Adolescents' music preferences and personality characteristics

The present paper examined the structure of Dutch adolescents' music preferences, the stability of music preferences and the relations between Big‐Five personality characteristics and (changes in) music preferences. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses of music‐preference data from 2334 adolescents aged 12–19 revealed four clearly interpretable music‐preference dimensions: Rock, Elite, Urban and Pop/Dance. One thousand and forty‐four randomly selected adolescents from the original sample filled out questionnaires on music preferences and personality at three follow‐up measurements. In addition to being relatively stable over 1, 2 and 3‐year intervals, music preferences were found to be consistently related to personality characteristics, generally confirming prior research in the United States. Personality characteristics were also found to predict changes in music preferences over a 3‐year interval. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Family Demands and Job Attribute Preferences: A 4-Year Longitudinal Study of Women and Men

A longitudinal data set was used to examine the relationships between family demands and job attribute preferences. Study participants were 207 students who responded to surveys upon entering the MBA program of a large university and to follow-up surveys 1, 2, and 3 years later. Hierarchical regression analyses indicated that preferences for short, flexible work hours at earlier time periods positively predicted hours of household labor at later times, which supports a rational action model. Significant interaction effects indicated that the relationship between the importance of work hours and household labor was stronger for women than for men, which indicates that women were more likely than men to develop plans for combining work and family. Higher levels of household labor were associated with increased preferences for short, flexible work hours, and a comfortable work environment, which supports an accommodation model, but MBA students performing more household labor did not show a reduction in the desire for high salaries, good benefits, and intrinsically rewarding work.     

Variable pay as a risky choice: Determinants of the relative attractiveness of incentive plans

This paper presents an experimental investigation of risk preferences in the context of compensation. In five studies, participants indicated their preference between a job offering a fixed salary and one having a lower certain component but the potential to earn a higher amount contingent on performance. Results demonstrate that people are not generally risk averse in this context, as found in earlier research, but rather that risk preferences depend on the nature of the variable pay plan. In particular, in both between- and within-subjects designs, variable pay was preferred more often when incentives were based on individual rather than collective (team or organizational) performance, and participants were more optimistic about the likelihood of receiving incentives as individuals. The effects of individual differences such as self-efficacy and preference for group work were contingent on the format of the variable pay plan. Implications for designing compensation plans and employee recruitment and retention are discussed.     

Trichotomous preferences for gambles

Let G_X be the set of all gambles on a set X of decision outcomes. Trichotomous preferences divide G_X into three disjoint subsets, viz., the set P⁺ of preferable gambles, the set P⁰ of indifferent gambles, and the set P^- of unpreferable gambles. Those preference comparisons are made against the status quo, i.e., the do-nothing alternative. This paper presents and discusses dyadic representations of such trichotomous preferences and identifies necessary and sufficient axioms for the existence of those representations.     

Who wants privacy protection,and what do they want?

As privacy controversies have become more salient since the early 1980s, one response by policy makers has been to try to encourage consumers to demand privacy protection, by expecting goods and services to be designed with privacy‐enhancing technologies (PETs) embedded in them. But what scope is there for this? Conventional approaches to understanding consumer demand for privacy protection have not been very helpful in providing robust accounts of when consumers will want which kinds of protection. This paper offers a neo‐Durkheimian institutionalist theoretical account of the roots of consumer preferences for privacy and services with PETs in particular, which yields testable hypotheses for future research. It grounds preferences in risk perceptions, shows how distinct styles of risk perceptions are the result of distinct types of situation in social organisation, and derives typical demand curves for each of these types, before exploring the extent of mobility of preferences predicted by the theory, which in turn provides the basis for understanding the scope for persuading consumers to demand privacy‐respecting services of different types. Rooted in the sociology of knowledge and in anthropological approaches, the argument represents a challenge to psychometric, naïve empiricist and postmodernist accounts, and it offers a distinct research agenda. Copyright © 2002 Henry Stewart Publications Ltd.     

Choice preferences without inferences: subconscious priming of risk attitudes

We present a procedure for subconscious priming of risk attitudes. In Experiment 1, we were reliably able to induce risk‐seeking or risk‐averse preferences across a range of decision scenarios using this priming procedure. In Experiment 2, we showed that these priming effects can be reversed by drawing participants' attention to the priming event. Our results support claims that the formation of risk preferences can be based on preconscious processing, as for example postulated by the affective primacy hypothesis, rather than rely on deliberative mental operations, as posited by several current models of judgment and decision making. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

中国文化下伴侣身高偏好的性别二态性研究

本研究首次考察中国文化下伴侣身高性别二态性偏好,验证Pawlowski潜在伴侣身高偏好条件性假设,并探讨性别角色对身高偏好的影响。结果表明：（1）选择不同身高搭配组的男女身高均有显著差异,低个男性和高个女性会选择和自已身高接近的伴侣高度。（2）男性对伴侣身高要求比女性更宽容。（3）不同性别角色类型被试对身高偏好无显著差异。     

EVALUATION OF THE MULTIPLE-STIMULUS WITHOUT REPLACEMENT PREFERENCE ASSESSMENT METHOD USING ACTIVITIES AS STIMULI

The current study examined the accuracy of the multiple-stimulus without replacement (MSWO) preference assessment for identifying preferred common classroom activities as reinforcers with children with behavioral disorders. The accuracy of predictions from the MSWO regarding high, medium, and low stimulus preference was tested by providing contingent access to activities for completing math problems within an independent seatwork format. Overall, there was an interaction effect between preference ranking (high, medium, or low) and number of problems completed. The results confirm and extend previous findings regarding the accuracy of predictions with the MSWO. The findings also reveal, however, some individual differences that may account for instances in which student behavior did not conform to predictions of stimulus preference assessments.     

Extraversion predicts individual differences in women’s face preferences

Extraversion is positively associated with various indices of women’s mate quality (e.g., facial symmetry and attractiveness). Since such indices are thought to predict variation in women’s preferences for masculine men, we investigated the relationships between each of the ‘Big 5’ personality factors and women’s preferences for facial masculinity. Extraversion, but not the other four personality factors, was positively correlated with women’s preferences for masculinity in men’s, but not women’s, faces. Additionally, extraversion mediated the positive relationship between women’s self-rated attractiveness and their preferences for masculinity in men’s faces, suggesting that extraversion may play a role in condition-dependent mate preferences. Unexpectedly, openness to experience was associated with women’s preferences for femininity in faces of both sexes and this association was independent of that between extraversion and women’s preferences for masculine men. This is the first study that we know of to implicate personality traits in individual differences in women’s preferences for masculine men.     

When the best appears to be saved for last: Serial position effects on choice

Decision‐makers often evaluate options sequentially due to constraints on attention, timing, or physical location of the options. Choosing the best option will therefore often depend on people's memories of the options. Because imperfect recall introduces uncertainty in earlier options, judgments of those options should regress toward the category mean as memory decays over time. Relatively desirable options will therefore tend to seem less desirable with time, and relatively undesirable options will tend to seem less undesirable with time. We therefore predicted that people will tend to select the first option in a set when choosing between generally undesirable options, and will tend to select the last when choosing between generally desirable options. We demonstrate these serial position effects in choices among paintings, American Idol audition clips, jellybeans, and female faces, provide evidence of its underlying mechanism, and explain how these findings build on existing accounts. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.