The Influence of Social Modeling, Gender, and Empathy on Treatment Side Effects

Background Social modeling has the capacity to shape treatment outcomes, including side effects. Purpose This study investigated the influence of social modeling of treatment side effects, gender, and participant empathy, on side effects of a placebo treatment. Methods Ninety-six participants (48 females) completed a study purportedly investigating the influence of modafinil (actually placebo) on alertness and fatigue. The participants were randomly seated with a male or female confederate and saw this confederate report experiencing side effects or no side effects. Participant empathy was assessed at baseline. Changes in modeled and general symptoms, and misattribution of symptoms, were assessed during the session and at 24-hr follow-up. Results During the experimental session, seeing side effect modeling significantly increased modeled symptoms (p = .023, d = 0.56) but not general or misattributed symptoms. Regardless of modeling condition, female participants seated with a female model reported significantly more general symptoms during the session. However, response to social modeling did not differ significantly by model or participant gender. At follow-up, the effect of social modeling of side effects had generalized to other symptoms, resulting in significantly higher rates of modeled symptoms (p = .023, d = 0.48), general symptoms (p = .013, d = 0.49), and misattributed symptoms (p = .022, d = 0.50). The experience of modeled symptoms in response to social modeling was predicted by participants’ levels of baseline empathy. Conclusions Social modeling of symptoms can increase the side effects following treatment, and this effect appears to generalize to a broader range of symptoms and symptom misattribution over time. Higher baseline empathy seems to increase response to social modeling.

Study on the Influence of Temperature of Extruder Head on the Strength of the FDM 3D Printing Model

This paper reported the tensile strength of the difference of modeling condition on the FDM (Fused Deposition Modeling) 3D printer. The FDM 3D printer is rapidly spread with the end of patent protection in 2009. The FDM models mainly use the prototyping part and art, because that models have low strength. This time we paid attention to that actual models weight is lighter than designing models weight to conduct study on strength. And we investigated the cause of the phenomenon of decrease of polymer extrusion by replacing with the injection molding method. The tensile test proved that the strength of model can be improved by the kind of extruder head. This paper reported influence of the cooling in the supply part of extruder head and temperature of the polymer on the strength of FDM 3D models.

A NEW APPROACH TO MODELING CONDITION-BASED MAINTENANCE FOR STOCHASTICALLY DETERIORATING SYSTEMS

This paper develops the degradation and maintenance modeling technique for repairable systems subject to deterioration due to aging and damage caused by operating environment factors. This provides a relaxed and generalized approach to modeling condition-based maintenance. The approach can deal with both the maintenance scheduling problem and failures preventing the system functioning further. Controlled by a virtual age process and a general class of process called Piecewise-Stochastic (Damage) process (PSP), the proportional intensity model (PIM) is used to describe the system state. The state of the system is monitored at periodic times and maintenance actions are carried out in response to the system state revealed at inspection times. Assuming a threshold-type policy, the approach aims at minimizing the long-run average cost per unit time subject to maintenance parameters; the inspection interval and preventive replacement threshold. To this end, given some assumptions, expressions for the expected cycle length and expected cost per cycle emerging as solutions of the Fredholm integral equations are obtained. The solution technique has been presented for the case when the effect of operating environment is modeled as a Gamma process.

The Effect of Self-Modeling on the Performance of Beginning Swimmers

The present study compared the effects of two types of modeling, self- and other-modeling, on learning elementary swimming skills. Specifically, potential differences between the two modeling conditions in swimming performance, swimming self-efficacy, and state anxiety were investigated. Participants were adult volunteers from a college community. Ages ranged from 20 to 58. Each participant took five individual swimming lessons. Results indicated that participants in the self-modeling condition demonstrated better swimming performance by the fourth swim session than participants in the other-modeling condition. No differences were found between modeling conditions on either swimming self-efficacy or state anxiety. Potential reasons for the difference in performance are identified and discussed.

Sex of Experimenter and Effects of Pretest Interactions on Approaching a Snake by Fearful Female Subjects

96 female students in introductory psychology were selected by a screening procedure to ensure moderate to strong fearfulness of snakes. Each subject was assigned to one of eight groups according to a 2 × 2 × 2 factorial design (attractive male or female experimenter; a modeling or no-modeling condition, and a pretest condition in which subjects either remained alone in a room or conversed with the experimenter for 7 min.). The only significant finding was that subjects showed significantly greater approach with modeling than without and with a male experimenter.

Sex of Model and Sex of Subject in Reduction of Snake Avoidance

The effects of sex of experimenter on approach to a snake were assessed in both modeling and non-modeling conditions. Subjects were selected on the basis of a pretest in which they indicated that they would never pick up a harmless snake depicted on one of eight color slides of animals. 72 subjects (36 males and 36 females) served in one of 8 groups (4 groups of males and 4 groups of females). Each group of 9 subjects served in one of the following conditions: (a) a non-modeling condition with the same sex experimenter, (b) a non-modeling condition with an opposite sex experimenter, (c) a modeling condition with the same sex experimenter, and (d) a modeling condition with an opposite sex experimenter. All experimenters were selected to be attractive. Analysis of variance for scores on a 19-step sequence of approach yielded a significant interaction of sex of experimenter by sex of subject ( F = 4.18, df = 1/64, p < .05). All other comparisons were non-significant. Results indicate that an attractive experimenter of the opposite sex increases approaching a snake particularly by male subjects.

Enhancing Self-efficacy in High-avoidance Motor Tasks: A Comparison of Modeling Techniques

This study investigated the effectiveness of participant, live, and videotape modeling on the learning of a high-avoidance springboard-diving task (back dive). The effectiveness of each form of modeling upon the strength of self-efficacy also was investigated. In accord with Bandura's (1977) self-efficacy theory, it was hypothesized that the participant-modeling group would perform more correct back dives and would show stronger efficacy expectations compared to the live-modeling group which in turn would perform better on these measures than the videotape group. Results indicated that the participant-modeling treatment produced more successful dives and stronger expectations of personal efficacy than either the live-modeling or videotaped-modeling treatments. The hypothesis that students in the live-modeling condition would perform better behaviorally and show stronger efficacy expectations than students in the videotape condition was not supported.