Networks of happiness: applying a Network Approach to Well-Being in the General Population

Journal of Happiness Studies - Even though well-being can be seen as a multidimensional construct, made up of a variety of interacting aspects, most studies examine total scores on well-being...     

Differences in Univariate Values Versus Multivariate Relationships

A recent debate has called to light an important issue for communication researchers and other social scientists: Does the use of student samples jeopardize the validity of research? Importantly, this question has failed to make a critical distinction between estimates of univariate values versus those examining multivariate relationships. Estimates of univariate values provide information on the prevalence of an attitude or belief from the sampled population to the overall population. Estimates of multivariate relationships, however, provide information on the validity of our theories. This distinction is examined in a study of identification with Diana, Princess of Wales. Results show that although the estimates of univariate values differed across three samples, the multivariate relationships between the variables were more stable, and therefore the underlying process appears to hold. We argue that this finding illustrates the distinction between estimates of univariate means versus multivariate relationships and is evidence that nonprobability samples can be important for many reasons, including testing the consistency of processes.     

Cohesion network analysis of CSCL participation

The broad use of computer-supported collaborative-learning (CSCL) environments (e.g., instant messenger–chats, forums, blogs in online communities, and massive open online courses) calls for automated tools to support tutors in the time-consuming process of analyzing collaborative conversations. In this article, the authors propose and validate the cohesion network analysis (CNA) model, housed within the ReaderBench platform. CNA, grounded in theories of cohesion, dialogism, and polyphony, is similar to social network analysis (SNA), but it also considers text content and discourse structure and, uniquely, uses automated cohesion indices to generate the underlying discourse representation. Thus, CNA enhances the power of SNA by explicitly considering semantic cohesion while modeling interactions between participants. The primary purpose of this article is to describe CNA analysis and to provide a proof of concept, by using ten chat conversations in which multiple participants debated the advantages of CSCL technologies. Each participant’s contributions were human-scored on the basis of their relevance in terms of covering the central concepts of the conversation. SNA metrics, applied to the CNA sociogram, were then used to assess the quality of each member’s degree of participation. The results revealed that the CNA indices were strongly correlated to the human evaluations of the conversations. Furthermore, a stepwise regression analysis indicated that the CNA indices collectively predicted 54% of the variance in the human ratings of participation. The results provide promising support for the use of automated computational assessments of collaborative participation and of individuals’ degrees of active involvement in CSCL environments.     

Developing of an English Version of the Aggressive Driving Behavior Test (AVIS). Improving the Construct Validity of Aggressive Driving

The research investigated the psychometric properties and the discriminant validity of the English version of the Questionnaire for the Assessment of Aggressive Driving Behavior (AVIS). Study 1 assessed the psychometric properties of the instrument. Internal consistency ranged from 0.77 to 0.92. Exploratory factor analysis did not support the original five factor structure, Instrumental Aggression and Acting Out being unified in a single factor. Following the confirmatory factor analysis a version with 26 items and 3 factors was obtained. Inter-scale correlations showed that the dimensions of the AVIS are inter-correlated. Study 2 verified the discriminant validity of the English version of the AVIS by testing the relationships between the AVIS dimensions and the DAX (Driving Anger Expression Inventory) dimensions. The results showed good discriminant validity, the dimensions of the two instruments being uncorrelated. In conclusion, the findings contribute to the development of the driving aggression construct by adding new dimensions to it.     

Predicting the Level of Pastors’ Risk of Termination/Exit from the Church

This study conducts an exploratory factor analysis on Wickman’s (2004) Pastors at Risk Inventory that measures the likelihood of whether clergy may face forced or unforced resignation. An online survey was administered to 285 evangelical pastors containing 42 Likert-type items developed from 20 years of qualitative practitioner ministry among clergy. The two factors identified—vision conflict and compassion fatigue—are discussed in relation to the extant literature and in their unique function with clergy. Results indicate that varying levels of disparity typically exist between expected ministry outcomes and actual ministry experiences, and that vision conflict and compassion fatigue are more likely among clergy who lack a support team and/or whose church has recently plateaued or declined in attendance.     

Less is more: Online consumer ratings' format affects purchase intentions and processing

Online customer ratings of products and services are commonplace in e‐commerce; however, the format in which these ratings are presented to consumers can vary. Although not anticipated by classical models of decision making, latter models such as prospect theory and feelings‐as‐information theory suggest that the presentation format of online customer ratings could affect subsequent consumer decision making. In the present research, 3 empirical studies test whether online customer ratings' formats differentially affect consumer purchase intentions. The results offer support for feeling‐as‐information theory and suggest that online ratings presented in a mean (vs. distribution) format result in higher purchase intentions as a result of increased processing fluency. Implications for the presentation of online consumer ratings in e‐commerce, based on these findings, are addressed.     

Toward A Very Idea Of Representation

The actual approaches of Cognitive Science offer a partial explanation of cognition. In this paper, our main point is to catch some key elements from these approaches, that can be taken together in a future perspective for a better explanation of cognition. The key elements (levels of analysis, primitives, processes, structures, threshold,self-organisation, bidirectionality, emergency, habituation, tasks, theinteraction between levels and also the interactions between the elements of the cognitive system and the environment) help us to stress the need of the representations. Then, we arediscussing the following dichotomies: procedural-declarative,consciousness-unconsciousness, implicit-explicit. Finally, we will try to motivate the necessity of an abstract theory of representation in Cognitive Science. ``The sensitive things aren't, but the ideas are'.Plato     

The Role of Omission Neglect in Response to Non-Gains and Non-Losses in Gasoline Price Fluctuations

Research on omission neglect has shown that people are insensitive to many different types of missing, unmentioned, or unknown information. However, prior research has not examined the role of omission neglect in non-gain and non-loss framing. The present research shows that gain/loss framing effects are greater than non-gain/non-loss framing effects on judgments of the ease with which various scenarios can be imagined, judgments of believability, attributions to price gouging, and attributions to inflation. The results also show that negative outcomes are more influential than are positive outcomes in judgments of imaginability, believability, and fairness, and in attribution judgments. Considered together, the results suggest that omission neglect plays an important role in insensitivity to non-gains and non-losses.