Envy on Social Network Sites: How Reading Friend's Posts Leads to (Benign) Envy and Influences Purchase Intentions

Seeing other's perfect lives as presented on Social Network Sites (SNSs) sometimes triggers envy, and previous researchers were worried about the negative impact of it on users’ well-being. This dissertation examines if users are suffering ill effects from the consumption of SNS services and addresses the positive effects of envy on purchase intentions and consumer behavior. Two types of envy are distinguished: one is benign envy with a motivation of moving up, and the other is malicious envy with a motivation of pulling the envied person down. This dissertation investigates the prevalence of (benign and malicious) envy on SNSs, explored the impacts of tie strength (i.e., relationship closeness) and post content (experiential vs. material purchases) on envy and the impact of envy on purchase intentions. Eight studies, including surveys and experiments, were conducted using various samples (total N = 1816) in Western countries. The results showed that users only experienced a limited degree of envy and it was more likely to be benign envy rather than malicious envy. Benign envy was positively predicted by the tie strength but was independent of the post content. Furthermore, benign envy was positively associated with the purchase intention of the envied object. It was also found that consumers posted their experiential purchases more frequently than material purchases on SNSs; and most SNS users perceived experiential purchases as more self-relevant than material purchases, and hence more envy was triggered after reading posts about experiential purchases. This dissertation argues that, given that experiential purchases could bring people more happiness than material purchases, experiencing benign envy about other’s experiential purchases is not necessarily a bad thing–it motivates people to work harder and pursuit the experiential purchases that could bring more happiness. Marketers can also utilize this emotion for better advertising (e.g., by showing the tourism-related ads to those who are benignly envious about friends' vacation experiences). This dissertation further contributes to the literature on the SNSs and well-being, experiential and material purchases, envy, and consumer behavior. More details and the theoretical and practical implications for SNS users, marketers, platforms, and researchers are elaborated in this dissertation

Striatal and thalamic GABA level concentrations play differential roles for the modulation of response selection processes by proprioceptive information.

The selection of appropriate responses is a complex endeavor requiring the integration of many different sources of information in fronto-striatal-thalamic circuits. An often neglected but relevant piece of information is provided by proprioceptive inputs about the current position of our limbs. This study examines the importance of striatal and thalamic GABA levels in these processes using GABA-edited magnetic resonance spectroscopy (GABAMRS) and a Simon task featuring proprioception-induced interference in healthy subjects. As a possible model of deficits in the processing of proprioceptive information, we also included Parkinson's disease (PD) patients in this study.The results show that proprioceptive information about unusual postures complicates response selection processes in controls, but not in PD patients. The well-known deficits of PD patients in processing proprioceptive information can turn into a benefit when altered proprioceptive information would normally complicate response selection processes. Striatal and thalamic GABA levels play dissociable roles in the modulation of response selection processes by proprioceptive information: Striatal GABA levels seem to be important for the general speed of responding, most likely because striatal GABA promotes response selection. In contrast, the modulation of response conflict by proprioceptive information is closely related to thalamic GABA concentrations with higher concentration being related to a smaller response conflict effect. The most likely explanation for this finding is that the thalamus is involved in the integration of sensorimotor, attentional, and cognitive information for the purpose of response formation. Yet, this effect in the thalamus vanishes when controls and PD patients were analyzed separately

Thalamic GABA levels and Occupational Manganese Neurotoxicity: Association with Exposure Levels and Brain MRI

Excessive occupational exposure to Manganese (Mn) has been associated with clinical symptoms resembling idiopathic Parkinson’s disease (IPD), impairing cognitive and motor functions. Several studies point towards an involvement of the brain neurotransmitter system in Mn intoxication, which is hypothesized to be disturbed prior to onset of symptoms. Edited Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy (MRS) offers the unique possibility to measure γ-amminobutyric acid (GABA) and other neurometabolites in vivo non-invasively in workers exposed to Mn. In addition, the property of Mn as Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) contrast agent may be used to study Mn deposition in the human brain. In this study, using MRI, MRS, personal air sampling at the working place, work history questionnaires, and neurological assessment (UPDRS-III), the effects of chronic Mn exposure on the thalamic GABAergic system was studied in a group of welders (N = 39) with exposure to Mn fumes in a typical occupational setting. Two subgroups of welders with different exposure levels (Low: N = 26; mean air Mn = 0.13 ± 0.1 mg/m3; High: N = 13; mean air Mn = 0.23 ± 0.18 mg/m3), as well as unexposed control workers (N = 22, mean air Mn = 0.002 ± 0.001 mg/m3) were recruited. The group of welders with higher exposure showed a significant increase of thalamic GABA levels by 45% (p < 0.01, F(1,33) = 9.55), as well as significantly worse performance in general motor function (p < 0.01, F(1,33) = 11.35). However, welders with lower exposure did not differ from the controls in GABA levels or motor performance. Further, in welders the thalamic GABA levels were best predicted by past-12-months exposure levels and were influenced by the Mn deposition in the substantia nigra and globus pallidus. Importantly, both thalamic GABA levels and motor function displayed a non-linear pattern of response to Mn exposure, suggesting a threshold effect

Cardiovascular mortality by cancer risk stratification in patients with localized prostate cancer: a SEER-based study

PurposeThe risk of cardiovascular disease (CVD) mortality in patients with localized prostate cancer (PCa) by risk stratification remains unclear. The aim of this study was to determine the risk of CVD death in patients with localized PCa by risk stratification.Patients and methodsPopulation-based study of 340,806 cases in the Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER) database diagnosed with localized PCa between 2004 and 2016. The proportion of deaths identifies the primary cause of death, the competing risk model identifies the interaction between CVD and PCa, and the standardized mortality rate (SMR) quantifies the risk of CVD death in patients with PCa.ResultsCVD-related death was the leading cause of death in patients with localized PCa, and cumulative CVD-related death also surpassed PCa almost as soon as PCa was diagnosed in the low- and intermediate-risk groups. However, in the high-risk group, CVD surpassed PCa approximately 90 months later. Patients with localized PCa have a higher risk of CVD-related death compared to the general population and the risk increases steadily with survival (SMR = 4.8, 95% CI 4.6–5.1 to SMR = 13.6, 95% CI 12.8–14.5).ConclusionsCVD-related death is a major competing risk in patients with localized PCa, and cumulative CVD mortality increases steadily with survival time and exceeds PCa in all three stratifications (low, intermediate, and high risk). Patients with localized PCa have a higher CVD-related death than the general population. Management of patients with localized PCa requires attention to both the primary cancer and CVD

Impression management via content-dependent “liking” on social media.

A number of studies have examined the motives behind the use of one-click communication features such as the “like” button. This study considered how personality might shape how users employ the “liking” button in order to establish different online impressions, particularly when online posts include both everyday (normal) or risky (controversial) content. Using an online survey, we tested whether self-monitoring, agreeableness, affinity seeking and need for gratification would influence the likelihood with which participants would “like” posts given the transparent nature of social networks. Results based on an online sample (N=217) revealed that “liking” of normal posts was positively predicted by agreeableness and need for gratification. However, only need for gratification positively predicted “liking” of controversial posts. This indicates that the content of the post as well as the personality characteristics play a role in online one-click interaction, reflecting different means to manage impressions online

Ambient intimacy on Twitter

Ambient intimacy refers to a feeling of closeness toward certain others developed mainly by following their status updates on social media. Previous researchers have demonstrated that it is possible to develop ambient awareness, that is, knowledge of others, after browsing social media, but it is still unclear whether and to what extent Twitter users also experience ambient intimacy, i.e., emotional closeness to others stemming from merely following them on Twitter. This paper is the first to theoretically distinguish the concept of ambient intimacy from ambient awareness. The paper investigates the degree to which Twitter users experience ambient awareness and intimacy. Moreover, we also examine the role of interaction history and message characteristics in this process. The results showed that Twitter users had experienced ambient intimacy but to a lesser degree than ambient awareness; the majority felt close to only a limited number of people in their Twitter network. Visibility of tweets and one-sided interaction with the target person predicted ambient intimacy. In addition, users were more likely to experience ambient intimacy toward a person when his or her tweets were perceived as more intimate, entertaining, and informative

What triggers envy on Social Network Sites? A comparison between shared experiential and material purchases

Social network users often see their online friends post about experiential purchases (such as traveling experiences) and material purchases (such as newly purchased gadgets). Three studies (total N = 798) were conducted to investigate which type of purchase triggers more envy on Social Network Sites (SNSs) and explored its underlying mechanism. We consistently found that experiential purchases triggered more envy than material purchases did. This effect existed when people looked at instances at their own Facebook News Feeds (Study 1), in a controlled scenario experiment (Study 2), and in a general survey (Study 3). Study 1 and 2 confirmed that experiential purchases increased envy because they were more self-relevant than material purchases. In addition, we found (in Study 1 and 3) that people shared their experiential purchases more frequently than material purchases on Facebook. So why do people often share experiential purchases that are likely to elicit envy in others? One answer provided in Study 3 is that people actually think that material purchases will trigger more envy. This paper provides insight into how browsing SNSs can lead to envy. It contributes to the research on experiential vs. material purchases and the emotion of envy

Learning fair representations via an adversarial framework

Fairness has become a central issue for our research community as classification algorithms are adopted in societally critical domains such as recidivism prediction and loan approval. In this work, we consider the potential bias based on protected attributes (e.g., race and gender), and tackle this problem by learning latent representations of individuals that are statistically indistinguishable between protected groups while sufficiently preserving other information for classification. To do that, we develop a minimax adversarial framework with a generator to capture the data distribution and generate latent representations, and a critic to ensure that the distributions across different protected groups are similar. Our framework provides theoretical guarantee with respect statistical parity and individual fairness. Empirical results on four real-world datasets also show that the learned representation can effectively be used for classification tasks such as credit risk prediction while obstructing information related to protected groups, especially when removing protected attributes is not sufficient for fair classification