Tell Me a Story About Healthy Snacking and I Will Follow: Comparing the Effectiveness of Self-Generated Versus Message-Aided Implementation Intentions on Promoting Healthy Snacking Habits Among College Students.

In the context of healthy snacking, this study examines whether the quality of mental imagery determines the effectiveness of combining the implementation intention (II) intervention with mental imagery. This study further explores whether providing narrative healthy snacking scenarios prior to forming an II enhances people's mental imagery experience when they are not motivated to snack healthfully. A 2 × 2 factorial design was employed to test the main effect of providing healthy snacking scenarios prior to II formation, and whether such effect depends on people's motivation level. The results from the experiment (N =148) showed significant main as well as interaction effects of the manipulation (with vs. without reading healthy snacking scenarios prior to II formation) and motivation level on ease and vividness of mental imagery. The regression model with the experiment and follow-up survey data (n = 128) showed a significant relationship between ease of mental imagery and actual snacking behavior after controlling for habit strength. The findings suggest that adding a narrative message to the II intervention can be useful, especially when the intervention involves mental imagery and invites less motivated people.

The impact of personalized social cues of immediacy on consumers' information disclosure: a social cognitive approach.

This study examined how personalized social cues of immediacy can affect two types of information disclosure intentions (embarrassing information and descriptive information) directly and indirectly through two positive outcome expectations (social trust and customization outcome expectations) and two negative outcome expectations (embarrassment and information abuse outcome expectations) in the context of a personal health record (PHR) Web-site service. An online experiment was chosen and 252 participants were directed to visit a newly created PHR Web site. The results showed that, regardless of the two different type of information, participants' exposure to the high-immediacy level on the site increased their information disclosure intentions even when their privacy self-efficacy beliefs were controlled. Further, the results of path analyses suggest that such main effect on information disclosure is mediated by social cognitive variables of positive and negative outcome expectations.

Loneliness as the cause and the effect of problematic Internet use: the relationship between Internet use and psychological well-being.

The current research started from the assumption that one of the major motives driving individuals' Internet use is to relieve psychosocial problems (e.g., loneliness, depression). This study showed that individuals who were lonely or did not have good social skills could develop strong compulsive Internet use behaviors resulting in negative life outcomes (e.g., harming other significant activities such as work, school, or significant relationships) instead of relieving their original problems. Such augmented negative outcomes were expected to isolate individuals from healthy social activities and lead them into more loneliness. Even though previous research suggests that social use of the Internet (e.g., social networking sites, instant messaging) could be more problematic than entertainment use (e.g., downloading files), the current study showed that the former did not show stronger associations than the latter in the key paths leading to compulsive Internet use.

Does using the Internet make people more satisfied with their lives? The effects of the Internet on college students' school life satisfaction.

This research examined whether the Internet improves life satisfaction. The study surveyed 195 college students, and a structural model was built to explain effects of the Internet on school life satisfaction using a confirmatory factor analysis (CFA). In line with social cognitive theory and literature on social effects of the Internet, current data supported the hypotheses that Internet use, perceived online social support, and online social self-efficacy had direct positive impacts on school life satisfaction. Offline extroversion, online extroversion, online social self-efficacy, and online social outcome expectations influenced school life satisfaction indirectly: offline extroversion acted through social online self-efficacy and online extroversion; online social self-efficacy acted through online extroversion, online social outcome expectations, and perceived online social support; online extroversion acted through online social outcome expectations; online social outcome expectations acted through perceived online social support and Internet use. Contrary to our hypothesis, however, the path from online social outcome expectations to school life satisfaction was negative. Departing from a real-life personal characteristic (offline extroversion), the structural model represents the interactions between personal factors (social self-efficacy, social outcome expectations, social support beliefs), behavior (Internet use), and environment (the Internet) and the processes through which these interactions influence people's judgment of their life satisfaction. This study established a possible causal mechanism that links life online to an indicator of psychological well-being.

Share, steal, or buy? A social cognitive perspective of music downloading.

The music downloading phenomenon presents a unique opportunity to examine normative influences on media consumption behavior. Downloaders face moral, legal, and ethical quandaries that can be conceptualized as normative influences within the self-regulatory mechanism of social cognitive theory. The music industry hopes to eliminate illegal file sharing and to divert illegal downloaders to pay services by asserting normative influence through selective prosecutions and public information campaigns. However the deficient self-regulation of downloaders counters these efforts maintaining file sharing as a persistent habit that defies attempts to establish normative control. The present research tests and extends the social cognitive theory of downloading on a sample of college students. The expected outcomes of downloading behavior and deficient self-regulation of that behavior were found to be important determinants of intentions to continue downloading. Consistent with social cognitive theory but in contrast to the theory of planned behavior, it was found that descriptive and prescriptive norms influenced deficient self-regulation but had no direct impact on behavioral intentions. Downloading intentions also had no direct relationship to either compact disc purchases or to subscription to online pay music services.

Internet gratifications and internet addiction: on the uses and abuses of new media.

Internet addiction has been identified as a pathological behavior, but its symptoms may be found in normal populations, placing it within the scope of conventional theories of media attendance. The present study drew upon fresh conceptualizations of gratifications specific to the Internet to uncover seven gratification factors: Virtual Community, Information Seeking, Aesthetic Experience, Monetary Compensation, Diversion, Personal Status, and Relationship Maintenance. With no parallel in prior research, Virtual Community might be termed a "new" gratification. Virtual Community, Monetary Compensation, Diversion, and Personal Status gratifications accounted for 28% of the variance in Internet Addiction Tendency. The relationship between Internet addiction and gratifications was discussed in terms of the formation of media habits and the distinction between content and process gratifications.