Social Functioning of Children and Their Parents: Are They Related?

This study examined whether parents' social support was related to their children's peer acceptance and likability. The moderating role of the parent's and the child's gender was also examined. Father (N = 146-150) and mother (N = 201) reports of social support and peer reports of peer acceptance were obtained from 107 boys and 96 girls (7.92-16.76 years, M = 11.77). Aspects of fathers' and mothers' social support were observed to be differentially correlated with their children's friendships and likability. While fathers' social support was moderately correlated with their children's friendships, mothers' social support was not. The implications of these findings for the role of fathers in children's social functioning are discussed

Gaze Behavior, Believability, Likability and the iCat

The iCat is a user-interface robot with the ability to express a range of emotions through its facial features. This paper summarizes our research whether we can increase the believability and likability of the iCat for its human partners through the application of gaze behaviour. Gaze behaviour serves several functions during social interaction such as mediating conversation flow, communicating emotional information and avoiding distraction by restricting visual input. There are several types of eye and head movements that are necessary for realizing these functions. We designed and evaluated a gaze behaviour system for the iCat robot that implements realistic models of the major types of eye and head movements found in living beings: vergence, vestibulo ocular reflexive, smooth pursuit movements and gaze shifts. We discuss how these models are integrated into the software environment of the iCat and can be used to create complex interaction scenarios. We report about some user tests and draw conclusions for future evaluation scenarios

Talking the Talk: The Effect of Vocalics in an Interview

Our voices carry more than just content. People continuously make assumptions of one’s intelligence, credibility, personality, and other characteristics merely based on the way we talk. As the diversity of individuals in the workplace increases, so too do the differences in how those individuals talk. It is important that we understand how these different ways of speaking are being perceived in the workplace. More specifically, how are individuals being perceived prior to being hired via the interview process? This Honors Capstone project aims to understand the impact that vocal characteristics in an individual have on the interviewer’s perception of the interviewee, and how that impacts the hiring process. This project will offer professionals of all ages tangible advice on ways to increase one’s chances of receiving a job just by altering aspects of one’s voice

Modelling and testing consumer trust dimensions in e-commerce

Prior research has found trust to play a significant role in shaping purchase intentions of a consumer. However there has been limited research where consumer trust dimensions have been empirically defined and tested. In this paper we empirically test a path model such that Internet vendors would have adequate solutions to increase trust. The path model presented in this paper measures the three main dimensions of trust, i.e. competence, integrity, and benevolence. And assesses the influence of overall trust of consumers. The paper also analyses how various sources of trust, i.e. consumer characteristics, firm characteristic, website infrastructure and interactions with consumers, influence dimensions of trust. The model is tested using 365 valid responses. Findings suggest that consumers with high overall trust demonstrate a higher intention to purchase online

I (Don't) Like You! But Who Cares? Gender Differences in Same Sex and Mixed Sex Teams

We study the effect of likability on female and male team behavior in a lab experiment. Extending a two-player public goods game and a minimum effort game by an additional pre-play stage that informs team members about their mutual likability we find that female teams lower their contribution to the public good in case of low likability, while male teams achieve high levels of cooperation irrespective of the level of mutual likability. In mixed sex teams, both females’ and males’ contributions depend on mutual likability. Similar results are found in the minimum effort game. Our results offer a new perspective on gender differences in labor market outcomes: mutual dislikability impedes team behavior, except in all-male teams

3D avatar seller's effect on online consumer's purchasing behavior: a trust transference perspective

The emerging 3D virtual worlds attract more and more people to participate in the virtual environment, creating a new market for business to sell their products. In 3D virtual worlds, members mainly interact with each other through avatars. The selling process is fulfilled through the shop avatars. How businesses sell their products successfully to the potential customers and eventually persuade the customer to purchase the product is an essential question. Trust played a key role in the selling process. In the general selling process, trust was established through the sales person. In the virtual world environment, could the trust be established between the sales avatars and customer avatars This paper aims at answering this question by examining the trust transference process in the 3D virtual world environment. An experiment was conducted to categorize the avatars into attractive and expert ones. The research result first suggest that trust formed in a 3D avatar seller could be transferred to a selling company and a product but for an expert 3D avatar seller, trust transferred to the company and product results in intent to purchase. Trust in a 3D avatar seller is transferred to trust in a product and a company and furthermore, an expert avatar can affect a consumer's intent to purchase. In the case of an attractive 3D avatar, although trust is transferred, it is only to the point of intent to purchase

Communication modality and attitude change in a realistic experiment

In this experiment, an experimental interview with the leader of the Socialists in the Dutch Parliament was delivered via three different media: television, radio, or a newspaper presentation. We showed that the experimental interviews led, in themselves, to attitude change, but no difference was found among the three communication modalities. Moreover, no significant interaction effect was established between the political preference of the subjects (Socialist versus non-Socialist) and communication modality. Our main results do not support the assumption that for a well-known politician presently holding office, television is a less effective medium than radio or newspaper

A Puff of Steem: Security Analysis of Decentralized Content Curation

Decentralized content curation is the process through which uploaded posts are ranked and filtered based exclusively on users\u27 feedback. Platforms such as the blockchain-based Steemit employ this type of curation while providing monetary incentives to promote the visibility of high quality posts according to the perception of the participants. Despite the wide adoption of the platform very little is known regarding its performance and resilience characteristics. In this work, we provide a formal model for decentralized content curation that identifies salient complexity and game-theoretic measures of performance and resilience to selfish participants. Armed with our model, we provide a first analysis of Steemit identifying the conditions under which the system can be expected to correctly converge to curation while we demonstrate its susceptibility to selfish participant behaviour. We validate our theoretical results with system simulations in various scenarios

Illusory correlation, group size and memory

Two studies were conducted to test the predictions of a multi-component model of distinctiveness-based illusory correlation (IC) regarding the use of episodic and evaluative information in the production of the phenomenon. Extending on the standard paradigm, participants were presented with 4 groups decreasing in size, but all exhibiting the same ratio of positive to negative behaviours. Study 1 (N = 75) specifically tested the role of group size and distinctiveness, by including a zero-frequency cell in the design. Consistent with predictions drawn from the proposed model, with decreasing group size, the magnitude of the IC effect showed a linear in- crease in judgments thought to be based on evaluative information. In Study 2 (N = 43), a number of changes were introduced to a group assignment task (double presentation, inclusion of decoys) that allowed a more rig- orous test of the predicted item-specific memory effects. In addition, a new multilevel, mixed logistic regression approach to signal-detection type analysis was used, providing a more flexible and reliable analysis than previ- ously. Again, with decreasing group size, IC effects showed the predicted monotonic increase on the measures (group assignment frequencies, likability ratings) thought to be dependent on evaluative information. At the same time, measures thought to be based on episodic information (free recall and group assignment accuracy) partly revealed the predicted enhanced episodic memory for smaller groups and negative items, while also supporting a distinctiveness-based approach. Additional analysis revealed that the pattern of results for judg- ments though to be based on evaluative information was independent of interpersonal variation in behavioral memory, as predicted by the multi-component model, and in contrast to predictions of the competing models. The results are discussed in terms of the implications of the findings for the proposed mechanisms of illusory correlation

The Looks of a Winner: Beauty, Gender and Electoral Success

We study the role of beauty in politics. For the first time, focus is put on differences in how women and men evaluate female and male candidates and how different candidate traits relate to success in real and hypothetical elections. We have collected 16,218 assessments by 2,772 respondents of photos of 1,929 Finnish political candidates. Evaluations of beauty explain success in real elections better than evaluations of competence, intelligence, likability, or trustworthiness. The beauty premium is larger for female candidates, in contrast to findings in previous labor-market studies.Beauty; Gender; Elections; Political candidates; Beauty premium