scholarly journals How Negative Is Negative Information

2021 ◽  
Vol 15 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elisabeth Simoes ◽  
Alexander N. Sokolov ◽  
Markus Hahn ◽  
Andreas J. Fallgatter ◽  
Sara Y. Brucker ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Social Perception ◽  
Emotional Memory ◽  
Negative Information ◽  
Affective Processing ◽  
Reasoning Task ◽  
Individual Level ◽  
Life Threatening ◽  
Negative Messages ◽  
And Behavior ◽  
The Impact

Daily, we face a plenty of negative information that can profoundly affect our perception and behavior. During devastating events such as the current COVID-19 pandemic, negative messages may hinder reasoning at individual level and social decisions in the society at large. These effects vary across genders in neurotypical populations (being more evident in women) and may be even more pronounced in individuals with neuropsychiatric disorders such as depression. Here, we examine how negative information impacts reasoning on a social perception task in females with breast cancer, a life-threatening disease. Two groups of patients and two groups of matched controls (NTOTAL = 80; median age, 50 years) accomplished a psychometrically standardized social cognition and reasoning task receiving either the standard instruction solely or additional negative information. Performance substantially dropped in patients and matched controls who received negative information compared to those who did not. Moreover, patients with negative information scored much lower not only compared with controls but also with patients without negative information. We suggest the effects of negative information are mediated by the distributed brain networks involved in affective processing and emotional memory. The findings offer novel insights on the impact of negative information on social perception and decision making during life-threatening events, fostering better understanding of its neurobiological underpinnings.

Fear of Crime

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nicole Rader
Keyword(s):  
Fear Of Crime ◽  
Crime Rates ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Neighborhood Disorder ◽  
New Techniques ◽  
Daily Lives ◽  
Individual Level ◽  
Time Period ◽  
And Behavior ◽  
The Impact

Fear of crime has been a serious social problem studied for almost 40 years. Early researchers focused on operationalization and conceptualization of fear of crime, specifically focusing on what fear of crime was (and was not) and how to best tap into the fear of crime construct. This research also found that while crime rates had been declining, fear of crime rates had stayed relatively stable. Nearly 40% of Americans indicated they were afraid of crime, even though crime was declining during the same time period. This finding led researchers to study the paradox of fear of crime. In other words, why does fear of crime not match up with actual chances of victimization? Several explanations were put forth including a focus on vulnerability (e.g., individuals felt vulnerable to crime even if they were not vulnerable) and a focus on differences in groups (e.g., women were more afraid of crime than men, even though they were less likely to be victims). Thus, many studies began to consider the predictors of fear of crime. Researchers since this time have spent most time studying these fear of crime predictors including individual level predictors (i.e., sex, race, age, social class), contextual predictors (neighborhood disorder, incivilities, and social cohesion), along with the consequences of fear of crime (psychological and behavioral). Such results have provided guidance on what individuals fear, why they fear, and what impact it has on the daily lives of Americans. Future research will continue to focus on groups little is known about, such as Hispanics, and also on the impact of behavior on fear of crime. This future research will likely also benefit from new techniques in survey research that analyzes longitudinal data to determine causality between fear of crime and other predictors such as risk and behavior.

Social perception of religious freedom: Testing the impact of secularism and state-religion relations

2021 ◽  
pp. 003776862110174
Author(s):  
Olga Breskaya ◽  
Giuseppe Giordan ◽  
Siniša Zrinščak
Keyword(s):  
Social Perception ◽  
Religious Identity ◽  
Catholic Church ◽  
Religious Freedom ◽  
Positive Influence ◽  
State Agency ◽  
Negative Effects ◽  
Convenience Sample ◽  
Individual Level ◽  
The Impact

The measures and correlates of religious freedom constitute a comparatively new area of study eliciting research at the level of state agency and judicial institutions. The article adds to this the individual level of analysis by introducing a five-dimensional concept of the Social Perception of Religious Freedom (SPRF). It discusses results of its testing on a convenience sample of 1035 Italian University students. We examine the predictive power of ‘passive’ and ‘assertive’ secularism and patterns of state-religion relations vis-à-vis SPRF. While ‘passive’ secularism has a significant positive influence on four of five dimensions of religious freedom, the ‘assertive’ secularism has no effect on it. Findings suggest that the models of an endorsed Catholic Church and state control over religion have mostly negative effects on the SPRF. Moreover, individuals with stronger religious identity are more supportive of the endorsed models of state-religion relations while politically engaged respondents do not favor them.

scholarly journals Attitudinal Ambivalence

Psychology ◽  
2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nicoletta Cavazza ◽  
Vincent Pillaud ◽  
Fabrizio Butera
Keyword(s):  
Interpersonal Relationships ◽  
Individual Level ◽  
Attitudinal Ambivalence ◽  
The Individual ◽  
And Behavior ◽  
Attitudes And Behavior ◽  
The Impact ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Moderating Role

Research on attitudinal ambivalence started in the early 1970s, forty years after the first wave of research on attitudes. Ambivalent attitudes consist of both positive and negative evaluations of the same object. Early approaches proposed different measurement methods, and ambivalence can now be measured either directly (referred to as “felt ambivalence”) or indirectly (referred to as “potential ambivalence”). Because of its duality, ambivalence has been studied in comparison with univalent attitudes—which consist of either positive or negative evaluations of an object—to uncover their specific features, antecedents, and consequences. Relevant research has focused on identifying the prevalence of ambivalent attitudes, and on whether they could stem from particular personality traits or situations. Researchers have found that ambivalent attitudes seem to be widespread and can be held for a long period of time. Their relationship with behaviors has also been widely studied. At the individual level, ambivalence increases response latency when a choice has to be made, extends information processing, can affect attitude stability, and can even lead to discomfort. At the behavioral level, studies have highlighted the moderating role of attitudinal ambivalence on the relationship between attitudes and behavior. A different field of research focuses on its strength to question whether ambivalence leads to more resistance or susceptibility to persuasion and influence. It appears that ambivalent attitudes are pliable and, depending on the context, can either help individuals to be more adaptive or prevent them from arriving at a satisfying conclusion. The role of ambivalent attitudes in interpersonal relationships and self-presentation also highlight some benefits in holding an ambivalent attitude. This article opens by reviewing general overviews to provide a detailed picture of the current state of research. It then presents early approaches to attitudinal ambivalence, and reviews studies that highlight the moderating role of attitudinal ambivalence on the relationship between attitudes and behavior, as well as studies that question whether ambivalence might lead to more resistance or susceptibility to persuasion and influence. The article then focuses on the impact of ambivalence at the individual level. Antecedents of attitudinal ambivalence will be reviewed, as well as its consequences on the individual. The article concludes by presenting research questioning its functions as well as some applied work.

Neural plasticity and emotional memory

1998 ◽  
Vol 10 (4) ◽  
pp. 829-855 ◽  
Author(s):  
R. M. POST ◽  
S. R. B. WEISS ◽  
H. LI ◽  
M. A. SMITH ◽  
L. X. ZHANG ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Neural Plasticity ◽  
Molecular Mechanisms ◽  
Emotional Memory ◽  
Neonatal Rat ◽  
Prior History ◽  
Rat Pups ◽  
Life Threatening ◽  
History Of ◽  
And Behavior

Posttraumatic stress disorder is the pathological replay of emotional memory formed in response to painful, life-threatening, or horrifying events. In contrast, depression is often precipitated by more social context-related stressors. New data suggest that different types of life experiences can differentially impact biochemistry, physiology, anatomy, and behavior at the level of changes in gene expression. Repeated separation of neonatal rat pups from their mother results in many long-lasting alterations in biology and behavior paralleling that in depression, including hypercortisolism. The role of the amygdala in modulating emotional memory is highlighted, as well as some of its unique properties such as metaplasticity (i.e., the differential direction of long-term adaptation, either potentiation or depression) in response to the same input as a function of the prior history of stimulation. The implications of these emerging data on the physiological and molecular mechanisms underlying emotional memory emphasize the particular importance of prevention and early intervention.

scholarly journals The impact of COVID-19 threats, and preventive chain of action: molecule to medicine

2021 ◽  
Vol 17 (3) ◽  
pp. 119-123
Author(s):  
Mohammed H. Alqahtani ◽  
Diane E. Heck ◽  
Hong Duck Kim
Keyword(s):  
Medical Application ◽  
Multidimensional Data ◽  
Individual Level ◽  
Decision Tools ◽  
Knowledge Based ◽  
Educational Engagement ◽  
Life Threatening ◽  
Novel Coronavirus ◽  
The Individual ◽  
The Impact

The emergence of the novel coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) had affected us significantly from the individual level, to nationwide and global with a big loss of finances, and the freezing of various factories, schools, and transportation in communities The pandemic started with anxiety and a loss of health guidance and policies due to the unknown causes of viral transmission to human features as well as a high infection rate with low mortality It remains the original source of Covid-19 where it comes from and what is the reality of real viral entities and its origin such as natural born and recombinant viral variants in the case of COVID-19 pandemic. This sentence is unclear. In this short perspective article, we address some issues of risk assessment and management issues using molecular-based decision tools which may benefit or provide future drills to counteract health and clinic safety against a viral pandemic. Every pandemic gives us life threatening lessons on previous and disconnected human networks due to uncertainty of viral infection, which we learned from this COVID-19 pandemic case as well. It gives us some insight on how to rebuild our community regarding the strength of public health and the integration of science tools into the early phase of medical application, such as the role of molecular diagnostics through educational engagement. To promote the value of awareness with solid knowledge-based communication and to develop resilient preventive solutions for supply chains or prevention, the systematic practice of connectivity through visual format using multidimensional data outcomes could help reconsider the leverage of molecules as a bridge for the improvement and application of updated scientific tools of prediction precisely to identify unknown pathogens encompass rigor community-based activity likelihood sensitivity and resistance to pathogen infiltrated society in the future.

scholarly journals Economic Individualism and Job Engagement: Examining the Roles of Work Motivation and Growth Need Strength

2022 ◽  
Vol 14 (2) ◽  
pp. 591
Author(s):  
Jinkyo Shin ◽  
Nicholas A. Moon ◽  
Jesse Caylor ◽  
Patrick D. Converse ◽  
Okja Park ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Work Motivation ◽  
Employee Attitudes ◽  
Job Engagement ◽  
Individual Level ◽  
Economic Decisions ◽  
Economic Individualism ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Supported Work ◽  
And Behavior ◽  
The Impact

Economic individualism—involving a belief that the individual should be in control of his/her own economic decisions and an increased emphasis on competition and achievement—is becoming more prominent in several areas of the world, but little is known about the implications of this characteristic for employee attitudes and behavior. Our study investigated the impact of economic individualism on job engagement. More specifically, the research developed and examined a model involving work motivation as a mediator and growth need strength as a moderator. Employees (N = 235, 58.3% male, 33.6% 20–29 years old, 53.2% with a bachelor’s degree) from several companies in South Korea completed survey measures of economic individualism, job engagement, work motivation, and growth need strength. Findings supported work motivation as a mediator and indicated that the indirect effect through work motivation was significant at high levels of growth need strength although not at low levels. These findings provide new insights regarding the individual-level engagement implications of economic individualism and when and why these implications hold, as prior research on economic individualism has focused on the organizational and societal levels.

The Social Ecology of Addiction: Race, Risk, and Resilience

PEDIATRICS ◽  
1999 ◽  
Vol 103 (Supplement_2) ◽  
pp. 1122-1127
Author(s):  
John M. Wallace
Keyword(s):  
Substance Use ◽  
Interpersonal Relationships ◽  
Hispanic Americans ◽  
Risk And Resilience ◽  
Protective Mechanisms ◽  
Individual Level ◽  
Contextual Risk ◽  
And Behavior ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Racial Ethnic

Objective. The purposes of this article are to inform pediatricians and other health professionals of key contextual risk factors that elevate black and Hispanic Americans' likelihood to use substances and to discuss selected protective mechanisms that may shield members of these populations against substance use. Method. The article selectively reviews the literature on the epidemiology, etiology, and consequences of alcohol and other drug use among white, black, and Hispanic adults and youth. Results. The extant research suggests that historical and contemporary racialized practices and ideologies influence racial/ethnic differences in substance use outcomes, both directly and indirectly, through their influence on the communities in which people of different racial/ethnic groups are placed, through their influence on the structure and process of people's interpersonal relationships, and through the impact that they have on individuals' psychology and behavior. Conclusions. Although the emphasis of pediatricians' and many other helping professionals' work focuses on individuals and individual-level behaviors, these behaviors can only be properly examined, diagnosed, and treated when they are understood in light of the community and societal contexts in which they occur.

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