The effect of ending disclosure on the persuasiveness of narrative PSAs

Cautionary stories in which misbehavior results in negative outcomes are often used in public service announcements (PSAs) to promote behavioral change. These cautionary stories can either disclose or withhold their endings and the associated negative outcomes for the characters involved. In four experiments, we show that disclosing (vs. withholding) a story’s ending increases persuasion due to greater counterfactual thinking about alternative actions that could have prevented the negative outcomes. Integrating these findings within the Transportation-Imagery Model of narrative persuasion, we also show how dispositional levels of need for cognitive closure can amplify the effect of ending disclosure in a PSA. Our findings have important implications for both marketing communicators and policy makers who seek to improve the effectiveness of PSAs

Student leadership development

An increasing amount of leadership development programs (LDPs) is being promoted to enhance individual skills and to foster the development of leadership capabilities, particularly in response to today’s volatile, complex and ambiguous business world. Investment in soft skills and leadership development also enables industries to prosper in the long term as management and leadership skill gaps are reduced.With the anticipated tourism and hotel development growth across the world, there is a rising need for managers who have the right skills and capabilities to help businesses and organisations achieve sustainable business performance. As industry practitioners look for graduates with the right mix of hard and soft skills, tourism and hospitality educators should further nurture the development of such skills to allow their graduates to prosper. The aim of this exploratory research is to determine leadership development needs of students studying tourism and hospitality courses, and inform the development of student leadership program initiatives, encouraging individual and industry growth

It takes a village: co-creation and co-design for social media health promotion

Health promotion campaigns using Social Media have emerged as a potential way to change behaviour in a large, diverse group of people. However, successfully connecting with and engaging the target audience is still a key challenge faced by health professionals and social marketers. This chapter examines the use of co-creation and co-design processes as ways to engage young people in Social Media interventions. This method involves a ‘Wicked Problems’ studio (five-day workshop), where young adults (university students) across multidisciplinary areas and a variety of stakeholders (e.g. health organisations, government bodies, academics, etc.) collaborate to problem-solve. Using this method, we were able to understand what works and what does not work when it comes to co-creation with young adults. Towards a broader outlook, the results from this study will translate into practice through the development of a how-to guide on co-creation and co-design as a procedure for key stakeholders such as government bodies and health organisations

Systematic review of cytokines and growth factors for the management of oral mucositis in cancer patients

<p>The aim of this project was to review the literature and define clinical practice guidelines for the use of cytokines and growth factor agents for the prevention or treatment of oral mucositis induced by cancer chemotherapy or radiotherapy.</p><p>A systematic review was conducted by the Mucositis Study Group of the Multinational Association of Supportive Care in Cancer/International Society for Oral Oncology (MASCC/ISOO). The body of evidence for each intervention, in each cancer treatment setting, was assigned an evidence level. Based on the evidence level, one of the following three guideline determinations was possible: Recommendation, Suggestion, No guideline possible.</p><p>Sixty-four clinical studies across 11 interventions were evaluated. A recommendation was made for the use of recombinant human KGF-1 (palifermin) at a dose of 60 mu g/kg per day for 3 days prior to conditioning treatment and for 3 days post-transplant for prevention of oral mucositis in patients receiving high-dose chemotherapy and total body irradiation followed by autologous stem cell transplantation for hematological malignancies. A suggestion was made against using granulocyte macrophage colony-stimulating factor mouthwash for the prevention of oral mucositis in the setting of high-dose chemotherapy followed by autologous or allogeneic stem cell transplantation. No guideline was possible for any other cytokine or growth factor agents due to inconclusive evidence.</p><p>Of the cytokine and growth factor agents studied for oral mucositis, the evidence only supports use of palifermin in the specific population listed above. Additional well-designed research is needed on other cytokine and growth factor interventions and in other cancer treatment settings.</p>