Relationships between parenting practices and perceptions of child behaviour among Korean immigrant mothers and fathers

This study examined parenting styles and culturally‐specific parenting practices of Korean immigrant mothers (N = 128) and fathers (N = 79) of children (ages 6–10) in New Zealand and the parenting predictors of child behaviour. Participants completed questionnaires on parenting styles and practices, and parental perceptions of child behaviour. Both parents indicated a high degree of devotion (Mo jeong) and involvement in care and education of their child with fathers were more likely than mothers to utilise shaming/love withdrawal and modesty encouragement. Results of regression analyses showed that there were some differences between mothers and fathers in the parenting predictors of child internalising and externalising behaviour problems and prosocial behaviour. Across the whole sample, there were contrasting relationships for authoritative parenting styles, devoted/involved parenting and modesty encouragement/shaming/non‐reasoning parenting practices with child behaviour problems. Results indicated a blend of Western and Korean parenting practices were being utilised after settling in New Zealand.     

Factors contributing to individual differences in facial expression categorisation

Individuals vary in perceptual accuracy when categorising facial expressions, yet it is unclear how these individual differences in non-clinical population are related to cognitive processing stages at facial information acquisition and interpretation. We tested 104 healthy adults in a facial expression categorisation task, and correlated their categorisation accuracy with face-viewing gaze allocation and personal traits assessed with Autism Quotient, anxiety inventory and Self-Monitoring Scale. The gaze allocation had limited but emotion-specific impact on categorising expressions. Specifically, longer gaze at the eyes and nose regions were coupled with more accurate categorisation of disgust and sad expressions, respectively. Regarding trait measurements, higher autistic score was coupled with better recognition of sad but worse recognition of anger expressions, and contributed to categorisation bias towards sad expressions; whereas higher anxiety level was associated with greater categorisation accuracy across all expressions and with increased tendency of gazing at the nose region. It seems that both anxiety and autistic-like traits were associated with individual variation in expression categorisation, but this association is not necessarily mediated by variation in gaze allocation at expression-specific local facial regions. The results suggest that both facial information acquisition and interpretation capabilities contribute to individual differences in expression categorisation within non-clinical populations.     

“So Happy I Could Shout!” and “So Happy I Could Cry!” Dimorphous expressions represent and communicate motivational aspects of positive emotions

Happiness can be expressed through smiles. Happiness can also be expressed through physical displays that without context, would appear to be sadness (tears, downward turned mouths, and crumpled body postures) and anger (clenched jaws, snarled lips, furrowed brows, and pumped fists). These seemingly incongruent displays of happiness, termed dimorphous expressions, we propose, represent and communicate expressers’ motivational orientations. When participants reported their own aggressive expressions in positive or negative contexts, their expressions represented positive or negative emotional experiences respectively, imbued with appetitive orientations (feelings of wanting to go). In contrast, reported sad expressions, in positive or negative contexts, represented positive and negative emotional experiences respectively, imbued with consummatory orientations (feelings of wanting to pause). In six additional experiments, participant observers interpreted that aggression displayed in positive contexts signalled happy-appetitive states, and sadness displayed in positive contexts signalled happy-consummatory states. Implications for the production and interpretation of emotion expressions are discussed.     

Does message framing affect changes in behavioural intentions in people with psoriasis? A randomized exploratory study examining health risk communication

Message framing is important in health communication research to encourage behaviour change. Psoriasis, a long-term inflammatory skin condition, has additional comorbidities including high levels of anxiety and cardiovascular disease (CVD), making message framing particularly important. This experimental study aimed to: (1) identify whether health messages about psoriasis presented as either gain- or loss-framed were more effective for prompting changes in behavioural intentions (BI), (2) examine whether BI were driven by a desire to improve psoriasis or reduce CVD risk; (3) examine emotional reactions to message frame; and (4) examine predictors of BI. A two by two experiment examined the effects on BI of message frame (loss vs. gain) and message focus (psoriasis symptom reduction vs. CVD risk reduction). Participants with psoriasis (n = 217) were randomly allocated to one of four evidence-based health messages related to either smoking, alcohol, diet or physical activity, using an online questionnaire. BI was the primary outcome. Analysis of variance tests and hierarchical multiple regression analyses were conducted. A significant frame by focus interaction was found for BI to reduce alcohol intake (p = .023); loss-framed messages were more effective for CVD risk reduction information, whilst gain-framed messages were more effective for psoriasis symptom reduction information. Message framing effects were not found for BI for increased physical activity and improving diet. High CVD risk was a significant predictor of increased BI for both alcohol reduction (β = .290, p < .01) and increased physical activity (β = ?.231, p < .001). Message framing may be an important factor to consider depending on the health benefit emphasised (disease symptom reduction or CVD risk reduction) and patient-stated priorities. Condition-specific health messages in psoriasis populations may increase the likelihood of message effectiveness for alcohol reduction.     

Pedestrian behaviour of 6th grade Estonian students: Implications of social factors and accident-prevention education at school

Children as pedestrians are one of the most vulnerable groups of road users. Therefore factors associated with risky pedestrian behaviour should be carefully studied. The aim of this article is to clarify how the traffic behaviour of 6th grade students as pedestrians is associated with the behaviour of their traffic companions and prevention activities at school, also taking gender into consideration. The research was conducted based on a randomly-selected sample of 1033 6th-grade students with the mean age of 12.77 ± 0.38 (SD) years. The results showed that compared to girls boys take significantly more risks as pedestrians: they rarely use reflectors during periods of darkness and often cross the road against the red light. The most important role models for adolescents in traffic behaviour are their parents. The role model behaviour with the strongest effect on adolescent high-risk behaviour in traffic is the role model not using crosswalks to cross the street. The results also showed that higher-risk traffic behaviour by adolescent pedestrians is predicted by higher-risk behaviour on the part of their companions (parents, teachers), walking alone on the street, as well as by an adolescent’s lower involvement in the less active prevention activities in the classroom. To improve adolescent pedestrians’ traffic behaviour social environment and school-based factors should be considered more thoroughly in prevention work at school.     

Staying grounded? Applying the theory of planned behaviour to explore motivations to reduce air travel

Air travel has been highlighted as a key environmental behaviour contributing to climate change. Given this, there is a surprising lack of theory-based research aimed at identifying factors that underpin motivation to reduce the number of flights taken. This study explored whether an extended theory of planned behaviour (TPB) model could be usefully applied to identify significant predictors of intentions to reduce the number of flights taken for leisure, holidays or to visit family or friends. Results supported the predictive utility of the TPB; the extended model was able to account for 52% of the variance in intentions over and above past behaviour and socio-demographic variables. Attitudes, subjective norms and behaviour-specific self-identity emerged as significant linear predictors. Findings support the utility of applying the TPB to air travel and suggest key variables which could be targeted in interventions to promote motivation to reduce the number of flights taken.     

Modelling the human lane-change execution behaviour through Multilayer Perceptrons and Convolutional Neural Networks

Driving is a highly complex task that involves the execution of multiple cognitive tasks belonging to different levels of abstraction. Traffic emerges from the interaction of a big number of agents implementing those behaviours, but until recent years, modelling it by the interaction of these agents in the so called micro-simulators was a nearly impossible task as their number grows. However, with the growing computing power it is possible to model increasingly large quantities of individual vehicles according to their individual behaviours. These models are usually composed of two sub-models for two well-defined tasks: car-following and lane-change. In the case of lane-change the literature proposes many different models, but few of them use Computational Intelligence (CI) techniques, and much less use personalization for reaching individual granularity. This study explores one of the two aspects of the lane-change called lane-change acceptance, where the driver performs or not a lane-change given his intention and the vehicle environment. We demonstrate how the lane-change acceptance of a specific driver can be learned from his lane change intention and surrounding environment in an urban scenario using CI techniques such as feed-forward Artificial Neural Network (ANN). We work with Multilayer Perceptron (MLP) and Convolutional Neural Networks (CNN) architectures. How they perform one against the other and how the different topologies affect both to the generalization of the problem and the learning process are studied.     

Predicting intentions to text and call while driving using the theory of planned behaviour

There is extensive evidence that using a mobile phone while driving causes degradation in driving performance, and thereby results in reduced safety on the road. The present study examined intentions to use mobile phones while driving using the Theory of Planned Behaviour (TPB). A total of 212 Ukrainian drivers (mean age = 35 years SD = 10 years; males = 82%) completed a survey that included measures of the TPB components related to intentions to send or read text messages or to make or receive handheld phone calls across two different scenarios; one where they were running late, and the other when they were not in a hurry. Measures of the frequency of mobile phone use were also collected. The results showed that 63% of the sample reported using a mobile phone while driving at least daily, with the most frequent types of usage being making and answering a phone call with a handheld device. The most consistent predictor of intentions to interact with a mobile phone while driving was having a positive attitude towards doing so. Perceived behavioural control was also significantly and positively associated with mobile phone use while driving, but only a small number of associations were found with subjective norms. Our results suggest that intentions to interact with mobile phones while driving may be context specific.     

Self-motivated behaviour: Its influence on intergroup contact for intergroup harmony

We investigated the role of self-motivated behaviour in promoting intergroup member contact for intergroup harmony. A multi-ethnic group of 68 freshmen students attending a Nigerian state university were participants (female = 43.8%; Mean age = 22.15 years, SD = 2.35 years; Igbo = 45.6%, Hausa/Fulani = 20.4%, Yoruba = 24.5%, and others = 9.5%). By religious affiliation, the students comprised Christians (62%) and Muslims (38%). The students took part in an intergroup contact learning assignment designed for them to interact with others outside their class cohort and from a different ethnic group to themselves. They completed measures of self-motivated behaviours defined by self-efficacy, self-interest, learning predisposition, as well as intergoup harmony. Tests of mediation revealed significant positive indirect effects of intergroup member contact on intergroup harmony through self-efficacy, self-interest, and learning behaviour. Self-motivated behaviour fully mediated the relationship between intergroup contact and intergroup harmony among students in Nigerian multi-ethnic settings. Self-motivated behaviour may facilitate peace-building and intergroup harmony, for management of intergroup relations, among Nigerian major ethnic groups premised on intergroup contact.     

Sexual risk behaviour among HIV-infected women in the first twelve months after delivery in South Africa

This study aimed to assess sexual risk behaviour and its social correlates in HIV-infected women living in rural South Africa at six and twelve months post-partum. Participants were 699 HIV-positive women recruited prenatally by systematic sampling from twelve community health centres in Mpumalanga province, South Africa (mean age = 28.4 years, SD = 5.7; married =41.1%; serodiscordant or unknown partner status = 74.9%). They self-reported on their sexual activity six to twelve months after delivery; including use of condoms and partner involvement. Generalised linear mixed models were utilised to estimate unsafe sex outcomes from a prevention of mother to child transmission (PMTCT) intervention, socio-demographic factors, disclosure, and male involvement. About 20% of sexually active women in the past week had used condoms inconsistently at six and twelve months after delivery. Moreover, 16% and 18% of the women had not used a condom at last sex and 11% and 13% had unprotected sex with HIV-uninfected or unknown-status partners following delivery at six and twelve months, respectively. Higher inconsistent condom use was likely with lower male involvement. Promotion of condom use post-partum, as well as male involvement in sexual decisions, are important for safer sex post-partum by seropositive women.