Search results

In recent years, many different claims have been made about reducing the cost of running an office building by installing some proprietary energy‐saving system or another. Yet, even where these claims have been advanced in good faith, they have usually been based solely upon theoretical calculations. Very rarely have they been based upon practical measurements of alternative systems in a full‐scale model which would satisfy the very demanding standards of a truly scientific experiment. Therefore the results drawn from Sulzer Brother's experimental building in Winter‐thur, Switzerland, are of particular importance to anyone concerned with building design and property management. For, one of the objects of constructing this building was to test in a real life example whether energy could be saved by integrating the design of the building with its services in a particular manner. Also, it was to provide a practical model in which alternative methods could be measured and evaluated.

The purpose of this paper is to examine users’ decision-making mechanism of speculative investment behavior and its sequential consequences in the Bitcoin context from a dual-systems perspective.

Original data were collected via a survey of 334 participants with experience in Bitcoin speculative investment. The partial least squares method was used to test the proposed model.

Speculative investment behavior in the Bitcoin context is driven by strong impulse and weak self-control, leading to negative consequences. The extent of the imbalance between the two cognitive systems is greater with the subjective norm than without it, thus facilitating speculative investment behavior. Noteworthy differences in the impulse and self-control effects on Bitcoin speculative investment are found with differences in Bitcoin objective and subjective knowledge.

This study is the first attempt to empirically investigate users’ decision-making mechanism used when speculating in Bitcoin.

Alongside its remarkable growth, problematic Bitcoin investment (BI) behavior and its associated negative consequences have become prevalent, and only a few studies have examined it. Therefore, this study aims to examine problematic BI behavior by investigating its specific antecedents and consequences and identifying which antecedents were more influential in it. In addition, we also examine the role of financial literacy on the relationship between the antecedents and problematic BI behavior.

We collected survey data from 413 investors with Bitcoin investment experience in 2018, when a Bitcoin frenzy occurred. The partial least squares method was used to test the proposed research model.

The results show that prudent, negative urgency, overexpectation and sensation seeking are positively associated with problematic BI behavior, while restraint is negatively associated. Problematic BI behavior is negatively related to investor well-being. Our findings also indicate that both objective and subjective financial literacy moderate the relationship between the antecedents and problematic BI behavior. Four types of investors in terms of their objective and subjective Bitcoin knowledge show different patterns in the relationship between the antecedents and problematic BI behavior.

This study offers insights for researchers by providing a deeper understanding of the contextual antecedents of problematic BI behavior and the role of financial literacy in it. This study provides detailed implications for financial institutions, policymakers, and regulators to guide rational Bitcoin investment behaviors.

This study aims to take a dual-process perspective and argues that peer influence on increasing impulse buying may also operate automatically. If-then plans, which can automate action control, may, thus, help regulate peer influence. This research extends existing literature explicating the deliberate influence of social norms.

Study 1 (N = 120) obtained causal evidence that forming an implementation intention (i.e. an if-then plan designed to automate action control) reduces peer impact on impulse buying in a laboratory experiment with young adults (students) selecting food items. Study 2 (N = 686) obtained correlational evidence for the role of norms, automaticity and implementation intentions in impulse buying using a large sample of high-school adolescents working on a vignette about clothes-shopping.

If-then plans reduced impulse purchases in the laboratory (Study 1). Both reported deliberation on peer norms and the reported automaticity of shopping with peers predicted impulse buying but an implementation intention to be thriftily reduced these links (Study 2).

This research highlights the role of automatic social processes in problematic consumer behaviour. Promising field studies and neuropsychological experiments are discussed.

Young consumers can gain control over automatic peer influence by using if-then plans, thereby reducing impulse buying.

This research helps understand new precursors of impulse buying in understudied European samples of young consumers.

The purpose of this paper is to assess the importance of nutritional information in the selection of healthy food products and test the effects of different communication stimuli on people with different levels of self-control (NFC used as a proxy). Specifically, the authors posit that easy-to-process and intuitive nutritional information can lead to a substantial change in the shopping behaviour. Furthermore, this work wants to test the effect on behaviours, emotions and judgements of two different communication signs (stars and silhouettes) in the promotion of healthy food products inside grocery stores.

After the development of a new nutritional display, the authors identified two different communication stimuli (stars and silhouettes) in order to test their impact on emotions evoked, judgements and behaviours. First, a pre-test was conducted using neuro-marketing tools (Face Reader) to detect the emotions aroused by the communications and then a main online between-subjects experiment involving 222 participants was carried out to understand the impact on choices and attitudes. Data were analysed using SPSS.

Results showed that communication plays a key role in helping customers choosing healthier products. Concerning the different communication stimuli, the authors found a significant difference in the emotion evoked by the different signs used. This difference translates into a judgemental change but not necessarily into a behavioural one.

To the authors’ knowledge, previous researchers have focused their attention only on the nutritional values communicated at a product level through different product labels, while nobody has tried to implement and test a category/segment level communication strategy.

The malicious impulse is a phenomenon that lies in the theoretical and ontological space between emotion and action. In this chapter, we probe this space. In the empirical part of this work, we evaluate the hypothesis that middle-level supervisors will be more likely than non-supervisory workers and top-level supervisors to report an impulse to “hurt someone you work with” (i.e., maliciousness).

Data are from a cross-sectional survey of a representative sample of employed Toronto residents in 2004–2005.

Results from logistic regression analyses show that when job characteristics are controlled, the estimated difference between middle-level supervisors and workers in other hierarchical positions reporting the impulse to harm a coworker is statistically significant. Moreover, the difference between middle-level supervisors and other workers persist after controls for anger about work and job-related stress.

In discussing our results, we focus on factors that might generate the observed associations, and on how Bourdieusian theory may be used to interpret the social patterning of impulses in general, and malicious impulses in particular. We also discuss the implications of our findings for emotional intelligence in the workplace.

The wide literature about healthy behaviours posits that a high level of self-control is required in order to make healthy choices. This work intends to demonstrate that retailers, through the management of in-store marketing levers, can influence shopping behaviour, no matter which is the individual tendency to engage in cognitive behaviours. For this specific purpose, we have considered participants' “Need for Cognition” as a proxy of self-control.

With reference to a specific category (cookies), we created a new display based on benefits (healthy eating) rather than products' attributes. A pre-test was conducted before the main experiment in order to assess the potential ability of the new nutritional display to help customers selecting healthier products, by testing participants' awareness and comprehension of the stimuli proposed. Then, an online between-subjects experiment was conducted by simulating the shoppers' expedition in the cookies' aisle inside a store with the aim to demonstrate that healthy choices can be also made on impulse.

Our findings showed that when both communication and visual cues are provided, people low in need for cognition (NFC) are more willing to select healthy products from the shelf, compared with people high in NFC.

While there is a wide literature explaining the mechanisms supporting healthy choices, fewer are the contributions about the role of retailers in promoting healthy eating through in-store marketing levers. More important, there is no contribution about how to promote health among people with low level of self-control.

Research on relational maintenance of long-distance or cross-residential romantic relationships is limited. Moreover, relatively little is known about relational maintenance among non-marital intimate partners in later life, many of whom prefer to live-apart-together (LAT) rather than cohabit. This research paper examines how older adults from the United States maintain their romantic relationships across residences. The authors conducted a grounded theory study drawing on interviews collected from 22 older adults in LAT relationships. The data revealed that older LAT partners engage in a process of safeguarding autonomy to maintain their partnerships and relationship satisfaction. Two broad strategies were identified: upholding separateness and reshaping expectations. While safeguarding autonomy was paramount, participants also emphasized the importance of having a flexible mindset about the physical copresence of their relationships. The findings have implications for practice, suggesting that creating an interdependent couple-identity may undermine, or at least have little bearing on, the relationship stability of older LAT couples. Future research is needed to determine how LAT experiences among racially/ethnically or socioeconomically diverse samples might differ.

The purpose of this paper is to test if our eating behavior is determined not only by conscious evaluations of certain foods (explicit attitudes), but also by their automatic evaluations (implicit attitudes).

In two studies, the authors examined the predictive and incremental validity of these two types of attitudinal measures of eating behavior. Implicit attitudes were assessed with a standard implicit attitude test procedure (target categories were “sweets” and “fruit,” and attribute categories were “good” and “bad”); two explicit attitude measures were assessed: an explicit measure of preference for sweets over fruit and a semantic differential measure. The behavioral measure in Study 1 was the quantity of sweets consumed; in Study 2, it was a relative measure of sweets vs fruit consumption registered through a three-day diary.

The relatively low correlation between implicit and explicit attitude measures indicated that these measures at least partially tap into different processes. Implicit attitudes proved to be superior over explicit attitudes in predicting food consumption, especially for consumption registered via diary. This fact suggests that implicit attitudes are powerful drivers of long-term behavior.

The findings could be useful in tailoring interventions to promote healthier eating habits.

The research tested predictive power of implicit food-related attitudes. It compared the food consumption in laboratory and real-life settings. A new measure for daily food consumption was developed and it was calculated relative to recommended serving size.