The impact of politeness and relationship on perceived quality of advice about a problem

Advice is a common but potentially problematic way to respond to someone who is distressed. Politeness theory (Brown & Levinson, 1987) suggests advice threatens a hearer's face and predicts that the speaker‐hearer relationship and the use of politeness strategies can mitigate face threat and enhance the effectiveness of advice messages. Students (N=384) read 1 of 16 hypothetical situations that varied in speaker power and closeness of the speaker‐hearer relationship. Students then read 1 of 48 advice messages representing different politeness strategies and rated the message for regard shown for face and for effectiveness. However, neither speaker‐hearer relationship nor politeness strategies was consistently associated with perceived threat to face or perceived advice effectiveness. We suggest revisions to politeness theory and additional factors that may affect judgments of face sensitivity and advice effectiveness.     

交多少朋友合适?谈亚里士多德对"大量交友"的评论

引言 结交多少个朋友合适?提出这样的问题似乎是钻牛角尖,也不属于哲学家的兴趣.然而,古代的哲学家并未忽视这个问题的重要性,他们都直接或间接地关注过"友谊".实际上,提出交多少朋友合适的问题,就是提出友谊的限度问题,更确切地说,是提出了与他人特殊关系的延展问题.我们看到,这种关系并不要求排他性,但将其无限扩展则难免使其变质.     

Whose personality is better,mine or my partner's? Self‐enhancement bias in relationships

Previous research has documented self‐enhancement and relationship partner‐enhancement motivations, but not examined whether individuals view themselves or their partners more favorably, overall. The authors conducted three studies that revealed a general tendency to favor oneself over one's partner in direct self–partner personality comparisons. This illustrated a motivational precedence of self‐enhancement over partner‐enhancement goals. In Study 1, participants rated self‐only traits more favorably than partner‐only traits. In Studies 2 and 3, participants rated desirable traits as more characteristic of themselves than their partner, particularly when traits were more relevant to personal than relationship success. The authors also found that this self‐favoring bias was weaker (typically nonexistent) among those with higher relationship satisfaction, lower self‐esteem, or lower self‐deceptive tendencies. The authors discuss practical, theoretical, and methodological implications.     

Multi-objective combinatorial optimization problems: A survey

In the last 20 years many multi-objective linear programming (MOLP) methods with continuous variables have been developed. However, in many real-world applications discrete variables must be introduced. It is well known that MOLP problems with discrete variables can have special difficulties and so cannot be solved by simply combining discrete programming methods and multi-objective programming methods. The present paper is intended to review the existing literature on multi-objective combinatorial optimization (MOCO) problems. Various classical combinatorial problems are examined in a multi-criteria framework. Some conclusions are drawn and directions for future research are suggested.     

Immobilization Stress Elevates GTP Cyclohydrolase I mRNA Levels in Rat Adrenals Predominantly by Hormonally Mediated Mechanisms

GTP cyclohydrolase I (GTPCH) is the rate-limiting enzyme in the biosynthesis of tetrahydrobiopterin, the cofactor for catecholamine, indolamine and nitric oxide biosynthesis. In this study we examined the effect of immobilization stress on GTPCH mRNA levels and the mechanism(s) of stress-induced changes in adrenomedullary GTPCH mRNA levels. We used reverse-polymerase chain reaction to isolate and clone a cDNA corresponding to nucleotides 269 to 570 of rat GTPCH. Northern blot analysis with a cRNA probe revealed two species of GTPCH mRNA (about 3.6 and 1.2 kb) in rat adrenal medulla and cortex, and in PC12 cells. The levels of both forms of GTPCH mRNA were significantly increased 3-5 fold in adrenal medulla by a single 2 hour immobilization and by repeated immobilizations (2 hours a day for 2 days). Hypophysectomy had little effect on their basal levels but prevented the stress elicited rise in both GTPCH mRNAs. In contrast, unilateral transection of the splanchnic nerve did not affect induction of the 3.6 kb GTPCH mRNA by stress. Combined denervation with hypophysectomy completely blocked the induction of both GTPCH mRNA species by immobilization stress. Thus, stress elicits elevation of both forms of GTPCH mRNA by a mechanism requiring an intact pituitary-adrenocortical axis.     

MOSA method: a tool for solving multiobjective combinatorial optimization problems

The success of modern heuristics (Simulated Annealing (S.A.), Tabu Search, Genetic Algorithms, …) in solving classical combinatorial optimization problems has drawn the attention of the research community in multicriteria methods. In fact, for large‐scale problems, the simultaneous difficulties of 𝒩𝒫‐hard complexity and of multiobjective framework make most Multiobjective Combinatorial Optimization (MOCO) problems intractable for exact methods. This paper develops the so‐called MOSA (Multiobjective Simulated Annealing) method to approximate the set of efficient solutions of a MOCO problem. Different options for the implementation are illustrated and extensive experiments prove the efficiency of the approach. Its results are compared to exact methods on bi‐objective knapsack problems. Copyright © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.