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Advice taking is a crucial part of decision-making and has attracted the interest of scholars across the world. Laboratory research on advice taking has revealed several robust phenomena, such as sensitivity to advice quality or a tendency to underutilize advice. Despite extensive investigations in different countries, cultural differences in advice taking remain understudied. Knowing whether such cultural differences exist would not only be interesting from an academic standpoint but might also have consequences for multinational organizations and businesses. Here, we argue that prior laboratory research on cultural differences in advice taking is hindered by confounding factors, particularly the confound between participants’ cultural background and task difficulty. To draw a valid conclusion about cultural differences in advice taking, it is vital to develop a decision task devoid of this confound. Here, we develop such a judgment task and demonstrate that the core phenomena of advice taking manifest in a sample of German participants. We then use this task in a cross-national comparison of German and Chinese participants. While the core phenomena of advice taking consistently manifested in both samples, some differences emerged. Most notably, Chinese participants were more receptive of advice, even though they still underutilized it. This greater reliance on advice was driven by Chinese participants’ greater preference for averaging their own and the advisor’s judgments. We discuss how our findings extend current understanding of the nuanced interplay between cultural values and the dynamics of advice taking.

Following up on a recent debate, we examined advice taking in dyads compared to individuals in a set of three studies (total N = 303 dyads and 194 individuals). Our first aim was to test the replicability of an important previous finding, namely that dyads heed advice less than individuals because they feel more confident in the accuracy of their initial judgments. Second, we aimed to explain dyads’ behavior based on three premises: first, that dyads understand that the added value of an outside opinion diminishes when the initial pre-advice judgment is made by two judges rather than one judge (given that the dyad members’ opinions are independent of each other); second, that they fail to recognize when the assumption of independence of opinions does not hold; and third, that the resistance to advice commonly observed in individuals persists in groups but is neither aggravated nor ameliorated by the group context. The results of our studies show consistently that previous findings on advice taking in dyads are replicable. They also support our hypothesis that groups exhibit a general tendency to heed advice less than individuals, irrespective of whether the accuracy of their initial judgments warrants this behavior. Finally, based on the three assumptions mentioned above, we were able to make accurate predictions about advice taking in dyads, prompting us to postulate a general model of advice taking in groups of arbitrary size.

Real-world agents, humans as well as animals, observe each other during interactions and choose their own actions taking the partners' ongoing behaviour into account. Yet, classical game theory assumes that players act either strictly sequentially or strictly simultaneously without knowing each other's current choices. To account for action visibility and provide a more realistic model of interactions under time constraints, we introduce a new game-theoretic setting called transparent games, where each player has a certain probability of observing the partner's choice before deciding on its own action. By means of evolutionary simulations, we demonstrate that even a small probability of seeing the partner's choice before one's own decision substantially changes the evolutionary successful strategies. Action visibility enhances cooperation in an iterated coordination game, but reduces cooperation in a more competitive iterated Prisoner's Dilemma. In both games, "Win-stay, lose-shift" and "Tit-for-tat" strategies are predominant for moderate transparency, while a "Leader-Follower" strategy emerges for high transparency. Our results have implications for studies of human and animal social behaviour, especially for the analysis of dyadic and group interactions.

We investigate decision-making in the Judge-Advisor-System where one person, the ``judge'', wants to estimate the number of a certain entity and is given advice by another person. The question is how to combine the judge's initial estimate and that of the advisor in order to get the optimal expected outcome. A previous approach compared two frequently applied strategies, taking the average or choosing the better estimate. In most situations, averaging produced the better estimates. However, this approach neglected a third strategy that judges frequently use, namely a weighted mean of the judges' initial estimate and the advice. We compare the performance of averaging and choosing to weighting in a theoretical analysis. If the judge can, without error, detect ability differences between judge and advisor, a straight-forward calculation shows that weighting outperforms both of these strategies. More interestingly, after introducing errors in the perception of the ability differences, we show that such imperfect weighting may or may not be the optimal strategy. The relative performance of imperfect weighting compared to averaging or choosing depends on the size of the actual ability differences as well as the magnitude of the error. However, for a sizeable range of ability differences and errors, weighting is preferable to averaging and more so to choosing. Our analysis expands previous research by showing that weighting, even when imperfect, is an appropriate advice taking strategy and under which circumstances judges benefit most from applying it.

Six experiments investigated how the distance between one's initial opinion and advice relates to advice utilization. Going beyond previous research, we relate advice distance to both relative adjustments and absolute adjustments towards the advice, and we also investigate a second mode of advice utilization, namely confidence shifts due to social validation. Whereas previous research suggests that advice is weighted less the more it differs from one's initial opinion, we consistently find evidence of a curvilinear pattern. Advice is weighted less when advice distance is low and when it is high. This is in particular because individuals are much more likely to retain their initial opinions in the light of near advice. Also, absolute opinion adjustments towards the advice increases in a monotone fashion as advice distance increases. This finding is in contrast to the predictions of the theoretical framework previous studies on advice distance are based on, social judgment theory. Instead, they data are more in line with a simple stimulus-response model suggesting that absolute adjustments towards the advice increase with advice distance but---potentially---with diminished sensitivity. Finally, our data show that advice can be utilized even when it receives zero weight during belief revision. The closer advice was to the initial opinions, the more it served as a means for social validation, increasing decision-makers' confidence in the accuracy of their final opinions. Thus, our findings suggest that advice utilization is a more complex function of advice distance than previously assumed.

G-I transfer denotes an increase in individual performance due to group interaction, for example, because of acquiring certain skills or knowledge from the other group members. Whereas such G-I transfer has been successfully shown for problem-solving tasks, evidence for G-I transfer on quantitative estimation tasks is scarce. We address this research gap with a focus on how often a group has to interact in order to fully exploit the benefit of this learning effect. Results from two experiments support the idea that a single group interaction is sufficient to induce a stable G-I transfer, which reduces group members’ metric error. Smaller metric errors indicate that people improved their representation of the correct upper and lower boundaries, or what range of values is plausible. In contrast to nominal groups, both members of continuously interacting groups and members of groups with only one initial interaction exhibited stable G-I transfer, and the size of this transfer did not significantly differ between the latter two conditions. Furthermore, we found evidence for differential weighting of group members’ individual contributions that goes beyond sheer individual capability gains under certain circumstances, namely in tasks with a population bias.

Introduction: Extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO) is increasingly used for circulatory or pulmonary support not only in‐hospital but also out‐of‐hospital. Small dimensions and a lightweight design are important, especially for out‐of‐hospital use but also for intra‐hospital transportation of patients who require ECMO support. We share our first experience with the new Colibrì ECMO system. Patients and Methods: From December 2022 to January 2023, we used the new Colibrì extracorporeal circulation (ECC) system in six patients with cardiac or pulmonary failure. Results: The Colibrì system was used in‐hospital in six patients with post‐cardiac surgery low output syndrome, respiratory failure due to influenza or acute respiratory distress syndrome, cardiogenic shock, pulmonary embolism, and failed weaning from cardiopulmonary bypass. The system was implanted in venovenous (VV) and venoarterial (VA) fashion in 3 patients, respectively. In one patient, the configuration was switched from VA to VV after cardiac recovery. One patient received left‐ventricular unloading using the IMPELLA®5.5. ECMO run time was 1 to 13 days. We did not notice any ECC system‐associated complications. No ECMO system changes were required. Conclusion: Our case series concludes that the new Colibrì system is safe and effective for in‐hospital ECMO indications. The small dimensions and lightweight design are very beneficial for the transportation of patients. It might be especially helpful for out‐of‐hospital situations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We examine concurrent sponsors' entitativity as a driver of people's intentions to view the sponsored property and ultimately their intentions to purchase from a concurrent sponsor. Entitativity is the degree to which audiences perceive a collective as a group. We consider moderators to the relationship between entitativity and viewing intentions within two sponsorship contexts, namely, sponsors investing financial versus nonfinancial resources in properties. We use factorial survey designs and structural equation modeling (SEM) to test the model across two studies. The results are consistent. Entitativity is positively related to the likelihood of viewing a sponsored property, and viewing intention is positively related to purchase intention. The entitativity--viewing intention relationship is moderated by sponsor sincerity in the context of sponsors investing products/services but not sponsors investing financial resources. Findings are discussed, and avenues for further research drawn. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Patients with severely reduced LV-EF ≤ 30% undergoing CABG have a high risk for postoperative cardiogenic shock. The optimal timing of an adequate hemodynamic support has an impact on short- and midterm mortality after CABG. This study aimed to assess the prophylactic use of the Impella pump in high-risk patients undergoing elective cardiac surgery. Methods: In this single-center retrospective study, 14 patients with LV-EF (≤30%) undergoing cardiac surgery received a prophylactic, perioperative Impella (5.0, 5.5) support between 2020 and 2022. Results: The mean age at surgery was 64.2 ± 2.6 years, the mean preoperative LV-EF was 20.7% ± 1.56%. The duration of Impella support was 4 (3–7.8) days and the 30-day survival rate was 92.85%. Acute renal failure occurred in four patients who were dialyzed on average for 1.2 ± 0.7 days. Mechanical ventilation was needed for 1.75 (0.9–2.7) days. Time to inotrope/vasopressor independence was 2 (0.97–7.25) days with a highest lactate level (24 h postoperatively) of 3.8 ± 0.6 mmol/l. Postoperative LV-EF showed a significant improvement when compared to preoperative LV-EF (29.1% ± 2.6% vs. 20.7% ± 1.56% (p = 0.022)). Conclusion: The prophylactic Impella application seems to be a safe approach to improve the outcomes of this patient population. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

What do young children understand about arguments? Do they evaluate arguments critically when deciding whom to learn from? To address this question, we investigated children at age 4–5, when robust selective social learning is in place. In Studies 1a/b, children made an initial perceptual judgment regarding the location of an object under varying perceptual circumstances; then received advice by another informant who had better/worse perceptual access than them; and then made their final judgment. The advice by the other informant was sometimes accompanied by utterances of the form "I am certain ... because I've seen it". These utterances thus constituted good arguments in some conditions (informant could see clearly), but not in others (informant had poor perceptual access). Results showed that children evaluated argument quality in context‐sensitive ways and used them differentially for belief‐revision. They engaged in more belief‐revision when the informant gave this argument only when her perceptual condition, and thus her argument, was good. In Study 2, children were asked to find out about different properties (color/texture) of an object, and received conflicting testimony from two informants who supported their claims by utterances of the form "because I've seen it" (good argument regarding color/poor regarding texture) or "because I've felt it" (vice versa). Again, children engaged in context‐relative evaluation of argument quality, selectively learning from the agent with the appropriate argument. Taken together, these finding reveal that children from age 4 understand argument quality in sophisticated, context‐relative ways, and use this understanding for selective learning and belief‐revision. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Group members reject threatening outgroup criticism compared to the same criticism from the ingroup (intergroup sensitivity effect [ISE]). Uninvolved bystanders (i.e., members of third groups) also view intergroup criticism as inappropriate. Classic ISE studies were largely underpowered, used inconsequential self‐reports, and no study has observed behavioural responses of bystanders versus ingroup members. We argued that norms may elicit self‐report responses but only social identity concerns of highly identified ingroup members should motivate costly behaviour. Contrary to our prediction, a high‐powered and pre‐registered 2 (Source: same‐group vs. outgroup) × 2 (Target: ingroup vs. uninvolved outgroup) experiment revealed a classic ISE and an even larger bystander ISE in self‐reports and behaviour, favouring a norm account. Moreover, a target effect emerged such that people were more sensitive to criticism targeting an outgroup than their ingroup. Identity thus had an impact, but not in line with social identity theory, highlighting the need for theoretical integration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents the results of a large-scale interdisciplinary project aimed at a corroboration of the role of creativity in the way university undergraduates (N = 309) coin new complex words. Specifically, the tendency towards economy of expression, preferred by a speaker, and the tendency towards semantic transparency, preferred by a listener, were examined in the broader context of the creative potential of an individual, understood as divergent thinking abilities captured by the Torrance test of creative thinking (TTCT). The results indicate that divergent thinking abilities, as operationalized by the TTCT scores, negatively correlate with the general tendency to coin new complex words in a more economical fashion. More specifically, the general tendency towards economy of expression correlates negatively with Elaboration, Creative Strengths, and potentially with Creativity. A more detailed analysis indicates that this is especially the case for the word-formation task, where open-ended responses were analyzed and a drawing served as stimulus material for word formation. These results are not only novel but also encouraging for future research into the role of psychological factors in the psycholinguistic process of word formation conceived as a creative act of a language user. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Developmental research, like many fields, is plagued by low sample sizes and inconclusive findings. The problem is amplified by the difficulties associated with recruiting infant participants for research as well as the increased variability in infant responses. With sequential testing designs providing a viable alternative to paradigms facing such issues, the current study implemented a Sequential Bayes Factor (SBF) design on three findings in the developmental literature. In particular, using the framework described by Schönbrödt and colleagues (2017), we examined infants' sensitivity to mispronunciations of familiar words, their learning of novel word‐object associations from cross‐situational learning paradigms, and their assumption of mutual exclusivity in assigning novel labels to novel objects. We tested an initial sample of 20 participants in each study, incrementally increasing sample size by one and computing a Bayes Factor with each additional participant. In one study, we were able to obtain moderate evidence for the alternate hypotheses despite testing less than half the number of participants as in the original study. We did not replicate the findings of the cross‐situational learning study. Indeed, the data were five times more likely under the null hypothesis, allowing us to conclude that infants did not recognize the trained word‐object associations presented in the task. We discuss these findings in light of the advantages and disadvantages of using a SBF design in developmental research while also providing researchers with an account of how we implemented this design across multiple studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Advice is a powerful means to improve peoples' judgments and decisions. Because advice quality is rarely apparent, decision‐makers must infer it from the characteristics of the advisor or the advice itself. Here, we focus on a largely neglected advice characteristic that should signal quality: advice precision. In a preregistered, high‐powered study (N = 195), we tested the effects of advice precision on advice taking. Drawing from past research and theorizing on anchor precision, we derived and tested two competing hypotheses for the relation of advice precision and advice taking—one predicting a monotone increase in advice taking when advice precision increases and the other predicting a backfiring effect of overly precise advice resulting in an inverted U‐shape. Our results support the notion of a monotone, albeit not a strong monotone, relationship. Higher perceived advice quality correlated with individuals' advice taking. Consistent with the idea that advice precision serves as a cue for advice quality, the effect of advice precision on advice taking was statistically mediated by perceived advice quality. Although the mediation analysis does not allow for causal interpretation because we did not manipulate the mediating variable, it shows that the effect of advice precision on advice taking is not merely a demand effect. Implications of our findings for theory and practice are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article develops a new, general account of replication (the Resampling Account of replication). I argue that a replication is an experiment that resamples the experimental components of an original experiment that are treated as random factors and that the function of replications is, narrowly, to assess the reliability of the replicated experiments. On this basis, I argue that the common notion of conceptual replication is confused and that the ongoing controversy about the relative value of direct and conceptual replications should be dissolved. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent research has shown that from early in development, children selectively form new beliefs in response to information supplied by others. However, little is known about the development of selective revision of existing beliefs in response to socially conveyed information. Such selective social belief revision has been extensively studied by social psychologists in the context of advice-taking. Here, we adapted the methods of this research tradition for studying selective advice-taking in young children and adults. Participants solved a perceptual judgment task, received advice, and subsequently made final decisions. The informational access (perceptual quality) of participants and advisor were experimentally manipulated. Adults revised their judgments systematically as a function of both their own and the advisor's informational access whereas children based their adjustments only on their own informational access. Two follow-up experiments suggest, however, that this pattern of results in children reflected performance rather than competence limitations: In suitably modified tasks, children did proficiently consider both their own informational situation and that of the advisor in their selective social belief revision. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Real-world agents, humans as well as animals, observe each other during interactions and choose their own actions taking the partners' ongoing behaviour into account. Yet, classical game theory assumes that players act either strictly sequentially or strictly simultaneously without knowing each other's current choices. To account for action visibility and provide a more realistic model of interactions under time constraints, we introduce a new game-theoretic setting called transparent games, where each player has a certain probability of observing the partner's choice before deciding on its own action. By means of evolutionary simulations, we demonstrate that even a small probability of seeing the partner's choice before one's own decision substantially changes the evolutionary successful strategies. Action visibility enhances cooperation in an iterated coordination game, but reduces cooperation in a more competitive iterated Prisoner's Dilemma. In both games, "Win–stay, lose–shift" and "Tit-for-tat" strategies are predominant for moderate transparency, while a "Leader-Follower" strategy emerges for high transparency. Our results have implications for studies of human and animal social behaviour, especially for the analysis of dyadic and group interactions. Author summary: Humans and animals constantly make social decisions. Should an animal during group foraging or a human at the buffet try to obtain an attractive food item but risk a confrontation with a dominant conspecific, or is it better to opt for a less attractive but non-confrontational choice, especially when considering that the situation will repeat in the future? To model decision-making in such situations game theory is widely used. However, classic game theory assumes that agents act either at the same time, without knowing each other's choices, or one after another. In contrast, humans and animals usually try to take the behaviour of their opponents and partners into account, to instantaneously adjust their own actions if possible. To provide a more realistic model of decision making in a social setting, we here introduce the concept of transparent games. It integrates the probability of observing the partner's instantaneous actions into the game-theoretic framework of knowing previous choice outcomes. We find that such "transparency" has a direct influence on the emergence of cooperative behaviours in classic iterated games. The transparent games can contribute to a deeper understanding of social behaviour and decision-making of humans and animals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyses the history of the largest anthropological project of the Museum fur Vdlkerkunde (now Ethnologisches Museum) in Berlin in the 1970's. A group of German scholars and scientists carried out research with the Eipo, a small group in the eastern highlands of West Papua. Indonesia. The research aimed at a comprehensive documentation of the Eipo which required the interdisciplinary work of a large number of scientists. Based on until now unpublished archive material the article demonstrates how the scientific personnel reacted to the requests ofthe museum to engage in this expedition. The project was stopped by two heavy earthquakes and Indonesian obstacles to continued fieldwork by not prolongating research pennits. Difficulties to find researchers with field experience to work in this rugged mountain area, mainly from anthropology, had an impact on the composition of the scientific team. As the results ofthe project were mainly published in German language they have not become widely known in the scientific community. A number of research results have never been published. Thus the largest interdisciplinary project of the museum could never be finalised. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Following up on a recent debate, we examined advice taking in dyads compared to individuals in a set of three studies (total N = 303 dyads and 194 individuals). Our first aim was to test the replicability of an important previous finding, namely that dyads heed advice less than individuals because they feel more confident in the accuracy of their initial judgments. Second, we aimed to explain dyads' behavior based on three premises: first, that dyads understand that the added value of an outside opinion diminishes when the initial pre-advice judgment is made by two judges rather than one judge (given that the dyad members' opinions are independent of each other); second, that they fail to recognize when the assumption of independence of opinions does not hold; and third, that the resistance to advice commonly observed in individuals persists in groups but is neither aggravated nor ameliorated by the group context. The results of our studies show consistently that previous findings on advice taking in dyads are replicable. They also support our hypothesis that groups exhibit a general tendency to heed advice less than individuals, irrespective of whether the accuracy of their initial judgments warrants this behavior. Finally, based on the three assumptions mentioned above, we were able to make accurate predictions about advice taking in dyads, prompting us to postulate a general model of advice taking in groups of arbitrary size. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Abstract: Across three studies (total N = 793), we investigated the link between two fundamental dimensions of personality, agency and communion, and advice taking in quantity estimation tasks. We complemented the analyses of the individual studies with meta‐analyses across all three studies in order to gain insight into the robustness of our core results. In line with our expectations, agency was associated with less advice taking, and this effect was mediated by individuals' perceptions of their own competence. Contrary to what we expected, we did not find consistent evidence that communion systematically relates to advice taking. Analyses of judges' initial accuracy further suggested that agentic judges' lower willingness to heed advice was justified by greater initial accuracy as compared with their less agentic peers. Our data, thus, provide evidence of individual differences in advice taking and shed some light on the question which individuals are more inclined to heed advice than others. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, we ask how well people fulfill informational motives by using the judgments of others. We build on advice-taking research from the judgment and decision making literature, which has developed a distinct paradigm to test how accurately people incorporate information from others. We use a literature review to show that people have mixed success in fulfilling informational motives-they increase their accuracy through the use of advice, but not as much as they could. We develop insights about how people perceive advisors and try to pursue advice-and where their perceptions may lead them astray. We conclude by proposing that future work further investigate the reasons people fail to use advice by building on the current advice taking paradigm used in judgment and decision making, but with a richer understanding of advice taking as a dynamic process that often entails complex decisions and normative motives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In October 1978, diverse members of the West Berlin Left founded the Alternative Liste für Demokratie und Umweltschutz (Alternative Ballot for Democracy and Environmental Protection, AL). This article examines the origins and evolution of the AL. Initially, the new political organization fundamentally opposed the parliamentary system. Within three years, however, the AL won a significant presence in the West Berlin Parliament, and in 1989, the party joined the Social Democrats in governing West Berlin. The AL's parliamentary participation had a moderating, integrative effect on the party and its members. From the late 1970s through the end of the 1980s, a significant segment of the radical West German Left grew to accept parliamentary democracy, demonstrating the strength of the Federal Republic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Anticommons are a special kind of mixed-motive dilemma in which negative effects for society are caused by the excessive use of exclusion rights. In two fully incentivized experiments on trading goods with risky prospects, we disentangle three psychological sources that have been suggested to contribute to increased pricing in anticommons dilemmas: the effects of strategic incentives for overpricing, endowment effects, and interdependence of outcomes. Our results show that pricing of risky prospects in the anticommons is only marginally influenced by endowment status, whereas participants readily respond to incentives to overprice and to the interdependence of outcomes. Endowment effects are reduced both when strategic incentives to overprice are provided and when outcomes of subjects become interdependent. As a result, endowment effects for risky prospects are strongly reduced or even disappear completely in anticommons dilemmas. Our results render support for an interaction model instead of an additive effect model in which both incentives and endowment effects would drive up pricing. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We investigate decision-making in the Judge-Advisor-System where one person, the "judge", wants to estimate the number of a certain entity and is given advice by another person. The question is how to combine the judge's initial estimate and that of the advisor in order to get the optimal expected outcome. A previous approach compared two frequently applied strategies, taking the average or choosing the better estimate. In most situations, averaging produced the better estimates. However, this approach neglected a third strategy that judges frequently use, namely a weighted mean of the judges' initial estimate and the advice. We compare the performance of averaging and choosing to weighting in a theoretical analysis. If the judge can, without error, detect ability differences between judge and advisor, a straight-forward calculation shows that weighting outperforms both of these strategies. More interestingly, after introducing errors in the perception of the ability differences, we show that such imperfect weighting may or may not be the optimal strategy. The relative performance of imperfect weighting compared to averaging or choosing depends on the size of the actual ability differences as well as the magnitude of the error. However, for a sizeable range of ability differences and errors, weighting is preferable to averaging and more so to choosing. Our analysis expands previous research by showing that weighting, even when imperfect, is an appropriate advice taking strategy and under which circumstances judges benefit most from applying it. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Six experiments investigated how the distance between one's initial opinion and advice relates to advice utilization. Going beyond previous research, we relate advice distance to both relative adjustments and absolute adjustments towards the advice, and we also investigate a second mode of advice utilization, namely confidence shifts due to social validation. Whereas previous research suggests that advice is weighted less the more it differs from one's initial opinion, we consistently find evidence of a curvilinear pattern. Advice is weighted less when advice distance is low and when it is high. This is in particular because individuals are much more likely to retain their initial opinions in the light of near advice. Also, absolute opinion adjustments towards the advice increases in a monotone fashion as advice distance increases. This finding is in contrast to the predictions of the theoretical framework previous studies on advice distance are based on, social judgment theory. Instead, they data are more in line with a simple stimulus-response model suggesting that absolute adjustments towards the advice increase with advice distance but--potentially--with diminished sensitivity. Finally, our data show that advice can be utilized even when it receives zero weight during belief revision. The closer advice was to the initial opinions, the more it served as a means for social validation, increasing decision-makers' confidence in the accuracy of their final opinions. Thus, our findings suggest that advice utilization is a more complex function of advice distance than previously assumed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

People frequently have to work in high repetitive jobs. Previous research has focused exclusively on the effects of task repetitiveness on well-being, while neglecting effects on work performance. In the present study, we aimed to fill this void by conducting two workplace simulations with experimental manipulations of task repetitiveness. Participants worked for about 5 hours at either a computer workstation, compiling computer hardware packages according to customer requests (Experiment 1, N = 160), or at an assembly line, piecing together equipment sets for furniture (Experiment 2, N = 213). Both experiments provide consistent evidence that high repetitiveness has a detrimental effect on well-being, whereas work performance increases under conditions of high repetitiveness. On a practical level, our study hence shows that high task repetitiveness is a double-edged sword for both employees and organizations. On a conceptual level, our findings emphasize the necessity to account for both mental strain and work performance when examining the effects of task repetitiveness. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigates the factors influencing Mauritian students in making their career choices and an evaluation of the career counselling services in Mauritius. A triangulation between a quantitative approach and a qualitative has been adopted in order to have complementary information on the factors influencing career making decisions and on the evaluation of the career guidance services in Mauritius. In the quantitative approach, a survey was used to collect data, and in the qualitative approach, a focus group discussion was adopted. Two hundred and seventy-two university students completed questionnaires on career choice (self-administered and through emails). Four students participated in the focus group discussion. An analysis of the quantitative and qualitative data revealed that students are influenced by a wide range of factors. The most influential factors were found to be jobs available in the labor market; followed by lifelong learning opportunities; then by a high salary and prospects for promotions; fourthly, by prestige; and finally, by parental influence. Findings from the focus group discussion also converged towards the same results, along with several details on the why and how those factors have influenced their career choices were found. Moreover, the need for career counselling was felt by the majority of participants, and several proposals were given on how to improve the existing career guidance service. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Being fed up with something is a prevalent and fundamental human experience. Although the relevance of mental satiation, that is, the process of becoming fed up with an action, is highly acknowledged in organizational psychology, almost no empirical research has examined this concept. In this article, we take a social cognitive neuroscience approach to mental satiation. By building on and extending the classic work of Lewin and Karsten, we propose a new model of mental satiation that focuses on the cognitive, motivational, and neural processes underlying mental satiation. Our model starts with the assumption that repeated performance of an action undermines one's need for competence and hence leads to a loss of intrinsic motivation. We then distinguish between two phases of the satiation process: The first phase is characterized by a loss of intrinsic motivation to perform the action. The second phase starts when the intrinsic motivation has vanished and volitional control is required to continue the action. We predict that the loss of intrinsic motivation in the first phase of the satiation process is correlated with a decrease in activity in brain regions associated with positive hedonic experience, such as the nucleus accumbens, the ventral pallidum, and the medial orbitofrontal cortex. In contrast, the growing aversion toward the action during the second phase of the satiation process is predicted to be correlated with an increase in activity in brain regions associated with unpleasant affect and volitional control, such as the amygdala, the anterior insula, and the anterior cingulate cortex. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents a report on the 6th International Symposium "Alternative Cellulose--Manufacturing, Forming, Properties," held on September 1-2, 2004 in the Conference Centre of the Thuringian Institute for Textiles and Plastics Research, Germany. During the symposium, important aspects of cellulose research and development were presented. Topics were novel cellulose solvents including ionic liquids, trimethylsilylcellulose as technically applicable fusible cellulose derivatives and recent developments of lyocell technology including analytical methods and new materials and textiles based on the lyocell process.