Stress reducing effects of real and artificial nature in a hospital waiting room

Objectives: This field study investigated the potential stress-reducing effects of exposure to real or artificial nature on patients in a hospital waiting room. Additionally, it was investigated whether perceived attractiveness of the room could explain these effects. Design: In this between-patients experimental design, patients were exposed to one of the following: real plants, posters of plants, or no nature (control). These conditions were alternately applied to two waiting rooms. Location: The location of this study was two waiting rooms at the Radiology Department of a Dutch hospital. Subjects: The subjects comprised 457 patients (60% female and 40% male) who were mostly scheduled for echocardiogram, dual-energy x-ray absorptiometry, magnetic resonance imaging, computed tomography scans, or nuclear research. Results: Patients exposed to real plants, as well as patients exposed to posters of plants, report lower levels of experienced stress compared to the control condition. Further analyses show that these small but significant effects of exposure to nature are partially mediated by the perceived attractiveness of the waiting room. Conclusions: Natural elements in hospital environments have the potential to reduce patients' feelings of stress. By increasing the attractiveness of the waiting room by adding either real plants or posters of plants, hospitals can create a pleasant atmosphere that positively influences patients' well-being

The Negation Bias in Stereotype Maintenance : A Replication in Five Languages

Research on linguistic biases shows that stereotypic expectancies are implicitly reflected in language and thereby subtly communicated to message recipients. Research on the Negation Bias shows that the use of negations (e.g., not stupid vs. smart) is more pronounced in descriptions of stereotype-inconsistent compared with stereotype-consistent behaviors. This article reports a replication study of the original research conducted in Dutch, using newly developed materials, and in five different languages: English, Dutch, Hungarian, Finnish, and Serbian. The results validate the existence of the Negation Bias in all five languages. This suggests that negation use serves a similar stereotype-maintaining function across language families.Peer reviewe

The role of social network sites in romantic relationships: Effects on jealousy and relationship happiness

On social network sites (SNS), information about one's romantic partner is readily available and public for friends. The paper focuses on the negative (SNS jealousy) and positive (SNS relationship happiness) consequences of SNS use for romantic relationships. We examined whether relationship satisfaction, trait jealousy, SNS use and need for popularity predicted these emotional consequences of SNS use and tested the moderating role of self-esteem. For low self-esteem individuals, need for popularity predicted jealousy and relationship happiness. For high-self-esteem individuals, SNS use for grooming was the main predictor. Low-self-esteem individuals try to compensate their low self-esteem by creating an idealized picture. Undesirable information threatens this picture, and especially individuals with a high need for popularity react with SNS jealousy. © 2011 International Communication Association

How stereotypes are shared through language: A review and introduction of the Social Categories and Stereotypes Communication (SCSC) Framework

Language use plays a crucial role in the consensualization of stereotypes within cultural groups. Based on an integrative review of the literature on stereotyping and biased language use, we propose the Social Categories and Stereotypes Communication (SCSC) framework. The framework integrates largely independent areas of literature, and explicates the linguistic processes through which social-category stereotypes are shared and maintained. We distinguish two groups of biases in language use that jointly feed and maintain three fundamental cognitive variables in (shared) social-category cognition: perceived category entitativity, stereotype content, and perceived essentialism of associated stereotypic characteristics. These are: (1) Biases in linguistic labels used to denote categories, within which we discuss biases in (a) label content and (b) linguistic form of labels; (2) Biases in describing behaviors and characteristics of categorized individuals, within which we discuss biases in (a) communication content (i.e., what information is communicated), and (b) linguistic form of descriptions (i.e., how is information formulated). Together, these biases create a self-perpetuating cycle in which social-category stereotypes are shared and maintained. The framework allows for a better understanding of stereotype maintaining biases in natural language. We discuss various opportunities for further research

Partner phubbing: Why it is bad for your relationship to use your phone during interactions with your partner

Mobile phones influence the dynamics of intimate relationships. On the one hand mobile phones can have positive effects as they allow partners to stay in touch, and show interest when he or she is not around (Murray & Cambell, 2015). On the other hand, when a mobile phone is used in the presence of one’s partner, it can distract from the present conversation and be a source of annoyance and conflict (Miller-Ott & Kelly, 2015; Przybylski & Weinstein, 2013). The use of a mobile phone during a conversation is called phubbing (Ugur & Koc, 2015). The term phubbing (a portmanteau of ‘phone’ and ‘snubbing’) refers to the act of focusing on one’s mobile phone during a conversation instead of paying attention to one’s conversation partner (Ugur & Koc, 2015). If this occurs within relationships, it is called partner-phubbing (Roberts & David, 2016). Several studies have demonstrated that partner-phubbing is negatively related to relationship satisfaction, but it is not yet clear why this is the case (Chotpitayasunondh & Douglas, 2018; Halpern & Katz, 2017). To enrich our understanding of the link between partner phubbing and relationship satisfaction we conducted two cross-sectional surveys among more than 600 persons in total. We tested the mediating role of (a) feelings of exclusion, (b) perceived intimacy, (c) perceived understanding, (d) conflict about phone use. In both studies we find that more partner phubbing is related to lower relationship satisfaction. This effect is mediated by perceived intimacy and perceived understanding but not by conflict about phone use. The mediating effect of exclusion was inconsistent across studies. Together, these studies indicate that if your partner uses their phone a lot in interactions with you, you are less happy with the relationship because you perceive less intimacy and understanding

Seeing bias in irony: How recipients infer speakers’ stereotypes from their ironic remarks about social-category members

We study whether recipients draw inferences about speakers’ stereotypic impressions from their ironic (vs. literal) remarks. Following up on the Irony Bias, we conducted two experiments in which participants were exposed (in writing or sound-recording) to only either literal remarks or irony referring to either positive or negative behaviors of an unknown social category. Results of both experiments show that participants recognize speakers’ biased impressions from their pattern of irony use. When speakers made ironic remarks about category members’ positive behaviors (but not about negative behaviors), participants inferred that speakers had a more negative impression of the category, and that they perceived higher essentialism of negative (vs. positive) behaviors. The impression participants perceived in speakers’ biased communication pattern did not translate to participants’ own reported category impression. We discuss various factors that may determine when a recognized stereotypic view in a speaker contributes to the formation and maintenance of stereotypic impressions

Partner phubbing: Why it is bad for your relationship to use your phone during interactions with your partner

Mobile phones influence the dynamics of intimate relationships. On the one hand mobile phones can have positive effects as they allow partners to stay in touch, and show interest when he or she is not around (Murray & Cambell, 2015). On the other hand, when a mobile phone is used in the presence of one’s partner, it can distract from the present conversation and be a source of annoyance and conflict (Miller-Ott & Kelly, 2015; Przybylski & Weinstein, 2013). The use of a mobile phone during a conversation is called phubbing (Ugur & Koc, 2015). The term phubbing (a portmanteau of ‘phone’ and ‘snubbing’) refers to the act of focusing on one’s mobile phone during a conversation instead of paying attention to one’s conversation partner (Ugur & Koc, 2015). If this occurs within relationships, it is called partner-phubbing (Roberts & David, 2016). Several studies have demonstrated that partner-phubbing is negatively related to relationship satisfaction, but it is not yet clear why this is the case (Chotpitayasunondh & Douglas, 2018; Halpern & Katz, 2017). To enrich our understanding of the link between partner phubbing and relationship satisfaction we conducted two cross-sectional surveys among more than 600 persons in total. We tested the mediating role of (a) feelings of exclusion, (b) perceived intimacy, (c) perceived understanding, (d) conflict about phone use. In both studies we find that more partner phubbing is related to lower relationship satisfaction. This effect is mediated by perceived intimacy and perceived understanding but not by conflict about phone use. The mediating effect of exclusion was inconsistent across studies. Together, these studies indicate that if your partner uses their phone a lot in interactions with you, you are less happy with the relationship because you perceive less intimacy and understanding

Partner phubbing:Why using your phone during interactions with your partner can be detrimental for your relationship

Previous research showed that phone use during co-present interactions with one's partner (partner phubbing) is negatively related to relationship satisfaction. In two cross-sectional surveys (N = 507 and N = 386) we confirmed this finding and also extended it by focusing on the mediating role of feelings of exclusion, perceived partner responsiveness, perceived intimacy, conflict about phone use, and feelings of jealousy. Results of both studies demonstrate that the link between partner phubbing and relationship satisfaction was mediated by feelings of exclusion, less perceived partner responsiveness, and less intimacy. We observed no significant mediation effects of conflict over phone use and jealousy when the three significant mediators were taken into account. In contrast to previous work, this suggests that conflict and jealousy are not the primary mechanism through which pphubbing results in reduced relationship satisfaction. Moreover, we demonstrated that shared phone use moderates the adverse effects of pphubbing. This means that by involving and informing a partner about one's phone activities, it is possible to reduce feelings of exclusion, maintain more responsiveness and intimacy in the conversation, and consequently reduce detrimental relationship effects