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Increased Perception (increased + perception)

Distribution by Scientific Domains

Humanities and Social Sciences	40%

Selected Abstracts

Avoidance of Alcohol-Related Stimuli in Alcohol-Dependent Inpatients

ALCOHOLISM, Issue 8 2007
J. M. Townshend
Background: Previous research has shown an attentional bias toward drug-related stimuli in heavy social drinkers. Attentional orientation to drug-related cues may lead to increased craving and preoccupation with the drug and impaired ability to focus attention on nondrug-related activities, resulting in renewed drug taking or relapse from drug abstinence. Objective: The aim of this study was to investigate whether alcohol-dependent inpatients would differ in their selective attention toward alcohol-related stimuli in comparison with a group of social drinking controls. Method: Thirty-five alcohol-dependent inpatients were compared with a group of 39 social drinking controls matched for age, sex, and verbal IQ. Attentional bias was assessed using alcohol-related pictures in a dot probe detection task. Questionnaires were used to examine outcome expectancies after alcohol consumption, anxiety, mood, and craving. Results: The alcoholic inpatients showed a bias away from the alcohol-related stimuli, scored higher on alcohol outcome expectancies, and on anxiety measures (both state and trait). They also presented with more negative mood compared with the control group. Craving was higher in the alcoholic group for the factor "loss of control over drinking." Conclusions: Alcoholic inpatients undergoing treatment based on the 12-step treatment of Alcoholics Anonymous (Minnesota model), which includes counseling, and intensive group, individual, and family psychotherapy, show an avoidance for drug-related stimuli and a perception of loss of control over drinking. We suggest that their increased perception of loss of control over drinking produces the avoidance from the drug-related stimuli. [source]

Interpreting claims in offender profiles: the role of probability phrases, base-rates and perceived dangerousness,

APPLIED COGNITIVE PSYCHOLOGY, Issue 1 2009
Gaëlle Villejoubert
Offender profilers use verbal and numerical probability expressions to convey uncertainty surrounding claims made about offender's characteristics. No previous research has examined how these expressions might affect the recipient's interpretation of the information. Seventy participants completed an online questionnaire and results showed a diverse range of interpretations of these uncertainty expressions. Moreover, characteristic base-rates and dangerousness affected the perceived likelihood of the profiling claim, such that increased base-rates and perceived dangerousness resulted in an increased perception of the claim being likely. Perceived likelihoods also depended on the framing of characteristics as well as the framing of the claim itself. Finally, where claims involved presenting a characteristic qualified by a low probability these claims were interpreted as more likely than not to be present. These findings have practical implications for profilers and more general theoretical implications for the study of risk perception. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source]

Firm strategy and the Canadian Voluntary Climate Challenge and Registry (VCR),

BUSINESS STRATEGY AND THE ENVIRONMENT, Issue 6 2009
Keith Brouhle
Abstract The Canadian VCR is a climate change mitigation program that relies on firms' desire to signal environmental responsibility to external stakeholders through voluntary information disclosure. We analyze indicators of strategic behavior through three measures of engagement with the VCR program (annual participation behavior, quality of action plans and repeat participation), and test for differences in these measures among firms subjected to different regulatory climates that arise over time, across provinces and across economic sectors. Our findings suggest an increased perception of a regulatory threat in later years, as evidenced by an increase in participation rates, higher quality of action plans and higher rates of repeat participation. We also find higher levels of engagement with the VCR program in provinces with large petroleum (Alberta) and manufacturing (Ontario) industries and that have established provincial level greenhouse gas reporting mechanisms, and in certain sectors such as petroleum, electric utilities and to some extent services. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment. [source]

Group Identification: The Influence of Group Membership on Retail Hardware Cooperative Members' Perceptions

JOURNAL OF SMALL BUSINESS MANAGEMENT, Issue 2 2004
Leslie McClintock Stoel
Due to the increasing popularity of retail cooperatives in hardware retailing, a new competitive dynamic has emerged, a hybrid of intratype/intergroup competition. Individual members of one cooperative group now fight for market share with one or more members of competing cooperative groups, in an effort to attain individual goals, as well as group goals. A model of competition that includes both individual and group conditions was tested. Results of the structural equation model (SEM) show that the data fit the theoretical model well (,2=12.414, 8 df, p=0.134, NFI=0.990, NNFI=0.993, CFI=0.996). Our results indicate that, for members of cooperative groups, feelings of identification with the cooperative group resulted in increased perceptions of conflict with a rival who was a member of a competing cooperative and that feelings of group identification influenced beliefs about the importance of competitive behaviors relative to that rival. [source]

Presidential Saber Rattling and the Economy

AMERICAN JOURNAL OF POLITICAL SCIENCE, Issue 3 2009
B. Dan Wood
Saber rattling is a prominent tool of the U.S. president's foreign policy leadership. Yet there has been no study of how presidential saber rattling affects international or domestic political outcomes. This study evaluates how presidential saber rattling affects U.S. economic behavior and performance. Theoretically, the study demonstrates that presidential rhetoric affects the risks that economic actors are willing to take, as well as the consequences of these resulting behaviors for U.S. economic performance. Using monthly time series running from January 1978 through January 2005, vector autoregression methods are applied to show that increased presidential saber rattling produces increased perceptions of negative economic news, declining consumer confidence, lower personal consumption expenditures, less demand for money, and slower economic growth. More broadly, the study demonstrates an important linkage between the president's two most important roles: foreign and economic policy leadership. The president's foreign policy pronouncements not only impact other nations, but also affect domestic economic outcomes. [source]