It's just like a bad breakup: People get emotional when they end a relationship with a brand. A new study in the Journal of Consumer Research examines what happens when people turn their backs on the brands they once loved. "Customers who were once enthusiastic about a brand may represent a headache for the associated firm beyond the lost revenue of foregone sales because they sometimes become committed to harming the firm," write authors Allison R. Johnson (University of Western Ontario), Maggie Matear (Queens University, Kingston, Ontario), and Matthew Thomson (University ...

You aced that test; now it's time for a treat. Sometimes pride in an achievement can lead people to indulge in unhealthy choices, according to a new study in the Journal of Consumer Research. "Across four studies in the food consumptions and spending domains, we show that pride is associated with two opposing forces; it promotes a sense of achievement, which increases indulgence, and it promotes self-awareness, which facilitates self control," write authors Keith Wilcox (Babson College), Thomas Kramer (University of South Carolina), and Sankar Sen (Baruch College). The ...

Consumers value goals they've chosen on their own more than those that are imposed on them, according to a new study in the Journal of Consumer Research. "When people believe they have autonomously chosen to pursue a goal themselves, they feel the goal is increasingly valuable as they put in more effort, because they experience their own effort as signaling how much they care about it," write authors Ying Zhang (University of Texas at Austin), Jing Xu, Zixi Jiang (both Peking University), and Szu-chi Huang (University of Texas at Austin). It seems that when people ...

CHICAGO --- Is cardiovascular health in middle age and beyond a gift from your genes or is it earned by a healthy lifestyle and within your control? Two large studies from Northwestern Medicine confirm a healthy lifestyle has the biggest impact on cardiovascular health. One study shows the majority of people who adopted healthy lifestyle behaviors in young adulthood maintained a low cardiovascular risk profile in middle age. The five most important healthy behaviors are not smoking, low or no alcohol intake, weight control, physical activity and a healthy diet. The other ...

Irvine, Calif., Nov. 15, 2010 — UC Irvine researchers have discovered that circadian rhythms – the internal body clock – regulate fat metabolism. This helps explain why people burn fat more efficiently at certain times of day and could lead to new pharmaceuticals for obesity, diabetes and energy-related illnesses. The study was headed by Paolo Sassone-Corsi, Donald Bren Professor and chair of pharmacology. A leading expert on circadian rhythms, he discovered many of the key molecular switches governing these biological processes. He and his colleagues found that one of ...

An autism study by Yale School of Medicine researchers using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) has identified a pattern of brain activity that may characterize the genetic vulnerability to developing autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Published today in the early edition of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the study could eventually lead to earlier and more accurate autism diagnosis. ASD is defined by impaired social interaction and communication, and can disrupt the brain's ability to interpret the movements of other people, known as "biological ...

CHICAGO - Plaque in a heart artery looks threatening, but cardiologists know that many of these buildups will not erupt, dislodge and block a vessel, causing a heart attack that can be fatal. Some will, however, and the challenge is to figure out atherosclerotic plaque that is dangerous and treat or remove it. Now, researchers at Mayo Clinic have shown that iron, derived from blood, is much more prevalent in the kind of plaque that is unstable and is thus more likely to promote a myocardial infarction (MI) - heart attack - and possibly sudden death. The team of researchers ...

Cutting back on salt in teenagers' diets by as little as one-half teaspoon, or three grams, a day, could reduce the number of young adults with high blood pressure by 44 to 63 percent, according to new research presented Sunday, Nov. 14 at the American Heart Association's Scientific Sessions 2010 meeting in Chicago. The findings indicate that the food industry and those who regulate it could substantially improve the nation's health through even small reductions in the amount of salt in processed foods, which account for the majority of salt consumed in this country. "The ...

HOUSTON - Red-blood-cell-boosting drugs used to treat anemia may undermine breast cancer treatment with Herceptin, a targeted therapy that blocks the cancer-promoting HER2 protein, researchers from The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center report in the Nov. 16 edition of Cancer Cell. "Our research indicates when the two drugs were used at the same time, Herceptin was less effective," said study senior author Zhen Fan, M.D., associate professor in MD Anderson's Department of Experimental Therapeutics. Natural erythropoietin (EPO) controls the body's red blood ...

CINCINNATI—University of Cincinnati (UC) researchers have found that applying a stem cell-infused patch together with overexpression of a specific cell instruction molecule promoted cell migration to damaged cardiac tissue following heart attack and resulted in improved function in animal models. The researchers also found that function improved more so than when stem cells were directly injected in heart tissue—a therapy that is being studied elsewhere. These findings are being presented for the first time at the American Heart Association's Scientific Meeting in Chicago ...

ANN ARBOR, Mich.---Ultra-short X-ray beams produced at the University of Michigan could one day serve as more sensitive medical diagnostic tools, and they could work like strobe lights to allow researchers to observe chemical reactions that happen in quadrillionths of a second. The researchers used the HERCULES high-intensity, table-top laser to create X-ray beams that rival those made in expensive and massive synchrotron particle accelerators. The National Synchrotron Light Source II, for example, under construction at Brookhaven National Laboratory, is slated to be ...

The Earth is constantly manufacturing new crust, spewing molten magma up along undersea ridges at the boundaries of tectonic plates. The process is critical to the planet's metabolism, including the cycle of underwater life and the delicate balance of carbon in the ocean and atmosphere. Now, scientists at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) have observed ocean crust forming in an entirely unexpected way—one that may influence those cycles of life and carbon and, in turn, affect the much-discussed future of the world's climate. Working at the Guaymas basin ...

(Cincinnati, OH) – A groundbreaking study published Friday in the leading scientific journal, Cell, revealed that a team of investigators had successfully generated nerve cells using skin cells from four individuals with Rett syndrome. The study, funded in part by IRSF, was led by Dr. Alysson Muotri at the University of California, San Diego--a leading researcher in the stem cell field. The article, titled 'A Model for Neural Development and Treatment of Rett Syndrome Using Human Induced Pluripotent Stem Cells,' describes how the team used a newly-devised procedure ...

What are the key characteristics that voters consider when they're choosing their candidate for president? New research led by Judith Trent, a professor of communication at the University of Cincinnati, yields some surprising findings from surveys from the 2008 primary campaign in New Hampshire – a historic campaign in itself because of the diverse demographic characteristics of some of the leading contenders. The top ideal quality picks are a candidate's honesty and willingness to talk about the challenges affecting the nation. The article, titled, "Cracked and Shattered ...

ANN ARBOR, Mich---University of Michigan researchers have determined that most types of melanoma cells can form malignant tumors, providing new evidence that the deadliest form of skin cancer does not conform to the increasingly popular cancer stem cell model. In addition, the researchers found that melanoma tumor cells can change their appearance by switching various genes on and off, making the malignant cells a stealthy, shape-shifting target for researchers seeking new treatments, according to a team led by Sean Morrison, director of the U-M Center for Stem Cell Biology. Both ...

Like us, plants rely on an immune system to fight off disease. Proteins that scout out malicious bacterial invaders in the cell and communicate their presence to the nucleus are important weapons in the plant's disease resistance strategy. Researchers at the University of Missouri recently "tapped" into two proteins' communications with the nucleus and discovered a previously unknown level of cross talk. The discovery adds important new information about how plant proteins mediate resistance to bacteria that cause disease and may ultimately lead to novel strategies for ...

The traditional way to predict whether children can regain movement after spinal cord injuries may exclude a small subset of patients who could benefit from therapy, according to two studies presented by University of Florida researchers at the Society for Neuroscience meeting this week in San Diego. In one study, researchers present details of a child with incomplete spinal cord injury who continues to improve four years after recovering walking ability in a locomotor training program at UF, even though clinical assessment tools predicted he would never walk again. In ...

Couples do not live together for traditional or romantic reasons. They do so for purely rational reasons - emotional, financial, intellectual and social. The nuclear family still holds a strong position in Sweden. Some 70 percent of the population live in a nuclear family, shows research from the University of Gothenburg, Sweden. Many families today consist of networks of various people that include a whole host of constellations, without being a nuclear family. Family researchers are at any rate pleased at the break up of the nuclear family, and the late 20th century ...

OAK BROOK, Ill. – The risk of radiation-induced breast cancer from mammography screening is slight in comparison to the benefit of expected lives saved, according to a new study appearing online and in the January issue of the journal Radiology. "Recently, there have been reports in the press focusing on the potential radiation risk from mammography, particularly as used for periodic screening," said the study's lead author, Martin J. Yaffe, Ph.D., senior scientist in imaging research at Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre, and professor in the departments of medical biophysics ...

State-funded preschool programs have historically enrolled low-income children, aiming to help them start school on a footing closer to nonpoor youngsters. Today, more and more states are expanding access to preschool programs, and some are making them universally available. How will this affect states' efforts to narrow achievement gaps? A new study concludes that while the benefits of preschool are greatest for children living in poverty, nonpoor children, particularly Black youngsters, also experience positive gains from preschool participation. The study, conducted ...

At ages 1 and 1-1/2, children who get most of their sleep at night (as opposed to during the day) do better in a variety of skill areas than children who don't sleep as much at night. That's the finding of a new longitudinal study conducted by researchers at the University of Montreal and the University of Minnesota. The research appears in the November/December 2010 issue of the journal Child Development. The study, of 60 Canadian children at ages 1, 1-1/2, and 2, looked at the effects of infants' sleep on executive functioning. Among children, executive functioning ...

Doing well in school and feeling accepted by your peers are both important challenges during adolescence. Sometimes these don't fit well together, as when teens are ostracized for being smart. A new study has found that such pressures differ for teens in different racial/ethnic groups, and that characteristics of the teens' schools also play a role. The study, conducted by researchers at Cornell University, appears in the November/December 2010 issue of the journal Child Development. "This is the first study to clearly show that for adolescents, there are measurable ...

Young children's helpfulness is tempered when they see that the person they intend to help has harmed another person. But it also diminishes when they see that the object of their attention meant to harm another, even if no harm was done. That's the conclusion of two new studies of 3-year-olds conducted by researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany. The research appears in the November/December 2010 issue of the journal Child Development. "In finding that children are quite sophisticated and discriminating helpers, our ...

While a range of ingenious man-made materials bring us ever closer to realising the possibility of cloaking objects from visible light, research from Imperial College London is now taking invisibility into the fourth dimension - time - creating the groundbreaking potential to hide whole events. The laws of physics might make the creation of a transporter which can dematerialise objects and then rematerialise them elsewhere a little beyond us, but it is now being suggested that an object could move from one region of space to another, completely unseen by anyone watching. ...

Preschool teachers can inadvertently pass on lessons in stereotypes to their students when they highlight gender differences, according to Penn State psychologists. A study has found that when teachers call attention to gender, children are more likely to express stereotyped views of what activities are appropriate for boys and girls and which gender they prefer to play with, said Lynn Liben, Distinguished Professor of psychology, human development and family studies, and education, Penn State. By highlighting the powerful effect of classroom environments on preschool ...