Usability of a Psychotherapeutic Interactive Gaming Tool Used in Facial Emotion Recognition for People with Schizophrenia

The objective of the study was to test the usability of ‘Feeling Master’ as a psychotherapeutic interactive gaming tool with LEGO cartoon faces showing the five basic emotions, for the assessment of emotional recognition in people with schizophrenia in comparison with healthy controls, and the relationship between face affect recognition (FER), attributional style, and theory of mind (ToM), which is the ability to understand the potential mental states and intentions of others. Nineteen individuals with schizophrenia (SZ) and 17 healthy control (HC) subjects completed the ‘Feeling Master’ that includes five basic emotions. To assess social cognition, the group with schizophrenia was evaluated with the Personal and Situational Attribution Questionnaire (IPSAQ) for the assessment of attributional style and the Hinting Task (ToM). Patients with SZ showed significant impairments in emotion recognition and their response time appeared to be slower than the HC in the recognition of each emotion. Taking into account the impairment in the recognition of each emotion, we only found a trend toward significance in error rates on fear recognition. The correlations between correct response on the ‘Feeling Master’ and the hinting task appeared to be significant in the correlation of surprise and theory of mind. In conclusion, this study demonstrated that the ‘Feeling Master’ could be useful for the evaluation of FER in people with schizophrenia. These results sustain the notion that impairments in emotion recognition are more prevalent in people with schizophrenia and that these are related with impairment in ToM.

Responsibility as a criterion for determining personal maturity

This study was intended testing a new psychodiagnostics tool for diagnosis in order to identify the responsibility recognized by highly qualified professionals as one of the key criteria for maturity in work, especially in agriculture sector. The methodology developed in the framework of this research was conventionally called “The main cause of the VAS situation”. The negative correlation between intropunitive attribute and situational responsibility in experiments and the inverse relationship of extrapunitive attribute to the responsibility were also evidence of the responsibility level that can be used to diagnose events, behaviors far from the time they occur. The pertinent results showed that in the impunitive attribute group, non-situational attribution was dominant with 69%, followed by situational attribution with 31%. However, in the extrapunitive attribute group, there was a very different result that was; situational attribution was dominant, accounted for 73%, whereas 27% of examinees had behavior related to situational attribution. The experiments determined the relationship between extrapunitive, impunitive attributes, and situational responsibility.

Impact of celebrity endorsement type on consumers' brand and advertisement perception and purchase intention

We examined how different types of celebrity endorsement influence consumers' advertisement and brand evaluation, and purchase intention. We also investigated the relationship between celebrity endorsement type and consumers' attribution style. Participants were 309 students from a private university in Korea. Results show there was no significant relationship between celebrity endorsement type and consumers' attribution style, or between consumers' identification with a celebrity endorser and attribution style. However, after a consumer's exposure to a celebrity endorsed advertisement, dispositional (vs. situational) attribution led to a more positive evaluation of the advertisement and brand. Last, we found that consumers' strong (vs. weak) identification with a celebrity endorser resulted in a more favorable evaluation of the advertisement and brand, and higher purchase intention. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.

Dispositional and situational attribution of COVID-19 risk: A content analysis of response typology (Version: 1)

Pre-Peer Review Version 1: In the current COVID-19 pandemic, there have been official health recommendations of social distancing, thorough handwashing, and self-isolation to prevent the spread of the virus. However, compliance with these recommendations has been mixed. We suggest that non-compliance may be justified by one’s (mis)perception of their own COVID-19 risk. In this paper, we explore the dispositional and situational attribution of self-reported COVID-19 risk, as per Heider’s Attribution Theory. We conducted a content and framework analysis of responses to an online survey, in which participants (N = 114) were asked to rate their likelihood of contracting the COVID-19 virus, before providing textual responses to explain their rating. Overall, we observed that generally, participants who rated their risk to be low made more dispositional attributions (i.e. attributing their risk to factors such as age and own personal hygiene) whereas higher risk participants made more situational attributions (i.e. attributing COVID-19 risk to government decision-making and other people’s cleanliness). A finalised framework of five response typologies including intrinsic, behavioural, balanced, contextual, and disengaged responses was systematically applied to the data. These results will be discussed in the context of attribution theory and risk perception, whilst providing future recommendations for research that tackles non-compliance of COVID-19 behaviours.

Sorry seems to be the hardest word: consumer reactions to self-attributions by firms apologizing for a brand crisis

Purpose When apologizing for a brand crisis, self-attribution by a business inevitably affects consumer attitude and behavior. The purpose of this study is to draw from the dissonance-attribution model and investigate the effect of self-attribution in apologies on consumers’ brand attitude. Design/methodology/approach This study includes two scenario-based experiments of 2 × 2 design. Findings In the first experiment on product failure, the results show that internal attribution generates significant change in brand attitude in a positive direction, while external attribution leads to negative change in brand attitude. Dispositional attribution leads to significantly more positive brand attitude than situational attribution. Internal/dispositional attribution produces significantly more positive effect on consumer attitude than the other three types of attribution. Moreover, perceived risk is found to mediate the relationship between attributions and brand attitude, and such mediating effect is moderated by consumers’ corporate associations. However, in the second experiment on moral crisis, the mediating and moderating effects are not significant. Practical implications Clearly, how a company apologizes for a product crisis makes a big difference in the effectiveness of recovery strategies to restore consumer confidence. Sincere apologies based on internal/dispositional attribution are more effective to re-gain the respect of consumers and win them back. Originality/value This study is the first to examine consumer reactions to self-attributions by marketers apologizing for a brand crisis and the combined effect of self-attributions along the horizontal dimension (internal versus external attribution) and the vertical dimension (dispositional versus situational attribution).

Cynicism about Organizational Change: An Attribution Process Perspective

The underlying attribution process for cynicism about organizational change is examined with six samples from four different organizations. The samples include hourly ( n = 777) and salaried employees ( n = 155) from a manufacturing plant, faculty ( n = 293) and staff ( n = 302) from a large university, managers from a utility company ( n = 97), and young managers ( n = 65) from various organizations who were attending an evening MBA program. This form of cynicism is defined as the combination of Pessimism (about future change efforts) and a Dispositional attribution (why past efforts to change failed). Three analyses support this definition. First, an exploratory factor analysis (from the largest sample) produced two factors, one composed of Pessimism and the Dispositional attribution items and the second of the Situational attribution items. Second, the average correlation (across several samples) between Pessimism and Dispositional attribution is much higher (.59) than the average correlation between Pessimism and Situational attribution (.17). Third, scores on two different trait-based measures of cynicism correlate highest with the Dispositional attribution component of cynicism. A practical implication is that organizational leaders may minimize cynicism by managing both employees' pessimism about organizational change and employees' attributions about it. Specific suggestions for how this might be done are offered.