Multidimensional treatment foster care (MTFC): results from an independent replication

This study examines 24‐months post‐baseline outcomes for thirty‐five Swedish antisocial youths who received either treatment in multidimensional treatment foster care (MTFC) or treatment as usual (TAU). MTFC is a community‐based treatment programme that has been successful in treating chronic juvenile offenders in the USA. This study is the first randomized control study outside the USA. The youth treated in the MTFC programme consistently showed some statistically significant positive treatment effects compared to the youth exposed to TAU. The results suggest that MTFC might be an effective method in treating youth with severe behaviour problems in a Swedish context. The authors conclude that the programme ought to be of great interest for Swedish social services as an alternative to traditional care.     

The effect of food toppings on calorie estimation and consumption

In this research we examine the effect of adding a food topping to the base food on consumers' calorie estimation and consumption of the augmented food (base food plus topping). We show that consumers underestimate the calorie content of augmented food with an unhealthy base, especially when the topping is healthy. However, consumers are less likely to underestimate the calorie content of augmented food with a healthy base, regardless of whether the topping is healthy or unhealthy. Further, we show that adding a healthy topping to an unhealthy base makes consumers not only underestimate the calorie content but also eat more of the augmented food.     

What a feeling! Touching sexually laden stimuli makes women seek rewards

We argue that women's previously documented unresponsiveness to sexual primes when making economic decisions may be a consequence of the specific types of primes that have been used (i.e., visual primes). In three studies we show that presenting women with tactile sexual cues does influence their decisions about economic rewards. Similar to the effect found in men, the first study demonstrates that touching a pair of boxer shorts leads to a craving for monetary rewards in women. In the second study it is shown that touching a pair of boxers makes women less loss averse for both money and food. The third study explicitly focuses on the relative effectiveness of tactile versus visual sexual cues in altering women's economic decisions, and reveals that women's willingness-to-pay for economic rewards increases only when the sexual cue is tactile. We suggest that touching (vs. seeing) sexually laden stimuli prompts pre-programmed consummatory Pavlovian responses that promote approaching economic rewards.     

“I'd like to be that attractive,but at least I'm smart”: How exposure to ideal advertising models motivates improved decision‐making

The use of idealized advertising models has been heavily criticized in recent years. Existing research typically adopts a social comparison framework and shows that upward comparisons with models can lower self-esteem and affect, as well as produce maladaptive behavior. However, the alternative possibility that consumers can cope with threatening advertising models by excelling in other behavioral domains has not been examined. The present research draws on fluid compensation theory (Tesser, 2000) and shows that idealized models motivate improved performance in consumer domains that fall outside that of the original comparison. These more positive coping effects operate through self-discrepancies induced by idealized models, rather than self-esteem or negative affect. Specifically, self-discrepancies motivate consumers to improve decision-making by: 1) making more optimal choices from well-specified consideration sets, and 2) better self-regulating indulgent choices. More broadly, the current research integrates and extends theories of fluid compensation and self-discrepancy, as well as provides a more complete picture of the ways in which consumers cope with idealized advertising models.     

The flip side of vanity sizing: How consumers respond to and compensate for larger than expected clothing sizes

Vanity sizing has become a popular retail trend and recent work shows it has a favorable impact on consumers. However, as the current research demonstrates, significant variations in sizing standards across retailers mean that consumers are as likely to encounter larger sizes as they are smaller, “vanity” sizes when shopping, highlighting the importance of understanding how consumers react to this potential threat in the marketplace. Across five studies we demonstrate that larger sizes result in negative evaluations of clothing and show that these effects are driven by consumers' appearance self-esteem. Importantly, we also find that instead of unilaterally lowering purchase intent as one might assume, larger sizes can actually increase spending, as consumers engage in compensatory consumption to help repair their damaged self-esteem. In so doing, this research reveals a dynamic and complex relationship between consumers and sizing labels, where shopping can serve to build, strengthen, threaten, and/or repair appearance self-esteem.     

A Fuzzy Goal Programming Formulation with Multiple Target Levels

The essential activity of a manager is decision making, which is becoming more and more complex, mainly in the multi‐criteria problems. Multi‐choice goal programming (MCGP) is considered as a robust tool in operational research to solve this type of problem. However, in real world problems, determining precise targets for the goals is a difficult task. To deal with such situation, Tabrizi introduced and used in 2012 the concept of membership functions in the MCGP model in order to model the targets fuzziness of each goal. In their model, they considered just only one type of functions (triangular form), which does not reflect adequately the decision maker's preferences that are considered as an essential element for modelling the goal's fuzziness. Their model is called Fuzzy MCGP. In this paper, new ideas are presented to reformulate MCGP model to tackle all types of functions by introducing the (decision maker's) preferences. The concept of indifference thresholds is used in the new formulation for characterizing the imprecision and the preferences associated with all types of the goals. The proposed formulation provides useful insight about the solution of a new class of problems. A numerical example is given to demonstrate the validity and strength of the new formulation. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Aligning inside and outside perspectives of the self: A cross‐cultural difference in self‐perception

Past research shows that European Americans tend to take a first‐person perspective to understand the self and are unlikely to align the inside look with the outside gaze, whereas Asians tend to take a third‐person perspective and are likely to shift their inside look in the direction of the outsize gaze. In three experiments, we compared Asians and European Americans' self‐perceptions when the presence of their parents in the background of self‐perception was primed or otherwise. Without the priming, both European Americans and Asians viewed themselves more positively from their own perspective than from their parents' perspective. With the priming, only Asians lowered the positivity of their self‐perceptions to match the perceived positivity of the self in the parents' perspective. These results suggest that Asians do not have a static, passive tendency to assimilate their self‐views into the perceived external assessments of the self. Rather, their self‐views are fluid and flexible.     

Convergence and divergence of individual‐level values: A study of Malaysian managers

Malaysia is a multi‐ethnic country with Malay, Chinese and Indian being the dominant ethnic groups. This paper investigates the three ethnic cultures in Malaysia by examining the individual‐level values of managers and professionals. Based on 528 responses to a Schwartz Value Survey (SVS) questionnaire, the paper identifies partial convergence of the value systems of Malay, Chinese and Indian people. It was found that the three ethnic groups do not differ significantly in the individualistic value dimensions of Self‐enhancement and Openness‐to‐change. However, Malays are found to be more conservative and less self‐transcendent than Chinese or Indians, while Chinese and Indians attribute the same importance to these two sets of values.     

控制和外界客体社会效价对身体拥有感的影响

研究采用运动橡胶手错觉范式,操纵了“控制”和“社会效价”两个变量,通过行为实验探讨了控制和社会效价对身体拥有感的影响。结果发现,与“被动控制”条件相比,“主动控制”条件产生了更强的拥有感; 与“不利”条件相比,“有利”条件产生了更强的拥有感。且“控制”和“社会效价”的交互作用显著:无论哪种控制条件,有利条件下的拥有感都显著高于不利条件下的拥有感; 无论哪种效价条件,主动控制条件下的拥有感均显著高于被动控制条件下的拥有感。该结果表明,控制和社会效价是产生身体拥有感的条件。研究结果为提高假肢佩戴者对假肢的心理接纳程度提供了有益的训练途径。