Automatic Preference Research Articles

Examining Correlates of Explicit and Implicit Weight Bias Among Pre-healthcare Undergraduate Students (P12-045-19)

ObjectivesWeight bias, which refers to negative attitudes and discrimination towards individuals based on body weight, is highly prevalent among pre-healthcare professionals. Thus, it is important to understand the factors determining weight bias in pre-healthcare professionals. The purpose of this study was to examine factors associated with weight bias among pre-healthcare undergraduates majoring in kinesiology. MethodsData were collected from kinesiology major undergraduates in a sports nutrition class at a large public university. Explicit and implicit weight bias were measured using Anti-fat attitude test (AFAT) and Implicit Association test (IAT), respectively. Independent t-test and multinomial logistic regression were used to study the associations of explicit and implicit weight bias with sociodemographic characteristics, history of dieting, exercise activities, and personal and professional experience with obesity. ResultsWe recruited 67 students (24 males). Average AFAT-Blame, Social and Physical scores were 2.76(SD = 0.58), 1.73(SD = 0.45) and 2.54(SD = 0.65), respectively. Ratio of high: moderate: low: no automatic preference for thin over fat people were 35.5%:33.9%:21.0%:9.7%. Males had significantly higher average AFAT-physical scores than females (2.82(SD = 0.69) vs 2.39(SD = 0.58), respectively, P = 0.013). However, females were more likely to have stronger implicit weight bias (Odds ratio = 5.50, 95%CI = 1.22, 24.81). Caucasians had significantly higher average AFAT-social scores than minorities (1.84(SD = 0.38) vs 1.56(SD = 0.41), respectively, P = 0.011). Students doing 75 minutes or more aerobic exercise per week had lower average AFAT-social score than those doing less than 75 minutes of aerobic activities (1.36(SD = 0.18) vs 1.74(SD = 0.41), respectively, P = 0.023). Personal weight history, experience with obesity at personal or professional level were not associated with weight bias scores (P > 0.05). ConclusionsIn undergraduate kinesiology students, weight bias was associated with sex, ethnicity and exercise amount, but not with personal and professional experience with obesity. Future research may elucidate why weight bias was not influenced in this population by personal and professional experience with obesity as reported in other populations. Funding SourcesStartup funds by the Texas Tech University.

Genetic Counselors' and Genetic Counseling Students' Implicit and Explicit Attitudes toward Homosexuality.

Members of the lesbian, gay, and bisexual (LGB) community experience significant health disparities. Widespread preferences for heterosexual over homosexual people among healthcare providers are believed to contribute to this inequity, making recognition (and ultimately reduction) of healthcare providers' sexual prejudices of import. The present study sought to characterize North American genetic counselors' and genetic counseling students' implicit and explicit attitudes toward homosexuality. During January 2017, 575 participants completed a Web-based survey and Sexuality Implicit Association Test (SIAT). A majority of participants (60.2%) harbored implicit preferences for heterosexual over homosexual people. Mean implicit attitude score (0.24) indicated a slight automatic preference for heterosexual over homosexual people, while mean explicit attitude score (0.033) indicated no preference for either group. Although participants' implicit and explicit attitudes were positively correlated (p<0.001), there was greater implicit bias for heterosexual over homosexual people than suggested by explicit attitude scores (p<0.001). Implicit attitudes differed across self-reported sexual orientation (p<0.001), but not across gender, race, or genetic counseling specialty. Education has been demonstrated to be moderately effective at reducing sexual prejudices, and almost all participants (95.8%) indicated that they would support the implementation of genetic counseling curricula addressing lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) issues. The study's combined findings suggest that North American genetic counselors and genetic counseling students support, and may benefit from, the implementation of genetic counseling curricula addressing LGBT issues.

273. Ottimizzazione dei protocolli in angiografia

Purpose In reducing dose in angiography, one of the chance one has is knowing the impact of each parameter or operational mode within a protocol in order to make the right balance between dose and image quality. Methods PMMA plates of dimensions 25 cm × 25 cm, and different thicknesses in order to get a total thickness of 20 cm. At the middle, we put a Leeds TOR 18-FG test object, positioned at the isocenter of the machine. A ionization camera (RadCal) in contact with the PMMA plates was used to measure entrance air dose simultaneously with image acquisition. We evaluated: high contrast spatial resolution (bar-patterns), SNR in the second circle calculated as: SNR = ( BG - ROI ) ( STD BG 2 + STD ROI 2 ) 2 where: BG and Roi are the mean value of the pixel in the region of interest located in the background and in the second circle respectively, and STD BG and STD ROI are the relative standard deviation, and finally the figure of merit (FOM): FOM = SNR 2 ED where ED stands for entrance dose [1] . Results we uzed this method to evaluate two different angiogranphic systems: A and B. In the first one we compared different automatic exposure preferences both for fluoroscopy and fluorography, in the second one we compared low dose protocols to normal dose ones both in cardiac imaging and in DSA body. Conclusions For A: in fluoroscopy RDL + mode is the best in terms of SNR and FOM respect to RDLstd and IQstd; in fluorography there is only the IQstd mode, but the low detail setting has a FOM that is comparable to normal detail setting, at half the dose. For B: Card low dose protocols have the best FOM values, especially using a FOV of 32. In the case of DSAbody low dose the dose more then half the dose obtained with the standard protocol, but the SNR is not degraded and the FOM is even higher.

Implicit preference towards slim bodies and weight-stigma modulate the understanding of observed familiar actions

Mounting research evidence suggests that motor resonance (MR, i.e., the mapping of others’ actions onto one’s own motor repertoire) can be influenced by diverse factors related to individual differences. However, no evidence has been reported so far on the effects of physical appearance and negative attitudes toward obesity to the mechanism of MR. Thirty-six participants (18 normal-weight and 18 overweight) performed a weight discrimination task, in which they were observing amateur actors reaching and grasping a light or heavy cube with or without deception (true vs. fake actions). At the end of each video clip, participants were instructed to indicate the correct cube size (light or heavy). Importantly, body similarity between observers and actors was manipulated by presenting videos of normal-weight or overweight actors. Fat phobic attitudes and automatic preference for normal-weight than obese people were also examined. Signal detection analysis (d′) on the acquired accuracy data has shown that both normal- and overweight participants were able to better discriminate truthful actions when performed by the normal-weight as compared to overweight actors. Furthermore, this finding was negatively correlated with increased scores of fat phobic attitudes in both groups. Hence, for the first time, we provide experimental evidence of action simulation being modulated by an implicit visual sensitivity towards slim bodies.

Young men and women’s implicit attitudes towards consensually nonmonogamous relationships

ABSTRACTRecent research has revealed some inconsistencies in the traditionally negative attitudes towards consensual nonmonogamy (CNM; sexually and/or emotionally nonexclusive romantic relationships), with some adults reporting fairly neutral attitudes. These inconsistencies may be related to the effects of socially desirable responding when adopting self-report (e.g. explicit) measures. Thus, the current study assessed young men and women’s implicit attitudes towards CNM (using the Implicit Association Test) in order to bypass issues associated with social desirability bias. The results from 204 college students (81 men, 123 women) revealed that, despite reporting neutral explicit attitudes towards CNM, young men and women demonstrated a strong automatic preference for monogamy (mean D score = 0.71; SD = 0.32). Furthermore, the relationship between explicit and implicit attitudes was clarified by assessing the extent to which participants were likely to engage in socially desirable responding. Implicit and explicit attitudes towards CNM were more closely related among those less likely to evidence social desirability bias as compared to those who were more likely to fall prey to this bias. These findings highlight the importance of assessing implicit attitudes and provide evidence of the strong social stigma surrounding CNM.

Of two minds or one? A registered replication of Rydell et al. (2006)

ABSTRACTEvaluative conditioning (EC) is proposed as a mechanism of automatic preference acquisition in dual-process theories of attitudes (Gawronski, B., & Bodenhausen, G. V. (2006). Associative and propositional processes in evaluation: An integrative review of implicit and explicit attitude change. Psychological Bulletin, 132(5), 692–731. doi:10.1037/0033-2909.132.5.692). Evidence for the automaticity of EC comes from studies claiming EC effects for subliminally presented stimuli. An impression-formation study showed a selective influence of briefly presented primes on implicitly measured attitudes, whereas supraliminally presented behavioural information about the target person was reflected in explicit ratings (Rydell, R. J., McConnell, A. R., Mackie, D. M., & Strain, L. M. (2006). Of two minds forming and changing valence-inconsistent implicit and explicit attitudes. Psychological Science, 17(11), 954–958. doi:10.1111/j.1467-9280.2006.01811.x) This finding is considered one of the strongest pieces of evidence for dual process theories (Sweldens, S., Corneille, O., & Yzerbyt, V. (2014). The role of awareness in attitude formation through evaluative conditioning. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 18(2), 187–209. doi:10.1177/1088868314527832), and it is therefore crucial to assess its reliability and robustness. The present study presents two registered replications of the Rydell et al. (2006) study. In contrast to the original findings, the implicit measures did not reflect the valence of the subliminal primes in both studies.

The Use of Implicit Association Testing Applied to the Relationships of Individuals Who Are Visually Impaired

This study used the implicit association test (IAT) to measure attitudes of undergraduate and graduate-level university students toward people with blindness or visual impairments in regard to romantic relationships. The IAT is a computer-generated psychometric assessment that measures unconscious biases. The overall results showed that this sample of sighted participants demonstrated a moderate automatic preference for people with sight over people with blindness in romantic relationships. Implications for families and practitioners are discussed along with future research that builds upon this initial experiment by applying the IAT methodology to more complex topics in the field of blindness and visual impairment.

Cathodal tDCS evidence on how perceived body weight similarity and weight stigma can modulate the understanding of observed familiar actions

Previous experimental evidence has shown that motor resonance (i.e. the mapping of others’ actions onto one’s own motor repertoire) can be influenced by individual differences in personality traits. However, no evidence has been reported so far of the effects of physical appearance and negative attitudes toward obesity to the mechanism of MR. In the present study, normal-weight and overweight participants performed an implicit task, in which they were observing amateur actors reaching and grasping a light or heavy cube with or without deception (true vs. fake actions). Physical similarity between observers and actors was manipulated by presenting videos of slim or overweight actors. Before the task, all participants received cathodal or sham transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) over the left motor cortex, previously shown to decrease excitability of the aforementioned cortical area. At the end of each video-clip participants were instructed to indicate the correct cube size (light or heavy). Fat phobic attitudes and automatic preference for thin than fat people were also examined. Signal detection analysis (d’) on the currently acquired accuracy data (N=15) has indicated a significant 3-way interaction between type of stimulation (cathodal, sham), type of action (true, fake) and model weight. Overall, both normal and overweight participants were able to better simulate the actions performed by the slim as compared to overweight actors. However, this effect was diminished after cathodal stimulation of the left hemisphere motor area. Hence, we provide experimental evidence of action simulation and understanding being modulated by an implicit preference towards slim bodies.

Mere experience of low subjective socioeconomic status stimulates appetite and food intake

Among social animals, subordinate status or low social rank is associated with increased caloric intake and weight gain. This may reflect an adaptive behavioral pattern that promotes acquisition of caloric resources to compensate for low social resources that may otherwise serve as a buffer against environmental demands. Similarly, diet-related health risks like obesity and diabetes are disproportionately more prevalent among people of low socioeconomic resources. Whereas this relationship may be associated with reduced financial and material resources to support healthier lifestyles, it remains unclear whether the subjective experience of low socioeconomic status may alone be sufficient to stimulate consumption of greater calories. Here we show that the mere feeling of lower socioeconomic status relative to others stimulates appetite and food intake. Across four studies, we found that participants who were experimentally induced to feel low (vs. high or neutral) socioeconomic status subsequently exhibited greater automatic preferences for high-calorie foods (e.g., pizza, hamburgers), as well as intake of greater calories from snack and meal contexts. Moreover, these results were observed even in the absence of differences in access to financial resources. Our results demonstrate that among humans, the experience of low social class may contribute to preferences and behaviors that risk excess energy intake. These findings suggest that psychological and physiological systems regulating appetite may also be sensitive to subjective feelings of deprivation for critical nonfood resources (e.g., social standing). Importantly, efforts to mitigate the socioeconomic gradient in obesity may also need to address the psychological experience of low social status.

"Worse but Ours," or "Better but Theirs?" - The Role of Implicit Consumer Ethnocentrism (ICE) in Product Preference.

The goal of this project was to investigate whether consumer ethnocentrism is purely conscious mechanism based on ideology, as suggested by Shimp and Sharma (1987), or rather is an automatic, unconscious process. The aim of the project was an introduction of the Implicit Consumer Ethnocentrism (ICE) concept, measured by the Implicit Association Test (IAT). The goal of the four studies conducted was to investigate the following issues: (a) whether ICE – an automatic mechanism underlying the preference for local products over foreign – this could be observed next to the more ideologically based classic consumer ethnocentrism; (b) what happens when the consumer’s automatic preference for local products (ICE) is confronted by objective evidence of the superiority of foreign products or by the inferiority of local products. It was assumed that ICE could be reduced when foreign products were associated with a higher level of competence than local products, and this could explain the preference for foreign products over local often observed in less developed countries. In study 1 the ICE for different product categories of existing brands was tested, and in study 2 the ICE was measured in the context of non-existent brands. Both studies showed a strong in-group brand preference and confirmed the existence of new phenomena – ICE. The results of studies 3 and 4 again indicated a strong, automatic in-group brand favoritism effect as measured by IAT – participants preferred local brands over foreign. However, the inclusion of well-known foreign brands associated with high competence reduced the IAT effect (in-group preference).

Race Guides Attention in Visual Search.

It is known that faces are rapidly and even unconsciously categorized into social groups (black vs. white, male vs. female). Here, I test whether preferences for specific social groups guide attention, using a visual search paradigm. In Experiment 1 participants searched displays of neutral faces for an angry or frightened target face. Black target faces were detected more efficiently than white targets, indicating that black faces attracted more attention. Experiment 2 showed that attention differences between black and white faces were correlated with individual differences in automatic race preference. In Experiment 3, using happy target faces, the attentional preference for black over white faces was eliminated. Taken together, these results suggest that automatic preferences for social groups guide attention to individuals from negatively valenced groups, when people are searching for a negative emotion such as anger or fear.

Saying "no" to temptation: Want-to motivation improves self-regulation by reducing temptation rather than by increasing self-control.

Self-regulation has been conceptualized as the interplay between controlled and impulsive processes; however, most research has focused on the controlled side (i.e., effortful self-control). The present studies focus on the effects of motivation on impulsive processes, including automatic preferences for goal-disruptive stimuli and subjective reports of temptations and obstacles, contrasting them with effects on controlled processes. This is done by examining people's implicit affective reactions in the face of goal-disruptive "temptations" (Studies 1 and 2), subjective reports of obstacles (Studies 2 and 3) and expended effort (Study 3), as well as experiences of desires and self-control in real-time using experience sampling (Study 4). Across these multiple methods, results show that want-to motivation results in decreased impulsive attraction to goal-disruptive temptations and is related to encountering fewer obstacles in the process of goal pursuit. This, in turn, explains why want-to goals are more likely to be attained. Have-to motivation, on the other hand, was unrelated to people's automatic reactions to temptation cues but related to greater subjective perceptions of obstacles and tempting desires. The discussion focuses on the implications of these findings for self-regulation and motivation.

Contextual preference mining for user profile construction

The emerging of ubiquitous computing technologies in recent years has given rise to a new field of research consisting in incorporating context-aware preference querying facilities in database systems. One important step in this setting is the Preference Elicitation task which consists in providing the user ways to inform his/her choice on pairs of objects with a minimal effort. In this paper we propose an automatic preference elicitation method based on mining techniques. The method consists in extracting a user profile from a set of user preference samples. In our setting, a profile is specified by a set of contextual preference rules verifying properties of soundness and conciseness. After proving that the problem is NP-complete, we propose a resolution in 2 phases. The first phase extracts all individual user preferences by means of contextual preference rules. The second phase builds the user profile starting from this collection of rules using a greedy method. To assess the quality of user profiles, we propose three ranking techniques benefiting from these profiles that enable us to rank objects according to user preferences. We evaluate the efficacy of our three ranking strategies and compare them with a well-known ranking method (SVMRank). The evaluation is carried out through an extensive set of experiments executed on a real-world database of user preferences about movies.

Automatic Preferences in the Choice of Transport Mode

There is a growing consensus currently among transportation researchers on the importance of psychological aspects in the choice of transport mode, but there has been difficulty in determining the strength of this aspect on the mode decision. This paper provides a new basic framework for automatic preferences (AP) data and automatic choice (AC) methods when applied subconscious choices on modes of transport and the associations of positive qualities and modal choices. The framework also includes the observable attributes of travel time, waiting time, number of transshipment, costs, and socioeconomic characteristics of the users, all of which may have an influence in the mode choice. The most relevant results obtained were the automatic association between the car and positive constructs in the car users, and a large difficulty in obtaining an association that is a positive construct to the bus. The bus users also can associate more easily to this mode with positive constructs than the car users.

Stimulus-response compatibility tests of implicit preference for food and body image to identify people at risk for disordered eating: a validation study

The aim of this study was to incorporate implicit measures of relevant social cognition into eating disorder research. Fifty-three females diagnosed with an eating disorder (ED), and 41 at-risk females were recruited via ED support websites, along with 23 healthy females for comparison. Computerised online tests assessing subconscious normative ideal body image (IBI-BIAT) and personalised self-identification body image (PBI-BIAT) associations and food preferences (FP-AAT) were administered, followed by the modified version of the Eating Disorder Examination Questionnaire (EDE-Q). Anthropometric data, age, need for social approval, self-reported measures of self-esteem, normative perception and body image satisfaction were recorded. Self-reported diagnosed ED status was corroborated with BMI and EDE-Q. Diagnostic performance of the implicit measures was assessed with ROC analysis. Those diagnosed with ED showed significantly stronger automatic preferences for and self-identification with thin body image, compared to healthy females, but no differences were found in food preferences. The IBI-BIAT showed better diagnostic power than PBI-BIAT, correctly classifying 87% of the diagnosed participants. No correlation was found between IBI-BIAT and the explicit measures. The results suggest that the underlying subconscious social cognitive factors of pathological eating are linked to body image, not to food items per se.

Judgment is not color blind: The impact of automatic color preference on product and advertising preferences

This research examines the colors white and black and highlights the importance of automatic preference for the color white over black in product choice and advertising contexts. Across three studies, we incorporate multiple Implicit Association Tests to assess automatic preferences for colors, products, races, and advertisements. In Study 1, we demonstrate an automatic color preference for white over black, show that this preference holds for Caucasian-Americans and African-Americans, and find that automatic color preference predicts automatic product preference of white over black-colored products. Study 2 extends these findings by showing that actual behavioral product choice is best predicted by a combination of automatic and explicit color preferences. In the advertising domain, Study 3 demonstrates how automatic color preference influences advertising responses and how it explains the lack of in-group preference by African-Americans in previous implicit studies of racial preference. Collectively, our research draws attention to the need to disentangle white and black as designation of colors versus racial groups, and offers significant and novel contributions to the work on color and race in consumer psychology.

When Truth Is Personally Inconvenient, Attitudes Change

A naturalistic investigation of New Jersey residents, both before and after they experienced Hurricanes Irene and Sandy, examined support for politicians committed or opposed to policies designed to combat climate change. At Time 1, before both hurricanes, participants showed negative implicit attitudes toward a green politician, but at Time 2, after the hurricanes, participants drawn from the same cohort showed a reversed automatic preference. Moreover, those who were significantly affected by Hurricane Sandy were especially likely to implicitly prefer the green politician, and implicit attitudes were the best predictor of voting after the storms, whereas explicit climate-change beliefs was the best predictor before the storms. In concert, the results suggest that direct experience with extreme weather can increase pro-environmentalism, and further support conceptualizing affective experiences as a source of implicit attitudes.

Should Mental Health Interventions Be Locally Grown or Factory-Farmed?

Should Mental Health Interventions Be Locally Grown or Factory-Farmed?

Judgment is Not Color Blind: Disentangling Automatic Color and Race Preferences

This research examines the colors white and black and highlights the importance of automatic preference for the color white over black in product choice and advertising contexts. Across three studies, we incorporate multiple Implicit Association Tests to assess automatic preferences for colors, products, races, and advertisements. In Study 1, we demonstrate an automatic color preference for white over black, show that this preference holds for Caucasian-Americans and African-Americans, and find that automatic color preference predicts automatic product preference of white over black-colored products. Study 2 extends these findings by showing that actual behavioral product choice is best predicted by a combination of automatic and explicit color preferences. In the advertising domain, Study 3 demonstrates how automatic color preference influences advertising responses and how it explains the lack of in-group preference by African-Americans in previous implicit studies of racial preference. Collectively, our research draws attention to the need to disentangle white and black as designation of colors versus racial groups, and offers significant and novel contributions to the work on color and race in consumer psychology.

Getting a Grip on Drinking Behavior

Alcohol abuse disrupts core executive functions, including working memory (WM)—the ability to maintain and manipulate goal-relevant information. When executive functions like WM are weakened, drinking behavior gets out of control and is guided more strongly by automatic impulses. This study investigated whether training WM restores control over drinking behavior. Forty-eight problem drinkers performed WM training tasks or control tasks during 25 sessions over at least 25 days. Before and after training, we measured WM and drinking behavior. Training WM improved WM and reduced alcohol intake for more than 1 month after the training. Further, the indirect effect of training on alcohol use through improved WM was moderated by participants’ levels of automatic impulses: Increased WM reduced alcohol consumption in participants with relatively strong automatic preferences for alcohol. These findings are consistent with the theoretical framework and demonstrate that training WM may be an effective strategy to reduce alcohol use by increasing control over automatic impulses to drink alcohol.