficulties and adapted new food practices. Despite these challenges, students emphasized proactive coping strategies and positive pandemic outcomes rather than difficulties and negative outcomes. These findings have implications for students' long-term health and well-being.     

The Relationship Between Artificial and Second Language Learning

Artificial language learning (ALL) experiments have become an important tool in exploring principles of language and language learning. A persistent question in all of this work, however, is whether ALL engages the linguistic system and whether ALL studies are ecologically valid assessments of natural language ability. In the present study, we considered these questions by examining the relationship between performance in an ALL task and second language learning ability. Participants enrolled in a Spanish language class were evaluated using a number of different measures of Spanish ability and classroom performance, which was compared to IQ and a number of different measures of ALL performance. The results show that success in ALL experiments, particularly more complex artificial languages, correlates positively with indices of L2 learning even after controlling for IQ. These findings provide a key link between studies involving ALL and our understanding of second language learning in the classroom.     

Consistency of Response Patterns in Different Estimation Tasks

The current study aimed at addressing two issues concerning children's estimation performance: (1) to investigate whether the log-to-linear framework or the proportional judgment framework provided a better explanation of children's estimation patterns, and (2) to examine the consistency of response patterns in different estimation tasks. A sample of 179 Chinese first graders was assessed on their arithmetic performance and estimation skills (including numerosity naming, numerosity production, and number line). The log-to-linear framework was suggested to provide a better framework in explaining children's estimation patterns. Under this framework, we identified both common features and uniqueness of children's response patterns in different estimation tasks. Furthermore, different estimation skills uniquely contributed to children's arithmetic performance. The theoretical and practical implications of the findings are discussed.     

Low-frequency repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation of the anterior temporal lobes does not dissociate social versus nonsocial semantic knowledge

Social conceptual knowledge is imperative to communicate with, interact with, and interpret human society; however, little is known about the neural basis of social concepts. Previous research has predominantly suggested that the right anterior temporal lobe (ATL) may specifically represent social conceptual knowledge, whereas the left ATL is necessary for general semantic processing. However, this view has not always been supported by empirical studies. Employing a lateralized design and two different semantic tasks and a nonsemantic control task, we aimed to clarify some of these ambiguities by potentially dissociating left from right functionality and social from nonsocial concepts, using inhibitory repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) coupled with a sham and control site stimulation (N = 56). The results showed that stimulation of the left ATL led to overall faster processing times without affecting accuracy, whilst the right ATL and control groups did not significantly change in reaction times or accuracy. No difference occurred between social and nonsocial concepts after stimulation. This study is the first to show that inhibition of the left temporal lobe may improve performance on a semantic task and provides evidence that the ATLs may be lateralized in conceptual processing. The results do not confirm that the right temporal lobe is crucial for social conceptual processing, as inhibition did not significantly affect performance for social concepts.     

The Effect of Goal Difficulty on Escalation of Commitment

Escalation of commitment to a failing course of action is a problem in behavioral decision making that occurs across a wide range of social contexts. In this research, we show that examining escalation of commitment from a goal setting theory perspective provides fresh insights into how goal difficulty influences escalation of commitment. Specifically, through a series of two experiments, we found a curvilinear relationship between goal difficulty and post‐feedback goal commitment, which was mediated by valence and expectancy associated with goal attainment. In turn, it is commitment to goals that leads individuals to continue a previous course of action despite negative feedback. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Super's Work Values Inventory: Issues of Subtest Internal Consistency Using a Sample of Chinese University Students in Hong Kong

The authors discuss observed weaknesses in internal consistency (Cronbach's alphas below .60) within five subtests of the Work Values Inventory when translated into Chinese and used with a sample of 211 university students in Hong Kong. Possible reasons for the weaknesses are explored, and suggestions are made for improvement.