Influence of sexual appeal in roadside advertising on drivers' attention and driving behavior.

Sexual appeals are widely used in advertising to attract consumers' attention. It has already been proved that they influence the addressee's cognitive processing, which in turn raises the question if sexual appeals may pose a serious threat for road safety when used in roadside advertising. Three studies were designed to answer this question. Study I was a nationwide survey (N = 1095) which revealed that drivers subjectively perceive sexual contents in roadside advertising as distracting and dangerous. Study II was a modified version of the Attentional Network Test (N = 1063) which proved that in cognitive tasks reaction time increases in line with the sexual content of advertisements. Study III was a simulator study (N = 55) which confirmed that driving characteristics change when sexually-oriented advertisements are located along the road. These studies have led us to a conclusion that sexually appealing cues in roadside advertising may pose a threat for road safety.

Cross-cultural evidence of value structures and priorities in childhood.

We broaden the developmental focus of the theory of universals in basic human values (Schwartz, 1992, Advances in Experimental Social Psychology) by presenting supportive evidence on children's values from six countries: Germany, Italy, Poland, Bulgaria, the United States, and New Zealand. 3,088 7-11-year-old children completed the Picture-Based Value Survey for Children (PBVS-C, Döring et al., 2010, J. Pers. Assess., 92, 439). Grade 5 children also completed the Portrait Values Questionnaire (PVQ, Schwartz, 2003, A proposal for measuring value orientations across nations. Chapter 7 in the Questionnaire Development Package of the European Social Survey). Findings reveal that the broad value structures, sex differences in value priorities and pan-cultural value hierarchies typical of adults have already taken form at this early age. We discuss the conceptual implications of these findings for the new field of children's basic values by embedding them in the recent developmental literature.