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Background Intervention trials promoting physical activity among older people frequently report low and unrepresentative recruitment. Better understanding of reasons for participation can help improve recruitment. This study explored why participants enrolled in the Coaching for Healthy Ageing (CHAnGE) trial, including how their decision was influenced by recruitment strategies. CHAnGE was a cluster randomised controlled trial testing the effectiveness of a healthy ageing program targeting inactivity and falls. Seventy-two groups of people aged 60+ were recruited from community organisations via informal presentations by the health coaches. Methods We conducted a secondary thematic analysis of interview data from our wider qualitative evaluation in which 32 purposively sampled trial participants took part in semi-structured interviews about their experiences of CHAnGE. Data relating to recruitment and participation were analysed inductively to identify themes, then a coding framework comprising the core constructs from self-determination theory—autonomy, competence and relatedness—was used to explore if and how this theory fit with and helped to explain our data. Results Recruitment presentations promoted the CHAnGE intervention well in terms of addressing value expectations of structured support, different forms of accountability, credibility, achievability and, for some, a potential to enhance social relationships. Participation was motivated by the desire for improved health and decelerated ageing, altruism and curiosity. These factors related strongly to self-determination concepts of autonomy, competence and relatedness, but the intervention’s demonstrated potential to support self-determination needs could be conveyed more effectively. Conclusions Findings suggest that recruitment could have greater reach using: 1. Strengths-based messaging focusing on holistic gains, 2. Participant stories that highlight positive experiences, and 3. Peer support and information sharing to leverage altruism and curiosity. These theory-informed improvements will be used to increase participation in future trials, including people in hard-to-recruit groups. They may also inform other physical activity trials and community programs.

As massive amounts of information are becoming available to people, understanding the mechanisms underlying information-seeking is more pertinent today than ever. In this study, we investigate the underlying motivations to seek out information in healthy and addicted individuals. We developed a novel decision-making task and a novel computational model which allows dissociating the relative contribution of two motivating factors to seek out information: a desire for novelty and a general desire for knowledge. To investigate whether/how the motivations to seek out information vary between healthy and addicted individuals, in addition to healthy controls we included a sample of individuals with gambling disorder—a form of addiction without the confound of substance consumption and characterized by compulsive gambling. Our results indicate that healthy subjects and problem gamblers adopt distinct information-seeking “modes”. Healthy information-seeking behavior was mostly motivated by a desire for novelty. Problem gamblers, on the contrary, displayed reduced novelty-seeking and an increased desire for accumulating knowledge compared to healthy controls. Our findings not only shed new light on the motivations driving healthy and addicted individuals to seek out information, but they also have important implications for the treatment and diagnosis of behavioral addiction., SCOPUS: ar.j, info:eu-repo/semantics/published

Objective To examine the main and interactive effects of the amount of daily television exposure and frequency of parent conversation during shared television viewing on parent ratings of curiosity at kindergarten, and to test for moderation by socioeconomic status (SES). Study design Sample included 5100 children from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, Birth Cohort. Hours of daily television exposure and frequency of parent screen-time conversation were assessed from a parent interview at preschool, and the outcome of early childhood curiosity was derived from a child behavior questionnaire at kindergarten. Multivariate linear regression examined the main and interactive effects of television exposure and parent screen-time conversation on kindergarten curiosity and tested for moderation by SES. Results In adjusted models, greater number of hours of daily television viewing at preschool was associated with lower curiosity at kindergarten (B = -0.14, p = .008). More frequent parent conversation during shared screen-time was associated with higher parent-reported curiosity at kindergarten with evidence of moderation by SES. The magnitude of association between frequency of parent conversation during television viewing and curiosity was greater for children from low SES environments, compared to children from high SES environments: (SES ≤ median): B = 0.29, p < .001; (SES > median): B = 0.11, p < .001. Conclusions Higher curiosity at kindergarten was associated with greater frequency of parent conversation during shared television viewing, with a greater magnitude of association in low-SES families. While the study could not include measures of television program content, digital media use and non-screen time conversation, our results suggest the importance of parent conversation to promote early childhood curiosity, especially for children with socioeconomic disadvantage.

Introduction High participation in epidemiological studies is crucial for both external and internal validity. Because response rates have declined in recent years, there is an increasing need to understand the drivers and the barriers to research participation. This study aims to uncover the motivations in favour and against participation of older adults to an epidemiological study on health and dementia. Methods Twenty-two older adults, who already took part to the preliminary phase of an epidemiological study in Switzerland, agreed to participate to semi-structured, face-to- face interviews. An experienced researcher carried out all interviews in a quiet place of choice of the interviewee either at their domicile or the university, between November 2019 and January 2020. The interviews were audio and video taped, transcribed verbatim, and thematically analysed by two independent researchers. Results We identified three main themes for the motivations in favour of participation (i.e. personal, related to the outcomes of research, and altruistic motivations), and we highlighted subthemes for each theme (e.g. personal motivations: curiosity; civic engagement; interest in the topic; trust in science; everyone counts; openness; play the game). Motivations against participation reflected the first two themes, while there was no counterpart for altruistic motivations. Conclusions Our thematic analysis revealed that older adults hold specular motivations in favour and against participation to research. Studying jointly motivations in favour and against provides information for recruitment strategies and to overcome barriers to participation, respectively. Participatory action research can inform the design and conduction of and should precede epidemiological studies in older adults, and can potentially contribute to attain high response rates.

Contains fulltext : 237339.pdf (Publisher’s version ) (Open Access) Curiosity is pervasive in our everyday lives, but we know little about the factors that contribute to this drive. In the current study, we assessed whether curiosity about uncertain outcomes is modulated by the valence of the information, i.e. whether the information is good or bad news. Using a lottery task in which outcome uncertainty, expected value and outcome valence (gain versus loss) were manipulated independently, we found that curiosity is overall higher for gains compared with losses and that curiosity increased with increasing outcome uncertainty for both gains and losses. These effects of uncertainty and valence did not interact, indicating that the motivation to reduce uncertainty and the motivation to maximize positive information represent separate, independent drives. 19 p.

This study used the elaboration likelihood model as a theoretical basis to explore the effects of various persuasion strategies on consumer perception and attitude regarding the corporate image of sports organizations that engage in corporate social responsibility (CSR) activities. The moderating effects of involvement, sports team identification, and sports fan curiosity were also examined. The multiple-study approach was employed to increase the external validity of the research. Two studies with cross-sectional between-subject pre–post experimental design were conducted with a total of 390 participants. The research setting was the Fubon Guardians baseball team of the Chinese Professional Baseball League in Study I and the Taiwan Beer Basketball Team of the Super Basketball League in Study II. Communication through the central and peripheral routes improved consumers’ CSR perception. Furthermore, under low involvement, weak sports team identification, and low sports fan curiosity conditions, communication through the central route and peripheral route improved the participants’ CSR perception. However, under high involvement, strong sports team identification, and high sports fan curiosity conditions, the different communication methods had nonsignificantly different effects. The findings of this study provide both academic contributions and practical implications.

A treadmill is an important tool in the equine analysis of gait, lameness, and hoof balance, as well as for the evaluation of horse rehabilitation or poor performance including dynamic endoscopy. Before all of these uses, horses have to be habituated to a treadmill locomotion. We used principal component analysis to evaluate the relationship between aspects of the horse&rsquo, s temperament and emotional response, and progress in the behavioral habituation to a treadmill. Fourteen horses were tested, by the same familiar handler, using the novel object test, the handling test, and both positive and negative emotional response tests. Then, four stages of gradual habituation of the first work on a treadmill were conducted. Each time, the horse&rsquo, s behavior was filmed. Data obtained from ethograms and heart rate measurements were tested. Four principal components were identified in examined horses: &ldquo, Flightiness,&rdquo, &ldquo, Freeziness,&rdquo, Curiosity,&rdquo, and &ldquo, Timidity.&rdquo, Flightiness was connected with nervousness, agitation by new objects, and easy excitability, and gradually decreased of features during habituation. Timidity was associated with a lack of courage and stress in new situations, and those features strongly increased when the treadmill was introduced. Freeziness and Curiosity features showed strong stability throughout the whole habituation. The results of this study provide evidence for a connection between temperament, emotional response, and habituation process in a horse.

Limited empirical data exists on why women and minority students enter Biomedical Career Enrichment Programs (BCEPs) and how program variables-such as duration of research-influence their intention to pursue research careers. This exploratory study reports motivators for participation in BCEPs among women and racial/ethnic minority students-historically underrepresented groups-and the influence of program and personal variables on their research-career intent and self-efficacy beliefs. We studied the program variables of research experience, research duration, and mentor influence; and the personal variables of race, gender, family, and peers. Using the conceptual framework of planned behavior theory and social cognitive career theory, we interviewed students from underrepresented groups participating in BCEPs that offered research experience for short duration (Group A), long duration (Group B), and no research experience (Group C). We utilized Atlas Ti, a qualitative methodological software tool, to analyze the interview responses. Students choosing a BCEP with research experience cited "opportunity to gain experience" and "interest or curiosity in research" as motivators. Duration of research experience had a positive relationship with enhancement in research skills and self-efficacy beliefs, but did not change the initial research-career intent of these BCEP participants. The study revealed an interesting and unexpected theme of "perceived deterrents" to a career in research that included stress of competition (e.g. grants), the instability of projects, and the isolation of scientific research. Importantly, the study findings indicate the need to reform program design and science policies that challenge the current biomedical workforce and dissuade interested students from underrepresented groups from entering the field.

Curiosity-driven, basic biological research “…performed without thought of practical ends…” establishes fundamental conceptual frameworks for future technological and medical breakthroughs. Traditionally, curiosity-driven research in biological sciences has utilized experimental organisms chosen for their tractability and suitability for studying the question of interest. This approach leverages the diversity of life to uncover working solutions (adaptations) to problems encountered by living things, and evolutionary context as to the extent to which these solutions may be generalized to other species. Despite the well-documented success of this approach, funding portfolios of United States granting agencies are increasingly filled with studies on a few species for which cutting-edge molecular tools are available (genetic model organisms). While this narrow focus may be justified for biomedically-focused funding bodies such as the National Institutes of Health, it is critical that robust federal support for curiosity-driven research using diverse experimental organisms be maintained by agencies such as the National Science Foundation. Using the disciplines of neurobiology and behavioral research as an example, this study finds that NSF grant awards have declined in association with a decrease in the proportion of grants funded for experimental, rather than genetic model organism research. The decline in use of experimental organisms in the literature mirrors but predates the shift grant funding. Today’s dominance of genetic model organisms was thus initiated by researchers themselves and/or by publication peer review and editorial preferences, and was further reinforced by pressure from granting agencies, academic employers, and the scientific community.

We present a lab-in-the-field experiment to demonstrate how individual behavior in the lab predicts their ability to identify phishing attempts. Using the business and finance staff members from a large public university in the U.S., we find that participants who are intolerant of risk, more curious, and less trusting commit significantly more errors when evaluating interfaces. We also replicate prior results on demographic correlates of phishing vulnerability, including age, gender, and education level. Our results suggest that behavioral characteristics such as intolerance of risk, curiosity, and trust can be used to predict individual ability to identify phishing interfaces.

This paper examined, with a behavioral paradigm, to what extent people choose to view stimuli that portray death, violence or harm. Based on briefly presented visual cues, participants made choices between highly arousing, negative images and positive or negative alternatives. The negative images displayed social scenes that involved death, violence or harm (e.g., war scene), or decontextualized, close-ups of physical harm (e.g., mutilated face) or natural threat (e.g., attacking shark). The results demonstrated that social negative images were chosen significantly more often than other negative categories. Furthermore, participants preferred social negative images over neutral images. Physical harm images and natural threat images were not preferred over neutral images, but were chosen in about thirty-five percent of the trials. These results were replicated across three different studies, including a study that presented verbal descriptions of images as pre-choice cues. Together, these results show that people deliberately subject themselves to negative images. With this, the present paper demonstrates a dynamic relationship between negative information and behavior and advances new insights into the phenomenon of morbid curiosity.

Natural animals are renowned for their ability to acquire a diverse and general skill set over the course of their lifetime. However, research in artificial intelligence has yet to produce agents that acquire all or even most of the available skills in non-trivial environments. One candidate algorithm for encouraging the production of such individuals is Novelty Search, which pressures organisms to exhibit different behaviors from other individuals. However, we hypothesized that Novelty Search would produce sub-populations of specialists, in which each individual possesses a subset of skills, but no one organism acquires all or most of the skills. In this paper, we propose a new algorithm called Curiosity Search, which is designed to produce individuals that acquire as many skills as possible during their lifetime. We show that in a multiple-skill maze environment, Curiosity Search does produce individuals that explore their entire domain, while a traditional implementation of Novelty Search produces specialists. However, we reveal that when modified to encourage intra-life behavioral diversity, Novelty Search can produce organisms that explore almost as much of their environment as Curiosity Search, although Curiosity Search retains a significant performance edge. Finally, we show that Curiosity Search is a useful helper objective when combined with Novelty Search, producing individuals that acquire significantly more skills than either algorithm alone.

Neuroimaging studies on attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) suggest dysfunctional reward processing, with hypo-responsiveness during reward anticipation in the reward system including the nucleus accumbens (NAcc). In this study, we investigated the association between ADHD related behaviors and the reward system using functional magnetic resonance imaging in a non-clinical sample. Participants were 31 healthy, female undergraduate students with varying levels of self-reported ADHD related behaviors measured by the adult ADHD self-report scale. The anticipation of different types of reward was investigated: monetary reward, punishment avoidance, and verbal feedback. All three reward anticipation conditions were found to be associated with increased brain activation in the reward system, with the highest activation in the monetary reward anticipation condition, followed by the punishment avoidance anticipation condition, and the lowest activation in the verbal feedback anticipation condition. Most interestingly, in all three conditions, NAcc activation was negatively correlated with ADHD related behaviors. In conclusion, our results from a non-clinical sample are in accordance with reported deficits in the reward system in ADHD patients: the higher the number and severity of ADHD related behaviors, the lower the neural responses in the dopaminergic driven reward anticipation task. Thus, our data support current aetiological models of ADHD which assume that deficits in the reward system might be responsible for many of the ADHD related behaviors.

This essay proposes the existence of four unique behavioral characteristics that distinguish Homo sapiens from its nearest evolutionary kin, the great apes. These are inventiveness, capacity for language, curiosity, and self-reflection or self-analysis. Some would counterargue that none of these features are "unique" to humans. Examples would be given of animal "intelligence" involving at times surprising problem-solving abilities. Even "conversations" between humans and parrots might be cited. However, this is to misunderstand what the focus is in the article. This is not a thesis on the continuity or discontinuities of evolution. Every well-trained biologist learns about evolution and understands that the most complex human traits have some hint of related traits in nearest relatives. Rather, the emphasis of this article has been to select and emphasize certain distinctive aspects of human behavior that are the most important features distinguishing human "uniqueness." Uniqueness may be quantified by the number and complexity of processes within the four attributes presented in this article. While this may be an interesting mathematical exercise, the author would rather take it for granted that the outcome would be that humans are significantly more complex in each of the four features referred to than the great apes. For those in the mental health field, one would hope that this overview of the most highly evolved systems in human brain may provide a useful framework where creative therapeutic processes can be applied to the ultimate beneficiary, the client or patient. This article proposes that psychosis can be considered the impossibility of conflict resolution among the special neuronal assemblies that separately mediate feelings of attachment versus abandonment, security versus anxiety, calmness versus anger, fulfillment versus helplessness, and satisfaction of sexual needs. Given this model, the role of the therapist is to consider whether the client is in touch with the various equilibrium points in their current life situation or crisis. A questionnaire designed to help access information on these internal states may work better than an oral interview because it forces the client to reflect. How much conflict does the client feel in sorting out personal priorities? Does the client have any practice at resolving internal conflicts? If unpracticed, is the client likely to act out in destructive ways to self or others to resolve the pressure of internal conflicts? I am sure that we can all think of current well-publicized destructive acts in which one has to wonder precisely what model of mind the psychotherapists were using to assist the client. At a higher level, each human has the potential to be creative. Whether expressed as curiosity about the universe and nature or inventiveness, as in improving the quality of one's life or by the use of gifted language as in art and music, the therapist needs to determine how to assist the client into these kinds of self-defined fulfillments, which one hopes will reduce the other tensions of conflict resolution. There is no doubt that the journey for both the client and therapist will be challenging. Ultimately, the journey is the reward for both the client and therapist. In closing, the following quotation seems appropriate. Sydney Brenner (2002), a pioneer in molecular biology, reviewed a current book on the Science, Politics, and Ethics of the Human Genome Project (Sulston and Ferry 2002). He states, "What I found interesting in the account is that Sulston doesn't tell us anything about the genomes he has sequenced. What did he find there that excited him? What did he learn about genes, about life, about evolution, about worlds to come? It is the play of Hamlet without Hamlet" (p. 794).

The majority of prevention and intervention research in problem gambling (PG) has focused on identifying negative risk factors. However, not all at-risk individuals go on to develop anticipated disorders and many thrive in spite of them. In healthcare settings, PG and other disorders are typically conceptualized from the biomedical perspective that frame disorders as something negative residing within the individual and reduction in negativity is seen as success. Indeed, this problem-focused conceptualization may be adequate in many cases as reducing PG behaviour is undoubtedly an important outcome, but the focus on negativity alone is too narrow to capture the complexity of human behaviour. Hence, this study attempts to bridge the gap in literature by providing an evaluation of the predictive ability of the positive dispositions on problem gambling severity, gambling-related cognitions, and gambling urges. The positive psychological dispositions examined were curiosity, gratitude, hope, personal growth initiative, and mindfulness. Participants consisted of 801 Taiwanese Chinese students and community individuals (Mean age = 25.36 years). Higher levels of gratitude and hope have been found to predict lower PG, gambling-related cognitions, or gambling urges. Meanwhile, higher mindfulness predicted lower PG, but only among Chinese males. However, lower personal growth initiative predicted lower PG, gambling-related cognitions, and gambling urges. These analyses have small to medium effect sizes with significant predictions. Findings of this study have essential implications in understanding and treating Chinese problem gamblers. These positive dispositions should be addressed by mental health professionals in preventative and treatment programs among Chinese individuals. Further implications and suggestions for future research are discussed.

Coping with mild early life stress tends to make subsequent coping efforts more effective and therefore more likely to be used as a means of arousal regulation and resilience. Here we show that this developmental learning-like process of stress inoculation increases ventromedial prefrontal cortical volumes in peripubertal monkeys. Larger volumes do not reflect increased cortical thickness but instead represent surface area expansion of ventromedial prefrontal cortex. Expansion of ventromedial prefrontal cortex coincides with increased white matter myelination inferred from diffusion tensor magnetic resonance imaging. These findings suggest that the process of coping with early life stress increases prefrontal myelination and expands a region of cortex that broadly controls arousal regulation and resilience. Copyright (C) 2009 S. Karger AG, Basel

What are the neural substrates of food reward? Are reward and pleasure identical? Can taste pleasure be assessed in animals? Is reward necessarily conscious? These questions have re-emerged in recent years, and there is now sufficient evidence to prompt re-examination of many preconceptions concerning reward and its relation to brain systems. This paper reviews evidence from many sources regarding both the psychological structure of food reward and the neural systems that mediate it. Special attention is paid to recent evidence from “taste reactivity” studies of affective reactions to food. I argue that this evidence suggests the following surprising possibilities regarding the functional components and brain substrates of food reward. (1) Reward contains distinguishable psychological or functional components—“liking” (pleasure/palatability) and “wanting” (appetite/incentive motivation). These can be manipulated and measured separately. (2) Liking and wanting have separable neural substrates. Mediation of liking related to food reward involves neurotransmitter systems such as opioid and GABA/benzodiazepine systems, and anatomical structures such as ventral pallidum and brainstem primary gustatory relays. Mediation of wanting related to food reward involves mesotelencephalic dopamine systems, and divisions of nucleus accumbens and amygdala. Both liking and wanting arise from vastly distributed neural systems, but the two systems are separable. (3) Neural processing of food reward is not confined to the limbic forebrain. Aspects of food reward begin to be processed in the brainstem. A neural manipulation can enhance reward or produce aversion but no single lesion or transection is likely abolish all properties of food reward. (4) Both wanting and liking can exist without subjective awareness. Conscious experience can distort or blur the underlying reward processes that gave rise to it. Subjective reports may contain false assessments of underlying processes, or even fail at all to register important reward processes. The core processes of liking and wanting that constitute reward are distinct from the subjective report or conscious awareness of those processes.