Open-mindedness can decrease persuasion amongst adolescents: The role of self-affirmation

Objectives Self-affirmation (e.g., by reflecting on important personal values) has been found to promote more open-minded appraisal of threatening health messages in at-risk adults. However, it is unclear how self-affirmation affects adolescents and whether it has differential effects on the impact of these messages amongst those at relatively lower and higher risk. The current study explored moderation by risk. Design Participants were randomly assigned to either a self-affirmation or a control condition before receiving a health message concerning physical activity. Methods Older adolescents (N = 125) completed a self-affirmation or control writing task before reading about the health consequences of not meeting recommendations to be physically active for at least 60 min daily. Most of the sample did not achieve these levels of activity (98%, N = 123). Consequently, the message informed these participants that – unless they changed their behaviour – they would be at higher risk of heart disease. Participants completed measures of responses to the message and behaviour-specific cognitions (e.g., self-efficacy) for meeting the recommendations. Results For relatively inactive participants, self-affirmation was associated with increased persuasion. However, for those who were moderately active (but not meeting recommendations), those in the self-affirmation condition were less persuaded by the message. Conclusions Whilst self-affirmation can increase message acceptance, there are circumstances when the open-mindedness it induces may decrease persuasion. The evidence provided in this study suggests that caution may be needed when recommendations are challenging and it could be considered reasonable to be sceptical about the need to change behaviour

Semisimple types for p -adic classical groups

a

The supercuspidal representations of p-adic classical groups

Let G be a unitary, symplectic or special orthogonal group over a locally compact non-archimedean local field of odd residual characteristic. We construct many new supercuspidal representations of G, and Bushnell-Kutzko types for these representations. Moreover, we prove that every irreducible supercuspidal representation of G arises from our constructions.Comment: 55 pages -- minor changes from 1st version (mostly in sections 2.2, 4.2 and 6.2). To appear in Inventiones mathematicae, 2008 (DOI is not yet active as at 12 Nov 2007

Determination of M_(max) from Background Seismicity and Moment Conservation

We describe a simple method to determine the probability distribution function of the magnitude M_(max) and return period T_R of the maximum plausible earthquake on crustal faults. The method requires the background seismicity rate (estimated from instrumental data) and the rate of interseismic moment buildup. The method assumes that the moment released by the seismic slip is in balance with the moment deficit accumulated in between earthquakes. It also assumes that the seismicity obeys the Gutenberg–Richter (GR) law up to M_(max) . We took into account the aftershocks of large infrequent events that were not represented in the instrumental record, so that we could estimate the average seismicity rate over the entire fault history. We extrapolated the instrumental record, using the GR law to model the frequency of larger events and their aftershocks. This increased the frequencies of smaller events on average; when these smaller events were newly extrapolated, they predicted a higher frequency of larger events. We iterated this process until stability was reached, and then we assumed moment balance when we found the maximum magnitude; we have found this method to be appropriate in applications involving examples of fault with good historical catalogs. We then showed examples of applications to faults with no historical catalogs. We present results from nine cases. For the San Andreas fault system, we find M_(max)=8.1±0.3, with T_R380^(950)_(120)yrs ; for the North Anatolian fault, M_(max)=8.0±0.3, with T_R275^(650)_(135)yrs ; for the Main Himalayan thrust, M_(max)=9.0±0.2, with T_R1200^(2700)_(550)yrs; for the Japan trench, M_(max)=9.3±0.3, with T_R520^(1200)_(220)yrs; for the Sumatra–Andaman trench, M_(max)=9.0±0.3, with T_R200^(450)_(80)yrs ; for the Boconó fault, M_(max)=7.3±0.3, with T_R160^(360)_(70)yrs; for the Altyn Tagh fault, M_(max)=8.0±0.3, with T_R900^(2000)_(400)yrs; for the Dead Sea Transform, M_(max)=7.8±0.3, with T_R1000^(2400)_(450)yrs; and for the Kunlun fault, M_(max)=8.0±0.3, with T_R1000^(2000)_(450)yrs

Spatiotemporal patterns and agro-ecological risk factors for cutaneous and renal glomerular vasculopathy (Alabama Rot) in dogs in the UK

Seasonal outbreaks of cutaneous and renal glomerular vasculopathy (CRGV) have been reported annually in UK dogs since 2012, yet the aetiology of the disease remains unknown. The objectives of this study were to explore whether any breeds had an increased or decreased risk of being diagnosed with CRGV, and to report on age and sex distributions of CRGV cases occurring in the UK. Multivariable logistic regression was used to compare 101 dogs diagnosed with CRGV between November 2012 and May 2017 with a denominator population of 446,453 dogs from the VetCompass database. Two Kennel Club breed groups—hounds (odds ratio (OR) 10.68) and gun dogs (OR 9.69)—had the highest risk of being diagnosed with CRGV compared with terriers, while toy dogs were absent from among CRGV cases. Females were more likely to be diagnosed with CRGV (OR 1.51) as were neutered dogs (OR 3.36). As well as helping veterinarians develop an index of suspicion for the disease, better understanding of the signalment risk factors may assist in the development of causal models for CRGV and help identify the aetiology of the disease