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Meta-analyses have concluded that positive emotions do not reduce appetitive risk behaviors (risky behaviors that fulfill appetitive or craving states, such as smoking and excessive alcohol use). We propose that this conclusion is premature. Drawing on the Appraisal Tendency Framework and related theories of emotion and decision-making, we hypothesized that gratitude (a positive emotion) can decrease cigarette smoking, a leading cause of premature death globally. A series of multimethod studies provided evidence supporting our hypothesis (collective N = 34,222). Using nationally representative US samples and an international sample drawn from 87 countries, Studies 1 and 2 revealed that gratitude was inversely associated with likelihood of smoking, even after accounting for numerous covariates. Other positive emotions (e.g., compassion) lacked such consistent associations, as expected. Study 3, and its replication, provided further support for emotion specificity: Experimental induction of gratitude, unlike compassion or sadness, reduced cigarette craving compared to a neutral state. Study 4, and its replication, showed that inducing gratitude causally increased smoking cessation behavior, as evidenced by enrollment in a web-based cessation intervention. Self-reported gratitude mediated the effects in both experimental studies. Finally, Study 5 found that current antismoking messaging campaigns by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention primarily evoked sadness and compassion, but seldom gratitude. Together, our studies advance understanding of positive emotion effects on appetitive risk behaviors; they also offer practical implications for the design of public health campaigns., Competing Interests: Competing interests statement:The authors declare no competing interest.

The COVID-19 pandemic (and its aftermath) highlights a critical need to communicate health information effectively to the global public. Given that subtle differences in information framing can have meaningful effects on behavior, behavioral science research highlights a pressing question: Is it more effective to frame COVID-19 health messages in terms of potential losses (e.g., "If you do not practice these steps, you can endanger yourself and others") or potential gains (e.g., "If you practice these steps, you can protect yourself and others")? Collecting data in 48 languages from 15,929 participants in 84 countries, we experimentally tested the effects of message framing on COVID-19-related judgments, intentions, and feelings. Loss- (vs. gain-) framed messages increased self-reported anxiety among participants cross-nationally with little-to-no impact on policy attitudes, behavioral intentions, or information seeking relevant to pandemic risks. These results were consistent across 84 countries, three variations of the message framing wording, and 560 data processing and analytic choices. Thus, results provide an empirical answer to a global communication question and highlight the emotional toll of loss-framed messages. Critically, this work demonstrates the importance of considering unintended affective consequences when evaluating nudge-style interventions., Competing Interests: Conflict of InterestThe authors declare no conflict of interest., (© The Society for Affective Science 2022.)

Escalation of commitment-the tendency to remain committed to a course of action, often despite negative prospects-is common. Why does it persist? Across three preregistered experiments ( N = 3,888), we tested the hypothesis that escalating commitment signals trustworthiness. Experiments 1-2, respectively, revealed that decision makers who escalated commitment were perceived as more trustworthy and entrusted with 29% more money by third-party observers. Experiment 3 revealed that decision makers who escalated commitment subsequently made more trustworthy choices, returning 15% more money than those who de-escalated. Decision makers were equally likely to escalate commitment in public versus in private, possibly because they previously internalized how others would evaluate them. Complementing research examining cognitive factors driving escalation of commitment, the present work reveals that accounting for the reputational causes and consequences of decisions to escalate enhances understanding of why escalation is so common and suggests how organizations might reduce it. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

The COVID-19 pandemic has increased negative emotions and decreased positive emotions globally. Left unchecked, these emotional changes might have a wide array of adverse impacts. To reduce negative emotions and increase positive emotions, we tested the effectiveness of reappraisal, an emotion-regulation strategy that modifies how one thinks about a situation. Participants from 87 countries and regions (n = 21,644) were randomly assigned to one of two brief reappraisal interventions (reconstrual or repurposing) or one of two control conditions (active or passive). Results revealed that both reappraisal interventions (vesus both control conditions) consistently reduced negative emotions and increased positive emotions across different measures. Reconstrual and repurposing interventions had similar effects. Importantly, planned exploratory analyses indicated that reappraisal interventions did not reduce intentions to practice preventive health behaviours. The findings demonstrate the viability of creating scalable, low-cost interventions for use around the world. PROTOCOL REGISTRATION: The stage 1 protocol for this Registered Report was accepted in principle on 12 May 2020. The protocol, as accepted by the journal, can be found at https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.c.4878591.v1., (© 2021. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Limited.)

Objective: Appetitive risk behaviors (ARB), including tobacco use, alcohol consumption, consumption of calorie dense/nutrient-poor foods, and sexual risk behavior contribute substantially to morbidity and mortality. Affective states that arise from a wide array of unrelated circumstances (i.e., incidental affect) may carry over to influence ARB. A meta-analysis is needed to systematically examine causal evidence for the role of incidental affect (including specific emotions) in influencing ARB. Method: Integrating effect sizes from 91 published and unpublished experimental studies that include both an incidental-affect induction and neutral-control condition ( k = 271 effect sizes: k = 183 negative affect, k = 78 positive affect), this meta-analysis examines how negative and positive affective states influenced ARB and related health cognitions (e.g., intentions, evaluations, craving, perceived control). Results: Negative affective states reliably increased ARB, in analyses where all negative affective states were analyzed ( d = .29) and in stratified analyses of just negative mood ( d = .30) and stress ( d = .48). These effects were stronger among study populations coded as clinically at risk. Positive affective states generally did not influence ARB or related health cognitions, except in the presence of a craving cue. Design issues of extant literature largely precluded conclusions about the effects of specific positive and negative affective states. Conclusion: Taken together, findings suggest the importance of strategies to attenuate negative affect incidental to ARB to facilitate healthier behavioral patterns, especially among clinically at-risk individuals. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).

Do negative feelings in general trigger addictive behavior, or do specific emotions play a stronger role? Testing these alternative accounts of emotion and decision making, we drew on the Appraisal Tendency Framework to predict that sadness, specifically, rather than negative mood, generally, would 1) increase craving, impatience, and actual addictive substance use and 2) do so through mechanisms selectively heightened by sadness. Using a nationally representative, longitudinal survey, study 1 ( n = 10,685) revealed that sadness, but not other negative emotions (i.e., fear, anger, shame), reliably predicted current smoking as well as relapsing 20 years later. Study 2 ( n = 425) used an experimental design, and found further support for emotion specificity: Sadness, but not disgust, increased self-reported craving relative to a neutral state. Studies 3 and 4 ( n = 918) introduced choice behavior as outcome variables, revealing that sadness causally increased impatience for cigarette puffs. Moreover, study 4 revealed that the effect of sadness on impatience was more fully explained by concomitant appraisals of self-focus, which are specific to sadness, than by concomitant appraisals of negative valence, which are general to all negative emotions. Importantly, study 4 also examined the topography of actual smoking behavior, finding that experimentally induced sadness (as compared to neutral emotion) causally increased the volume and duration of cigarette puffs inhaled. Together, the present studies provide support for a more nuanced model regarding the effects of emotion on tobacco use, in particular, as well as on addictive behavior, in general., Competing Interests: The authors declare no competing interest.

Context: Being diagnosed with cancer often forces patients and families to make difficult medical decisions. How patients think they and others will feel in the future, termed affective predictions, may influence these decisions. These affective predictions are often biased, which may contribute to suboptimal care outcomes by influencing decisions related to palliative care and advance care planning., Objectives: This study aimed to translate perspectives from the decision sciences to inform future research about when and how affective predictions may influence decisions about palliative care and advance care planning., Methods: A systematic search of two databases to evaluate the extent to which affective predictions have been examined in the palliative care and advance care planning context yielded 35 relevant articles. Over half utilized qualitative methodologies (n = 21). Most studies were conducted in the U.S. (n = 12), Canada (n = 7), or European countries (n = 10). Study contexts included end of life (n = 10), early treatment decisions (n = 10), pain and symptom management (n = 7), and patient-provider communication (n = 6). The affective processes of patients (n = 20), caregivers (n = 16), and/or providers (n = 12) were examined., Results: Three features of the palliative care and advance care planning context may contribute to biased affective predictions: 1) early treatment decisions are made under heightened emotional states and with insufficient information; 2) palliative care decisions influence life domains beyond physical health; and 3) palliative care decisions involve multiple people., Conclusion: Biases in affective predictions may serve as a barrier to optimal palliative care delivery. Predictions are complicated by intense emotions, inadequate prognostic information, involvement of many individuals, and cancer's effect on non-health life domains. Applying decision science frameworks may generate insights about affective predictions that can be harnessed to solve challenges associated with optimal delivery of palliative care., (Published by Elsevier Inc.)

Sadness increases how much decision makers pay to acquire goods, even when decision makers are unaware of it. This effect is coined the "misery-is-not-miserly effect". The paper that first established this effect is the second most-cited article appearing in Psychological Science in 2004. In light of its impact, the present study sought to assess whether the misery-is-not-miserly effect would replicate (a) in a novel context and (b) even when another way of alleviating a sense of loss (i.e., compensatory consumption) was available. Results revealed that the effect replicated in the novel context and, despite a prediction otherwise, even when individuals had an opportunity to engage in compensatory consumption. Moreover, a meta-analysis of the original effect and that observed in the present study yielded a small-to-medium effect (Cohen's d = 0.43). As such, the present study lends evidentiary support to the misery-is-not-miserly effect and provides impetus for future research exploring the impact of sadness on consumer decision-making, specifically, and of emotion on decision processes, more generally., Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

How does trait negative affect shape somatic memory of stressful events? We hypothesized that negative affect would impair accurate recall of one's own heart rate during stressful situations. Two bio-behavioral studies used a new paradigm to test retrospective visceral perception and assessed whether negative affective states experienced during aversive events (i.e., the Trier Stress Task-Time 1) would retrospectively shape recall of past heart rate (Time 2), even when accounting for actual heart rate at the time of each stressful event (Time 1). Results across both studies showed that individual differences in negative affect in response to a stressful task predicted visceral recollections, and those who experienced more negative affect were more inaccurate. Negative affect was associated with a tendency to remember visceral reactions as worse than they actually were., (Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

Are hormone levels associated with the attainment of social status? Although endogenous testosterone predicts status-seeking social behaviors, research suggests that the stress hormone cortisol may inhibit testosterone's effects. Thus, individuals with both high testosterone and low cortisol may be especially likely to occupy high-status positions in social hierarchies while individuals with high testosterone and high cortisol may not. We tested this hypothesis by recruiting a sample of real executives and examining testosterone, cortisol, and a concrete indicator of attained status: the number of subordinates over which the executive has authority. Despite the myriad nonhormonal factors that determine organizational promotion, the executives' endogenous testosterone and cortisol interacted to significantly predict hierarchical position: Testosterone positively predicted executives' number of subordinates, but only among low-cortisol executives. The results imply that reducing cortisol levels via stress reduction may be a critical goal not only because doing so will improve health but also because doing so may enhance leadership potential. (PsycINFO Database Record, ((c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved).)

A revolution in the science of emotion has emerged in recent decades, with the potential to create a paradigm shift in decision theories. The research reveals that emotions constitute potent, pervasive, predictable, sometimes harmful and sometimes beneficial drivers of decision making. Across different domains, important regularities appear in the mechanisms through which emotions influence judgments and choices. We organize and analyze what has been learned from the past 35 years of work on emotion and decision making. In so doing, we propose the emotion-imbued choice model, which accounts for inputs from traditional rational choice theory and from newer emotion research, synthesizing scientific models.

The human mind tends to excessively discount the value of delayed rewards relative to immediate ones, and it is thought that "hot" affective processes drive desires for short-term gratification. Supporting this view, recent findings demonstrate that sadness exacerbates financial impatience even when the sadness is unrelated to the economic decision at hand. Such findings might reinforce the view that emotions must always be suppressed to combat impatience. But if emotions serve adaptive functions, then certain emotions might be capable of reducing excessive impatience for delayed rewards. We found evidence supporting this alternative view. Specifically, we found that (a) the emotion gratitude reduces impatience even when real money is at stake, and (b) the effects of gratitude are differentiable from those of the more general positive state of happiness. These findings challenge the view that individuals must tamp down affective responses through effortful self-regulation to reach more patient and adaptive economic decisions., (© The Author(s) 2014.)

We hypothesized a phenomenon that we term myopic misery. According to our hypothesis, sadness increases impatience and creates a myopic focus on obtaining money immediately instead of later. This focus, in turn, increases intertemporal discount rates and thereby produces substantial financial costs. In three experiments, we randomly assigned participants to sad- and neutral-state conditions, and then offered intertemporal choices. Disgust served as a comparison condition in Experiments 1 and 2. Sadness significantly increased impatience: Relative to median neutral-state participants, median sad-state participants accepted 13% to 34% less money immediately to avoid waiting 3 months for payment. In Experiment 2, impatient thoughts mediated the effects. Experiment 3 revealed that sadness made people more present biased (i.e., wanting something immediately), but not globally more impatient. Disgusted participants were not more impatient than neutral participants, and that lack of difference implies that the same financial effects do not arise from all negative emotions. These results show that myopic misery is a robust and potentially harmful phenomenon.

As leaders ascend to more powerful positions in their groups, they face ever-increasing demands. As a result, there is a common perception that leaders have higher stress levels than nonleaders. However, if leaders also experience a heightened sense of control--a psychological factor known to have powerful stress-buffering effects--leadership should be associated with reduced stress levels. Using unique samples of real leaders, including military officers and government officials, we found that, compared with nonleaders, leaders had lower levels of the stress hormone cortisol and lower reports of anxiety (study 1). In study 2, leaders holding more powerful positions exhibited lower cortisol levels and less anxiety than leaders holding less powerful positions, a relationship explained significantly by their greater sense of control. Altogether, these findings reveal a clear relationship between leadership and stress, with leadership level being inversely related to stress.

The authors examined the evolution of cognitive and emotional responses to terror risks for a nationally representative sample of Americans between late 2001 and late 2002. Respondents' risk judgments changed in ways consistent with their reported personal experiences. However, they did not recognize these changes, producing hindsight bias in memories for their judgments. An intensive debiasing procedure failed to restore a foresightful perspective. A fear-inducing manipulation increased risk estimates, whereas an anger-inducing manipulation reduced them-both in predictions (as previously observed) and in memories and judgments of past risks. Thus, priming emotions shaped not only perceptions of an abstract future but also perceptions of a concrete past. These results suggest how psychological research can help to ensure an informed public.

Background: Ever since the first total gastrectomy, there has always been a great concern in increasing the survival of patients, and with the advance of techniques, in improving the quality of life of these patients. The most common reconstruction technique of the gastrointestinal transit is the Roux-en-Y. The reposition of a functional pouch in place of the resected stomach was proposed to minimize the postprandial symptoms, improve the nutritional grade and consequently, the quality of life. The Safatle reconstruction of the gastrointestinal transit technique consists of, in short, in the association of the interposition of the jejunal loop with partial transit through the duodenum, with an inverted Roux-en-Y and with the creation of a pouch which resembles the dynamics of the stomach, achieved by duodenojejunal segment which has an antiperistalsis emptying., Aim: To assess, by radiographic means, the emptying of the duodenojejunal pouch in patients submitted to total gastrectomy using the Safatle reconstruction technique., Method: Twelve patients submitted to total gastrectomy using the Safatle technique due to gastric cancer were studied. They were summoned to perform contrasted radiographies of the esophagus-duodenum-jejunum by the videofluoroscopic method during the months of July and August, 2005., Results: All the patients presented satisfactory movement of the duodenojejunal pouch and an adequate emptying in antiperistalsis without food stasis. There has been an average 25-minute drainage time of the duodenojejunal pouch., Conclusion: The duodenojejunal pouch, in the patients submitted to total gastrectomy using the Safatle reconstruction, presented adequate emptying and movement.

Misery is not miserly: Sadness increases the amount of money that decision makers give up to acquire a commodity. The present research investigated when and why the misery-is-not-miserly effect occurs. Drawing on William James's concept of the material self, we tested a model specifying relationships among sadness, self-focus, and the amount of money that decision makers spend. Consistent with our Jamesian hypothesis, results demonstrated that the misery-is-not-miserly effect occurs only when self-focus is high. That is, self-focus moderates the effect of sadness on spending. Moreover, mediational analyses revealed that, at sufficiently high levels, self-focus mediates (explains) the relationship between sadness and spending. Because the study used real commodities and real money, the results hold implications for everyday decisions, as well as implications for the development of theory. For example, economic theories of spending may benefit from incorporating psychological theories -- specifically, theories of emotion and the self -- into their models.

Background: The classic conception of stress involves undifferentiated negative affect and corresponding biological reactivity. The present study hypothesized a new conception, disaggregating stress into emotion-specific, contrasting patterns of biological response. Specifically, it hypothesized contrasting patterns for indignation (comprised of anger and disgust) versus fear. Moreover, it hypothesized that facial expressions of these emotions would signal corresponding biological stress responses., Methods: Ninety-two adults engaged in annoyingly difficult stress-challenge tasks, during which cardiovascular responses, hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenocortical (HPA) axis responses (i.e., cortisol), emotional expressions (i.e., facial muscle movements), and subjective emotional experience were assessed., Results: Pronounced individual differences emerged in specific emotional responses to the stressors. Analyses of facial expressions revealed that the more fear individuals displayed in response to the stressors, the higher their cardiovascular and cortisol responses to stress. By contrast, the more indignation individuals displayed in response to the same stressors the lower their cortisol levels and cardiovascular responses., Conclusions: Facial expressions of emotion signal biological responses to stress. Fear expressions signal elevated cortisol and cardiovascular reactivity; indignation signals attenuated cortisol and cardiovascular reactivity, patterns that implicate individual differences in stress appraisals. Rather than conceptualizing stress as generalized negative affect, studies can be informed by this emotion-specific approach to stress responses.

Background: The classic conception of stress involves undifferentiated negative affect and corresponding biological reactivity. The present study hypothesized a new conception that disaggregates stress into emotion-specific, contrasting patterns of biological response., Methods: Ninety-two healthy adults engaged in stress-challenge tasks, during which cardiovascular responses, hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenocortical (HPA) axis responses (i.e., cortisol), emotional expressions (i.e., facial muscle movements), and subjective emotional experience (self-reported) were assessed., Results: Pronounced individual differences emerged in specific emotional responses to the stressors. Analyses of facial expressions revealed that the more fear individuals displayed in response to the stressors, the higher their cardiovascular and cortisol responses to stress. By contrast, the more anger and disgust (indignation) individuals displayed in response to the same stressors, the lower their cortisol levels and cardiovascular responses. Individual differences in optimistic appraisals appeared to mediate these correlated patterns., Conclusions: Facial expressions of emotion signal biological responses to stress. Fear expressions signal elevated cortisol and cardiovascular reactivity; anger and disgust signal attenuated cortisol and cardiovascular reactivity, patterns that implicate individual differences in stress appraisals. Rather than conceptualizing stress as generalized negative affect, studies can be informed by this emotion-specific approach to stress responses.

The authors examined the evolution of cognitive and emotional responses to terror risks for a nationally representative sample of Americans between late 2001 and late 2002. Respondents' risk judgments changed in ways consistent with their reported personal experiences. However, they did not recognize these changes, producing hindsight bias in memories for their judgments. An intensive debiasing procedure failed to restore a foresightful perspective. A fear-inducing manipulation increased risk estimates, whereas an anger-inducing manipulation reduced them-both in predictions (as previously observed) and in memories and judgments of past risks. Thus, priming emotions shaped not only perceptions of an abstract future but also perceptions of a concrete past. These results suggest how psychological research can help to ensure an informed public., ((c) 2005 APA)

When we forecast our futures, to what extent do we rely on explicit and concrete facts versus implicit and fleeting subjective experiences? Results from two studies reveal that forecasting judgments hinge on at least two fleeting experiences: the specific incidental emotions one happens to feel at the time of forming a judgment and the subjective ease-of-thought-generation. Results also reveal that imposing accountability for the accuracy of one's forecast provides no simple remedy. Incidental emotions, the ease-of-thought-generation, and accountability combine multiplicatively in a three-way interaction. Although accountability attenuates the respective effects of incidental fear and incidental anger, doing so has the undesirable effect of amplifying the ease-of-thought-generation effects that fear otherwise suppresses. In no instance does accountability completely eliminate the unintended effects of these fleeting subjective experiences. Discussion addresses implications for theories of affect and social cognition as well as for applications to risk perception.

A harsh early family environment is related to mental and physical health in adulthood. An important question is why family environment in childhood is associated with these outcomes so long after its initial occurrence. We describe a program of research that evaluates a model linking these variables to each other. Specifically, we hypothesize that low social competence and negative emotional states may mediate relations between a harsh early family environment and physiological/neuroendocrine responses to stress, as well as long-term health outcomes. We report evidence that the model characterizes self-rated health, cortisol responses to stress, and, in males only, elevated cardiovascular responses to stress. We discuss how the social context of early life (such as SES) may affect the family environment in ways that precipitate adverse health consequences. Perspectives on comorbidities in physical and mental health are discussed.

We examined the impact of specific emotions on the endowment effect, the tendency for selling prices to exceed buying or "choice" prices for the same object. As predicted by appraisal-tendency theory, disgust induced by a prior, irrelevant situation carried over to normatively unrelated economic decisions, reducing selling and choice prices and eliminating the endowment effect. Sadness also carried over, reducing selling prices but increasing choice prices--producing a "reverse endowment effect" in which choice prices exceeded selling prices. The results demonstrate that incidental emotions can influence decisions even when real money is at stake, and that emotions of the same valence can have opposing effects on such decisions.

Self-enhancement is variously portrayed as a positive illusion that can foster health and longevity or as defensive neuroticism that can have physiological-neuroendocrine costs. In a laboratory stress-challenge paradigm, the authors found that high self-enhancers had lower cardiovascular responses to stress, more rapid cardiovascular recovery, and lower baseline cortisol levels, consistent with the positive illusions predictions and counter to the predictions of the defensive neuroticism position. A second set of analyses, replicating the "illusory mental health paradigm" (J. Shedler, M. Mayman, & M. Manis, 1993), also did not support the defensive neuroticism hypothesis. The association between self-enhancement and cortisol was mediated by psychological resources; analyses of the cardiovascular results provided no definitive mediational pathway. Discussion centers on the potential stress-buffering effects of self-enhancing beliefs.

The aftermath of September 11th highlights the need to understand how emotion affects citizens' responses to risk. It also provides an opportunity to test current theories of such effects. On the basis of appraisal-tendency theory, we predicted opposite effects for anger and fear on risk judgments and policy preferences. In a nationally representative sample of Americans (N = 973, ages 13-88) fear increased risk estimates and plans for precautionary measures; anger did the opposite. These patterns emerged with both experimentally induced emotions and naturally occurring ones. Males had less pessimistic risk estimates than did females, emotion differences explaining 60 to 80% of the gender difference. Emotions also predicted diverging public policy preferences. Discussion focuses on theoretical, methodological, and policy implications.

Research has variously portrayed self-enhancement as an indicator of narcissistic defensiveness or as a concomitant of mental health. To address this controversy, the present study used multiple measures of self-enhancement along with multiple measures and judges of mental health, comprehensively assessing their relationship. The results indicated that self-enhancement is positively associated with multiple indicators of mental health and with a more favorable impact on others. Discussion centers on a reconciliation of discrepant portraits of the self-enhancer.

Drawing on an appraisal-tendency framework (J. S. Lerner & D. Keltner, 2000), the authors predicted and found that fear and anger have opposite effects on risk perception. Whereas fearful people expressed pessimistic risk estimates and risk-averse choices, angry people expressed optimistic risk estimates and risk-seeking choices. These opposing patterns emerged for naturally occurring and experimentally induced fear and anger. Moreover, estimates of angry people more closely resembled those of happy people than those of fearful people. Consistent with predictions, appraisal tendencies accounted for these effects: Appraisals of certainty and control moderated and (in the case of control) mediated the emotion effects. As a complement to studies that link affective valence to judgment outcomes, the present studies highlight multiple benefits of studying specific emotions.

Five studies explored cognitive, affective, and behavioral responses to proscribed forms of social cognition. Experiments 1 and 2 revealed that people responded to taboo trade-offs that monetized sacred values with moral outrage and cleansing. Experiments 3 and 4 revealed that racial egalitarians were least likely to use, and angriest at those who did use, race-tainted base rates and that egalitarians who inadvertently used such base rates tried to reaffirm their fair-mindedness. Experiment 5 revealed that Christian fundamentalists were most likely to reject heretical counterfactuals that applied everyday causal schemata to Biblical narratives and to engage in moral cleansing after merely contemplating such possibilities. Although the results fit the sacred-value-protection model (SVPM) better than rival formulations, the SVPM must draw on cross-cultural taxonomies of relational schemata to specify normative boundaries on thought.

This article reviews the now extensive research literature addressing the impact of accountability on a wide range of social judgments and choices. It focuses on 4 issues: (a) What impact do various accountability ground rules have on thoughts, feelings, and action? (b) Under what conditions will accountability attenuate, have no effect on, or amplify cognitive biases? (c) Does accountability alter how people think or merely what people say they think? and (d) What goals do accountable decision makers seek to achieve? In addition, this review explores the broader implications of accountability research. It highlights the utility of treating thought as a process of internalized dialogue; the importance of documenting social and institutional boundary conditions on putative cognitive biases; and the potential to craft empirical answers to such applied problems as how to structure accountability relationships in organizations.

Three groups of patients were studied: varicocele with altered spermogram (24 patients), varicocele with normal spermogram (12 patients), and 12 normal individuals. All underwent selective spermatic venography by the Seldinger technique. No statistically significant differences were found as to the presence of spermatic vein reflux in three groups, nor between varicocele patients and controls. It was concluded that reflux per se cannot explain the alterations of spermatogenesis, nor does it have prognostic value in varicocele.