The ZMET Technique: A New Paradigm for Improving Marketing and Marketing Research

For decades, marketing and marketing research have been based on a concept of consumer behaviour that is deeply embedded in a linear notion of marketing activities. With increasing regularity, key organising frameworks for marketing and marketing activities are being challenged by academics and practitioners alike. In turn, this has led to the search for new approaches and tools that will help marketers understand the interaction among attitudes, emotions and product/brand choice. More recently, the approach developed by Harvard Professor, Gerald Zaltman, referred to as the Zaltman Metaphor Elicitation Technique (ZMET) has gained considerable interest. This paper seeks to demonstrate the effectiveness of this alternative qualitative method, using a non-conventional approach, thus providing a useful contribution to the qualitative research area

Hypnotic suggestions can induce rapid change in implicit attitudes

We sometimes evaluate our environment (e.g., persons, objects, situations) in an automatic fashion. These automatic or implicit evaluations are often considered to be based on qualitatively distinct mental processes compared with more controlled or explicit evaluations. Important evidence for this claim comes from studies showing that implicit evaluations do not change as the result of counterattitudinal information, in contrast to their explicit counterparts. We examined the impact of counterattitudinal information on implicit evaluations in two experiments (N = 60, N = 72) that included an innovative manipulation: hypnotic suggestions to participants that they would strongly process upcoming counterattitudinal information. Both experiments indicated that hypnotic suggestions facilitated effects of counterattitudinal information on implicit evaluations. These findings extend recent evidence for rapid revision of implicit evaluations on the basis of counterattitudinal information and support the controversial idea that belief-based processes underlie not only explicit but also implicit evaluations

Forbidden transitions in neutral and charged current interactions between low-energy neutrinos and Argon

Background: The study of low-energy neutrinos and their interactions with atomic nuclei is crucial to several open problems in physics, including the neutrino mass hierarchy, CP-violation, candidates of Beyond Standard Model physics and supernova dynamics. Examples of experiments include CAPTAIN at SNS as well as DUNE's planned detection program of supernova neutrinos. Purpose: We present cross section calculations for quasielastic charged current and neutral current neutrinos at low energies, with a focus on $^{40}$Ar. We also take a close look at pion decay-at-rest neutrino spectra, which are used in e.g. the SNS experiment at Oakridge. Method and results: We employ a Hartree Fock + Continuum Random Phase Approximations (HF+CRPA) framework, which allows us to model the responses and include the effects of long-range correlations. It is expected to provide a good framework to calculate forbidden transitions, whose contribution which we show to be non-negligible. Conclusions: Forbidden transitions can be expected to contribute sizeably to the reaction strength at typical low-energy kinematics, such as DAR neutrinos. Modeling and Monte Carlo simulations need to take all due care to account for the influence of their contributions.Comment: 11 pages, 16 figures; minor corrections to v

The influence of high-level beliefs on self-regulatory engagement: evidence from thermal pain stimulation

Determinist beliefs have been shown to impact basic motor preparation, prosocial behavior, performance monitoring, and voluntary inhibition, presumably by diminishing the recruitment of cognitive resources for self-regulation. We sought to support and extend previous findings by applying a belief manipulation to a novel inhibition paradigm that requires participants to either execute or suppress a prepotent withdrawal reaction from a strong aversive stimulus (thermal pain). Action and inhibition responses could be determined by either external signals or voluntary choices. Our results suggest that the reduction of free will beliefs corresponds with a reduction in effort investment that influences voluntary action selection and inhibition, most directly indicated by increased time required to initiate a withdrawal response internally (but not externally). It is likely that disbelief in free will encourages participants to be more passive, to exhibit a reduction in intentional engagement, and to be disinclined to adapt their behavior to contextual needs

Slime mould imitation of Belgian transport networks: redundancy, bio-essential motorways, and dissolution

Belgium is amongst few artificial countries, established on purpose, when Dutch and French speaking parts were joined in a single unit. This makes Belgium a particularly interesting testbed for studying bio-inspired techniques for simulation and analysis of vehicular transport networks. We imitate growth and formation of a transport network between major urban areas in Belgium using the acellular slime mould Physarum polycephalum. We represent the urban areas with the sources of nutrients. The slime mould spans the sources of nutrients with a network of protoplasmic tubes. The protoplasmic tubes represent the motorways. In an experimental laboratory analysis we compare the motorway network approximated by P. polycephalum and the man-made motorway network of Belgium. We evaluate the efficiency of the slime mould network and the motorway network using proximity graphs

The contextual malleability of approach-avoidance training effects : approaching or avoiding fear conditioned stimuli modulates effects of approach-avoidance training

Previous research showed that the repeated approaching of one stimulus and avoiding of another stimulus typically leads to more positive evaluations of the former stimuli. In the current study, we examined whether approach and avoidance training (AAT) effects on evaluations of neutral stimuli can be modulated by introducing a regularity between the approach-avoidance actions and a positive or negative (feared) stimulus. In an AAT task, participants repeatedly approached one neutral non-word and avoided another neutral non-word. Half of the participants also approached a negative fear-conditioned stimulus (CS+) and avoided a conditioned safe stimulus (CS−). The other half of the participants avoided the CS+ and approached the CS−. Whereas participants in the avoid CS+ condition exhibited a typical AAT effect, participants in the approach CS+ condition exhibited a reversed AAT effect (i.e. they evaluated the approached neutral non-word as more negative than the avoided non-word). These findings provide evidence for the malleability of the AAT effect when strongly valenced stimuli are approached or avoided. We discuss the practical and theoretical implications of our findings.© 2017 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Grou