摘要:

Conceptual complexity is a personality characteristic that involves the individual's ability to differentiate and integrate aspects of information. It is usu ally measured with the Paragraph Completion Test (PCT), which requires the completion of six paragraphs, in response to standard stems, often with a time limit of 100‐120 sec each. In order to eliminate time pressure, which may reduce complexity, the current study evaluated a revised format that used only two stems but allowed 8 minutes per response. As expected, this procedure resulted in higher scores and produced enough written output to allow analysis of particular test components. Complexity scores from 277 university students were related to total number of words written, sentence length, and number of words with more than three syllables, but not to standard formulae designed to measure readability, such as the Flesch, SMOG and FOG indices. The modest size of the obtained correlations suggests that the scoring of conceptual complexity on the basis of semantic content cannot be replaced by indices based on linguistic and textual component

ISSN:0021-9029    

DOI:10.1111/j.1559-1816.1990.tb00416.x

出版商:Blackwell Publishing Ltd    

年代:1990

数据来源: WILEY

摘要:

Male and female subjects performed several tasks either in the presence or absence of an environmental source of positive affect (pleasant artificial scents produced by two commercially manufactured air‐fresheners). Consistent with the findings of previous research on the impact of positive affect, results indicated that several aspects of subjects' behavior were influenced by this variable. Participants exposed to pleasant scents set higher goals on a clerical coding task and were more likely to adopt an efficient strategy for performing this task than subjects not exposed to such conditions. In addition, males (but not females) reported higher self‐efficacy in the presence of pleasant artificial scents than in their absence. Participants exposed to pleasant scents also set higher monetary goals and made more concessions during face‐to‐face negotiations with an accomplice. Finally, subjects exposed to pleasant scents reported weaker preferences for handling future conflicts with the accomplice through avoidance and competition. Analyses of covariance suggested that these differences stemmed largely from contrasting levels of positive affect among subjects in the neutral and pleasant scent conditions. Together, these results suggest that pleasant artificial scents may provide a potentially useful means for enhancing the environmental quality of work settings, and hence the performance and attitudes of persons

ISSN:0021-9029    

DOI:10.1111/j.1559-1816.1990.tb00417.x

出版商:Blackwell Publishing Ltd    

年代:1990

数据来源: WILEY

摘要:

Two studies investigated young adults' expectations about long‐term contraceptive effectiveness. Subjects were told about five hypothetical methods of contraception varying in reported effectiveness, which was expressed in terms of the likelihood of avoiding pregnancy for base periods of 1 year (Experiment 1), 5 years, or 10 years (Experiment 2) of use. For each method, subjects estimated the likelihood that a woman would avoid pregnancy while using it for periods ranging from 1 month to 15 years, and then rated how satisfied they would be with it. For nearly half of the subjects, estimates of cumulative effectiveness did not decline as time period increased. Those subjects who did realize that cumulative effectiveness declined over time estimated rates that declined too slowly for methods of modest and low reliability, and at rates that were too similar for methods differing in effectiveness. Subjects were overly optimistic about effectiveness for time periods longer than the base period, and overly pessimistic about effectiveness for shorter time periods. Not surprisingly given these results, subjects expressed more satisfaction when a method's effectiveness was expressed in shorter base periods. Such faulty understanding of the long‐term implications of contraceptive effectiveness information may undermine people's abilities to make informed contraceptive choi

ISSN:0021-9029    

DOI:10.1111/j.1559-1816.1990.tb00418.x

出版商:Blackwell Publishing Ltd    

年代:1990

数据来源: WILEY

摘要:

Despite myriad studies concerning the effects of price on perceived‐quality, the results are inconsistent. These inconsistencies have prompted the call for greater theory development to help provide a more comprehensive understanding of the process through which consumers develop perceived‐quality. A theory the Elaboration Likelihood Model, could be applied to suggest that it is essential to identify the level of involvement when predicting the effects of variables on perceived‐quality. Yet, previously reported perceived‐quality research has not examined whether a change in price also changes the level of involvement. The impact of price savings on the level of involvement was examined in the experiment reported in this paper. Results of this research suggest that communicating price savings can affect the level of involvement. Experimental results also suggest that consumers with high involvement develop their attitudes and perceptions of technical quality from a careful evaluation of the arguments presented in the message. Conversely, consumers with low involvement lack motivation to evaluate those arguments and they have little effect on attitudes or perception of technical quality. Consequently, the experimental results support the Elaboration Likelihoo

ISSN:0021-9029    

DOI:10.1111/j.1559-1816.1990.tb00419.x

出版商:Blackwell Publishing Ltd    

年代:1990

数据来源: WILEY

摘要:

This study sought to find out how much total knowledge adolescents had concerning AIDS, what particular areas of knowledge were deficient, and how those areas might be related to attitudes and experiences in their social world. Seventy‐eight adolescent males from one suburban and three urban high schools were interviewed. A 101‐item questionnaire was used to assess: a) overall knowledge about AIDS; b) attitudes about sexuality, drugs, death, and AIDS and; c) related aspects of their social world, i.e., number of IV drug users known, and sources of information about AIDS. Analyses of variance were performed on overall knowledge of AIDS and on five content areas of knowledge. Race was shown to relate to significant differences in the knowledge scores. The social world associated with the urban samples were discussed as risk factors for minority youth. Different attitudes related to strengths and weaknesses in different areas of knowledge. Attitudes associated with deficiencies in different subareas of knowledge were discussed as additional risk factors and as presenting target areas for AIDS education effo

ISSN:0021-9029    

DOI:10.1111/j.1559-1816.1990.tb00420.x

出版商:Blackwell Publishing Ltd    

年代:1990

数据来源: WILEY