Frequent (flier) frustration and the dark side of word‐of‐web: exploring online dysfunctional behavior in online feedback forums

Purpose Following the perspective of frustration theory customer frustration incidents lead to frustration behavior such as protest (negative word‐of‐mouth). On the internet customers can express their emotions verbally and non‐verbally in numerous web‐based review platforms. The purpose of this study is to investigate online dysfunctional customer behavior, in particular negative “word‐of‐web” (WOW) in online feedback forums, among customers who participate in frequent‐flier programs in the airline industry. Design/methodology/approach The study employs a variation of the critical incident technique (CIT) referred to as the critical internet feedback technique (CIFT). Qualitative data of customer reviews of 13 different frequent‐flier programs posted on the internet were collected and analyzed with regard to frustration incidents, verbal and non‐verbal emotional effects and types of dysfunctional word‐of‐web customer behavior. The sample includes 141 negative customer reviews based on non‐recommendations and low program ratings. Findings Problems with loyalty programs evoke negative emotions that are expressed in a spectrum of verbal and non‐verbal negative electronic word‐of‐mouth. Online dysfunctional behavior can vary widely from low ratings and non‐recommendations to voicing switching intentions to even stronger forms such as manipulation of others and revenge intentions. Research limitations/implications Results have to be viewed carefully due to methodological challenges with regard to the measurement of emotions, in particular the accuracy of self‐report techniques and the quality of online data. Generalization of the results is limited because the study utilizes data from only one industry. Further research is needed with regard to the exact differentiation of frustration from related constructs. In addition, large‐scale quantitative studies are necessary to specify and test the relationships between frustration incidents and subsequent dysfunctional customer behavior expressed in negative word‐of‐web. Practical implications The study yields important implications for the monitoring of the perceived quality of loyalty programs. Management can obtain valuable information about program‐related and/or relationship‐related frustration incidents that lead to online dysfunctional customer behavior. A proactive response strategy should be developed to deal with severe cases, such as sabotage plans. Originality/value This study contributes to knowledge regarding the limited research of online dysfunctional customer behavior as well as frustration incidents of loyalty programs. Also, the article presents a theoretical “customer frustration‐defection” framework that describes different levels of online dysfunctional behavior in relation to the level of frustration sensation that customers have experienced. The framework extends the existing perspective of the “customer satisfaction‐loyalty” framework developed by Heskett et al.

Stone baby: An exploration of trembling and its potential for visual art

Informed by Kristeva's formulation of affect and Winnicott's Holding Environment, this practice-led visual art project is an exploration into how sensitivity to the physical sensation of trembling can sustain a creative practice. Building upon this is a further enquiry into what the significance of the affective experience of trembling is for an ethics of affect in contemporary art. I have done this through object and video-based installations informed by my own experience of trembling. This has been further informed by the work of artists like Louise Bourgeois, Dennis Del Favero and Willie Doherty. The creative outcomes contribute to the discourse around ethical responses to affect by extending and developing on the works of these artists.

Altered formalin-induced pain and Fos induction in the periaqueductal grey of preadolescent rats following neonatal LPS exposure

Animal and human studies have demonstrated that early pain experiences can produce alterations in the nociceptive systems later in life including increased sensitivity to mechanical, thermal, and chemical stimuli. However, less is known about the impact of neonatal immune challenge on future responses to noxious stimuli and the reactivity of neural substrates involved in analgesia. Here we demonstrate that rats exposed to Lipopolysaccharide (LPS; 0.05 mg/kg IP, Salmonella enteritidis) during postnatal day (PND) 3 and 5 displayed enhanced formalin-induced flinching but not licking following formalin injection at PND 22. This LPS-induced hyperalgesia was accompanied by distinct recruitment of supra-spinal regions involved in analgesia as indicated by significantly attenuated Fos-protein induction in the rostral dorsal periaqueductal grey (DPAG) as well as rostral and caudal axes of the ventrolateral PAG (VLPAG). Formalin injections were associated with increased Fos-protein labelling in lateral habenula (LHb) as compared to medial habenula (MHb), however the intensity of this labelling did not differ as a result of neonatal immune challenge. These data highlight the importance of neonatal immune priming in programming inflammatory pain sensitivity later in development and highlight the PAG as a possible mediator of this process

Close Encounters of the Continuum: Speaking (to), Performing and Experiencing Gender In Janet Cardiff’s Whispering Room

This 'project' investigates Janet Cardiff's Whispering Room. It examines how Cardiff deconstructs the privileging of the visual over all other corporeal senses in her work, the Whispering Room. Using sound as a fulcrum, Cardiff explores the links between subjects, collective narratives, memories, experiences and performances. Janet Cardiff destabilizes time and space and fractures the continuum through the use of sound. My 'project' celebrates sound as a transgressive medium — sound not as a gendered medium but as a vehicle in which to speak (to) gender. It explores how sound can destabilize notions of perception and reception and question art and museal practices. In the process this 'project' reveals the complexity of interpreting and representing art as an object. My aim is to reflect the very intertextual and expressionist collage that Cardiff has created in Whispering Room in my own text. Cardiff solicits the viewer's intimacy and participation. Whispering Room is a physical yet metonymic space in which Cardiff creates a place for performatvity, experience, memory, desire and speech, thus she opens up a space for the utterance and performance of the viewer. Viewers construct and create meaning/s for themselves within this mnemonic space by digging up their own memories, desires and reveries. The strength of Cardiff's work is that it relies on a viewer to perform, a body to trigger the pseudo-spectacle and a voice to interrupt the whispers. One might ask of Whispering Room where the illusionistic space begins and where the physical space ends. This 'project' investigates how in Whispering Room there is no one experience but many experiences.

Getting mad may not mean getting even: The influence of drivers' ethical ideologies on driving anger and related behaviour

The current study explored the influence of moral values (measured by ethical ideology) on self-reported driving anger and aggressive driving responses. A convenience sample of drivers aged 17-73 years (n = 280) in Queensland, Australia, completed a self-report survey. Measures included sensation seeking, trait aggression, driving anger, endorsement of aggressive driving responses and ethical ideology (Ethical Position Questionnaire, EPQ). Scores on the two underlying dimensions of the EPQ idealism (highI/lowI) and relativism (highR/lowR) were used to categorise drivers into four ideological groups: Situationists (highI/highR); Absolutists (highI/lowR); Subjectivists (lowI/highR); and Exceptionists (lowI/lowR). Mean aggressive driving scores suggested that exceptionists were significantly more likely to endorse aggressive responses. After accounting for demographic variables, sensation seeking and driving anger, ethical ideological category added significantly, though modestly to the prediction of aggressive driving responses. Patterns in results suggest that those drivers in ideological groups characterised by greater concern to avoid affecting others negatively (i.e. highI, Situationists, Absolutists) may be less likely to endorse aggressive driving responses, even when angry. In contrast, Subjectivists (lowI, HighR), reported the lowest levels of driving anger yet were significantly more likely to endorse aggressive responses. This provides further insight into why high levels of driving anger may not always translate into more aggressive driving.

Assessment of signs of foot infection in diabetes patients using photographic foot imaging and infrared thermography

Background Patients with diabetic foot disease require frequent screening to prevent complications and may be helped through telemedical home monitoring. Within this context, the goal was to determine the validity and reliability of assessing diabetic foot infection using photographic foot imaging and infrared thermography. Subjects and Methods For 38 patients with diabetes who presented with a foot infection or were admitted to the hospital with a foot-related complication, photographs of the plantar foot surface using a photographic imaging device and temperature data from six plantar regions using an infrared thermometer were obtained. A temperature difference between feet of > 2.2 °C defined a ''hotspot.'' Two independent observers assessed each foot for presence of foot infection, both live (using the Perfusion-Extent-Depth- Infection-Sensation classification) and from photographs 2 and 4 weeks later (for presence of erythema and ulcers). Agreement in diagnosis between live assessment and (the combination of ) photographic assessment and temperature recordings was calculated. Results Diagnosis of infection from photographs was specific (> 85%) but not very sensitive (< 60%). Diagnosis based on hotspots present was sensitive (> 90%) but not very specific (<25%). Diagnosis based on the combination of photographic and temperature assessments was both sensitive (> 60%) and specific (> 79%). Intra-observer agreement between photographic assessments was good (Cohen's j = 0.77 and 0.52 for both observers). Conclusions Diagnosis of foot infection in patients with diabetes seems valid and reliable using photographic imaging in combination with infrared thermography. This supports the intended use of these modalities for the home monitoring of high-risk patients with diabetes to facilitate early diagnosis of signs of foot infection.

Stone baby: An exploration of affect and trauma in visual art

Stone Baby: An Exploration of Affect and Trauma in Visual Art was held at the Block, QUT Creative Industries Precinct on August 27-28, 2014. At the conclusion of my Masters project, this exhibition was a showcase of the outcomes of my material and digital explorations in the form of installation, sculpture and film. My primary motivation can be described as a relational and ethical attempt to find a balance between the erotic and the aggressive. This is experienced in the self as feelings of attraction and repulsion in response to the new and unknown "other". Consequently creative practice is necessarily a complex affair that is experienced as a completely immersive and self-contained psychological space. It is within this space that both physical sensation and raw emotion are able to tangibly and conceptually interact with psychoanalytic theory, and concrete materials video and sound.

The effect of high versus low intensity heat acclimation on performance and neuromuscular responses

This study examined the effect of exercise intensity and duration during 5-day heat acclimation (HA) on cycling performance and neuromuscular responses. 20 recreationally trained males completed a ‘baseline’ trial followed by 5 consecutive days HA, and a ‘post-acclimation’ trial. Baseline and post-acclimation trials consisted of maximal voluntary contractions (MVC), a single and repeated countermovement jump protocol, 20 km cycling time trial(TT) and 5x6 s maximal sprints (SPR). Cycling trials were undertaken in 33.0 ± 0.8 °C and 60 ± 3% relative humidity.Core(Tcore), and skin temperatures (Tskin), heart rate (HR), rating of perceived exertion (RPE) and thermal sensation were recorded throughout cycling trials. Participants were assigned to either 30 min high-intensity (30HI) or 90 min low-intensity (90LI) cohorts for HA, conducted in environmental conditions of 32.0 ± 1.6 °C. Percentage change time to complete the 20 km TT for the 90LI cohort was significantly improved post-acclimation(-5.9 ± 7.0%; P=0.04) compared to the 30HI cohort (-0.18 ± 3.9%; P<0.05). The 30HI cohort showed greatest improvements in power output (PO) during post-acclimation SPR1 and 2 compared to 90LI (546 ± 128 W and 517 ± 87 W,respectively; P<0.02). No differences were evident for MVC within 30HI cohort, however, a reduced performance indicated by % change within the 90LI (P=0.04). Compared to baseline, mean Tcore was reduced post-acclimation within the 30HI cohort (P=0.05) while mean Tcore and HR were significantly reduced within the 90LI cohort (P=0.01 and 0.04, respectively). Greater physiological adaptations and performance improvements were noted within the 90LI cohort compared to the 30HI. However, 30HI did provide some benefit to anaerobic performance including sprint PO and MVC. These findings suggest specifying training duration and intensity during heat acclimation may be useful for specific post-acclimation performance.