Pre-existing Preferences Research Articles

Effects of a fruit-ice combination flavor on appeal and sensory experience of vaping and moderation by preexisting e-cigarette flavor preference.

E-cigarettes with ice flavors, which are products with a cooling agent added to a characterizing flavor (e.g., grape-ice), are widely sold. Whether ice flavors appeal to only those who already use them or a to wider population is not widely understood. This secondary analysis of a clinical laboratory experiment tested effects of experimental exposure to e-cigarettes with fruit-ice versus other flavors on the appeal and sensory attributes of vaping and whether fruit-ice effects are moderated by preexisting e-cigarette flavor preference. In a controlled double-blind within-subject randomized online experiment, adults who currently use e-cigarettes, N = 85, M (SD) = 35.5 (13.2) years, 50% female, 54.3% White, self-administered e-liquids varying in flavors (fruit-ice [grape + menthol], tobacco-only, dessert-only [caramel], and fruit-only [strawberry]). Participants rated each product's appeal (liking, disliking, willingness to use again) and sensory attributes (sweetness, smoothness, harshness, bitterness, and coolness). In the overall sample, fruit-ice flavor produced (a) higher appeal, sweetness, smoothness, and coolness and lower bitterness and harshness compared to tobacco and dessert-only flavors and (b) higher coolness and lower sweetness than fruit-only flavors. The appeal-enhancing effect of fruit-ice (vs. tobacco and dessert-only flavors) was stronger among those with preexisting preferences for menthol/mint, fruit, and ice flavors, but not for those who typically used tobacco-only flavors. Our findings suggest that restrictions on fruit-ice-flavored e-cigarettes may reduce the appeal of vaping, particularly among vapers with preferences for products with cooling, fruit, and/or sweet sensory attributes. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

Unleashed

ABSTRACT: Social change often comes from unleashing hidden preferences and constructing novel preferences. Under the pressure of social norms, people sometimes falsify their preferences. Once norms are weakened or revised, it becomes possible to discover preexisting preferences. Because those preferences were concealed, large-scale movements are both possible and difficult to predict. Revision of norms can also construct rather than uncover preferences. Once norms are altered, people come to hold preferences they did not hold before. These points bear on the rise and fall of discrimination and help illuminate the dynamics of social cascades and the effects of social norms on diverse practices and developments.

Is your employer branding strategy effective? The role of employee predisposition in achieving employer attractiveness

PurposeEmployer branding (EB) has become a powerful tool for organizations to attract employees. Recruitment communication ideally reveals the image that companies want to portray to potential employees to attract talents with the right skills and competences for the organization. This study explores the impact of EB on employer attractiveness by testing how pre-existing employee preferences interact with EB and how this interaction affects employer attractiveness.Design/methodology/approachA quasi-experiment among 289 final-year students was used to test the relationships between EB, perceived employer image, person-organization (P-O) fit and employer attractiveness, and the potential moderating variables of pre-existing preferences, in this case operationalized as locational preferences. Students are randomly assigned to four vacancies: one with and one without EB cues in two different locations: Groningen and Amsterdam. The authors used standard scales for attractiveness, perceptions of an employer and person-organization fit. The authors test the relationships using a regression analysis.FindingsResults suggest that if respondents have previous predispositions, then their preference can be enhanced using an EB-targeted strategy. Based on these results, the authors can conclude that EB and related practices can be successful avenues for organizations in the war for talent, particularly if they reaffirm previous preferences of potential employees.Originality/valueThe research is original in the way it provides empirical evidence on the relationship between EB and attractiveness, particularly when previous employee preferences exist. This is of value to employers using EB as a tool to influence employer attractiveness.

Residential relocation as a key event in commuting mode shift

Residential self-selection studies argue that pre-existing travel-related attitude overshadows the role of changes in residential built environment in (re)shaping travel behaviours. Our study contributes to this self-selection argument by including family- and job-related life events as another self-selection source, and accounting for the reverse causality from built environment to travel attitude as opposed to the attitude-induced self-selection. Using a two-wave sample of 1,038 Dutch residents before and after the relocation, we developed structural equation models to investigate longitudinal relationships between changes in residential built environment and job-housing distances, the occurrence of life events, and changes in commuting mode choices and preferences pre-post relocation. Results supported residential self-selection arising from pre-existing preferences for car and public transport commuting, while residents lowered the active commuting preference after moving to a more suburban neighbourhood. Life events concurrent with residential relocation, such as childbirth and job changes, also underlay greater demand for car use.

Digital Ethnic Enclaves: Mate Preferences and Platform Choices Among Chinese Immigrant Online Daters in Vancouver

In light of the growing racialized immigrant population in Canada and advances in dating technologies, this study examines Chinese immigrants' partner preferences and mate selection processes through the lens of online dating. We draw on in-depth interviews with 31 Chinese immigrants who have used online dating services in Metro Vancouver to search for different-sex partners. Chinese immigrant online daters show strong preferences for dating Chinese. They emphasize permanent residency status and similarity in age at arrival when evaluating potential partners. Given their preferences, Chinese immigrants strategically choose the dating platforms they primarily use. Men exhibit higher selectivity in their preferences and choices of platforms. Notably, platforms catering to Chinese users create "digital ethnic enclaves" where Chinese immigrant daters congregate. The findings illuminate the intersection of race, gender, immigrant status, and age at arrival in shaping divergent experiences of mate selection and immigrant assimilation in the digital era.

The impact of cognitive work demands on subsequent physical activity behavior.

After cognitively demanding work, individuals tend to be less physically active. However, the psychological mechanisms underlying this effect have not been thoroughly tested. The aim of this article was to experimentally investigate the impact of cognitive work demands on subsequent physical activity behavior. Across two preregistered experiments, participants were exposed to high or low levels of cognitive work demands, operationalized as workload in Experiment 1 and as working-memory load in Experiment 2. In a subsequent choice task, participants made binary consequential choices between leisure nonphysical activities (e.g., drawing) and effortful physical activities (e.g., cycling). Choice alternatives were matched on attractiveness rankings. Additionally, physical endurance performance was measured using a standardized cycling protocol in Experiment 1. In contrast to the hypotheses, after performing work with high cognitive demands, participants were not more likely to choose nonphysical over physical activities nor did they perform significantly worse on the physical endurance task. Exploratory analyses suggest that preexisting preferences for either physical or nonphysical activities explained physical activity behavior above and beyond exposure to cognitively demanding work. These experiments question the impact of cognitively demanding work on subsequent cognitive fatigue and physical activity behavior. Implications for theory, practice, and future directions are discussed. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

Can we learn from 2012? Priming and abortion’s influence on voting decisions

With abortion regaining attention in national media due to recent court cases and legislation, this study assesses evidence of the potential impact of abortion on voting behavior when the issue becomes especially salient in the campaign information environment. The study utilizes two-wave panel data from the 2010–2012 Cooperative Congressional Study and compares the effect of lagged abortion attitudes on vote choice in the Missouri and Indiana U.S. Senate elections in 2012 to other electoral contests where abortion was less salient. The findings suggest abortion influenced vote choice through the process of learning and priming after abortion unexpectedly became salient due to comments from Republican candidates that revealed extreme conservative positions on the issue. While substantial research suggests that voters often learn and then follow the issue preferences of their preferred party’s candidates, these results point to conditions where the information environment can serve a potentially more normatively desirable role of informing and activating the electorate’s pre-existing preferences.

"I Wish Someone had Asked Me Earlier"-Perspectives on Advance Care Planning in Surgery.

"I Wish Someone had Asked Me Earlier"-Perspectives on Advance Care Planning in Surgery.

Wars of Choice: Leaders, Rebellion Legacy, and Domestic Unrest

Abstract Existing studies suggest that leaders that have earlier been participants in rebellions have a higher propensity for international conflict than leaders with no such experience. This paper examines whether prior involvement in rebellions will induce leaders to initiate international conflicts during domestic strife. I propose a preference modification approach and argue that rebel leaders’ policy choices during domestic unrest are a product of their pre-existing preferences and contextual factors. Specifically, I claim that the greater preference for conflict abroad during domestic unrest that former rebel leaders display than do their fellow leaders is contingent on the severity level of domestic problems. When facing serious internal unrest, rebel leaders are less likely than their non-rebel counterparts to engage in international conflicts due to the effect that critical domestic strife will have on the former’s perceptions and thus their policy preferences. Intense domestic strife predisposes rebel leaders to engage in both international conflict and domestic measures, which to some extent neutralises their original policy preference of international conflict as the sole policy response. By contrast, non-rebel leaders perceive more efficacy in international conflict during severe domestic unrest and are more likely to initiate an international dispute in that case. Statistical analyses of the international militarised dispute initiations of leaders under domestic strife from 1875 to 2000 reveal strong support for these arguments.

Nudgeability: Mapping Conditions of Susceptibility to Nudge Influence

Nudges are behavioral interventions to subtly steer citizens’ choices toward “desirable” options. An important topic of debate concerns the legitimacy of nudging as a policy instrument, and there is a focus on issues relating to nudge transparency, the role of preexisting preferences people may have, and the premise that nudges primarily affect people when they are in “irrational” modes of thinking. Empirical insights into how these factors affect the extent to which people are susceptible to nudge influence (i.e., “nudgeable”) are lacking in the debate. This article introduces the new concept of nudgeability and makes a first attempt to synthesize the evidence on when people are responsive to nudges. We find that nudge effects do not hinge on transparency or modes of thinking but that personal preferences moderate effects such that people cannot be nudged into something they do not want. We conclude that, in view of these findings, concerns about nudging legitimacy should be softened and that future research should attend to these and other conditions of nudgeability.

The magician's choice: Providing illusory choice and sense of agency with the equivoque forcing technique.

Forcing techniques allow magicians to subtly influence spectators' choices and the outcome of their actions, and they provide powerful tools to study decision-making and the illusory sense of agency and freedom over choices we make. We investigated the equivoque force, a technique that exploits semantic ambiguities and people's failure to notice inconsistencies, to ensure that a spectator ends up with a predetermined outcome. Similar to choice blindness paradigms, the equivoque forces participants to end up with an item they did not choose in the first place. However, here, the subterfuge is accomplished in full view. In 3 experiments, we showed that the equivoque is highly effective in providing participants an illusory sense of agency over the outcome of their actions, even after 2 repetitions of the trick (Experiment 2) and using items for which preexisting preferences can be present (Experiment 3). Across all experiments, participants were oblivious to inconsistencies in the procedure used to guide their decisions, and they were genuinely surprised by the experimenter's matching prediction. Contrary to our prediction, the equivoque force did not significantly change participants' preference for the chosen item. We discuss the results with regard to other illusions of agency (e.g., forcing, choice blindness), failures in noticing semantic inconsistencies (e.g., Moses illusion), and issues surrounding choice-induced-preference literature. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).

Bayes’ Theorem as a Tool for Better Administration of Employee Discretion

This paper presents a new form of discretion that deals with subliminal (personal) preferences, which are present in discretionary decision-making (where the mental, cognitive functions of public servants, mixed with their character and “dressed” with sophistic, logically well-explained and legally allowed reasons are present). This paper presents employee discretion that could be a denominator of the public employees’ will to do or not to do something, to give lesser or greater weight to something. The power to choose is hence not only possible in legal frameworks but also outside of them. So far, informal power has been viewed in the law as the illegal one, although there are many informal, especially personal elements involved in the legal decision-making that are never brought to light. This paper offers a promising approach to how decisions can be similar in similar matters, despite their differences in personal backgrounds, cognitive capabilities or emotional variances. This can be done if Bayes’ theorem is used. Probability can here be established based on how much we believe something after we have seen the evidence; this depends not only on what the evidence shows but also on our pre-existing preferences (pre-investigation, prior probability or just a prior) or weights that affect our view on evidence or how much we believed in the evidence from the start. By assessing priors, decision-makers can become more comfortable with probability and uncertainty, and at the same time, the “echo chambers” of unfounded claims can be avoided. This way, subjective preferences could be known to others, while the principles of equality and equity could be raised to a higher level. Further development of employee discretion is based on the same grounds as this type of discretion – on our personal (in)actions.

Patient preference for urologist gender.

To determine the factors associated with patients preferring the gender of their treating urologist in various clinical settings. A total of 400 urology outpatients participated in a structured interview on the nature of their presenting complaint, perception of their complaint and the preference for the gender of their urologist in four specific scenarios of consultation, physical examination, office-based procedure and surgery. Patients who expressed a gender preference received follow-up telephone calls. A gender preference was expressed by 63 (15.8%), 108 (27.0%), 89 (22.3%) and 29 (7.3%) patients for the scenarios of consultation, physical examination, office-based procedure and surgery, respectively. Patients were more likely to have a preference if they were female or had a condition they considered embarrassing, with most preferences being for a gender-concordant urologist. Reasons included a previous negative experience and perceived gender-specific treatment styles. Patients who subsequently saw a doctor of the opposite gender to their preference were more likely to change their mind if their clinical interaction was positive. Female patients, those with a perceived embarrassing condition and patients undergoing examination or office-based procedures are more likely to have a gender preference for their urologist, with a subsequent positive experience leading to patients discarding pre-existing preferences. With improved understanding of how patient characteristics, perception of their condition and previous experiences can affect their choices in various clinical situations, urologists can better meet patient expectations and address barriers to healthcare in urology.

Trading Arguments: Opinion Updating in the Context of International Trade Agreements

AbstractPublic opinion can often become a key challenge to international cooperation efforts. In their attempt to garner support for their position, stakeholders fight for the hearts and minds of the public based on arguments about the consequences of different policy options. But to what extent do individuals’ preferences change when exposed to such information? And how does this depend on the information being congruent or contradictory to pre-existing preferences? We address these questions in the context of the negotiations on the potentially largest regional trade agreement in history: the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP). Based on a two-waves-panel-survey-experiment fielded in Germany and the United States, we examine how individuals’ prior opinion influences the way they process new information. We argue that individuals’ existing priors about how they generally think about economic openness interact with new information to inform their opinion about the specific policy proposal at hand. Our experimental results show that while prior opinion constrains opinion updating to some degree, overall, citizens update their existing beliefs in line with new information. This updating process can even result in respondents changing their opinion, although only in one direction: namely to turn from a TTIP supporter to a TTIP opponent.

Did Right-To-Work Laws Impact Income Inequality? Evidence from U.S. States Using the Synthetic Control Method

Abstract In this paper, we use the Synthetic Control Method (SCM) to examine the impact of a state’s adoption of a Right-To-Work (RTW) law on income inequality. We explore possible pathways through which RTW laws may impact inequality, namely, unionization, investment, and wages. Our finding of a lack of impact of RTW laws on inequality is further supported by findings of a lack of impact of the law on these variables. Our results follow Farber (1984), who suggests that RTW laws may simply mirror pre-existing preferences against union representation. Hence RTW laws are not the primary driver of changes in inequality.

Contract Law in a Just Society

Abstract This Article challenges Hanoch Dagan and Michael Heller’s choice theory of contract, according to which contract law is autonomy-enhancing. I make three points: first, the choice theory of contract cannot clarify the critical normative distinction between enforceable formal contracts and unenforceable informal promises. Second, I develop the roads/contract-types analogy: instead of promoting individuals’ autonomy and enhancing their choice among different projects, most contract types are justified by the preexisting preferences of citizens. Finally, I outline a teleological justification of contract law that is different from that propounded by Dagan and Heller. On this view, contract law should remain neutral as to which conception of the good is commendable and provide individuals with the means of shaping and pursuing a conception of a good life.

General practice recruitment - a survey of awareness and influence of the Scottish Targeted Enhanced Recruitment Scheme (TERS)

ABSTRACTThe World Health Organisation reported that health-care systems worldwide have problems with the recruitment and retention of general practitioners (GPs) into clinical practice, particularly to rural and under-served areas. A recent survey of United Kingdom (UK) trainees found that they valued posts with good training conditions, were in desirable locations and gave opportunities for their partner. The Scottish Government has set a target to increase the number of GPs in Scotland by 800 in the next 10 years. In recent years, GP speciality training recruitment has been challenging with significant vacancies in some training programmes, primarily in rural areas, or urban areas with a history of poorer recruitment. Recruitment incentive schemes are in operation in different countries in the UK. The Scottish Government introduced a Targeted Enhanced Recruitment Scheme (TERS), offering a £20,000 payment to GPST trainees accepting a targeted post. This study aimed to evaluate awareness and influence of the TERS initiative on programme choice in Scotland in August 2017. A survey was developed and sent to GP trainees taking up a GPST post in August 2017. Ninety-five out of 245 doctors responded (response rate of 39%). Almost two-thirds (65.3%) were aware of TERS at the time of application and this was via word of mouth and from the National Recruitment Office website. Only 21% of GPSTs aware of TERS were influenced by it in their choice of training location. The locations of family, spouse or partner, and of pre-existing geographical preferences were more influential than TERS.

The Social Pipeline: How Friend Influence and Peer Exposure Widen the STEM Gender Gap

Individuals’ favorite subjects in school can predetermine their educational and occupational careers. If girls develop weaker preferences for science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM), it can contribute to macrolevel gender inequalities in income and status. Relying on large-scale panel data on adolescents from Sweden (218 classrooms, 4,998 students), we observe a widening gender gap in preferring STEM subjects within a year (girls, 19 to 15 percent; boys, 21 to 20 percent). By applying newly developed random-coefficient multilevel stochastic actor-oriented models on social network data (27,428 friendships), we investigate how social context contributes to those changes. We find strong evidence that students adjust their preferences to those of their friends (friend influence). Moreover, girls tend to retain their STEM preferences when other girls in their classroom also like STEM (peer exposure). We conclude that these mechanisms amplify preexisting preferences and thereby contribute to the observed dramatic widening of the STEM gender gap.

Patient responsiveness to a differential deductible: empirical results from The Netherlands

Health insurers may use financial incentives to encourage their enrollees to choose preferred providers for medical treatment. Empirical evidence whether differences in cost-sharing rates across providers affects patient choice behavior is, especially from Europe, limited. This paper examines the effect of a differential deductible to steer patient provider choice in a Dutch regional market for varicose veins treatment. Using individual patients’ choice data and information about their out-of-pocket payments covering the year of the experiment and 1 year before, we estimate a conditional logit model that explicitly controls for pre-existing patient preferences. Our results suggest that in this natural experiment designating preferred providers and waiving the deductible for enrollees using these providers significantly influenced patient choice. The average cross-price elasticity of demand is found to be 0.02, indicating that patient responsiveness to the cost-sharing differential itself was low. Unlike fixed cost-sharing differences, the deductible exemption was conditional on the patient’s other medical expenses occurring in the policy year. The differential deductible did, therefore, not result in a financial benefit for patients with annual costs exceeding their total deductible.

An in-depth analysis of the use of shared decision making in contraceptive counseling

Objective(s)Shared decision making (SDM) has emerged as a useful tool to promote patient-centered communication and is highly applicable to contraceptive decision making. Little is known about how SDM is operationalized in contraceptive counseling. This study aimed to explore and describe how SDM is used in the contraceptive counseling context. MethodsWe analyzed a selection of transcripts from a larger study of 342 audiorecorded visits in which contraceptive counseling occurred in the San Francisco Bay Area. A previous study team had identified 106 transcripts that demonstrated principles of SDM. We randomly selected 40 transcripts from this group for deeper analysis. We coded transcripts using directed content analysis to understand the process of SDM in the context of contraceptive counseling. We focused on how the previously identified phases of SDM (information sharing, deliberation and decision making) occurred in these visits and identified emerging themes. ResultsRather than consisting of distinct phases, our analysis found that, in contraceptive counseling, the information sharing and deliberation stages of SDM were largely integrated in an iterative back and forth process between patient and provider. The final decision-making phase was directed by the patient, who retained the final choice. ConclusionOur analysis found that the use of SDM in the contraceptive counseling context reflected the intimacy and complexity of contraceptive decision making. These findings can be used as a foundation for future work to develop training designed to integrate SDM in a manner appropriate to the context of contraception, including prioritizing patient autonomy and acknowledging preexisting preferences of patients.