Motivations for gambling, sexual motivation and satisfaction, and impulsive shoppers

New in our journals

2013-07-01

(Press-News.org) Reacting to terrorist groups: Injustice leads to anger, power to fear

Perceptions really matter when it comes to how we react to terrorist threats. Across two studies, researchers found that the more a terrorist group is seen as unjust, the more anger we feel, whereas the more the group is seen as powerful, the more fearful we become. Surveying 1,072 Americans in one study about fictional terrorist groups, the researchers found that fear from powerful portrayals led participants to support offensive, defensive, and negotiated measures to deal with the terrorists. On the other hand, anger at the injustice of terrorism reduced support for negotiation but also increased support for attacking and defending. Understanding these reactions is important for communication about – including media coverage of – terrorist threats. "Angry at the unjust, scared of the powerful: Emotional responses to terrorist threat," Roger Giner-Sorolla (rsg[at]kent.ac.uk) and Angela T. Maitner, Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, online June 17, 2013 – forthcoming in print, August 2013.

Gambling for money or suspense?

It is the promise of money rather than the thrill of the chase that motivates people vulnerable to gambling, a new study finds. When presented with the option of playing cards to either receive a guaranteed certain amount of money – for example, an 100% chance of winning $2.00 – or to gamble for that same amount of money – for example, a 50% chance of winning $2.00 – people more vulnerable to gambling chose the guarantee. Ironically, people less vulnerable to gambling, – motivated by suspense – were more likely to gamble. "'Show Me the Money': Vulnerability to Gambling Moderates the Attractiveness of Money versus Suspense," Cheryl Hahn, Timothy Wilson (tdw[at]virginia.edu), Kaichen McRae, and Daniel T. Gilbert, Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, online June 24, 2013 – forthcoming in print, October 2013.

The link between sexual motivation and satisfaction

Having sex with your partner to avoid disappointment rather than to enhance intimacy reduces satisfaction with the experience. In three studies, researchers found that the motivating goal for sex greatly influences not only how couples feel about the act itself but also their relationship and sexual quality into the future. In one of the studies, for example, married and cohabitating couples recorded their sexual activity and sexual motivation in a diary for 21 days. Researchers found that the effects of having sex for intimacy versus avoidance still affected the couples' sexual desire and satisfaction four months later. "Getting It On Versus Getting It Over With: Sexual Motivation, Desire and Satisfaction in Intimate Bonds," Amy Muise (amy.muise[at]utoronto.ca), Emily A. Impett, and Serge Desmarais, Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, online June 28, 2013 – forthcoming in print in October 2013.

Disputing the effects of birth order on juvenile delinquency

Middle child syndrome? Society often attributes juvenile delinquency to birth order – bringing to mind images of the middle child acting out for attention or the rebellious youngest child. A new study is challenging the strength of those associations, saying that such effects from birth order are largely the products of analytic methods used in past research. Past work relied on individual-level comparisons, whereas the new study takes into account within-family differences – diminishing the impact of birth order on delinquency. "Ordered Delinquency: The 'Effects' of Birth Order on Delinquency," Patrick Cundiff (prc131[at]psu.edu), Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, online May 29, 2013 – forthcoming in print, August 2013.

Impulsive buyers beware Hard to stick to your shopping list? Impulsive buyers tend to get distracted by products that are unrelated to their shopping goals, new research finds. But, this distractability only happens in shopping situations, researchers say, and, attractive, typical impulse products (such as cosmetics) do not distract impulsive buyers more than neutral products. The researchers measured participants' attention to various types of products by tracking eye movements. "Hard to Ignore: Impulsive Buyers Show an Attentional Bias in Shopping Situations," Oliver B. Büttner (oliver.buettner[at]univie.ac.at), Arnd Florack, Helmut Leder, Matthew A. Paul, Benjamin G. Serfas, and Anna-Maria Schulz, Social Psychological and Personality Science, online June 27, 2013 – forthcoming in print. ### SPSP promotes scientific research that explores how people think, behave, feel, and interact. The Society is the largest organization of social and personality psychologists in the world. Follow us on Twitter: @SPSPnews

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Gene mutations caused by a father's lifestyle can be inherited by multiple generations

2013-07-01

Bethesda, MD -- Gene mutations caused by a father's lifestyle can be inherited by his children, even if those mutations occurred before conception. What's more, these findings show that mutations in the germ-line are present in all cells of the children, including their own germ cells. This means that a father's lifestyle has the potential to affect the DNA of multiple generations and not just his immediate offspring. These findings were published in the July 2013 issue of The FASEB Journal. "Our study should be regarded as a pilot study," said Roger Godschalk, Ph.D., ...

Fat grafting techniques for breast reconstruction are commonly used by US plastic surgeons

2013-07-01

Philadelphia, Pa. (July 1,2013) – Seventy percent of U.S. plastic surgeons have used fat grafting techniques for breast operations, but they are more likely to use it for breast reconstruction rather than cosmetic breast surgery, reports a survey study in the July issue of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery®, the official medical journal of the American Society of Plastic Surgeons (ASPS). Once discouraged, fat grafting to the breast is an increasingly common plastic surgery technique, according to the new report. But more data is needed to optimize the technique and ...

High rate of herbal supplement use by cosmetic plastic surgery patients

2013-07-01

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Cloud behavior expands habitable zone of alien planets

2013-07-01

A new study that calculates the influence of cloud behavior on climate doubles the number of potentially habitable planets orbiting red dwarfs, the most common type of stars in the universe. This finding means that in the Milky Way galaxy alone, 60 billion planets may be orbiting red dwarf stars in the habitable zone. Researchers at the University of Chicago and Northwestern University based their study, which appears in Astrophysical Journal Letters, on rigorous computer simulations of cloud behavior on alien planets. This cloud behavior dramatically expanded the habitable ...

Lack of immune cell receptor impairs clearance of amyloid beta protein from the brain

2013-07-01

Identification of a protein that appears to play an important role in the immune system's removal of amyloid beta (A-beta) protein from the brain could lead to a new treatment strategy for Alzheimer's disease. The report from researchers at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) has been published online in Nature Communications. "We identified a receptor protein that mediates clearance from the brain of soluble A-beta by cells of the innate immune system," says Joseph El Khoury, MD, of the Center for Immunology and Inflammatory Diseases in the MGH Division of Infectious ...

GW researcher discovers new regulatory autism gene

2013-07-01

WASHINGTON -- A new study by Valerie Hu, Ph.D., professor of biochemistry and molecular medicine at the George Washington University (GW) School of Medicine and Health Sciences (SMHS), reports that RORA, a novel candidate gene for autism discovered by her group in a 2010 study, regulates a large number of other genes associated with autism. "We are focusing on this gene, in part, because this gene can act as a master regulator of other genes," said Hu, whose study was published in the journal Molecular Autism. "Called nuclear hormone receptors, they are capable of ...

Nerve cells can work in different ways with same result

2013-07-01

Epilepsy, irregular heartbeats and other conditions caused by malfunctions in the body's nerve cells, also known as neurons, can be difficult to treat. The problem is that one medicine may help some patients but not others. Doctors' ability to predict which drugs will work with individual patients may be influenced by recent University of Missouri research that found seemingly identical neurons can behave the same even though they are built differently under the surface. "To paraphrase Leo Tolstoy, 'every unhappy nervous system is unhappy in its own way,' especially ...

Caterpillars attracted to plant SOS

2013-07-01

Plants that emit an airborne distress signal in response to herbivory may actually attract more enemies, according to a new study published in the open-access journal Frontiers in Plant Science . A team of researchers from Switzerland found that the odor released by maize plants under attack by insects attract not only parasitic wasps, which prey on herbivorous insects, but also caterpillars of the Egyptian cotton leafworm moth Spodoptera littoralis, a species that feeds on maize leaves. When damaged, many plants release hydrocarbons called volatile organic compounds, ...

UNC murine study predicts cancer drug responsiveness in human tumors

2013-07-01

CHAPEL HILL, N.C. - It's a GEMM of a system. Genetically engineered mouse models that is. Using them allows scientists to study cancer in a way that more naturally mimics how human tumors exist within the complex environment of the body. UNC scientists used GEMMs to develop biomarkers for challenging molecular subtypes of human breast cancer, those for which there are fewer targets and therapies. Their work helps to further establish genetically engineered mouse models as predictors of human response to therapy. The molecular subtypes of breast cancer that the UNC ...

Climbing the social ladder is strongly influenced by your grandparents' class

2013-07-01

WASHINGTON, DC, July 1, 2013 — For the first time, a study has suggested that the position of grandparents in the British class system has a direct effect on which class their grandchildren belong to. It has long been accepted that parents' social standing has a strong influence on children's education, job prospects, and earning power. However, this study by researchers from the University of Oxford and Durham University shows that even when the influence of parents has been taken into account, the odds of grandchildren going into professional or managerial occupations ...

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Motivations for gambling, sexual motivation and satisfaction, and impulsive shoppers

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