1334Appetitive behaviors in school-age and their genetic and environmental predisposition

Background Given the great variability in adiposity and the exposure to obesogenic food environments, it has been suggested that individuals respond in divergent ways to the environment they live in. Our aim was to explore the genetic and environmental contribution of variations on appetitive behaviors in 10-year-old Portuguese children. Methods Participants were twins from the Generation XXI cohort (n = 86 pairs). Appetitive behaviors at 10 years was assessed through the Children Eating Behavior Questionnaire. Intra-class correlations for appetitive behaviors were calculated for monozygotic and dizygotic twins, and structural equation modelling was conducted to estimate genetic (A), shared (C) and non-shared (E) environmental variances. Results Twins were mainly dizygotic (65%), and a third was classified as having excess weight (30.2%). For all appetitive behaviors, with exception to Emotional Undereating, moderate to strong heritability were found and non-shared environmental effects contributed to appetite variability. For Emotional Undereating, environmental effects seem to be more important than genetic effects (C: 0.81; 95%CI 0.71;0.88 and E: 0.19; 95%CI 0.12;0.29). Conclusions There is a significant genetic contribution, followed by non-shared environmental effects, on appetitive behaviors in school-age years. Results indicate that Emotional Undereating was not heritable, being explained by shared and non-shared environmental factors. Key messages Appetitive behaviors among 10-year-olds seem to be genetically determined, with exception to Emotional Undereating, which showed to be explained by environmental factors. Understanding which genes are associated with child appetitive behaviors would give an insight in biological and behavioral influences on child eating and obesity risk.

Agenda selfying and agendamelding

This essay examines the notion of personal salience, introducing individual online media users as ‘objects’ in the context of agenda setting theory. The salience of the self has been investigated by scholars in various interdisciplinary explorations. In this project, the notion of personal salience is revisited from an agendamelding perspective. Along with political and civic agendas of individuals that meld in online community environments, individuals promote themselves as agendas that deserve public attention. Examining personal agendas raises new questions about perceptional and behavioral influences as ordinary individuals strive to establish their mediated presence.

Most primary olfactory neurons have individually neutral effects on behavior

Animals use olfactory receptors to navigate mates, food, and danger. However, for complex olfactory systems, it is unknown what proportion of primary olfactory sensory neurons can individually drive avoidance or attraction. Similarly, the rules that govern behavioral responses to receptor combinations are unclear. We used optogenetic analysis in Drosophila to map the behavior elicited by olfactory-receptor neuron (ORN) classes: just one-fifth of ORN-types drove either avoidance or attraction. Although wind and hunger are closely linked to olfaction, neither had much effect on single-class responses. Several pooling rules have been invoked to explain how ORN types combine their behavioral influences; we activated two-way combinations and compared patterns of single- and double-ORN responses: these comparisons were inconsistent with simple pooling. We conclude that the majority of primary olfactory sensory neurons have neutral behavioral effects individually, but participate in broad, odor-elicited ensembles with potent behavioral effects arising from complex interactions.

Behavioral Influences on Crowdfunding SDG Initiatives: The Importance of Personality and Subjective Well-Being

Crowdfunding is emerging as a significant means by which to finance and advance the 17 United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Generating financial support for the SDGs is now of even more importance because of the economic impacts of COVID-19. However, little research on sustainability crowdfunding has been conducted, particularly with respect to how behavioral influences, such as personality and subjective well-being, affect the willingness of individuals to financially support the different SDGs. To fill this gap, a theoretically comprehensive research model including the big five personality traits typology, value on SDGs, attachment to sustainability crowdfunding, subjective well-being, and three groups of SDGs was constructed and tested. Results reveal that agreeableness has the highest effect on value on SDGs among five personalities, followed by openness and conscientiousness. Unexpectedly, extraversion has a negative impact on value on SDGs and neuroticism has an insignificant effect on value on SDGs. Value on SDGs has a great effect on attachment, followed by subjective well-being. Attachment has the greatest effect on subjective well-being within this research model. Comparing fair distribution, efficient allocation, and sustainable scale groups of SDGs shows substantial differences with respect to the hypotheses.

PSYCHOLOGICAL FACTORS AND INVESTMENT DECISIONS IN THE NIGERIA CAPITAL MARKET

This study examines Behavioral Factors and Investment Decision Making in the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE). Thus, the research question is what are the psychological factors affecting investment decisions in the Nigerian capital market. A structured questionnaire was used in collecting data and it was able to collect data from 75 investors with the application of a convenient sampling method. Using overconfidence bias, availability bias, conservatism, and herding effect to define the most important behavioral element affecting investment decision making by investors in the Nigerian. Multiple regression analysis was used as the key methodological method for evaluating the research hypothesis, whereas the internal consistency of the questionnaire calculated from Cronbach's alpha on all variables showed values greater than 0.7 with a sufficient level of reliability. The primary beneficiary group would be the buyers on the stock market who would be educated enough about the effect of their own behavioral influences on their stock market decision making. The knowledge would be useful in making optimal investment decisions and avoiding unfavorable decisions to increase their resources. In turn, it will be helpful to policymakers and stock market regulators to help them understand the position of behavioral influences inherited in consumer decision-making and that may be associated with the need for stock market brokers to update their customer's trading practices to a higher level. The findings of this study suggest that overconfidence, availability bias, and herding impact demonstrated a positive significant relationship with NSE investment decision-making except conservatism which showed a negative relationship with investment decision-making but at 0.01 levels statistically significant. On the basis of the results, it can be generalized that the most prevalent factors affecting investor investment decision taking in NSE are overconfidence, availability bias, and herding influence.

Duchenne Smiles as Honest Signals of Chronic Positive Mood

Chronic positive mood (CPM) has been shown to confer a wide variety of social, functional, and health benefits. Some researchers have argued that humans evolved to feel CPM, which explains why most people report better than neutral mood (the “positivity offset bias”) and why particularly happy people have particularly good outcomes. Here, we argue that the Duchenne smile evolved as an honest signal of high levels of CPM, alerting others to the psychological fitness of the smiler. Duchenne smiles are honest because they express felt positive emotion, making it difficult for unhappy people to produce them. Duchenne smiles enable happy people to signal and cooperate with one another, boosting their advantages. In our literature review, we found (a) that not all Duchenne smiles are “honest,” although producing them in the absence of positive emotion is difficult and often detectable, and (b) that the ability to produce and recognize Duchenne smiles may vary somewhat by a person’s cultural origin. In the final section of the article, we consider behavioral influences on CPM, reviewing research showing that engaging in eudaimonic activity reliably produces CPM, as posited by the eudaimonic-activity model. This research suggests that frequent Duchenne smiling may ultimately signal eudaimonic personality as well as CPM.

Comic in Ukrainian political discourse

In the article there is defined the concept of comic as a rhetorical and semantic technique in public discourse, which exerts psychological and behavioral influences. There are highlighted the main features of the comic, in particular: the comic is available for human perception; it causes laughter among representatives of a certain social group, demonstrates the difference between different groups (motives of comedy are not global, they will be funny only for a certain people); entertains the addressee, does not cause suffering and does not activate emotions of empathy in the audience to which it is directed. A. Bergson defines the basic rule of the comic – to demonstrate the unnaturalness, inflexibility, something uncharacteristic for normal life. The philosopher describes also three additional principles of the comic: repetition (the repetition of the certain signs – verbal and nonverbal – will be funny), inversion (replacement of social roles) and interference (semantic ambiguity of a one sign).The article identifies the comic’s techniques used by Volodymyr Zelensky as a candidate for the presidency of Ukraine during the 2019 election campaign. The materials for the study are political advertising, distributed both by classic media (television and outdoor advertising) and by social media. Author states that in the materials of V. Zelensky’s political agitation are present all of three methods of the comic, described by A. Bergson.In the article is claimed that laughter is able to perform the following social functions: to stimulate the development of the community by pointing out the outdated trends, as well as to ridicule those who wants to initiate social development. Comic, widespread by political leaders, can identify areas of public discontent and at the same time create space for psychological relief by spreading a sense of indifference to the future.

Developing and Testing Influencers of Perception in the Workplace with the Perception Power Index (PPI)

Organizations utilize assessments to determine issues that impact productivity and performance. Although there are assessments that determine a variety of behavioral influences, including a cultural quotient (CQ) or an emotional intelligence quotient (EQ), there are few tools that can determine the impact of perception to provide a perception quotient (PQ). If perception can be defined as a way of regarding, understanding, or interpreting something, it is critical for organizations to recognize the impact perception has on employees’ ability to communicate effectively. A new tool, the Perception Power index (PPI), was created to assess the factors that impact perception in working adults, including evaluation, prediction, interpretation, and correlation. The validity of the PPI was evaluated using exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses. The factor analysis with Varimax Rotation indicated a Cronbach α of 0.89 for evaluation, 0.87 for prediction, 0.81 for interpretation, and 0.75 for correlation. Although other tools measure forms of perception, there are no tools that measure these four factors that impact the perception process. The results indicate that the PPI is a valid tool.

Dynamics of Behavior Change in the COVID World

All of the policies adopted or proposed so far to slow the spread of the novel coronavirus require immediate and extensive behavioral change. However, even when the benefit of the behavior change is supported by solid science, actually changing behavior is difficult. Doing so effectively requires an appreciation for how people learn behaviors, and translate information into action. Insights from the evolutionary human sciences can improve the behavioral change toolkit for researchers and policy makers. Specifically, effective behavior change policy should be based on an understanding of humans as a cultural and cooperative species. Socially transmitted information and culturally-informed motivations shape behavior change. The structure of social networks and how group identities map onto those networks in turn influence transmission dynamics. Information can spread from person to person, similar to the way diseases spread. Just as with disease, the epidemiology of information is subject to structural and behavioral influences on transmissibility. We show why and how 1) the pandemic poses several adaptive challenges with important tradeoffs, 2) people use social information to learn how to deal with these, and 3) people adopt social norms in a group-based context.