Friends, family, and family friends:Predicting friendships of Dutch women

Friends are an important source of well-being but people differ in who they consider to be friends. With a unique quantitative test of such differences based on 17,650 social relations of 706 Dutch women (aged 18–41), of whom 40% were considered friends, we examined (a) which kind of personal relations were typically identified as friends (e.g., family, colleague), (b) how this linked to relationship closeness, face-to-face and non-face-to-face contact, and (c) whether these relationship characteristics of friendships differed with age. Most friends were met at school (>70%) and 20% of family were considered friends. Friendships were often close relationships with more non-face-to-face contact, while meeting in person was less predictive. Relatively older women reported fewer friends. Even in this homogenous sample with multiple measures of tie strength, friendships were difficult to predict and often overlapped with other social roles, meaning that researchers should be careful in using friendship as distinct category

Behavioural and physiological responses of laying hens to automated monitoring equipment

Automated monitoring of behaviour can offer a wealth of information in circumstances where observing behaviour is difficult or time consuming. However, this often requires attaching monitoring devices to the animal which can alter behaviour, potentially invalidating any data collected. Birds often show increased preening and energy expenditure when wearing devices and, especially in laying hens, there is a risk that individuals wearing devices will attract aggression from conspecifics. We studied the behavioural and physiological response of 20 laying hens to backpacks containing monitoring devices fastened with elastic loops around the wing base. We hypothesised that backpacks would lead to a stress-induced decrease in peripheral temperature, increased preening, more aggression from conspecifics, and reduced bodyweights. This was evaluated by thermography of the eye and comb (when isolated after fitting backpacks), direct observations of behaviour (when isolated, when placed back into the group, and on later days), and weighing (before and after each 7-day experimental period). Each hen wore a backpack during one of the two experimental periods only and was used as her own control. Contrary to our hypothesis, eye temperature was higher when hens wore a backpack (No backpack: 30.2 °C (IQR: 29.0–30.6) vs. Backpack: 30.9 °C (IQR: 30.0–32.0), P < 0.001). Eye temperature of hens wearing a backpack was strongly correlated to the time spent preening (rs = 0.8, P < 0.001), suggesting that the higher temperatures may have been due to preening itself, or to a low head position or decreased heat dissipation when preening under the wings. Aggressive behaviour was very rare and no effect of the backpacks was found. In line with our hypothesis, backpacks increased preening on the day of fitting, both when isolated (No backpack: 0% (IQR: 0–1) vs. Backpack: 22% (IQR: 1–43), P < 0.01) and when back in the group (No backpack: 0% (IQR: 0–27) vs. Backpack: 43% (IQR: 5–77), P < 0.001). However, no effect on preening was observed 2–7 days afterwards. Other behavioural changes suggested that on the day of fitting hens prioritized attempts to (re)move the backpack and were less attentive to their surroundings. However, only equipment pecking (i.e., pecking the backpack or leg rings) was still affected 2–7 days after fitting (No backpack: 0 pecks/hen/minute (IQR: 0–0), vs. Backpack: 0 (IQR: 0–0.07), P < 0.05). We found no effect of our backpacks on bodyweight. In conclusion, our backpacks seem suitable to attach monitoring equipment to hens with only a very minor effect on their behaviour after a short acclimation period (≤2 days)

Strengthening Children's Advertising Defenses: The Effects of Forewarning of Commercial and Manipulative Intent

Contains fulltext : 159150.pdf (publisher's version ) (Open Access)This study investigated whether a forewarning of advertising's intent can increase children's (N = 159, 8-10 years old) defenses against television commercials to lower their desire for advertised products. Two different forewarnings were tested, one for advertising's commercial intent or warning for the promotional nature, and one for advertising's manipulative intent or warning for the deceptive nature. Results showed that only the warning of manipulative intent prior to advertising exposure was successful in increasing children's advertising defenses. This forewarning activated children's attitudinal advertising literacy (i.e., skepticism towards the commercial), which in turn led to lower advertised product desire. The forewarning of commercial intent was not effective in strengthening children’s advertising defenses. These findings have important implications for interventions that aim to lower children’s desire for (unhealthy) advertised products by activating their advertising literacy.11 p

Jongerenwaardering voor natuur vraagt lange adem

Om ervoor te zorgen dat het natuur en landschapsbeleid afgestemd blijft op de wensen en behoefte van zoveel mogelijke Nederlanders, is het belangrijk om inzicht te hebben in de verschillende natuurbeelden die mensen hebben. Dus moeten we niet alleen weten hoe volwassen mensen denken, maar ook de beelden van jongeren. Eerder onderzoek van Alterra heeft laten namelijk zien dat jongeren minder in natuur en landschap geïnteresseerd zijn dan we eigenlijk zouden willen. Onlangs onderzocht Alterra de effecten van het Noord-Hollandse jongerennatuurproject ‘Connect Your Nature’. Hieruit bleek dat voor langetermijneffecten op beleving, houding en gedrag meer nodig is dan een eenmalig leuk projec

Social Needs and Happiness:A Life Course Perspective

Both the fulfilment of affection, status, and behavioral confirmation needs and their role in happiness may differ along the adult lifespan. We examined age-graded differences in (a) the fulfilment of the need for affection, status, and behavioral confirmation, (b) disharmonious profiles of need fulfillment (e.g., high affection but low status), and (c) the associations between these needs and happiness. Data from 11,406 Dutch respondents (age range 18–87 (M = 44.82, SD = 14.62), 67% female) were collected via hoegekis.nl and categorized over six age groups (early, young, middle-aged and late adults, young-old and oldest-old). Age-graded differences in social need fulfilment and their link to happiness were examined using regression analyses. Need fulfillment profiles were identified with LCA cluster analyses. Age-graded differences in social need fulfilment were virtually absent (Cohen’s d = 0.20 or smaller) and their link with happiness was stable across the age groups. Social need fulfilment profiles were harmonious as people reported either low, middle, or high need fulfilment in general, irrespective of age. The idea that different social needs are more important in different phases of adult life received only weak support in our data. No strategic investment in specific social needs was observed (no substitution-effects).People typically differed in their capacities to fulfil their affection, status, and behavioral confirmation needs in general, regardless of age. The implications of these results for the social production function theory of wellbeing and socioemotional selectivity theory are outlined in the discussion

Comparing the measurement of different social networks

__Background:__ Technological progress has enabled researchers to use new unobtrusive measures of relationships between actors in social network analysis. However, research on how these unobtrusive measures of peer connections relate to traditional sociometric nominations in adolescents is scarce. Therefore, the current study compared traditional peer nominated networks with more unobtrusive measures of peer connections: Communication networks that consist of instant messages in an online social platform and proximity networks based on smartphones' Bluetooth signals that measure peer proximity. The three social network types were compared in their coverage, stability, overlap, and the extent to which the networks exhibit the often observed sex segregation in adolescent social networks. __Method:__ Two samples were derived from the MyMovez project: a longitudinal sample of 444 adolescents who participated in the first three waves of the first year of the project (Y1; 51% male; Mage = 11.29, SDage = 1.26) and a cross-sectional sample of 774 adolescents that participated in fifth wave in the third year (Y3; 48% male; Mage = 10.76, SDage = 1.23). In the project, all participants received a research smartphone and a wrist-worn accelerometer. On the research smartphone, participants received daily questionnaires such as peer nomination questions (i.e., nominated networ