Heterosexual anxiety: Stable multichannel assessment for therapy outcome research

Thirty-six shy males participated in two interpersonal performance tests with attractive female confederates. Between the two interpersonal performances, each was exposed either to one of three elaborate placebo treatments or to no treatment. During and after each performance, heterosexual anxiety was measured with instruments recommended for research purposes by Borkovec et al. (1974). Results showed that the recommended shyness measures were immune to unwanted changes either from repeated assessments or from any of the three multisession placebo procedures. Hence the experiment partially replicated and substantially extended previous research, suggesting the feasibility of using the Borkovec et al. shyness-assessment package in behavioral fear-therapy research.     

The role of delight in driving repurchase intentions

A channel differentiator for brick-and-mortar retail stores is the availability of salespeople to assist customers directly in their purchase decision. This research considers two aspects of customer interactions with retail salespeople that lead to perceptions of extraordinary service and enhance repurchase intentions: customer comfort and salesperson expertise. Retail customers desire value-added informational assistance from the salesperson to minimize ambiguity associated with the product and to reduce the risk associated with a purchase decision. A retail salesperson needs to make customers feel comfortable so that the customer will share specific needs during the interaction, and the salesperson can recommend appropriate products and services. Our findings reveal that while both customer comfort and salesperson expertise positively influence satisfaction with the salesperson and customer delight, only customer delight leads to repurchase intentions. While satisfaction is a commonly asserted goal for retailers; the present research suggests that in a transaction-based environment, elevated emotions such as customer delight represent a more powerful predictor of repurchase intentions. This research provides evidence of trainable salesperson behaviors that enhance customer perceptions of extraordinary service and offer firms an opportunity for significant performance gains.     

多任务信息加工中的多道分时机制

学术界常用结构理论和资源理论来解释人在多任务信息加工中的作业表现。在多任务中起主要作用的认知能力,其表现形式主要为信息处理的速率以及加工和存储的容量。本研究利用多任务和任务速率的变化来研究信息处理的速率和多任务作业成绩的关系,认为大脑运行的时钟速率是资源的一种形式,大脑对该资源的分配采用多道分时的机制,某个任务获得的时间片越多,该任务的工作绩效就越好。研究表明,在一定的负荷下,信号速率的加快,任务数量的增加,人的作业成绩随着可用时间片的减少而下降。