Neutral Ratings Research Articles

Does attention affect individual investors' investment return?

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to theoretically and empirically explore the effects of attention levels on individual investors' investment return.Design/methodology/approachBy introducing the heterogeneous attention, the authors first expand the theoretical model of Barber and Odean. The authors use graphical analysis, univariate analysis, multiple regression analysis and construct a portfolio to carry out an empirical study.FindingsThe authors first find evidence in support of Barber and Odean's price pressure hypothesis. By theoretical and empirical study, the authors conclude that attention negatively affects individual investors' investment return.Originality/valueBy introducing the heterogeneous attention, the paper provides a theoretical basis for empirical study. Baidu abnormal search volume was used as a proxy for individual investors' attention, and analysts' neutral ratings were used to empirically verify the theoretical theorem.

Funding source and research report quality in nutrition practice-related research.

BackgroundThe source of funding is one of many possible causes of bias in scientific research. One method of detecting potential for bias is to evaluate the quality of research reports. Research exploring the relationship between funding source and nutrition-related research report quality is limited and in other disciplines the findings are mixed.ObjectiveThe purpose of this study is to determine whether types of funding sources of nutrition research are associated with differences in research report quality.DesignA retrospective study of research reporting quality, research design and funding source was conducted on 2539 peer reviewed research articles from the American Dietetic Association's Evidence Analysis Library® database.ResultsQuality rating frequency distributions indicate 43.3% of research reports were rated as positive, 50.1% neutral, and 6.6% as negative. Multinomial logistic regression results showed that while both funding source and type of research design are significant predictors of quality ratings (χ2 = 118.99, p<0.001), the model's usefulness in predicting overall research report quality is little better than chance. Compared to research reports with government funding, those not acknowledging any funding sources, followed by studies with University/hospital funding were more likely to receive neutral vs positive quality ratings, OR = 1.85, P <0.001 and OR = 1.54, P<0.001, respectively and those that did not report funding were more likely to receive negative quality ratings (OR = 4.97, P<0.001). After controlling for research design, industry funded research reports were no more likely to receive a neutral or negative quality rating than those funded by government sources.ConclusionResearch report quality cannot be accurately predicted from the funding source after controlling for research design. Continued vigilance to evaluate the quality of all research regardless of the funding source and to further understand other factors that affect quality ratings are warranted.

De-Biasing the Age-Happiness Bias: Memory Search and Cultural Expectations in Happiness Judgments Across the Lifespan

While most research shows increasing happiness across the adult life-span, there is a common and persistent misconception that happiness decreases with age. In two experiments, we found evidence to suggest that this age-happiness bias results in part from a biased search for exemplars in memory. When provided with specific exemplars, aged 30 or 70, showing clear evidence of an active and sociable lifestyle, happiness estimates were unaffected by age. However, we also found evidence that the bias may influence judgments by invoking different standards for young and old. Among participants in the United States in Experiment 1, a negative lifestyle description resulted in negative happiness ratings for a 30 year-old and neutral ratings for a 70 year-old, suggesting that the lifestyle was considered normative for the older adults. Among Irish participants in Experiment 2, we found no such distinction, arguably because of cultural differences in social expectations across the generations. These studies help to reveal the judgment mechanisms behind the age-happiness bias, and identify the boundaries of this persistent bias.

469 Patient Safety: A Cultural Must!

Background and aims: Although patient safety has been a major topic in healthcare for more than a decade, the challenge remains to find effective and sustainable safety improvement programmes. A culture of safety is a key factor in the success of such programmes. We investigated the differences in patient safety culture on wards before the start of a safety program with wards where a safety program was implemented for several years. Methods: A survey was undertaken amongst paediatricians and specialized nurses by means of the Hospital Survey on Patient Safety Culture (HSOPSC) on wards without a safety program (group A) and on wards with a safety program (group B). The study took place at the Emma Children's Hospital, Amsterdam. Results: In group A 252 surveys were provided with a response rate of 67% (64% nurses). In group B 153 surveys were provided with a response rate of 53% (80% nurses). The HSOPSC consists of 40 questions, covering 11 dimensions. Results are presented in positive, neutral or negative ratings. We found the following significant differences between groups (A vs. B) in positive ratings: Ratings in the other dimensions were unchanged. Conclusion: Implementation of a patient safety programme improves some aspects in the culture on a ward, while other aspects demand more focused intervening.

Depressive Symptoms and Affective Reactivity to Maternal Praise and Criticism

Despite decades of research documenting evidence that Expressed Emotion (EE) leads to relapse, little research has been performed to show whether depression is related to affective reactivity to criticism. This study examined how depression relates to affect after an analog of EE. Participants' mothers were asked to write praising, critical, and neutral letters about the participants, who later read these letters and completed affect measures. Current diagnosis of depression predicted more negative affect after critical letters, even after controlling neutral letter affect and judges' ratings of the letter. After controlling for neutral letter affect and judges' ratings of the praise letter, current depression did not predict less positive affect after praise letters. Lifetime depression did not predict affect.

Treatment needs and acknowledgement of illness – importance for satisfaction with psychiatric inpatient treatment

BackgroundPatient satisfaction is an important, but controversial part of health service evaluation. This study dealt with how acknowledgement of illness and treatment needs effected the distribution of positive, neutral and negative evaluations in a group of first time admitted patients to a psychiatric hospital.MethodThe participants filled out a standardized user satisfaction form before discharge. The number of positive, neutral and negative evaluations for each participant was calculated and used as dependent variables in analyses (Classification Tree) where acknowledgement of illness (The Patients' Experience of Hospitalisation Questionnaire) and treatment needs (HoNOS) were used as explanatory variables in addition to a number of potential confounders.ResultsDifferent constellations of variables explained the three dependent variables. The number of positive scores was a function of age and worry (PEH); neutral scores were explained by HoNOS rated social needs and GAF (functional scale), both at admission. Outcome (GAF functional scale) and age explained the number of negative scores.Conclusion(1) Moderately high negative correlations between positive and neutral scores, and between positive and negative scores, together with a positive correlation between the number of negative and neutral ratings was interpreted to mean that neutral scores sometimes function as undercommunicated negative evaluations. These could better be studied by qualitative methods. (2) The worry subscale (PEH) was important in identifying the majority of patients with the highest numbers of positive scores (patients older than 27.5 yrs with high worry score at admission.). The most dissatisfied group was characterised by denial of both mental problems and need for treatment. (3) Patients with high scores on the HoNOS Social subscale had the highest number of neutral scores. To the extent that neutral evaluations have negative connotations, treatment should focus more effectively on the patients' social needs. (4) The smallest number of negative scores was found among older patients with high functional improvement (GAF F). (5) Increasing age consistently predicted higher satisfaction. A better understanding of why younger patients are more dissatisfied is needed.

Interoceptive sensitivity and emotion processing: An EEG study

Theories of emotion consider the self-perception of visceral activity to play an important role in emotion. This study examined the relationship between interoceptive sensitivity and both the subjective emotional experience and the processing of emotional pictures. According to their results in a heartbeat detection task subjects were classified as good ( N = 17) or poor ( N = 20) heartbeat perceivers. Event-related potentials were recorded while subjects viewed pleasant, neutral and unpleasant pictures and SAM ratings were examined. Good heartbeat perceivers showed significantly greater P300 and slow wave amplitudes for emotional pictures at antero-inferior, medial and posterior electrode sites and experienced a greater arousal for emotional pictures compared to poor heartbeat perceivers. The heartbeat perception score correlated significantly positive both with emotional P300 and slow wave amplitudes as well as with the arousal ratings for emotional pictures. The results indicate that there is a significant and strong association between interoceptive sensitivity and the intensity of emotional experience as well as the central processing of emotional stimuli.

Physician Shopping in Workers' Compensation: Evidence from California

Physician evaluations of impairment severity have a significant impact on the size of permanent disability benefits awarded to injured workers in workers' compensation. This gives both parties in a disputed claim the incentive to “shop” for physicians who will provide them with sympathetic evaluations. In this article we use data from the California workers' compensation system on competing physician evaluations for the same injury to study the extent to which the ability to select a physician results in a more favorable disability rating. We find that disability ratings based on evaluations from physicians selected by the applicant are 23 percent higher than those based on a neutral evaluation, while ratings based on a defense physician's evaluation tend to be about 5 percent lower. Moreover, we match these data to earnings loss data and estimate the extent to which applicant, defense, or neutral ratings best predict the outcomes of injured workers. The neutral ratings appear to do the best job of predicting earnings losses overall, though not by a substantial margin.

Evaluative learning and emotional responding to fearful and disgusting stimuli in spider phobia

The present study explores possible changes between spider phobics ( N = 22) and nonphobics ( N = 28) in fear, disgust, and neutral ratings of neutral expressions as a result of their pairing with spiders. No statistically significant differences were detected between pre and post fear ratings of the expressions as a result of their association with spiders. However, post disgust ratings were marginally higher than pre disgust ratings and post neutral ratings were significantly lower than pre neutral ratings. The present study also examined differences in fear and disgust responding to threat-relevant and disgust-relevant stimuli between spider phobics and nonphobics. Spider phobics reported significantly more fear and disgust than nonphobics towards threat and disgust-relevant stimuli. The relation between spider phobia and disgust responding to spiders was partially mediated by fear whereas the relation between spider phobia and disgust responding to rotting foods and body products was fully mediated by fear. Emotional responding to threat-relevant and disgust-relevant stimuli was also significantly associated with disgust sensitivity when controlling for trait anxiety. These findings support the notion that the disgust response in spider phobia is independent of fear to the extent that it is specifically bound to spiders.

An Empirical Study of Paid Listings in Product Search and Purchase

Pay-for-placement search has been described contradictorily as either the future business model of information retrieval on the Internet or as a deceptive nuisance for unsuspecting Web surfers. This study investigated user interaction with paid search listings during a set of naturalistic product search and purchase tasks. The study compared objective measures of how often these listings are used and subjective user opinions both during and after the task. Participants were more likely to view and select organic listings than paid listings. They also rated the organic results as more relevant for the shopping tasks and expressed suspicion of the paid listings. However, some users did use the paid listings and when the content was relevant there was no difference in the relevance ratings of the content pages themselves. A lack of neutral ratings for paid listings suggests that users will respond either negatively or positively to the paid listings, creating a difficult decision for online retailers and product search companies when considering whether to support paid search listings.

Role utilization of nurses in public psychiatry.

This study examined the professional, work and organizational characteristics, and the actual and preferred work activities of nurses employed by one state mental health agency. Findings include neutral ratings by this older and experienced group of nurses in relation to job satisfaction, work autonomy, and organizational commitment regardless of educational background or work setting. Specific activities of the nurses varied appropriately based on education, but differences emerged among functions performed by nurses in inpatient and community settings. All nurses preferred to increase their direct care activities and significantly reduce their clerical activities. Factors related to the appropriate utilization of public sector psychiatric nurses are analyzed.

Reactions to Ballet with Wheelchairs: Reflections of Attitudes toward People with Disabilities.

Subjects watched 2 videotape excerpts and recorded their reactions along a negative-to-positive continuum on the Continuous Response Digital Interface (CRDI). One excerpt was a classical ballet performance-the final 2 minutes of Stravinsky s Symphony in C by Balanchine. The other excerpt was a 2.5 minute Cable News Network (CNN) newscast about a collaborative performance between the Jeoffrey Ballet and a Chicago-based group of dancers in wheelchairs. Subjects included 32 middle school students, 32 high school students, and 32 undergraduate college music majors. Each age group had equal numbers of male and female subjects. Order of presentation of excerpts was controlled by reversing the sequence for half of the subjects by gender in each age group. A repeated measures ANOVA of mean CRDI ratings by excerpt order, gender, and age revealed a significant difference between newscast ratings and ballet performance ratings. Newscast mean ratings were more positive than ballet performance mean ratings. Order of presentation and gender were not significant factors. Age was the only factor affecting the difference. Newscast mean ratings were highly positive for all 3 groups and minor differences were not significant. Ballet performance mean ratings by college students, however, were significantly more positive compared to the younger groups mean ratings. High school students neutral ratings and middle school students slightly negative ratings were not significantly different. Individual subject s timelines revealed similar levels of discriminating attention with the CRDI across different age groups, different video formats, and different content. Middle and high school students reactions to visual images of dancers in wheelchairs talking about dancing and performing with nondisabled ballet dancers are positive and apparently unrelated to their reactions to classical ballet.

High School Student Perceptions Associated with Their Participation in the National School Lunch Program

Perceptions were obtained from 812 11 th-grade students from six low-participation schools and 482 students from high-participation schools. Items were related to food quality and appearance, variety in food choices, dining environment and crowding, service time, staff service, sanitation practices, menu dietary practices, menu dietary information, marketing and promotion, meal price, and influence of others in deciding whether or not to participate in the National School Lunch Program (NSLP). Weighted school mean scores of student satisfaction/dissatisfaction (5 items) and agreement/ disagreement (34 items) reflected generally neutral ratings (2.75-3.24 on a 5-point scale) in both low- and high-participation schools. Independent t-tests indicated significant differences between the two groups for 13 of the 39 items. However, similarity of student perceptions in both low- and high-participation schools indicate that participation in the NSLP may not be a good indicator of student satisfaction. Step-wise logistic regression analysis showed that convenience and having no other choice were the two independent variables that contributed the most to explaining differences in levels of participation in both low- and high-participation schools. Researchers also made on-site observations. They rated items related to crowding, service time, temperature of hot food, taste of foods, and meal price higher than did students. Approximately 25% of students indicated that more variety in food choices and improvement in food quality would encourage them to eat the reimbursable lunch more often. These suggestions were consistent with mean ratings of ⩽2.76 for quality and variety of foods offered and should be viewed as an opportunity to increase participation.

A Comparison of Computer-Assisted Psychotherapy and Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy in Groups

This study is the first independent, randomized controlled study in a clinical setting of a computer-assisted therapy program (Therapeutic Learning Program; TLP) developed to permit individualized therapy in a group setting. This software differs from other computer-assisted approaches in that targets for change are chosen by the patient rather than determined by the software. TLP was compared to a standard cognitive-behavioral treatment in 109 patients with 6-month follow-up. Although both treatments were associated with a significant reduction in symptoms of anxiety and depression at posttreatment and follow-up, no differences were found between treatments with respect to patient-rated satisfaction and effectiveness, clinician ratings of improvement, and scores on measures of anxiety and depression. At treatment midpoint patients tended to give more neutral ratings of satisfaction and treatment effectiveness of the TLP treatment, perhaps suspending judgment about this more novel treatment until its completion. It is concluded that at least one form of computer-assisted psychotherapy is as effective and acceptable to patients in a clinical setting as standard short-term cognitive-behavioral therapy conducted by experienced clinicians.

Everyday beliefs about sources of advice for the parents of difficult children.

Parents were asked which sources of advice families with difficult children should seek. The results suggested a similar hierarchy of agencies for both boys and girls with emotional and behavioural problems. Teachers, doctors, child psychiatrists and health visitors all received strong positive ratings, books about children with problems received moderate positive ratings, religious leaders received the strongest negative ratings and grandparents and friends received neutral ratings. Implications for service provision are discussed.

An attempt to change the negative, stigmatizing image of mental patients through brief reeducation.

To test the hypothesis that presenting data generally contradictory to a person's negative image of the will reduce that person's negative view of the patient, 26 female and 12 male college students, undergraduate juniors and seniors with 15.3 yr. of formal education and a mean age of 23.3 yr., were given the semantic differential (3) as measure of a person's image (constructs) of patients. This 30-item version (1) of the 7-point scale allows respondents to rate a mental patient on a series of bipolar dimensions, e.g., safe-dangerous. Ratings on negative dimensions are scored as 1, 2, and 3; ratings on positive dimensions as 5, 6, and 7; and neutral ratings as 4. The maximum (positive) score is 210, the minimum (negative) 30. During one 2-hr. class of medical sociology students were presented by the first author (unknown to the students) with a large amount of data (2) contradicting the traditional negative image of the patient. Participants completed the construct measure before and after the presentation, as well as 5 wk. later in the follow-up. Analyses by t tests indicated a significant (df = 37, p < .05) reduction at postpresentation of students' negative constructs of patients on eight dimensions of the measure: dangerous-safe (t = 7.32), strange-familiar (t = 3.62), remote-intimate (6 = 4.01 ), mysterious-understandable (t = 3.36), sick-healthy (t = 3.14), worthlessvaluable (t = 2.84), unpredictable-predictable (t = 2.63), and dirty-clean ($ = 2.48). On one dimension (passive-active) students' constructs became more negative after the seminar (t = 2.19). On the remaining 21 dimensions post-seminar change did not attain significance. Pretest-follow-up comparisons showed participants' constructs continued to remain significantly less negative than at pretest. On follow-up respondents no longer reported significantly more negative constructs on the passive-active dimension. Results suggest that the demythologizing process might help reduce a college student's negative constructs of patients, at least on certain dimensions. This finding corroborates well with similar research with patients (I), but further research must determine whether the approach might reduce the general public's negative image (4) of the patient. REFERENCES

Pre-morbid personality traits and responsiveness to flooding in obsessive-compulsive patients

Clinical and psychophysiological assessments were carried out before and after completion of flooding treatment in two groups of obsessive-compulsive patients, matched for age and duration of the illness but differing in pre-morbid obsessional personality traits. Patients with such traits appear to demonstrate a specific autonomic sensitivity to flooding, probably related to either the reduction of anxiety after treatment or to certain qualities of the treatment itself. Significant changes after treatment regarding neutral stimuli and attitude ratings of untreated obsessional manifestations suggest a more global response to flooding in such patients. Some suggestions for further research are presented.

Salience and Order in Impression-Formation

Due to the pervasive confounding of effects of order in impression formation, an attempt was made to reduce these effects. The addition of a storage and recall task to the standard impression-formation procedure led to the prediction that increased attention would be paid to all of the stimulus words within a given list of traits. Consequently, it was expected that this increased attention would be reflected in a reduction of effects of order between subjects and a more neutral evaluation of persons who are described by equal amounts of isovalent traits (positive and negative traits which are affectively equidistant from neutrality). This hypothesis was derived from finding no effects of order in studies of recall (cf. Bartz. Lewis, & Swinton, 1972), reduced effects when recall followed evaluation (Anderson & Hubert, 1963). and more accurate impression formation when inconsistency is made salient (Hendrick, 1972). Sixty-eight subjects were randomly assigned to one of 4 equal-sized groups: (1) recall and evaluation, (2) reverse-order recall and evaluation, (3) evaluation, and (4) reverse-order evaluation. The stimuli were 11 lists, each containing 6 isovalent traits (3 positive and 3 equally negative) which were presented as a descriprion of a person. Subjects in Groups 1 and 2 were required to store and recall each list and then make an evaluation of the person (likeability-rating, - 5 to + 5) while Groups 3 and 4 subjects simply read each list and then made likeability-ratings. No reduction in effects of order was found in rhe nonsignificant interaction of task X order (F = 1.00, df = 1/763). An over-all effect of recency was obtained (F = 4.60, df = 1/763, p < .05) in that descriptions which contained 3 positive traits followed by 3 negative traits were consistently rated more negatively (M = -.55) than were acg3rive-positive descriptions (M = -.24). However, the hypothesis that salience of the neutrality of descriptions would be increased with the inclusion of a storage and recall task and that this increased salience would be reflected in more neutral ratings was confirmed (F = 15.80, df = 1/736, fi < ,001). Noc only were likeability-ratings closer to neutrality (0) in the recall-and-evaluadon groups (M = -.lo) than in evaluarion-only groups (M = -.70). but the incidence of neutral ratings was also significantly greater (X3 = 19.5, df = 1, p < ,001) in recall-and-evaluation groups (77/340 = 23%) than in evaluation-only groups (30/340 = 95% ). The failure to reduce effects of order was perhaps a function of the inadequacy of the task. However, the data suggest that increased familiarity with descriptions of persons (via storage and recall) facilitates the formation of more accurate impressions because the affective meaning of the descriptions is made salient.

Personality dimensions and extreme response tendency.

In a study of the relationship between pathology and rating style, 68 Ss rated 10 Rorschach inkblots on 15 semantic differential scales. Ss were selected from a total of 158 Japanese college students as extreme neuroticism and/or extraversion scorers based on the Japanese version of the Maudsley Personality Inventory. It was found that neurotics made significantly more extreme ratings than non-neurotic Ss and that stable introverts had significantly fewer extreme ratings than neurotic extraverts. No significant differences were found in intermediate and neutral ratings.