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Nontraditional students pursuing an advanced degree face unique challenges as compared to full-time traditional students. Current and former masters and PhD students (N = 266) were surveyed to examine differences in their educational experiences and emotional outcomes, and determinants of their positive and negative graduate education experiences. Traditional and nontraditional students differed significantly on most of the variables. Compared to traditional students, nontraditional students reported higher positive emotional experiences. Simple linear ordinary least squares (OLS) regression models were used to examine the determinants of positive and negative experiences during graduate education. Self-fulfillment motives were the strongest predictors of positive emotional experiences, while stress and anxiety uniformly predicted negative experiences; with variability in determinants of emotional experiences between traditional and nontraditional students.

In times of distress, people show a tendency to remember the 'good old days,' a bittersweet emotion called Nostalgia. This study explores how experimentally-induced nostalgia improves attitude toward counseling center and behavioral intentions to contact the counseling center on a college campus. Students living with depression (N = 148) were randomly assigned to view a public service announcement (PSA) for the campus counseling center that was designed with or without a nostalgia-inducing narrative and imagery. Participants exposed to the nostalgic PSA expressed significantly higher positive emotions compared to the control condition, after controlling for the effects of stigma, past counseling experience, levels of depression, and friends or family with mental illness. Mediation analyses showed that the higher positive emotions participants felt, the more positive was their attitude toward the campus counseling center, which in turn increased behavioral intention to seek help. The study suggests nostalgia-themed messages to promote help-seeking intentions among students experiencing depression.

In this invited commentary, I reflect on the philosophical changes to my pedagogical approach during the COVID-19 pandemic. Inspired by Mehta and Aguilera's (2020) "humanizing pedagogy approach," the commentary provides four elements to capitalize on when designing courses aspiring to inspire a brighter future in advertising.

Introduction: As a globally prevalent phenomenon, buying counterfeit products harms consumers, economies, societies, governments, and the environment. The study examined the hierarchy of injunctive normative influence (personal vs. societal) on counterfeit purchase intentions and trends in non-deceptive (known) counterfeit purchase behavior. The current research expands the hierarchical norms approach by examining how the cultural values of power distance and individualism-collectivism predict injunctive normative perceptions and counterfeit buying intention and behavior. Methods: A cross-sectional survey (N = 13,053) of consumers from 17 nations, administered in seven languages, explored cross-country differences in perceived social norms about buying counterfeits. Results: The findings of multilevel moderated mediation analyses showed that personal injunctive norms (perceived acceptance of buying counterfeits by close friends) mediated the relationship between societal injunctive norms (perceived acceptance for buying counterfeits by peers in the same country) and the outcome variables. Selected paths of the mediation model were moderated by the two cultural dimensions. Discussion: Theoretical implications are discussed within the context of cultural orientations' and social norms' roles in informing risky behavior, and practically, within the context of awareness-raising and behavior-change interventions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Amid growing concerns about use of Artificial Intelligence (AI)-powered technologies like ChatGPT by students and researchers, this paper provides a brief overview of AI, focusing primarily on ChatGPT as one example of a chatbot that can perform various human-like functions. We discuss the utility of AI in the advertising and marketing communications industries and education. We also address fear, uncertainty, and risk-aversion for the use of these technologies in education and scholarship. We argue in favor of embracing AI in advertising and marketing communications education and practice while also providing suggested guidelines for best practices and a deep understanding of the challenges and ethical concerns associated with such uses. The paper concludes with a suggested agenda for pioneering research in this area. This paper is not intended to provide an exhaustive summary of all existing research on AI. Rather, it is a thought piece intended to stimulate curiosity among educators and practitioners and encourage further research among advertising scholars. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The current study examined the relationship between perceived societal and personal celebration drinking norms, social media use, and alcohol consumption during Halloween. The study used a survey of a nationally representative, convenience, and cross-sectional sample of underage youth (18-20 years old; N = 525). Participants self-reported their own drinking, perceived descriptive norms among peers and close friends, and alcohol-related social media posting and interaction during Halloween. Results revealed that underage youth's estimation of societal drinking norms related to their proximal close friends' drinking norms, which in turn, influenced self-reported number of drinks consumed during Halloween. Social media posting and interaction with alcohol-related content were associated with greater descriptive normative perceptions and self-reported drinking. Extending the hierarchical social norms approach, our findings showed that normative perceptions about proximal reference groups' drinking, along with alcohol-related social media activities, were associated with greater number of drinks consumed during Halloween. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In times of distress, people show a tendency to remember the 'good old days,' a bittersweet emotion called Nostalgia. This study advances the role of nostalgic emotions to influence help-seeking intentions in depression. Depression is a critical public health concern, which can be mitigated by seeking professional psychological help. Several communication researchers have studied this area to improve help-seeking intentions through message design and evaluation. This study investigates the use of nostalgic valence: positive, negative, and coactive to influence help-seeking behavioral intentions. Using the theory of planned behavior (TPB) as a guiding framework, the study examined the effects of nostalgic valence on emotions, attitude, perceived behavioral control, and subjective norms to seek help. The study recruited 366 participants, experiencing mild to severe levels of depression, from Amazon Mechanical Turk. Participants were randomly assigned to one of the three video conditions: positive, negative, or coactive nostalgia. The study resulted in two distinct findings. First, we found that positive, negative, and coactive nostalgic messages lead to different levels of emotional responses. Specifically, the coactive nostalgic condition resulted in the least positive emotional response. Second, these different levels of emotional responses are correlated with perceived behavioral control, and descriptive norms that mediated the effects of nostalgia on help-seeking intentions. The main contribution of our study is to inform health communicators about the complexity of persuading people with depression to seek help via nostalgic emotional appeals. Theoretical implications of the study in context with emotion infusion are discussed, and practical implications for interventions to design depression-related help seeking campaigns are provided. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The fact that St. Patrick's Day (SPD) celebration drinking occurs during a specified, public, and socially-acceptable time frame which spans the better part of a day and evening makes it an important time to understand and attempt to influence celebration drinking behaviors among young adults. SPD has been identified as the celebration during which college students consume more alcohol than any other point during the school year. Intervention opportunities can be more successful with an understanding of the factors associated with alcohol consumption at specific times on particular celebrations. This study examined the factors associated with celebration drinking at different time periods on SPD which included perceived descriptive and injunctive norms, the numbers of close friends and acquaintances present, social media relationships, demographic variables, past drinking behavior, and intent to drink on SPD at the three time points of interest. Findings showed variability in the predictive factors on SPD celebration drinking at different times of the day. The theoretical and practical intervention implications of the findings are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Facebook use has become habitual to social network site (SNS) users, yet little is known about the psychological processes at play while using this platform. This study explored how psychophysiological responses vary as a function of liking, commenting, sharing, or posting status updates interactions on Facebook's newsfeeds. Participants were instructed to enact common Facebook activities or viral behaviors (like, share, comment, and update a status) in brief segments, while their psychophysiological responses were recorded. Our results showcase different approaches to dealing with psychophysiological responses for undefined, uncontrolled (organic) stimuli. We contrasted Facebook organic use segments that ended with pressing on the like button to those that did not end with liking the Facebook post. In the second method of data analysis, we analyzed psychophysiological data at the participant level using the 10 sec preceding the enactment of the 4 viral behaviors. Our findings showed that, indeed, the pathways leading up to performing online behaviors are diverse, thus indicating different underlying psychological processes. Findings' theoretical and practical implications are discussed within the broader context of understanding social media behaviors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Previous studies suggest that consumers tend to infer more negative motives of for-profit sponsorship on social cause than to non-profits. The current study is aimed at identifying potential effective strategies for for-profit organizations to engage in social marketing efforts. Results showed that participants expressed lower texting while driving intentions when the message was initiated by a non-profit than a for-profit organization. For-profit messages were more likely to elicit desirable persuasive effects if their business offering was congruent with the social cause. Participants' intentions to interact with promotion messages on social media predicted their offline behavioral intentions regarding the promoted behaviors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]