The influence of culture and close others on the effectiveness of (self)-persuasion.

Although self-persuasion was shown to be more effective than direct persuasion in changing attitudes and intentions, its effectiveness in different cultures remains unclear. Furthermore, research suggests that Eastern individuals tend to incorporate close others in the self to a larger extent than Western individuals. Combining both lines of research, the current studies examined whether thinking of a close other would influence the effectiveness of (self)-persuasion across cultures. Two parallel studies were conducted. U.S. participants (nstudy 1 = 195; nstudy 2 = 292) and Chinese participants (nstudy 1 = 187; nstudy 2 = 313) reported their initial attitudes and intentions toward five target behaviors prior to either think of a specific close other or not. Subsequently, they were randomly assigned to receive either a self-persuasion or a direct persuasion task. Specifically, the self-persuasion task led participants to generate own arguments or arguments that they think the close other would give; the direct persuasion task led participants to read given arguments or imagine that the arguments were from the close other. In the end, all participants reported their attitudes and intentions again after doing the persuasion tasks. The moderation effect of culture was only found in Study 1, such that direct persuasion worked more effectively in Chinese participants than self-persuasion, whereas the effectiveness of the two persuasive techniques did not differ in U.S. participants. In both studies, thinking of a close other was not found to influence the effectiveness of (self-)persuasion across cultures. Possible explanations and future research directions were discussed.

Time for Action: Verbal Action Cues Influence Temporal Binding.

Prior research has shown that our perception of time is compressed when we volitionally perform actions, a phenomenon referred to as temporal binding. In three studies, we investigated the degree to which contextual cues that signaled other agents and related to actions would influence binding, given that those cues may affect individual's feelings of independent action performance. Participants heard action verbalizations that did or did not match actions that participants had already begun performing. Participants' time estimates of the intervals between action initiations and action effects were higher on trials in which they heard verbalizations that matched their ongoing actions, and lower on trials in which the verbalizations and actions did not match. Such effects did not occur when participants passively observed actions and effects being caused by the computer. These results show that the compatibility of action cues with ongoing actions influences temporal binding effects, suggesting that they influence our feelings of having been an independent agent.

Quick question or intensive inquiry: The role of message elaboration in the effectiveness of self-persuasive anti-alcohol posters.

Self-persuasion (i.e., generating your own arguments) is often more persuasive than direct persuasion (i.e., being provided with arguments), even when the technique is applied in media messages by framing the message as a question. It is unclear, however, if these messages are more persuasive when viewed for a long period to allow more elaboration about the message, or for a short period to reduce elaboration. In the current experiment, this is addressed by examining whether anti-alcohol posters framed as a statement (direct persuasion) or an open-ended question (self-persuasion) are more effective to reduce alcohol consumption under conditions of short- or long message exposure, compared to a control condition (no poster). Additionally, the potentially moderating roles of self-perceived alcohol identity and self-esteem on both types of persuasion are examined. Participants (N = 149) were exposed to a self-persuasion or direct persuasion anti-alcohol poster, either briefly before or continuously during a bogus beer taste task. The amount of alcohol consumed was the covert dependent variable. Contrary to expectations, both posters failed to affect alcohol consumption, regardless of exposure length. No moderation effects for self-perceived alcohol identity and self-esteem of the participants were found. Possible explanations are discussed.

Self-Persuasion on Facebook Increases Alcohol Risk Perception.

In this experiment, we examined if participating in a Facebook group by generating antialcohol arguments (self-persuasion) is more effective than reading antialcohol posts of others (direct persuasion) in changing alcohol consumption, risk perception, and attitudes. In addition, it was examined if submitting posts moderated these effects. Participants logged into their Facebook account and joined a group that contained posts with antialcohol arguments. They either generated their own arguments with or without posting them, or read those present in the group with or without posting that they had read them. Next, participants rated movie clips in a 30-minute ad libitum drinking session in dyads, and their alcohol consumption was measured. Finally, measures of alcohol risk perception and attitudes were completed. Results show that generating antialcohol arguments-regardless of whether they are posted online-is effective in increasing alcohol risk perception but does not affect immediate alcohol consumption.

Self-persuasion in media messages: Reducing alcohol consumption among students with open-ended questions.

Self-persuasion (self-generation of arguments) is often a more effective influence technique than direct persuasion (providing arguments). However, the application of this technique in health media communications has received limited attention. In two experiments, it was examined whether self-persuasion can be successfully applied to antialcohol media communications by framing the message as an open-ended question. In Experiment 1 (N = 131) cognitive reactions to antialcohol posters framed either as open-ended questions or statements were examined. In Experiment 2 (N = 122) the effectiveness of this framing to reduce actual alcohol consumption was tested. Experiment 1 demonstrated that exposure to an antialcohol poster framed as an open-ended question resulted in more self-generated arguments for drinking less alcohol and more favorable message evaluations than framing the same message as a statement. Experiment 2 showed that the self-persuasion poster did not affect the choice to consume alcohol but did reduce alcohol consumption for individuals who chose to drink any alcohol, compared with a direct persuasion poster or no intervention. Together, the results demonstrated the potential of self-persuasion in persuasive media messages for interventions aimed at alcohol consumption reduction specifically and for health communication in general. (PsycINFO Database Record

Smoking-related warning messages formulated as questions positively influence short-term smoking behaviour.

Research demonstrated that by reformulating smoking warnings into questions, defensive responses in smokers are reduced and smoking-related risk perception increases. We explored whether these positive outcomes can be generalised to actual behaviour. Participants saw either a movie presenting subheadings with smoking-related questions or statements. Afterwards, the time was measured until participants lit their first cigarette. Smokers who were presented with questions about the harms of smoking waited longer before lighting up a cigarette than smokers who were presented with statements. Presenting questions instead of the statements seems to be an effective means to prolonging smokers' abstinence.

Re-Examining the Agentic Shift: The Sense of Agency Influences the Effectiveness of (Self)Persuasion.

In the present study we investigated whether differences in the sense of agency influenced the effectiveness of both direct persuasion and self-persuasion techniques. By manipulating both the delay and contingency of the outcomes of actions, participants were led to experience either a low or high sense of agency. Participants were subsequently presented with arguments as to why a clean local environment is important (direct persuasion), or were asked to generate those arguments themselves (self-persuasion). Subsequently, participants' cleanliness attitudes and willingness to participate in a campus cleanup were measured. The results show that techniques of direct persuasion influenced attitudes and volunteering behavior under conditions of low rather than high agency, whereas techniques of self-persuasion were most effective under conditions of high rather than low agency. The present findings therefore show how recent experiences of agency, a state based experience of control, can influence the effectiveness of both external and internal persuasion techniques.

Put your plan into action: The influence of action plans on agency and responsibility.

While action plans and intentions have been considered to be important factors contributing to the personal sense of causation known as agency, the present research is the first to empirically investigate how action plans influence agency. Participants in multiple studies were required to plan or not to plan ahead their actions. Results consistently show that on trials in which participants were required to plan their actions, participants experienced reduced agency compared to trials in which participants were not required to plan their actions. These results were found for both explicit agency paradigms in which participants were asked for their experiences of causation (Studies 1 and 2), as well as in an implicit agency paradigm in which participants were asked to estimate the time between their actions and the consequences of their actions (Study 3). In addition, it was shown that the reduction in agency was smaller when plans and actions were temporally closer together (Study 4). In a final line of experiments we discovered that prior planning similarly reduced both the emotional experience of acting and feelings of responsibility in agents (Studies 5-7). However, the direction of this effect was reversed in observers, for whom cues related to planning by others increased attributions of responsibility toward those others (Study 8).

Authority defied: need for cognitive closure influences regulatory control when resisting authority.

The present studies examined whether differences in need for cognitive closure (NCC) were related to differences in regulatory control when confronted with authority. In two studies, levels of regulatory control were measured when participants resisted (Study 1; N = 46) or prepared to resist the influence attempt of an authority figure (Study 2; N = 50). Results showed that resisting the influence attempt from a high-authority figure was more depleting for participants higher in NCC compared to individuals lower in NCC. However, when they were given instructions and time to prepare the act of resistance, individuals high in NCC actually showed an increase in regulatory control. Authority is usually viewed as a general principle of influence; however, the present studies suggest that there are individual differences that influence how people may experience interactions with authorities.

Empathy is a beautiful thing: empathy predicts imitation only for attractive others.

Research shows that we spontaneously imitate people. Moreover, empathy predicts the degree of this non-conscious imitation. Little is known, however, if or how this expression of empathy is influenced by stable physical characteristics of our interaction-partners. In two studies, we tested whether attractiveness of others moderated the relation between empathy and imitation. While seeing a woman performing joystick movements, participants either imitated, or non-imitated these movements. Results showed that the higher participants empathy score, the faster they imitated an attractive person. The level of empathy did not predict the degree of imitation of unattractive targets. The findings demonstrate that the expression of empathy through imitation can be moderated by attractiveness, thereby introducing a new dimension to the conditionality of empathy.

Assessment of implicit sexual associations in non-incarcerated pedophiles.

Offences committed by pedophiles are crimes that evoke serious public concern and outrage. Although recent research using implicit measures has shown promise in detecting deviant sexual associations, the discriminatory and predictive quality of implicit tasks has not yet surpassed traditional assessment methods such as questionnaires and phallometry. The current research extended previous findings by examining whether a combination of two implicit tasks, the Implicit Association Task (IAT) and the Picture Association Task (PAT), was capable of differentiating pedophiles from non-pedophiles, and whether the PAT, which allows separate analysis for male, female, boy and girl stimulus categories, was more sensitive to specific sexual associations in pedophiles than the IAT. A total of 20 male self-reported pedophiles (10 offender and 10 non-offenders) and 20 male self-reported heterosexual controls completed the two implicit measures. Results indicated that the combination of both tasks produced the strongest results to date in detecting implicit pedophilic preferences (AUC = .97). Additionally, the PAT showed promise in decomposing the sexual associations in pedophiles. Interestingly, as there was an equal distribution of offenders and non-offenders in the pedophile group, it was possible to test for implicit association differences between these groups. This comparison showed no clear link between having these implicit sexual associations and actual offending.

Thinking big: the effect of sexually objectifying music videos on bodily self-perception in young women.

The present study investigated the effect of sexually objectifying music video exposure on young women's implicit bodily self-perception and the moderating role of self-esteem. Fifty-six college women of normal weight were either exposed to three sexually objectifying music videos or three neutral music videos. Perceived and ideal body size were measured both before and after video exposure, using horizontally stretched and compressed photographs of the participant's own body in swimming garment. As expected, only women low (but not high) in self-esteem were negatively affected by the sexually objectifying content of the music videos: they perceived themselves as bigger and showed an increased discrepancy between their perceived and ideal body size after video exposure. The neutral music videos did not influence women's bodily self-perceptions. These findings suggest that body image is a flexible construct, and that high self-esteem can protect women against the adverse effects of sexually objectifying media.

Prosocial consequences of imitation.

Research has shown that helping behavior can be primed easily. However, helping decreases significantly in the presence of inhibition cues, signaling high costs for the executor. On the other hand, multiple studies demonstrated that helping behavior increases after being mimicked. The present study investigated whether imitation still increases helping when more substantial costs are involved. Helping behavior was operationalized as the willingness to accompany the confederate on a 15-20 minute walk to the train station. Results show that even in the face of these high costs, participants who were mimicked agreed more often to help the confederate than participants who were anti-mimicked. These findings suggest that mimicry not only makes people more helpful when it comes to small favors, but also allows them to ignore the substantial costs possibly involved in helping others.

Those who laugh are defenseless: how humor breaks resistance to influence.

Three experiments illustrate that humor in advertisements prevents the development of negative brand associations due to resistance. Previous research on humor in advertising suggested that humor can counter negative responses during ad processing, but less is known about the effect of humor on the development of negative brand associations in memory. Brand associations are important because there is often a time delay between ad exposure and brand decisions. We separately manipulated two typical aspects of humor processing, that is, distraction and positive affect, and examined their effects on the development of respectively negative and positive brand associations. All experiments were conducted with university students as participants. The results showed that resistance causes negative brand associations (Experiments 1 and 2), and humor prevents the development of these negative brand associations more than nondistracting positive stimuli and neutral stimuli (Experiment 2 and 3). The prevention of negative brand associations was caused by the distractive properties of humor. Irrespective of resistance, the positive affect engendered by humor enhanced positive brand associations. Experiment 3 showed that distraction and positive affect in humor uniquely contribute to brand preference. Together, these results illustrate that the effect of humor on resistance follows a two-step process: humor forestalls the development of negative brand associations because of its distractive properties (cognitive mechanism), and engenders positive brand associations because of its positive emotional outcomes (affective mechanism). These effects of humor on brand associations jointly promote brand preference.

Good morning creativity: task reactivation during sleep enhances beneficial effect of sleep on creative performance.

Both scientists and artists have suggested that sleep facilitates creativity, and this idea has received substantial empirical support. In the current study, we investigate whether one can actively enhance the beneficial effect of sleep on creativity by covertly reactivating the creativity task during sleep. Individuals' creative performance was compared after three different conditions: sleep-with-conditioned-odor; sleep-with-control-odor; or sleep-with-no-odor. In the evening prior to sleep, all participants were presented with a problem that required a creative solution. In the two odor conditions, a hidden scent-diffuser spread an odor while the problem was presented. In the sleep-with-conditioned-odor condition, task reactivation during sleep was induced by means of the odor that was also presented while participants were informed about the problem. In the sleep-with-control-odor condition, participants were exposed to a different odor during sleep than the one diffused during problem presentation. In the no odor condition, no odor was presented. After a night of sleep with the conditioned odor, participants were found to be: (i) more creative; and (ii) better able to select their most creative idea than participants who had been exposed to a control odor or no odor while sleeping. These findings suggest that we do not have to passively wait until we are hit by our creative muse while sleeping. Task reactivation during sleep can actively trigger creativity-related processes during sleep and thereby boost the beneficial effect of sleep on creativity.

Do we act upon what we see? Direct effects of alcohol cues in movies on young adults' alcohol drinking.

AIMS: Ample survey research has shown that alcohol portrayals in movies affect the development of alcohol consumption in youth. Hence, there is preliminary evidence that alcohol portrayals in movies also directly influence viewers' drinking of alcohol while watching movies. One process that might account for these direct effects is imitation. The present study therefore examined whether young people imitate actors sipping alcohol on screen. METHODS: We observed sipping behaviours of 79 young adults (ages 18-25) watching a 60-min movie clip, 'What Happens in Vegas', in a semi-naturalistic home setting. Each of the 79 participants was exposed to 25 alcohol cues. Two-level logistic regression analyses were used to analyse whether participants in general imitated actors' sipping during this clip. In addition, we applied proportional hazard models in a survival analysis framework (Cox regression) to test whether there was a difference in imitation of the cues between male and female participants, and to test whether the timing of the actors' sipping throughout the movie played a role. RESULTS: The findings showed that participants were more likely to sip in accordance with the actors' sipping than without such a cue. Further, we found that men were more likely to imitate actors' sipping than females and that participants tended to respond to actors' sipping at the beginning of the movie rather than at the end. CONCLUSION: Exposure to actors sipping alcohol in a movie seems to have an immediate impact on the drinking behaviour of viewers, via the mechanism of imitation.

Perspective taking eliminates differences in co-representation of out-group members' actions.

Coordinated action relies on shared representations between interaction partners: people co-represent actions of others in order to respond appropriately. However, little is known about the social factors that influence shared representations. We investigated whether actions performed by in-group and out-group members are represented differently, and if so, what role perspective-taking plays in this process. White participants performed a joint Simon task with an animated image of a hand with either white or black skin tone. Results of study I demonstrated that actions performed by in-group members were co-represented while actions of out-group members were not. In study II, it was found that participants co-represented actions of out-group members when they had read about an out-group member and to take his perspective prior to the actual experiment. Possible explanations for these findings are discussed.

When Pinocchio acts like a human, a wooden hand becomes embodied. Action co-representation for non-biological agents.

Action observation automatically activates corresponding motor representations in the observer, which is essential in coordinating actions with others. It is assumed that this co-representation system is activated by biological agents only. However, we often identify with biological agents, whereas this is not the case for non-biological agents. The present study investigated whether action co-representation depends on the perceived animacy of the non-biological interaction partner. Before performing a joint Simon task with either an animated image of a human or a wooden hand, participants either watched a video fragment of a biological agent, or of a non-biological agent, Pinocchio, to increase perceived animacy of this agent. Whereas participants who watched the 'biological' agent showed a Simon effect only when co-acting with a biological agent, participants who watched 'non-biological' agent (i.e. Pinocchio) showed a Simon effect only when co-acting with a non-biological agent. The present findings provide evidence for the assumption that motor simulation strongly depends on higher order processes.

Neural correlates of emotional synchrony.

Facial expressions can trigger emotions: when we smile we feel happy, when we frown we feel sad. However, the mimicry literature also shows that we feel happy when our interaction partner behaves the way we do. Thus what happens if we express our sadness and we perceive somebody who is imitating us? In the current study, participants were presented with either happy or sad faces, while expressing one of these emotions themselves. Functional magnetic resonance imaging was used to measure neural responses on trials where the observed emotion was either congruent or incongruent with the expressed emotion. Our results indicate that being in a congruent emotional state, irrespective of the emotion, activates the medial orbitofrontal cortex and ventromedial prefrontal cortex, brain areas that have been associated with positive feelings and reward processing. However, incongruent emotional states activated the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex as well as posterior superior temporal gyrus/sulcus, both playing a role in conflict processing.

Effects of alcohol portrayals in movies on actual alcohol consumption: an observational experimental study.

AIMS: This study uses an experimental design to assess the effects of movie alcohol portrayal on alcohol consumption of young adults while watching a movie. Gender, weekly alcohol use and identification with the movie actor/character were assessed as moderators. DESIGN: A two (sex) × two (movie: alcohol or no portrayal of alcohol) between-subject design was used. SETTING: Participants watched a contemporary movie in a semi-naturalistic living room setting. PARTICIPANTS: A total of 122 same-sex, young adult dyads (ages 18-29 years) participated in the experiment. MEASUREMENTS: Their actual alcohol consumption while watching was examined. A multivariate regression analysis was used to examine the effects of the movie condition on alcohol consumption. FINDINGS: Assignment to movie alcohol increased alcohol consumption during the movie for men but not women. Identification and weekly alcohol consumption did not moderate the relation between movie condition and alcohol consumption. CONCLUSIONS: Viewing a movie with alcohol portrayal can lead to higher alcohol consumption in young men while watching the movie.