The Effect of Demographic Variables on Price Sensitivity of Customers A Field Study

This study aims to improve understanding of the relationship between some customer demographic variables which are gender, income level, family life cycle and age. And price sensitivity of customers which is an individual difference variable describing how individual consumers show their reactions to changes in price levels. This study will be applied in Fast Moving Consumer goods (FMCG) industry in Egypt. Fast Moving Consumer goods are the products which have high usage frequency, have limited shelf life (up to two years max) for example Biscuits, chocolates, personal care, hair care and dental care products. The consumption of these products is high and that’s why these products move fast from retailers to consumers.

On the factorial structure of autobiographical recollection

Autobiographical Recollection Test (ART; Berntsen et al., 2019) is a self-report measure of individual differences in autobiographical recollection that comprises seven subdimensions with sizeable overlaps. We examined the second-order and bifactor models of the ART scores using its Turkish translation (N = 716). Results showed that the ART scores are best represented with an incomplete bifactor model in which a general factor captures autobiographical recollection experience in general, and three specific factors capture additional individual differences in Reliving, Rehearsal, and Life-story relevance. By partitioning the variance between general and specific factors of autobiographical recollection, our analyses informed the factorial structure of the individuals` impressions about their autobiographical recollection as an individual difference variable and the correct use and interpretation of the ART total and subscale scores. Next, we examined the relations of the general and unique factors with episodic memory and depression scores (N = 524) and discussed the findings.

Beware the politically skilled maverick: political skill interacts with maverickism to predict unethical decision-making

PurposeAcross two studies, the current research investigates whether individuals high in maverickism, which incorporates tendencies of creativity, risk-taking, goal-orientation and disruption are likely to make poorer ethical decisions and whether political skill promotes or hinders good ethical judgment.Design/methodology/approachParticipants completed an online questionnaire and an ethical dilemma.FindingsResults with UK (Study 1, N = 300) and Australian workers (Study 2, N = 217) revealed that political skill significantly moderated the maverickism-unethical decision-making relationship. Unethical decision-making was highest for those high in maverickism and political skill.Research limitations/implicationsResults highlight that for individuals high in maverickism, political skill facilitates rather than reduces the breaching of ethical norms.Practical implicationsResults show that while political skill has traditionally been seen as adaptive in organizations, being politically skilled can contribute to engaging in unethical behavior.Originality/valueThis research provides a new and interesting view of how being politically skilled can negatively impact ethical behavior and identifies another individual difference variable, maverickism, which predicts unethical behavior.

Accuracy in Judging Others’ Personalities: The Role of Emotion Recognition, Emotion Understanding, and Trait Emotional Intelligence

The ability to accurately judge others’ personality and the ability to accurately recognize others’ emotions are both part of the broader construct of interpersonal accuracy (IPA). However, little research has examined the association between these two IPA domains. Little is also known about the relationship between personality judgment accuracy and other socio-emotional skills and traits. In the present study, 121 participants judged eight traits (Big Five, intelligence, cooperativeness, and empathy) in each of 30 targets who were presented either in a photograph, a muted video, or a video with sound. The videos were 30 second excerpts from negotiations that the targets had engaged in. Participants also completed standard tests of emotion recognition ability, emotion understanding, and trait emotional intelligence. Results showed that personality judgment accuracy, when indexed as trait accuracy and distinctive profile accuracy, positively correlated with emotion recognition ability and was unrelated to emotion understanding and trait emotional intelligence. Female participants were more accurate in judging targets’ personality than men. These results provide support for IPA as a set of correlated domain-specific skills and encourage further research on personality judgment accuracy as a meaningful individual difference variable.

Baseline Cognitive Performance Moderates the Effects of Physical Activity on Executive Functions in Children

Findings regarding the effects of regular physical activity on cognition in children have been inconsistent due to a number of demographic factors and experimental considerations. The present study was designed to examine baseline cognitive performance and executive function demands, as possible factors underlying the lack of consensus in the literature, by investigating the moderating role of those factors on the effects of physical activity on cognition. We reanalyzed data from three randomized controlled trials, in which the effects of regular physical activity intervention on cognition were examined using executive function tasks that included at least two task conditions requiring variable executive function demands, with a cumulative total of 292 participants (9–13 years). The results indicate that cognitive improvements resulting from physical activity intervention were greater in children with lower baseline cognitive performance. The main analysis revealed that beneficial effects of physical activity intervention on cognitive performance were generally observed across executive function conditions. However, secondary analyses indicated that these general effects were moderated by baseline performance, with disproportionately greater effects for task conditions with higher executive function demands. These findings suggest that baseline cognitive performance is an individual difference variable that moderates the beneficial effects of physical activity on executive functions.

How representative are neuroimaging samples? Large-scale evidence for trait anxiety differences between fMRI and behaviour-only research participants.

Over the past three decades, functional MRI (fMRI) has become key to study how cognitive processes are implemented in the human brain. However, the question of whether participants recruited into fMRI studies differ from participants recruited into other study contexts has received little to no attention. This is particularly pertinent when effects fail to generalize across study contexts: for example, a behavioural effect discovered in a non-imaging context not replicating in a neuroimaging environment. Here, we tested the hypothesis, motivated by preliminary findings (n=272), that fMRI participants differ from behaviour-only participants on one fundamental individual difference variable: trait anxiety. Analysing a large-scale dataset drawn from multiple institutions (n=3317) and including possible confounding variables, we found robust support for lower trait anxiety in fMRI study participants, consistent with a sampling or self-selection bias. The bias was larger in studies that relied on phone screening (compared to full in-person psychiatric screening), recruited at least partly from convenience samples (compared to community samples), and in pharmacology studies. Our findings highlight the need for surveying trait anxiety at recruitment and for appropriate screening procedures or sampling strategies to mitigate this bias.

Intellectual Humility and Between-Party Animus: Implications for Affective Polarization in Two Community Samples

The extent to which individual differences in personality traits and cognitive styles diminish affective polarization (AP) is largely unknown. We address this gap by examining how one poorly understood but recently researched individual difference variable, namely, intellectual humility (IH), may buffer against AP. We examined the associations between domain-general and domain-specific measures of IH, on the one hand, and AP, on the other, in two community samples. Measures of IH were robustly negatively associated with AP and political polarization. Moreover, IH significantly incremented measures of allied constructs, including general humility, in the statistical prediction of AP. There was little evidence to suggest that IH buffers the relationships between strong political belief and AP. Future research is needed to clarify whether and if IH is sufficient to protect against AP in the presence of ideological extremity.

Time Attitude Profiles and Health-Related Behaviors: Validation of a Spanish Version of the Adolescent and Adult Time Inventory–Time Attitudes (AATI-TA)

Temporal psychology constructs are an individual difference variable related to behavioral outcomes. Recent research has shown that there are different time attitude profiles based on different configurations of the six Adolescent and Adult Time Inventory-Time Attitude (AATI-TA) subscales. The objective of this study was to analyze the psychometric properties of AATI-TA scores in Uruguay and determine the existence of temporal profiles in this context. Participants were a convenience sample of 446 (36.5% males) adults in Uruguay with a mean age of 34.53 years (SD = 13.17, range 18–75 years). Participants completed a sociodemographic questionnaire, the AATI-TA, and questionnaires on intentions, behaviors, and attitudes towards healthy food consumption and physical activity. AATI-TA scores had good reliabilities (> .70). The six-factor solution was supported and invariance by gender and age group was established. We identified five profiles – Resilients, High Positives, Negatives, Present Negatives, and Moderate Positives – which were associated differently with healthy food consumption patterns. Negative profiles were related to higher levels of unhealthy food consumption.

Higher Levels of Grit Are Associated With a Stronger Fading Affect Bias

The affect associated with negative events fades faster than the affect associated with positive events (the fading affect bias). The fading affect bias is present in most participants and is thought to be evidence of a healthy coping mechanism operating in autobiographical memory. Prior research shows that the fading affect bias can be distorted by negative individual difference variables such as dysphoria and anxiety. The goal of this research is to link the fading affect bias to the positive individual difference variable of Grit. A total of 197 participants completed the short Grit Scale and were divided into four groups based on their Grit scores (i.e., low Grit to high Grit). Participants retrieved positive and negative event memories and then made affect ratings for the events. The results show that increased levels of Grit were associated with a stronger fading affect bias.

Extending Evidence for Inter-Individual Differences in Social Comparison Orientation to Pay Fairness Evaluations

This research extends the limited support for social comparison tendencies as an individual difference variable and a key moderator of pay fairness perceptions. Through three studies comprised of five data collections, the following adapts a measure of social comparison orientation to pay contexts and examines its association with heightened perceptions of distributive fairness in hypothetical and actual scenarios of pay equity, over-reward, and under-reward. In keeping with Gibbons and Buunk’s construal, our targeted operationalization of social comparison orientation demonstrated inter-individual variation and intra-individual stability, providing corroboration of distinct individual predispositions towards social comparison. Our experimental findings further support this point in that socially relative pay information had a stronger impact on pay fairness evaluations among individuals predisposed to socially compare and a relatively weak impact on those that were not. This investigation is complementary but distinct from the prevalent focus on situational factors as drivers of social comparison. Further, examining this point in the context of pay is timely based on the recent level of public and managerial attention given to the fairness of relative pay differences.