Explicit civility (Online Discussions/Discussion Quality)

Inclusivity (Online Discussions/Discussion Quality)

Rationality (Online Discussions/Discussion Quality)

Interactivity/Reciprocity (Online Discussions/Discussion Quality)

Storytelling (Online Discussions/Discussion Quality)

This study investigates the sources of the possible interpretations of negative disjunctive statements (e.g. Girafa nu a cules ghiocelul sau trandafirul ‘The giraffe did not pick the snowdrop or the rose’) in Romanian children and adults. Previous research highlights cross-linguistic variation among adults: English-speaking adults allow both neither nor and not both interpretations, while Japanese-speaking adults only allow the not both interpretation. In contrast, children across a number of languages have been shown to prefer the stronger neither nor interpretation. We attempt to connect this area of research with studies showing that children interpret positive disjunctive statements (e.g. Girafa a cules ghiocelul sau trandafirul ‘The giraffe picked the snowdrop or the rose’) in an inclusive or conjunctive manner (and in particular with studies that argue that the conjunctive interpretation is the result of scalar strengthening). If the source of strong meanings across polarities is strengthening, then we expect the same children who prefer neither nor interpretations of negative disjunctive statements to be the same children who prefer conjunctive interpretations of positive disjunctive statements. We conducted a Truth Value Judgment Task (TVJT) with Romanian 5-year-old children and a group of adult controls to examine their behavior in negative and positive disjunctive statements and to investigate a possible positive correlation between strong interpretations across sentence polarities. Our results indicate that both groups behaved relatively similarly: in negative contexts, they predominantly favored the neither nor interpretation, while in positive contexts, they predominantly favored an inclusive interpretation. These results do not support a positive correlation between strong interpretations of positive and negative disjunctive statements. Instead, we argue that strong interpretations may have different sources in sentences of differing polarity, namely, strengthening in positive statements and scope in negative ones.

The aim of the present study was to explore the relationship between coaches' behaviour and statements, and athletes' self-talk. Two hundred and forty three athletes (106 females and 137 males) representing a variety of sports participated in the study. Participants completed the Athletes' Positive and Negative Self-Talk Scale, which assesses frequency of positive and negative self-talk; the Coaches' Positive and Negative Statements Scale, which assesses frequency of coaches' positive and negative statements; and the Coaching Behaviour Questionnaire, which assesses two dimensions of coaches' behaviour, supportiveness and negative activation. Structural equation modeling with latent factors was used to test the hypothesized relationships. The results showed that coaches' positive statements were found to mediate the relationship between coaches' supportiveness and athletes' positive self-talk. Similarly, negative statements made by the coach were found to mediate the relationship between coaches' negative activation and athletes' negative self-talk Overall, these preliminary findings suggest the importance of both coaching behaviour and statements in relation to their athletes' self-talk.

In this article, a study is presented that analyzed the effect of implicit and explicit prejudice, egalitarian values, and the type of a discussion host on the expression of prejudice in a group discussion. A total of 91 Norwegians from two towns were randomly assigned to 1 of 17 group discussions with a topic that made it likely that immigrants in Norway would be discussed. Six discussion groups had a Norwegian hosts; 11 had a non-Norwegian host. The number of positive and negative statements about immigrants made by each individual as well as the ratio of negative to total statements was regressed on implicit prejudice, explicit prejudice, egalitarian value orientation, discussion host type, and their interactions. It was controlled for age and gender of the participants. In discussion groups with non-Norwegian hosts, the number of negative and positive statements about immigrants was lower, but the effect was stronger for negative statements. Strong egalitarian values reduced the number of negative statements, whereas strong explicit prejudice reduced the number of positive statements.

This study explores the extent to which support recipients recall positive and negative statements within supportive messages and whether recalling positive or negative statements affected perceptions of the supporter and their messages. Three days after receiving supportive messages, recipients recalled a significantly lower proportion of positive statements but approximately the same proportion of negative statements. Support outcomes (i.e., message effectiveness and affective improvement) were affected by the proportion of negative message statements recalled three days after receiving the message but not by the proportion of positive message statements recalled. It appears negative statements may have a lasting effect on support outcomes.

Consumer adoption of electrification technologies such as electric vehicles (EVs) and heat pumps (HPs) is critical for mitigating climate change. While previous research has focused on demographic factors, incentives, and technology attributes, we do not yet understand how consumers’ ability to discern fact from fiction about these technologies relates to their adoption interest. In a preregistered study, we conducted an online national U.S. survey (n = 861) to investigate relationships between adoption interests and participants’ ability to discern true and false narrative statements about EVs and HPs. Our results show distinct consumer segments and reasons for technology adoption. We also find that adoption interest is not significantly associated with participants’ ability to discriminate accurate information about the technologies. Surprisingly, technology owners are less accurate than non-owners, being more likely to endorse false positive narrative statements and less likely to endorse correct negative narrative statements, regardless of technology. The disconnect between adoption and accuracy suggests that efforts to promote these technologies should focus beyond information provision to also address consumers’ biases. Politically liberal participants were biased toward positive statements, while politically conservative participants were biased toward negative statements about these technologies, again indicating confirmation bias. This bias is far stronger for EVs than HPs, given that HPs are broadly less familiar and less politically polarizing. Our work shows how participants systematically succumb to confirmation bias when navigating information which can dramatically shape adoption interest.

Nonliteral language represents a complex form of communication that can be interpreted in numerous different ways. Our study explored how individual differences in personality and communication styles affect the evaluation of literal and nonliteral language in the context of assumptions made by the Tinge Hypothesis (Dews & Winner, 1995). Participants watched videos of social interactions focusing on positive, negative, sarcastic, and jocular statements. They evaluated speaker intentions and social impressions and completed several personality and communication style questionnaires. Individual differences in empathy, defense style, and sarcasm use correlated with the accuracy of identifying speaker intent. Additionally, positive statements were rated as friendlier when compared to jocular statements, thereby supporting the Tinge Hypothesis. However, literal negative statements were rated as more friendly than sarcastic statements, which is inconsistent with the Tinge Hypothesis. The current results provide novel evidence for the Tinge Hypothesis using multimodal, dynamic stimuli and highlight the role of the individual personality of the recipient in evaluating sarcasm and jocularity.

Children’s rights are legally protected benefits for children to develop physically, mentally, emotionally, socially and morally with freedom and honor in a healthy and normal way. It is important that children know the rights they have. Works of high quality children’s literature ensure the socialization of children by making them understand or communicate social and cultural values. For this reason, all the works of children’s literature may be made use of for children’s rights education. The objective of this study is to determine to what extent and how children’s rights are allocated in the stories in the 100 Basic Literary Works list recommended for children in Turkey. To this end, all the stories (n=277) in the above mentioned storybook list (n=21) were examined in the context of children’s rights by use of content analysis method. ‘Children’s rights’ was taken as the analysis category, and this category was divided into four subcategories in keeping with the Convention on the Rights of the Child as the ‘survival rights’, ‘development rights’, ‘protection rights’ and ‘participation rights’ of the child. Each subcategory was evaluated as ‘positive’ or ‘negative’ within itself in terms of allocating children’s rights. At the end of the study, it was found that positive (56.1%) and negative (43.9%) statements about children’s rights were used in close proportions in these stories. In the stories that were studied, positive statements about children’s ‘development rights’ were used the most often (29.7%), and this was followed by the negative statements about children’s ‘protection rights’ (22.1%).

Background:Although social anxiety runs in families, little is known about how parents and children contribute to the intergenerational transmission of social fears. We examined whether mothers transfer social fear beliefs to their children through verbal communication and how children’s behavioral inhibition and social anxiety contribute to this transmission. The associations of children’s social fear beliefs with peer avoidance and interpretation bias were also examined.Methods:Participants (n = 291, 54% female) were followed from toddlerhood to middle childhood. Behavioral inhibition was assessed at ages 2 and 3. At the 10-year assessment, mother-child dyads participated in a conversation task. Mothers received ambiguous information about hypothetical peers and then talked to their children about vignettes involving these peers. Mothers’ positive and negative statements were coded. Prior to the conversation, dyads reported their own social fear beliefs. Post-conversation, children rated their social fear beliefs and completed symbolic peer avoidance and social interpretive bias tasks. Children self-reported their social anxiety.Results:Mothers’ positive statements mediated the paths from maternal social fear beliefs and behavioral inhibition to children’s post-conversation social fear beliefs. Mothers’ negative statements also mediated the link between mothers’ fear beliefs and children’s post-conversation fear beliefs, but only among children with heightened anxiety. Children’s post-conversation social fear beliefs were, in turn, associated with children’s peer avoidance and interpretation bias.Conclusion:Findings suggest that maternal verbal communication serves as a mechanism in the relation between parent and child social fear beliefs, and children’s fear beliefs, in turn, predict their symbolic peer avoidance and interpretative biases. Children with heightened anxiety were particularly impacted by their mothers’ negative statements, whereas behavioral inhibition predicted fewer maternal positive statements. Targeting mothers’ social fear beliefs and verbal communication patterns may help prevent the intergenerational transmission of social fear.

本研究探讨架构效应与模糊效应对决策偏好之影响。采用实验设计，操弄“信息陈述用语(正面陈述与负面陈述)”与“信息模糊程度(精确信息、大区间模糊与小区间模糊)”。实证结果发现，受试者对或有负债会计处理之决策判断会受到信息陈述用语之影响，采负面陈述时受试者会计处理较为保守。本研究未发现显著之模糊效应，且大区间模糊与小区间模糊对会计判断之影响亦仅出现于正面陈述组。 This study explored the effects of the framing effect and the ambiguity effect on decision preference. Using experimental method, two independent variables “information statement” (positive and negative statements) and the “information ambiguity” (precise, small interval and big interval ambiguity) were tested to determine how they affected the accounting judgment. Empirical results indicated that, the significant framing effect was found. That is, negative statements about the consequences of a decision induced higher levels of conservative than positive statements. However, this study did not find significant ambiguity effect. In addition, the difference of accounting judgment between large and small ambiguity was only found in positive statements.

Data were collected from 269 Australian primary school children in grades 3 to 7. Self‐report questionnaires measuring students’ perceptions of the frequency of positive and negative statements directed to them by their teacher, their positive and negative self‐talk; and their reading, mathematics and learning self‐concepts were administered. Positive statements made by teachers were found to be directly related to positive self‐talk and to maths and learning self‐concepts. Teachers’ positive statements were also indirectly related to reading self‐concept through positive self‐talk. Negative statements made by teachers were not predictive of self‐talk or self‐concepts for the total sample but were predictive of maths self‐concept for girls and negative self‐talk for boys. Implications for teachers and educational psychologists are discussed.

The concepts of supportive and defensive affective states are ubiquitous in the field of interpersonal communication, but rarely have any specific verbal causes of these states been examined. This study investigates the effect on supportiveness and defensiveness of three verbal variables: (1) provisional versus certainty verbs, (2) positive versus negative feedback content, and (3) ownership of statements by the use of “I‐You” pronoun constructions. The study found that provisional verbs are seen as more supportive in negative statements and certainty verbs more supportive in positive statements, positive feedback produces more supportiveness than negative, and literal “I‐You” pronoun constructions are seen as mare supportive in both positive and negative statements. No difference was seen in subjects on the basis of gender.