Anger, efficacy, and identity in activism : public perceptions of threat appraisal, attitudes, and behavioral intention

Title from PDF of title page (University of Missouri--Columbia, viewed on September 15, 2010).The entire thesis text is included in the research.pdf file; the official abstract appears in the short.pdf file; a non-technical public abstract appears in the public.pdf file.Dissertation advisor: Dr. Glen T. Cameron.Vita.Ph. D. University of Missouri--Columbia 2009.This study was an exploratory attempt to apply an identity-based approach using concepts of avowed and ascribed identities to different types of activist organizations when managing a potential crisis based on the threat appraisal model (Jin & Cameron, 2007) and contingency theory (Cancel, Mitrook, & Cameron, 1999). A 2 (anger: high vs. low) x 2 (efficacy: high vs. low) x 2 (ascribed identity: matched vs. unmatched) mixed factorial design with anger and efficacy as between-subjects variables and ascribed identity as a within-subjects variable was employed to examine cognitive, affective, and behavioral responses to news stories about activist organizations. One of the most intriguing findings of this study is the main effect of ascribed identity across all dependent variables. An identity crisis leading to attributions of being a hypocrite caused by a perceived discrepancy between an avowed identity and an ascribed identity was found to raise expectations for the organization to perceive higher situational demands and more organizational resources, to have more negative and more intense feelings, to have more advocative stances, and to have a negative impact on attitudes and intention. Significant main effects of anger on both cognitive and affective threat appraisal, a main effect of efficacy on cognitive threat appraisal, and interactions between anger and efficacy on affective threat appraisal indicate that the nature and interplay of anger and efficacy should be taken into consideration when assessing an activist organization's threat appraisal. Results also demonstrated that participants exposed to a combination of high anger and low efficacy messages expected the organization to perceive higher situational demands than any other combination of anger and efficacy. This research extends the contingency theory framework to examine the dynamics of activist organizations, moving beyond the assumptions of two-way symmetrical communication in Grunig's excellence theory. From the standpoint of public relations practice, the main contribution of the present study is to provide empirical evidence that in an identity crisis, being hypocritical in an activist organization's strategic conflict management can have a profoundly negative impact on the organization's image, reputation, and even survival.Includes bibliographical reference

Older adults get masked emotion priming for happy but not angry faces : evidence for a positivity effect in early perceptual processing of emotional signals

In higher-level cognitive tasks, older compared to younger adults show a bias towards positive emotion information and away from negative information (a positivity effect). It is unclear whether this effect occurs in early perceptual processing. This issue is important for determining if the positivity effect is due to automatic rather than controlled processing. We tested this with older and younger adults on a positive/negative face emotion valence classification task using masked priming. Positive (happy) and negative (angry) face targets were preceded by masked repetition or valence primes with neutral face baselines. In Experiment 1, 30 younger and 30 older adults were tested with 50 ms primes. Younger adults showed repetition priming for both positive and negative targets. Older adults showed repetition priming for positive but not negative targets. Neither group showed valence priming. In Experiment 2, 30 older and 29 younger adults were tested with longer duration primes. Younger adults showed repetition priming for both positive and negative emotions, and no valence priming. Older adults only showed repetition and valence priming for positive targets. We proposed older adults’ lack of angry face priming was due to an early attention orienting strategy favouring happy expressions at the expense of angry ones

Multi-cultural, multi-course collaborative project: Learning outcomes and project impact

A multi-course collaborative project is an effective way to enhance student learning because it not only facilitates the development of social skills, but also provides students an opportunity to understand the importance of collaboration with people in diverse areas in the industry (Kim, LaFleur, & Schaeffer, 2008). A collaborative project in a multi-cultural setting enhances student learning by exposing students to other cultures and broadening their scope of knowledge and applications (Chen, Hsu, & Caropreso, 2006)

Does working memory protect against auditory distraction in older adults?

Background: Past research indicates that when younger adults are engaged in a visual working memory task, they are less distracted by novel auditory stimuli than when engaged in a visual task that does not require working memory. The current study aimed to determine whether working memory affords the same protection to older adults. Method: We examined behavioral and EEG responses in 16 younger and 16 older adults to distractor sounds when the listeners performed two visual tasks; one that required working memory (W1) and the other that did not (W0). Auditory distractors were presented in an oddball paradigm, participants were exposed to either standard tones (600 Hz: 80%) or various novel environmental sounds (20%). Results: It was found that: 1) when presented with novel vs standard sounds, older adults had faster correct response times in the W1 visual task than in the W0 task, indicating that they were less distracted by the novel sound; there was no difference in error rates. Younger adults did not show a task effect for correct response times but made slightly more errors when a novel sound was presented in the W1 task compared to the W0 task. 2) In older adults (but not the younger adults), the amplitude of N1 was smaller in the W1 condition compared to the W0 condition. 3) The working memory manipulation had no effect on MMN amplitude in older adults. 4) For the W1 compared to W0 task, the amplitude of P3a was attenuated for the older adults but not for the younger adults. Conclusions: These results suggest that during the working memory manipulation older adults were able to engage working memory to reduce the processing of task-irrelevant sounds

Exposure in central vision facilitates view-invariant face recognition in the periphery

The present study investigated the extent to which a face presented in the visual periphery is processed and whether such processing can be influenced by a recent encounter in central vision. To probe face processing, a series of studies was conducted in which participants classified the sex and identity of faces presented in central and peripheral vision. The results showed that when target faces had not been previously viewed in central vision, recognition in peripheral vision was limited whereas sex categorization was not. When faces were previously viewed in central vision, recognition in peripheral vision improved even with the pose, hairstyle, and lighting conditions of these faces changed. These results are discussed with regard to possible mechanisms unpinning this exposure effect

Anticipation of Turn-switching in Auditory-Visual Dialogs

Mixdorff H, Hönemann A, Kim J, Davis C. Anticipation of Turn-switching in Auditory-Visual Dialogs. In: Proceedings of FAAVSP 2015. 2015

Identification of a Novel Partitivirus of Trichoderma harzianum NFCF319 and Evidence for the Related Antifungal Activity

We have reported 15 agarose gel band patterns of double-stranded RNA (dsRNA) from Trichoderma spp. We describe herein that band pattern IX in Trichoderma harzianum NFCF319, which appeared to be a single band but consisted of two dsRNAs of similar size, was identified as a novel mycovirus, designated Trichoderma harzianum partitivirus 1 (ThPV1). The larger segment (dsRNA1) of the ThPV1 genome comprised 2,289 bp and contained a single open reading frame (ORF) encoding an RNA-dependent RNA polymerase (RdRp). The smaller segment (dsRNA2) consisted of 2,245 bp with a single ORF encoding a capsid protein (CP). Evaluation of the deduced amino acid sequence and phylogenetic analysis indicated that ThPV1 is a new member of the genus Betapartitivirus in the family Partitiviridae. Curing of virus infection by single-sporing generated 31 virus-free single-spore clones. No significant differences in growth rate, conidia production, or pigmentation were observed between ThPV1-infected and -cured isogenic strains. In addition, comparison of the newly ThPV1-transmitted isolates with their ThPV1-cured parental strain showed no significant difference in colony morphology or pigmentation. However, inhibition of growth in co-cultured Pleurotus ostreatus and Rhizoctonia solani by T. harzianum was increased in ThPV1-containing strains compared with ThPV1-cured isogenic strains. Moreover, β-1,3-glucanase activity was significantly increased in the ThPV1-containing strains. However, no difference in chitinase activity was observed, suggesting that ThPV1 regulates the activity of a specific fungal enzyme

The Cartoon Task – Exploring Auditory-Visual Prosody in Dialogs

Mixdorff H, Hönemann A, Zelic G, Kim J, Davis C. The Cartoon Task – Exploring Auditory-Visual Prosody in Dialogs. In: Speech Prosody 2014. 2014

The Clinical Usefulness of 18F-FDG PET/CT for the Evaluation of Lymph Node Metastasis in Periorbital Malignancies

PURPOSE: Surgical treatment of malignancies in the oral cavity and subsequent radiotherapy often result in an oral condition unfavorable for prosthodontic rehabilitation. This study assessed the quality of life related to oral function in edentulous head and neck cancer patients following oncology treatment of malignancies in the lower region of the oral cavity. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Patients treated between 1990 and 2000 with surgery and radiotherapy for a squamous cell carcinoma in the oral cavity who were edentulous in the mandible and had been treated with a conventional, non-implant-retained denture received an invitation for a clinical check-up (clinical assessment, questionnaires regarding oral function and quality of life). RESULTS: Sixty-seven of the 84 patients who fulfilled the inclusion criteria were willing to participate in the study. The mean irradiation dosage that these patients had received in the oral region was 61.8 +/- 5.4 Gy. Half of the patients (n=33) were not very satisfied with their prostheses; they wore their mandibular prostheses at most a few hours per day. It was concluded from the clinical assessment that two thirds of the patients (n 4) could benefit from an implant-retained mandibular denture. Analyses of the questionnaires revealed no significant associations between functional assessments, quality of life, and parameters such as size of the primary tumor, location of the primary tumor, and different treatment regimes. Despite cancer treatment, the patients reported a rather good general quality of life. CONCLUSIONS: Sequelae resulting from radiotherapy probably dominate oral function and quality of life after oncology treatment. In two thirds of the patients, improvement of oral function and related quality of life would be expected with the use of an implant-retained mandibular denture