Identifying and understanding factors influencing the uptake of new technologies on dairy farms in SW England using the theory of reasoned action

Whilst much is known of new technology adopters, little research has addressed the role of their attitudes in adoption decisions; particularly, for technologies with evident economic potential that have not been taken up by farmers. This paper presents recent research that has used a new approach which examines the role that adopters' attitudes play in identifying the drivers of and barriers to adoption. The study was concerned with technologies for livestock farming systems in SW England, specifically oestrus detection, nitrogen supply management, and, inclusion of white clover. The adoption behaviour is analysed using the social-psychology theory of reasoned action to identify factors that affect the adoption of technologies, which are confirmed using principal components analysis. The results presented here relate to the specific adoption behaviour regarding the Milk Development Council's recommended observation times for heat detection. The factors that affect the adoption of this technology are: cost effectiveness, improved detection and conception rates as the main drivers, whilst the threat to demean the personal knowledge and skills of a farmer in 'knowing' their cows is a barrier. This research shows clearly that promotion of a technology and transfer of knowledge for a farming system need to take account of the beliefs and attitudes of potential adopters. (C) 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

The composition of category conjunctions

In three experiments, the authors investigated the impression-formation process resulting from the perception of familiar or unfamiliar social category combinations. In Experiment 1, participants were asked to generate attributes associated with either a familiar or unfamiliar social category conjunction. Compared to familiar combinations, the authors found that when the conjunction was unfamiliar, participants formed their impression less from the individual constituent categories and relatively more from novel emergent attributes. In Experiment 2 the authors replicated this effect using alternative experimental materials. In Experiment 3, the effect generalized to additional (orthogonally combined) gender and occupation categories. The implications of these findings for understanding the processes involved in the conjunction of social categories, and the formation of new stereotypes, are discussed.

Drivers' ratings of different components of their own driving skill: a greater illusion of superiority for skills that relate to accident involvement

Different components of driving skill relate to accident involvement in different ways. For instance, while hazard-perception skill has been found to predict accident involvement, vehicle-control skill has not. We found that drivers rated themselves superior to both their peers and the average driver on 18 components of driving skill (N = 181 respondents). These biases were greater for hazard-perception skills than for either vehicle-control skills or driving skill in general. Also, ratings of hazard-perception skill related to self-perceived safety after overall skill was controlled for. We suggest that although drivers appear to appreciate the role of hazard perception in safe driving, any safety benefit to be derived from this appreciation may be undermined by drivers' inflated opinions of their own hazard-perception skill. We also tested the relationship between illusory beliefs about driving skill and risk taking and looked at ways of manipulating drivers' illusory beliefs.

Reducing implicit prejudice by blurring intergroup boundaries

In two experiments we examined whether and when blurring intergroup boundaries reduces implicit prejudice. In Experiment 1 we observed that when participants first completed a task in which they generated characteristics that overlapped between an ingroup and an outgroup they showed less implicit bias as measured by an Implicit Association Test. In Experiment 2 we found that the effectiveness of blurring intergroup boundaries for reducing implicit bias was moderated by pretask levels of ingroup identification. We discuss these findings in the context of extending differentiation-based interventions for reducing explicit bias to the domain of implicit attitudes.

Assimilation and contrast to group primes: the moderating role of ingroup identification

This research examined the conditions under which behavioral contrast would be observed in relation to ingroup and outgroup primes. The authors tested the hypothesis that differing levels of commitment to the ingroup would predict diverging behavioral responses to outgroup but not ingroup primes. Across two studies, featuring both age and gender groups, we found that ingroup identification predicted responses to outgroup primes with higher identifiers showing an increased tendency to contrast, that is, behave less like the outgroup, and more like the ingroup. Ingroup identification did not predict responses to ingroup primes. The implications of these findings for social comparison and social identity theories are discussed. (c) 2007 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Knowing who likes who: The early developmental basis of coalition understanding

Group biases based on broad category membership appear early in human development. However, like many other primates humans inhabit social worlds also characterised by small groups of social coalitions which are not demarcated by visible signs or social markers. A critical cognitive challenge for a young child is thus how to extract information concerning coalition structure when coalitions are dynamic and may lack stable and outwardly visible cues to membership. Therefore, the ability to decode behavioural cues of affiliations present in everyday social interactions between individuals would have conferred powerful selective advantages during our evolution. This would suggest that such an ability may emerge early in life, however, little research has investigated the developmental origins of such processing. The present paper will review recent empirical research which indicates that in the first 2 years of life infants achieve a host of social-cognitive abilities that make them well adapted to processing coalition-affiliations of others. We suggest that such an approach can be applied to better understand the origins of intergroup attitudes and biases. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

On the F-word: a corpus-based analysis of the media representation of Feminism in British and German press discourse,1990-2009

Research in social psychology has shown that public attitudes towards feminism are mostly based on stereotypical views linking feminism with leftist politics and lesbian orientation. It is claimed that such attitudes are due to the negative and sexualised media construction of feminism. Studies concerned with the media representation of feminism seem to confirm this tendency. While most of this research provides significant insights into the representation of feminism, the findings are often based on a small sample of texts. Also, most of the research was conducted in an Anglo-American setting. This study attempts to address some of the shortcomings of previous work by examining the discourse of feminism in a large corpus of German and British newspaper data. It does so by employing the tools of Corpus Linguistics. By investigating the collocation profiles of the search term feminism, we provide evidence of salient discourse patterns surrounding feminism in two different cultural contexts.

Choice-induced preference change in the free-choice paradigm: a critical methodological review

Choices not only reflect our preference, but they also affect our behavior. The phenomenon of choice-induced preference change has been of interest to cognitive dissonance researchers in social psychology, and more recently, it has attracted the attention of researchers in economics and neuroscience. Preference modulation after the mere act of making a choice has been repeatedly demonstrated over the last 50 years by an experimental paradigm called the “free-choice paradigm.” However, Chen and Risen (2010) pointed out a serious methodological flaw in this paradigm, arguing that evidence for choice-induced preference change is still insufficient. Despite the flaw, studies using the traditional free-choice paradigm continue to be published without addressing the criticism. Here, aiming to draw more attention to this issue, we briefly explain the methodological problem, and then describe simple simulation studies that illustrate how the free-choice paradigm produces a systematic pattern of preference change consistent with cognitive dissonance, even without any change in true preference. Our stimulation also shows how a different level of noise in each phase of the free-choice paradigm independently contributes to the magnitude of artificial preference change. Furthermore, we review ways of addressing the critique and provide a meta-analysis to show the effect size of choice-induced preference change after addressing the critique. Finally, we review and discuss, based on the results of the stimulation studies, how the criticism affects our interpretation of past findings generated from the free-choice paradigm. We conclude that the use of the conventional free-choice paradigm should be avoided in future research and the validity of past findings from studies using this paradigm should be empirically re-established. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2013 APA, all rights reserved)(journal abstract)

Achievement motivation and memory: achievement goals differentially influence immediate and delayed remember–know recognition memory

Little research has been conducted on achievement motivation and memory and, more specifically, on achievement goals and memory. In the present research, the authors conducted two experiments designed to examine the influence of mastery-approach and performance-approach goals on immediate and delayed remember–know recognition memory. The experiments revealed differential effects for achievement goals over time: Performance-approach goals showed higher correct remember responding on an immediate recognition test, whereas mastery-approach goals showed higher correct remember responding on a delayed recognition test. Achievement goals had no influence on overall recognition memory and no consistent influence on know responding across experiments. These findings indicate that it is important to consider quality, not just quantity, in both motivation and memory, when studying relations between these constructs. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)(journal abstract)

Research practices that can prevent an inflation of false-positive rates

Recent studies have indicated that research practices in psychology may be susceptible to factors that increase false-positive rates, raising concerns about the possible prevalence of false-positive findings. The present article discusses several practices that may run counter to the inflation of false-positive rates. Taking these practices into account would lead to a more balanced view on the false-positive issue. Specifically, we argue that an inflation of false-positive rates would diminish, sometimes to a substantial degree, when researchers (a) have explicit a priori theoretical hypotheses, (b) include multiple replication studies in a single paper, and (c) collect additional data based on observed results. We report findings from simulation studies and statistical evidence that support these arguments. Being aware of these preventive factors allows researchers not to overestimate the pervasiveness of false-positives in psychology and to gauge the susceptibility of a paper to possible false-positives in practical and fair ways.

The four pillars of corporate responsibility: ethics, leadership, personal responsibility and trust

Purpose – This paper aims to examine how to further embed CSR thinking and practice into corporations, particularly in emerging markets, by reviewing and drawing similarities between key issues faced by all senior managers, namely ethics, leadership, personal responsibility and trust. Design/methodology/approach – This paper presents a conceptual exploration of global CSR practices using social psychology and overlays this concept with strategic and institutional theory in order to encourage new ways of thinking about CSR adoption, especially in emerging markets. Findings – The paper reveals the importance of shareholder needs on global corporate decision making and applies alternative conceptual models to help businesses to devise better CSR practices and individuals to align their actions to their own values. Originality/value – This paper strongly argues for blending different theoretical foundations from the management and organization literature in order to draw comparisons between current global CSR practice and the potential for its further adoption in emerging markets.