Effect of effort and deadlines on consumer product returns

While extant research has examined return policies as a combination of time and effort, we investigate both the independent and interactive impacts of time and effort on consumer decisions to return or retain products. We find that decreasing return deadlines can have the counterintuitive effect of increasing return rates under some conditions. Using construal level theory, we propose that perceived effort (both physical and cognitive) mediates the effect of return policy on return rates leading to suppressed returns. Further, when deadlines are framed as durations between store visits, overall product returns are exacerbated except when perceived effort is high.     

Slim by design: Redirecting the accidental drivers of mindless overeating

We first choose what to eat and then we choose how much to eat. Yet as consumer psychologists, we understand food choice much better than food consumption quantity. This review focuses on three powerful drivers of food consumption quantity: 1) Sensory cues (how your senses react), 2) emotional cues (how you feel), and 3) normative cues (how you believe you are supposed to eat). These drivers influence consumption quantities partly because they bias our consumption monitoring—how much attention we pay to how much we eat. To date, consumption quantity research has comfortably focused on the first two drivers and on using education to combat overeating. In contrast, new research on consumption norms can uncover small changes in the eating environment (such as package downsizing, smaller dinnerware, and reduced visibility and convenience) that can be easily implemented in kitchens, restaurants, schools, and public policies to improve our monitoring of how much we eat and to help solve mindless overeating. It is easier to change our food environment than to change our mind.     

Positive fantasies or negative contrasts: The effect of media body ideals on restrained eaters’ mood,weight satisfaction,and food intake

Although viewing media body ideals promotes body dissatisfaction and problematic eating among women (e.g., extreme restraint/overeating), some argue that women only report such negative effects because they think that they are meant to (i.e., demand characteristics). Because restrained eaters are trying to lose weight, they might be vulnerable to such media exposure. However, because of demand characteristics, evidence is mixed. Therefore, we minimized demand characteristics and explored whether media body ideals would trigger restrained eaters to report negative (negative mood, weight dissatisfaction) or positive (positive mood, weight satisfaction) effects. We also hypothesized that this change (negative or positive) would encourage food intake. Restrained and unrestrained eaters (n = 107) memorized media or control images. Restrained eaters exposed to media images reported decreased weight satisfaction and increased negative mood, but their food intake was not significantly affected. Perhaps paying advertent attention to the images caused goal-related negative affect, which triggered restraint.     

Formulation of Policy and Strategy in Developing Creativity Education in Four Asian Chinese Societies: A Policy Analysis

The present study sought to compare and contrast educational policies on creativity education in four Asian Chinese societies, namely mainland China, Hong Kong, Singapore, and Taiwan. It establishes five criteria on creativity education policy, including policies regarding legislation on creativity education, definitions of creativity, standard implementation, explicit identification of special populations of creative students, and creativity education in the community. Among the four societies, Taiwan has an official document — the White Paper on Creative Education published in 2003 — whereas in Hong Kong and Singapore, creativity has been identified as an ability to be nurtured in students of all levels in their national curriculum reform. In mainland China, innovation is regarded as a synonym for creativity. Definitions of creativity have at times not been clearly defined, although multiple levels of creativity development (individual, school, societal, industrial, and cultural) have been discussed in Taiwan. In Hong Kong, creativity has been defined as a generic skill in various key learning areas (e.g., language education, mathematics education, science education, etc.) in the school curriculum. In Singapore, creativity is a learning outcome to be developed in students. None of these societies use standard creativity assessment tests as evidence of creative competence in students. When creativity has entered the central stage in the curriculum reform and creativity education is made available to every student, efforts have been made to identify highly creative students and provide them enrichment opportunities, mainly using performance assessments and performance in creativity competitions in these societies. But mainland China, Hong Kong, and Singapore do not sufficiently emphasize creativity education in the larger community.     

Understanding and Improving the Effectiveness of After-School Practice

The question driving research on after‐school programs is shifting from “do programs make a difference,” to “why are some programs effective while others are not?” This article draws on the work in this volume and related studies to suggest that there is an emerging consensus on the importance of staff‐youth interactions as a determinant of program effectiveness. The commentary recommends that future research should continue to focus on understanding and improving program practices at the point‐of‐service. In doing so, two lines of inquiry seem promising. The first involves linking measures of changes in staff‐youth interactions to changes in developmental outcomes. The second is to examine how policies or other interventions intended to improve program effectiveness affect the practices of line staff.     

Neural correlates of affective influence on choice

Making the right choice depends crucially on the accurate valuation of the available options in the light of current needs and goals of an individual. Thus, the valuation of identical options can vary considerably with motivational context. The present study investigated the neural structures underlying context dependent evaluation. We instructed participants to choose from food menu items based on different criteria: on their anticipated taste or on ease of preparation. The aim of the manipulation was to assess which neural sites were activated during choice guided by incentive value, and which during choice based on a value-irrelevant criterion. To assess the impact of increased motivation, affect-guided choice and cognition-guided choice was compared during the sated and hungry states. During affective choice, we identified increased activity in structures representing primarily valuation and taste (medial prefrontal cortex, insula). During cognitive choice, structures showing increased activity included those implicated in suppression and conflict monitoring (lateral orbitofrontal cortex, anterior cingulate). Hunger influenced choice-related activity in the ventrolateral prefrontal cortex. Our results show that choice is associated with the use of distinct neural structures for the pursuit of different goals.     

Why did I eat that? Perspectives on food decision making and dietary restraint

Consumers trying to watch or restrict what they eat face a battle each day as they attempt to navigate the food-rich environments in which they live. Due to the complexity of food decision making, consumers are susceptible to a wide range of social, cognitive, affective, and environmental forces determined to interrupt their intentions to restrict their dietary intake. In this article, we integrate literature from diverse theoretical perspectives into a conceptual framework designed to offer a better understanding of the antecedents, interruptions, and consequences of dietary restraint. We outline a path for researchers to investigate how restraint behaviors in the eating domain influence a wide variety of consumer psychological phenomena. It is our hope that a collective examination of this literature provides a lens that directs future research on food decision making and dietary restraint and empowers consumers to invest their cognitive and behavioral resources towards healthy eating behaviors.     

Promoting Healing and Restoring Trust: Policy Recommendations for Improving Behavioral Health Care for American Indian/Alaska Native Adolescents

American Indian/Alaska Native youth represent the strength and continued survival of many Nations and Tribes. However, they currently experience numerous health disparities and challenges, including the highest rate of suicide among 15–24 year-olds in the United States. Our comprehensive review of the literature on the mental health of AI/AN youth highlighted seven focal causes of behavioral health disparities: (1) high levels of violence and trauma exposure and traumatic loss, (2) past and current oppression, racism, and discrimination, (3) underfunded systems of care, (4) disregard for effective indigenous practices in service provision, policy, and funding, (5) overreliance on evidence-based practices, (6) lack of cultural competence among systems of care and providers, and (7) barriers to care. Seven policy recommendations that recognize the importance of moving beyond exclusive reliance on western models of care and that seek to foster transformation of individuals, families, communities, behavioral health service systems of care, and social structures are presented, supported, and discussed.     

How Do Organizations and Social Policies ‘Acculturate’ to Immigrants? Accommodating Skilled Immigrants in Canada

While the idea of acculturation (Berry 1997) was originally proposed as the mutual change of both parties (e.g., immigrants and the host society), the change processes of host societies are neglected in research. A grounded theory study explored the efforts of human service organizations to 'acculturate' to an increasingly diverse immigrant population, through interviews conducted with service providers serving Mainland Chinese immigrants. Acculturation efforts of human service organizations (mezzo-level acculturation) were often needs-driven and affected by the political will and resultant funding programs (macro-level forces). Even with limitations, human service organizations commonly focused on hiring Mainland Chinese immigrants to reflect the changing demographics of their clientele and creating new programs to meet the language and cultural backgrounds of the clients. To contextualize these organizational efforts, an analysis of how policy changes (macro-level acculturation) interact with organizational practice is presented. Finally, the meaning of acculturation for the host society is discussed.     

Emerging Policy Problems Related to Ubiquitous Computing: Negotiating Stakeholders’ Visions of the Future

This paper provides an overview of the human-centered vision of Ubiquitous Computing and draws on research examining slowly emerging problems over a long-term time frame in the emerging Ubiquitous Computing environment. A six-phase process employing scenario planning, electronic focus groups, and problem assessment surveys harnessed the insight of 165 individuals from diverse backgrounds and regions throughout the State of Hawaii. Distinct differences were found between the problem identification of specialists (policy makers and systems designers) and nonspecialists (everyday citizens), and there were significant differences found in the problem assessment between groups. The greatest differences in both phases emerged from social and psychological issues related to the emerging Ubiquitous Computing environment. It is argued that in addition to enormous technical changes, Ubiquitous Computing will serve to blur sociotechnical boundaries throughout the environment, challenging existing distinctions between humans and machine intelligences. As the potential for extending human capabilities via computing and communications technology is actualized in coming decades, what it means to be human will be a major source of public policy conflicts, and the early identification of problems related to these changes is essential in order to mitigate their impacts and socially negotiate a more desirable future.