Implicit shopping: Attitudinal determinants of the purchasing of healthy and unhealthy foods

Implicit attitudes, evaluations that can occur without effort, quickly and without conscious intent, have been shown to predict self-reported diets and objectively measured food choices within the laboratory. We present two studies which extend the literature by demonstrating that implicit attitudes predict objective purchasing of healthy and unhealthy foods. Both Study 1 (N?=?40) and Study 2 (N?=?36) utilised an online shopping paradigm and concerned purchasing of fruit and chocolate. In both studies, implicit attitudes predicted purchases. Explicit attitudes towards buying or eating fruit versus chocolate did not predict purchase behaviour. These studies represent an original test of whether implicit attitudes predict healthy consumer behaviour, which involves participants paying for products. This research provides the strongest evidence yet that implicit attitudes play a role in predicting health food purchases. A comprehensive model of health behaviour should take into account the role of implicit attitudes.     

Investigating the predictive validity of implicit and explicit measures of motivation on condom use,physical activity and healthy eating

The literature on health-related behaviours and motivation is replete with research involving explicit processes and their relations with intentions and behaviour. Recently, interest has been focused on the impact of implicit processes and measures on health-related behaviours. Dual-systems models have been proposed to provide a framework for understanding the effects of explicit or deliberative and implicit or impulsive processes on health behaviours. Informed by a dual-systems approach and self-determination theory, the aim of this study was to test the effects of implicit and explicit motivation on three health-related behaviours in a sample of undergraduate students (N?=?162). Implicit motives were hypothesised to predict behaviour independent of intentions while explicit motives would be mediated by intentions. Regression analyses indicated that implicit motivation predicted physical activity behaviour only. Across all behaviours, intention mediated the effects of explicit motivational variables from self-determination theory. This study provides limited support for dual-systems models and the role of implicit motivation in the prediction of health-related behaviour. Suggestions for future research into the role of implicit processes in motivation are outlined.     

Confidence in Personal Preferences

The first aim of this study was to test the self‐consistency model (SCM) of subjective confidence as it applies to personal preferences. According to SCM, participants presented with a two‐alternative forced‐choice (2AFC) item draw a small sample of representations of the item. Their confidence reflects the extent to which the choice is representative of the population of representations associated with the item, and the likelihood of making that choice on subsequent occasions. The second aim was to use confidence judgment as a clue to the dynamics of online preference construction. Participants were presented with 2AFC items measuring everyday personal preferences. The task was presented five times. In line with SCM, (i) when participants changed their preferences across presentations, they were systematically more confident when they made their more frequent choice; (ii) confidence in a choice in the item's first presentation predicted the likelihood of repeating that choice in subsequent presentations; (iii) despite the idiosyncratic nature of personal preferences, confidence was higher for consensual than for nonconsensual preferences; (iv) when participants predicted the preferences of others, they were also more confident when their predictions agreed with those of others; and (v) the confidence/accuracy correlation for predictions was positive for consensually correct but negative for consensually wrong predictions. These results suggest that confidence in preferences can help separate between the stable and variable contributions to preference construction in terms of the population of representations available in memory and the representations that are accessible at the time of preference solicitation, respectively. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

How Implicit–Explicit Consistency of the Intelligence Self‐Concept Moderates Reactions to Performance Feedback

At present, it is not well understood which individual characteristics determine whether individuals will benefit or suffer from feedback about suboptimal performance. Three separate studies tested the idea that individuals' reactions to (neutral versus negative; positive versus negative) feedback as either improving or deteriorating performance in intelligence tests depended on their explicit and implicit self‐concept of intelligence (eSCI and iSCI). In all studies (Study 1, N = 177; Study 2, N = 165; Study 3, N = 132), persons with low eSCI/high iSCI showed a boost in performance after negative feedback, whereas persons with any other combination showed a decline in performance. The studies also provide an explanation for these effects in terms of mediating mechanisms. Whereas the performance boost of individuals with low eSCI/high iSCI can be best explained by achievement‐related reactance (Studies 2 and 3) and decrease in ruminative thinking (Study 3), the performance declines in the other configurations were mediated by decreased achievement motivation, increased frustration and increased outrage (Study 3). All these mediating mechanisms proved independent and incremental in a bootstrapping‐based moderated meditation analysis. The results are discussed in light of the construct validity of our Implicit Association Test (IAT) and IATs in general. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The influence of pre-training evaluative responses on approach-avoidance training outcomes

ABSTRACT

Approach-avoidance training (AAT) has been shown to be effective in both clinical and laboratory research. However, some studies have failed to show the effects of AAT. Therefore, finding moderators of the AAT effect is a priority for further research. We investigate the moderating effect of pre-training evaluative responses towards familiar AAT targets. In particular, we test predictions: (a) that congruent responses (i.e. approach to positive targets and avoidance of negative targets) increase liking, whereas incongruent responses decrease liking; (b) that training is more effective when it can strengthen existing positivity or negativity; and (c) that ambivalence increases AAT effects. Two experiments (total N?=?132) implemented an AAT with local soft-drink brands after measuring initial positive/negative explicit evaluative components and implicit liking towards the brands. Results show no reliable evidence for training effects on consumption or rating of drinks, but participants showed more implicit liking of approached drinks than avoided drinks. Furthermore, the magnitude of implicit liking measured pre-training was positively related to the size of the training effect. Ambivalence had no direct effect on the training outcomes. These results partially support the congruency prediction and underline the importance of implicit liking prior to AAT as a moderator for AAT effects.     

A Longitudinal Study of Factors Influencing Occupational Therapy Students' Practice Preference from Pre-Admission Through Job Selection

Abstract

The number of occupational therapists and students choosing to practice in the area of mental health continues to decline. A longitudinal comparative study was conducted using a class of 27 Bachelor's and 20 Master's students, to examine the factors that influence the students' practice area preference at three points from pre-admission to job selection. The major influential factors were similar for both groups. At pre-admission, observation, volunteer work or a job in OT or a related field was reported to be the most influential factor in choosing a practice area preference. At level II fieldwork, positive influences on practice area preference were generally higher for physical disabilities, and negative influences were higher for mental health. At job selection, availability of a job and patient population were the most important influencing factors. Pre-admission experiences, level II fieldwork, and professionally challenging aspects of the practice area preference were the most important retrospective experiences influencing preference for practice area. In order to maintain or increase a presence in mental health the profession may need to expand OT students' pre-admission experiential expectations, professional mental health supports, and job opportunities in mental health.     

Bridging the gap between explicit and implicit measurement of personality: The questionnaire-based implicit association test

This study presents the questionnaire-based implicit association test (qIAT), a method that resembles the assessment procedures of self-report scales and allows an implicit assessment of constructs measured by such instruments. The qIAT measures the speed of association between ordinary questionnaires’ items (i.e., short statements rather than single words) and true versus false self-related sentences. Participants completed self-report measures of all Big-Five domains and the qIAT that measured extraversion. The qIAT implicit extraversion score showed good levels of internal consistency and it correlated with explicit extraversion but not with other explicit scales, thus supporting the convergent and discriminant validity of this measure. It also predicted a criterion behavior, and this prediction was incremental to self-report assessment of the same set of items. The qIAT opens the door for the indirect assessment of numerous psychological phenomena measured by existing self-report scales.     

Temporal context, preference, and resistance to change

According to behavioral momentum theory, preference and relative resistance to change in concurrent-chains schedules are correlated and reflect the relative conditioned value of discriminative stimuli. In the present study, we explore the generality of this relation by manipulating the temporal context within a concurrent-chains procedure through changes in the duration of the initial links. Consistent with previous findings, preference for a richer terminal link was less extreme with longer initial links across three experiments with pigeons. In Experiment 1, relative resistance to change and preference were related inversely when responding was disrupted with response-independent food presentations during initial links, replicating a previous finding with rats. However, more food was presented with longer initial links, confounding the disrupter and initial-link duration. In Experiment 2, presession feeding was used instead and eliminated the negative relation between relative resistance to change and preference, but relative resistance to change was not sensitive to relative terminal-link reinforcement rates. In Experiment 3, with more extreme relative terminal-link reinforcement rates, increasing initial-link duration similarly decreased preference and relative resistance to change for the richer terminal link. Thus, when conditions of disruption are equal and assessed under the appropriate reinforcement conditions, changes in temporal context impact relative resistance to change and preference similarly.     

Physical attractiveness stereotype and memory

Three experiments examined explicit and implicit memory for information that is congruent with the physical attractiveness stereotype (i.e. attractive-positive and unattractive-negative) and information that is incongruent with the physical attractiveness stereotype (i.e. attractive-negative and unattractive-positive). Measures of explicit recognition sensitivity and implicit discriminability revealed a memorial advantage for congruent compared to incongruent information, as evident from hit and false alarm rates and reaction times, respectively. Measures of explicit memory showed a recognition bias toward congruent compared to incongruent information, where participants tended to call congruent information old, independently of whether the information had been shown previously or not. This recognition bias was unrelated to reports of subjective confidence in retrieval. The present findings shed light on the cognitive mechanisms that might mediate discriminatory behavior towards physically attractive and physically unattractive individuals.     

Do production patterns influence the processing of speech in prelinguistic infants?

The headturn preference procedure was used to test 18 infants on their response to three different passages chosen to reflect their individual production patterns. The passages contained nonwords with consonants in one of three categories: (a) often produced by that infant (‘own’), (b) rarely produced by that infant but common at that age (‘other’), and (c) not generally produced by infants. Infants who had a single ‘own’ consonant showed no significant preference for either ‘own’ (a) or ‘other’ (b) passages. In contrast, infants’ with two ‘own’ consonants exhibited greater attention to ‘other’ passages (b). Both groups attended equally to the passage featuring consonants rarely produced by infants of that age (c). An analysis of a sample of the infant-directed speech ruled out the mothers’ speech as a source of the infant preferences. The production-based shift to a focus on the ‘other’ passage suggests that nascent production abilities combine with emergent perceptual experience to facilitate word learning.