The effect of evolving resource synergy beliefs on the intentions–behavior discrepancy in ethical consumption

Consumers are less likely to buy ethical products than their stated intentions in marketplace polls, due at least in part to the distinct temporal frames guiding their poll responses versus actual purchase decisions. We propose that as consumers' beliefs about the synergy between the resources a firm devotes to their ethical and functional attributes evolve, as part of the broader ethical marketing/corporate social responsibility movement, from negative to positive, this discrepancy between intentions and behavior is likely to disappear. Two studies provide support for this basic contention, implicating the importance consumers ascribe to a brand's ethical attribute as the driver of the temporal frame- and resource synergy beliefs-based differences in their preference for that brand.     

Creative production by angry people peaks early on, decreases over time, and is relatively unstructured

Anecdotes and introspective reports from eminent scientists and artists aside, a systematic test of the putative creativity-enhancing effect of anger is missing. This article fills this void with three experiments examining creativity as a function of anger (vs. sad or a mood-neutral control state). Combining insights from the literatures on creativity and on mood and information processing the authors predicted that anger (vs. sadness and a mood-neutral control state) triggers a less systematic and structured approach to the creativity task, and leads to initially higher levels of creativity (as manifested in original ideation and creative insights). Following work on resource depletion, the authors further predicted that anger more than sadness depletes resources and that, therefore, creative performance should decline over time more for angry than for sad people. Results supported predictions. Implications for creativity, information processing, and resource depletion are discussed.     

Self-esteem,motivation and school attendance among sub-Saharan African girls: A self-determination theory perspective

Sub-Saharan samples are severely under-represented in the psychological literature. Taking an ecological approach, the current study examines key propositions derived from self-determination theory in a sample of adolescent girls in Mozambique. As a framework theory, self-determination theory consists of six sub-theories. We test the main premises of two of these theories: organismic integration theory and basic psychological need theory. In line with organismic integration theory, we assess the role of intrinsic, extrinsic, introjected and identified motivation for school attendance. We also test the possible moderating role of the ecological variable resource scarcity. The second part of the study focuses on the main premise of the basic psychological need sub-theory, which states that satisfaction of the needs for relatedness, competence and autonomy underlies intrinsic motivation, goal-directed behaviour (school attendance) and well-being (self-esteem). The study also assesses the moderation of resource scarcity in these relationships. Results provide support for both sub-theories of self-determination theory. Resource scarcity is not found to moderate the relationships between motivation and attendance or between need satisfaction and well-being, motivation and attendance. Implications for the universality claim of self-determination theory, as well as for the field of international development aid, are discussed.     

卫生保健需要的重要性与意义

卫生保健需要在卫生计划和资源配置中的作用日益受到重视。卫生保健需要是有层次的,相对的,因确定者,不同个体以及时间而异,科学,全面地认识和测量卫生保健需要,分析其与卫生服务需求和提供的关系,是更好的满足整个人群的卫生保健需要,使需要,需求和提供三者相匹配的基本前提,才能确保实现充分利用有发的资源,更经济,有效地提供卫生服务,保障和促进人群健康的宗旨。     

Impulsiveness and resource allocation: Testing Humphreys and Revelle’s (1984) explanation of impulsive personality

Humphreys and Revelle [Humphreys, M. S., Revelle, W. (1984). Personality, motivation and performance: A theory of the relationship between individual differences and information processing. Psychological Review, 91, 153–184] suggest that impulsive individuals have relatively greater capacity to improve performance through task-directed resource allocation. This implies that there will be a differential effect of increases in effort intensity on performance for high and low impulsive individuals. Two quasi-experiments tested this prediction using a relative-judgement task (total N = 108, 68 females), however neither revealed the predicted interaction. In light of these findings, we re-consider the Humphreys–Revelle model in relation to independent but potentially related theory and research.     

Identification of biological neurons using adaptive observers

Change detection performance is influenced by a number of factors, among which is the informativeness of targets. It has not been clarified, yet, whether the highly informative regions have a processing priority as a result of resource deployment from other tasks or whether it results from a better resource management. In this paper, we adopted a change detection paradigm in which thirty participants were randomly assigned to two groups: single (change detection task) and dual task [change detection and a simplified version of the Paced Auditory Serial Oppository Task (PASOT, Gow and Deary in J Clin Exp Neuropsychol 26:723–736, 2004), which implies a verbal effort]. Stimulus informativeness was defined as social relevance, that is, changing targets were people (high relevance) versus objects (low relevance), all other aspects (i.e., salience and position in the scene) kept constant. As hypothesized, data analyses showed a significant main effect of social relevance and task condition, i.e., better change detection performance and lower change detection times for people versus objects and for single than for dual task condition. Interestingly, the PASOT accuracy remained stable across the person versus object trials, thus implying that the better performance with socially relevant targets could not be explained by a resources withdrawal from the secondary task.

Separating the wheat from the chaff: does discriminating between diagnostic and nondiagnostic information eliminate the dilution effect?

The dilution effect refers to the finding that judgments are often unduly influenced by nondiagnostic information, producing regressive judgment. Because the dilution effect is a problem in various domains, strategies to control the impact of nondiagnostic information were explored by drawing on a perceptual and a conversational account of the dilution effect. Three experiments (n = 259) demonstrate that explicit instructions to discriminate between diagnostic and nondiagnostic information did not reduce the dilution effect. Rather, consistent with a perceptual explanation but not consistent with a conversational explanation, the dilution effect disappeared only when participants engage in perceptual control, that is, when they actively remove nondiagnostic pieces of information before making a judgment. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Aggregating conclusive and inconclusive information: Data and a model based on the assessment of threat

This study examined the process of combining conclusive and inconclusive information using a Naval threat assessment simulation. On each of 36 trials, participants interrogated 10 pieces of information (e.g., speed, direction, bearing, etc.) about “targets” in a simulated radar space. The number of hostile, peaceful, and inconclusive cues was factorially varied across targets. Three models were developed to understand how inconclusive information is used in the judgment of threat. According to one model, inconclusive information is ignored and the judgment of threat is based only on the conclusive information. According to a second model, the amount of dominant conclusive information is normalized by all of the available information. Finally, according to a third model, inconclusive information is partitioned under the assumption that it equally represents both dominant and non‐dominant evidence. In Experiment 1, the data of novices (i.e., civilians) were best described by a model that assumes a partitioning of inconclusive evidence. This result was replicated in a second experiment involving variation of the global threat context. In a third experiment involving experts (i.e., Canadian Navy officers), the data of half of the participants were best described by the partitioning model and the data of the other half were best described by the normalizing model. In Experiments 1 and 2, the presence of inconclusive information produced a “dilution effect”, whereby hostile (peaceful) targets were judged as less hostile (peaceful) than the predictions of the Partitioning model. The dilution effect was not evident in the judgments of the Navy officers. Copyright © 2009 Crown in the right of Canada. Published by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Multiple routes to mind wandering: Predicting mind wandering with resource theories

Three experiments examine individual (attentional capacity) and task-related characteristics leading to mind wandering, and the effect of mind wandering on task performance. Drawing on resource theories, we tested interactive nonlinear effects of these predictors, manipulating task demand using math tests of varying difficulty (Exp 1: N = 143, three levels between-subjects; Exp 2: N = 59, three levels within-subjects; Exp 3: N = 133, four levels within-subjects). Results confirmed that mind wandering was most frequent during extreme task demand levels, although the effect varied somewhat between experiments. Additionally, results from Experiment 3 and an integrated analysis demonstrated that people with relatively higher attentional capacity were less likely to mind wander as task demand increased. Moreover, mind wandering was more detrimental to performance as task demand increased across all experiments. Our findings build on past research by demonstrating the importance of accounting for interactions and nonlinear effects of task demand and attentional capacity in mind wandering research.