Frontiers in psychology
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Frontiers in psychology · Jan 2019
Picture Me Drinking: Alcohol-Related Posts by Instagram Influencers Popular Among Adolescents and Young Adults.
Research has shown that young people post a lot of alcohol-related posts (i.e., alcoholposts) on social media and these posts have been shown to increase drinking behaviors. Because social influencers (i.e., individuals with the potential to influence large audiences on social media) may have a strong influence on young people, it is important to know whether and how often they post about alcohol. Furthermore, because by using influencers alcohol brands may have found a way to circumvent regulations that prohibit advertising for minors, it is important to understand whether alcohol brands are visible in influencers' posts and whether influencers use disclosures (e.g., "#ad") to notify viewers. ⋯ A post hoc additional study that focused solely on minors confirmed these conclusions. These findings suggest that there is a lot to be concerned about in this context, especially since many minors can be exposed to influencers' alcoholposts, potentially leading to increased drinking among this vulnerable age group. We therefore advice future researchers to further investigate this topic, and propose that legislation for alcohol advertising needs to be adjusted to account for the context of social networking sites.
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Heroism has only recently become a topic of empirical investigation. Existing research suggests a connection between heroism and four well-documented dimensions of human social behavior: (1) the cost incurred by the actor; (2) the benefit provided to the recipient; (3) the perceived frequency (i.e., descriptive normativity); and (4) the perceived expectation to perform it (i.e., injunctive normativity). In a series of exploratory studies (total N = 408), we aim to shed light on how each of these constructs influence lay intuitions about the nature of heroism (i.e., what determines which acts people perceive to be heroic). ⋯ Finally, subjects in Study 3 rated the cost to the actor, the benefit to the recipient(s), the descriptive normativity (i.e., frequency), and the injunctive normativity (i.e., obligatoriness) of ten acts, five of which received particularly high heroism scores in Study 2 ("exemplary" acts of heroism) and five of which received particularly low heroism scores in Study 2 ("ambiguous" acts of heroism). We find that more heroic acts are seen as rarer and more costly to actors-but, interestingly, not more beneficial to recipients or less obligatory. These findings help to illuminate what it means to be seen as a hero, and suggest clear future directions for both empirical and theoretical work.
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Frontiers in psychology · Jan 2019
ReviewSilence Is Golden. Six Reasons Inhibiting the Spread of Third-Party Gossip.
Most of the current literature on gossip describes gossipmongers as incessantly sharing evaluative and valuable information about an absent third party in teams, groups, communities, and organizations. However, potential gossipers can similarly decide not to share what they know, depending on the content, the context, or their relationship with the other actors in the gossip triad. We argue that understanding the reasons why people do not gossip may provide useful insights into individual motives, group dynamics, and collective behaviors. ⋯ We then propose to apply Goal Framing theory as a way to bridge a theory of the micro-foundations of human behavior with an analytical model of the gossip triad that disentangles the various ways through which senders, receivers, and objects of gossip may be interrelated. From a goal framing perspective, most research on gossip illustrates the mechanisms in which the hedonic gratification derived from gossiping is reinforced by gain or normative goals. However, a normative or a gain goal frame can prevent the gossip monger from spreading the information, and we argue that depending on different configurations of frames and relations between actors the perceived costs of sending gossip may be far higher than much of the previous literature suggests.
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Frontiers in psychology · Jan 2019
Pain-Specific Resilience in People Living With HIV and Chronic Pain: Beneficial Associations With Coping Strategies and Catastrophizing.
Chronic pain is increasingly recognized as a common and disabling problem for people living with HIV (PLWH). In a recent systematic review of psychosocial factors associated with chronic pain in PLWH, it was reported that very few studies to date have examined protective psychological factors that might help mitigate chronic pain for PLWH. The current study examined pain-specific resilience in relation to clinical and experimental pain, as well as pain coping in PLWH and chronic pain. Pain-specific resilience specifically refers to the ability to maintain relatively stable, healthy levels of psychological and physical functioning in the face of ongoing and persistent pain. ⋯ The findings suggest that pain-specific resilience may promote adaptation and positive coping in PLWH and chronic pain.
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Frontiers in psychology · Jan 2019
The Association Between Disgust Sensitivity and Negative Attitudes Toward Homosexuality: The Mediating Role of Moral Foundations.
Previous studies have found that "disgust-sensitive" individuals have negative attitudes toward gay and lesbian people, but the underlying mechanisms for such attitudes remain unclear. Based on moral foundations theory, the current paper assumes that the relationship between disgust sensitivity and attitudes toward homosexuality are mediated by moral foundations. ⋯ Authority and sanctity were both associated with attitudes toward homosexuality, while only sanctity mediated the relationship between disgust sensitivity and attitudes toward homosexuality. Overall, the results suggest that considering moral foundations (especially sanctity) may lend more insight to the associations between disgust sensitivity and negative attitudes toward gay and lesbian people.