1,720,972 research outputs found
COVID-19 Threat and Uncertainty: How Outcome Anticipation Shapes Responses to the Unknown
No full textUncertainty was a common theme in political speeches, fundraising emails, and TV advertisements throughout the COVID-19 pandemic. The anxiety and distress felt by many all over the world was presumed to be directly tied to the uncertainty surrounding the pandemic. Yet, these negative feelings cannot be extricated from the negative outcomes associated with COVID-19: Serious illness, death, loss of a loved one, loss of a job, and loss of education for one's child, among others. In this chapter, we posit that negative feelings about the uncertainty engendered by the COVID-19 pandemic are due not to the uncertainty itself, but rather to expectations of negative outcomes to the pandemic, informed in part by people's past experiences. We bolster this argument using experimental data as well as findings that people who were less at risk for negative outcomes during the pandemic (e.g., those with a higher socioeconomic status) experienced less distress about it, and that people who were more at risk (e.g., people with chronic illness, healthcare professionals) experienced more distress. We also highlight the role of optimism and resilience in predicting more positive reactions to uncertain situations, including COVID-19, demonstrating that people's expectations of both positive outcomes and their own abilities to cope with potential negative outcomes inform their reactions to uncertainty
Means substitutability in personal significance restoration
Full text linkDrawing on Significance Quest Theory, we hypothesized that when people experience a loss of significance related to a specific life domain, they will aim to restore their significance by acting in an extreme manner in a different life domain. To test this hypothesis, we ran two cross-sectional studies using samples of employed people in romantic relationships. Study 1 tested if people experiencing a loss of significance in the romantic relationship domain were more prone to extremism at work. Study 2 tested whether people experiencing work-related significance loss were more prone to engage in obsessive relational intrusion (ORI) toward their romantic partner. Results from both studies confirmed our hypothesis, suggesting that both amorous relationships and careers are perceived as fruitful in maintaining or restoring ones’ sense of personal significance, even if the original loss of significance is derived from an unrelated domain. Notably, this research represents one of the first tests of the key assumption of Significance Quest Theory entailing the substitutability of means through which one can attain or renew their sense of significance
Romantic Relationships as a Source of Significance
No full textDrawing on significance quest theory and its derived model of romantic relationships, we demonstrated that perceiving romanticpartners as having socially valued qualities (partners’ merit) and as admiring and caring (partners’ appreciation) enhanced actors’significance gained through the romantic relationship which, in turn, increased the likelihood to enter (Studies 1A and 1B) andmaintain (Study 2) romantic relationships. Further, Study 3 demonstrated that significance gained through romantic relationshipsand inclusion of the other in the self were independently associated with romantic partners’ merit and appreciation and thelikelihood of maintaining romantic relationships. Finally, Study 4 showed that people experiencing feelings of significance losswere more sensitive to their partners’ merit and appreciation features. Findings are compared with the rich social psychologicalliterature on romantic relationships and future directions are outlined
Need for cognitive closure and desire for cultural tightness mediate the effect of concern about ecological threats on the need for strong leadership
Full text linkThe present research utilizes an evolutionary framework to investigate the process underlying the recent rise of several populist,
“strongmen” leaders. Specifcally, we propose that when people experience contingent (i.e., impending) ecological threats, their
need for cognitive closure is activated, making them desire strong rules (i.e., a tight society) and to be guided by a strong leader.
Further, we hypothesize that desire for cultural tightness, once activated by need for cognitive closure, augments peoples’ need
for strong leaders. In two studies, we tested our hypotheses with respect to two of the most salient ecological threats currently
afecting Europeans, namely COVID-19 (Study 1) and the war in Ukraine (Study 2). Results supported all our hypotheses,
thereby shedding light on psycho-motivational underpinnings (i.e., need for cognitive closure and desire cultural for tightness) of
the rise of populist leaders. Results thus corroborate the idea that populist leaders can use ecological threats-related uncertainty
to maintain or gain power, and that ecological threats could bring to an alignment with right-wing ideas of people’s political
attitudes
AI and Ted Bundy: Exploring Artificial Intelligence usage in criminal profiling
No full textPoster presentation at the Undergraduate Research Day 2024.We have seen a meteoric rise in Artificial Intelligence (AI) creation and usage; yet little attention has been paid to using AI for societal benefits. To leverage AI in new ways, this study focused on integrating AI in criminal profiling. We assessed the accuracy of AI-generated profiles by modifying well-documented criminal cases with a known, and convicted, perpetrator to compare to published perpetrator data created by (human) experts. Using profiling inputs from the crimes of infamous serial killer Theodore ‘Ted’ Bundy, we prompted ChatGPT 3.5 to create profiles for the first eight attacks Bundy committed and compared the accuracy of the outputs to the known information. Initial results show AI creates vague but detailed, and fairly accurate, profiles compared to known information from cases and can find patterns between crimes. But, these profiles were created with specific prompts and the prompt type impacted accuracy. Our findings suggest that using AI in profiling warrants further research and consideration in ongoing investigations, potentially saving time and lives. Caution is advised given the limitations regarding specificity of details and we do not yet know if human-generated profiles are more accurate as we only compared the AI profiles to known information. Future research should compare AI-generated profiles with human-generated profiles and explore paid versions of AI that might reveal further capabilities which might be useful in law enforcement, where costs of using AI may be nominal, especially in relation to the savings of lives and in manpower hours
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Full text linkThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Variations on the Author
Full text link“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
Appropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis
Full text linkWe provide a number of new insights into the methodological discussion about author cocitation analysis. We first argue that the use of the Pearson correlation for measuring the similarity between authors’ cocitation profiles is not very satisfactory. We then discuss what kind of similarity measures may be used as an alternative to the Pearson correlation. We consider three similarity measures in particular. One is the well-known cosine. The other two similarity measures have not been used before in the bibliometric literature. Finally, we show by means of an example that our findings have a high practical relevance.information science;Pearson correlation;cosine;similarity measure;author cocitation analysis
Dispelling the Myths Behind First-author Citation Counts
Full text linkWe conducted a full-scale evaluative citation analysis study of scholars in the XML research field to explore just how different from each other author rankings resulting from different citation counting methods actually are, and to demonstrate the capability of emerging data and tools on the Web in supporting more realistic citation counting methods. Our results contest some common arguments for the continued
use of first-author citation counts in the evaluation of scholars, such as high correlations between author rankings by first-author citation counts and other citation
counting methods, and high costs of using more realistic citation counting methods that are not well-supported by the ISI databases. It is argued that increasingly available digital full text research papers make it possible for citation analysis studies to go beyond what the ISI databases have directly supported and to employ more
sophisticated methods
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