LIV Well when Life Is Limited: Technology to Support Independence at Home.

There has been significant growth in technologies and services creating 'care at home' ecosystems for people with life-limiting conditions such as dementia. Dementia is one of the leading causes of disability and loss of independence that causes a heavy burden for families and caregivers. There is a clear need to support independent living of people living with dementia and their caregivers. Health technologies can help to foster supported living and social connection. The LIV app, developed by Miroma Project Factory and piloted in collaboration with CSIRO, was designed to achieve these aims. Here we describe the development and functionality of the app and present the preliminary findings from the pilot trial.

The influence of presentation format on the "bigger is better" (BIB) effect.

Two experiments tested the "bigger is better" (BIB) effect, whereby bigger objects are perceived more favorably than smaller ones. In Experiment 1, participants directly compared pairs of objects and a strong BIB effect was obtained for both positively and negatively valenced stimuli. In Experiment 2, comparative and absolute evaluations were combined in a single experiment and the BIB effect was mediated for positively and negatively valenced stimuli. Taken in combination, the data support a complex hypothesis that pair-wise presentations induce a comparative process that causes a BIB effect. But when objects are evaluated separately, size and valence interact such that increased size evokes more positive ratings of positive objects and more negative ratings for negative objects.

A validation and short form of the Basic Character Inventory.

The Basic Character Inventory (BCI) contains 136 items, 17 lower-order personality factors and three higher-order personality factors derived from psychoanalytic theory: Oral, Obsessive Compulsion, and Hysteria. Previous research that investigated the BCI's psychometric properties examined small, special populations and did not use modern statistical methods to validate the BCI. The present study validates the BCI via confirmatory factor analyses using a large sample of 6,285 Norwegian nursing and teaching students. Reliability, convergent validity, and divergent validity of the BCI were also assessed. Results indicated general support for the original BCI factor structure in a reduced form of the BCI that possesses strong reliability and validity, and is suitable for use in time-limited measurement settings.

A study of the relationship between parental bonding, self-concept and eating disturbances in Norwegian and American college populations.

This study investigated the relationship between bonding patterns and self-concept, and the influence of these constructs on a measure of sub-clinical eating disturbances. Undergraduate students from the United States (N=166) and Norway (N=233) were given self-report questionnaires that included measures of parental bonding, locus of control, self-concept clarity, self-esteem, and disturbed cognitions associated with eating. A structural equation model showed the expected pattern, with bonding predicting self-concept and self-concept predicting eating disturbances. The model fit equally well for samples from both countries and for both genders. This model links the pattern of low care and overprotective parental bonding indicators mediated through a self-concept defined by a lack of self-understanding, low self-esteem, and external locus of control to increased risk of eating disturbances for college aged men and women.

Interpreting the uninterpretable: The effect of self-esteem on the interpretation of meaningless feedback.

People often seek out and retain positive information about themselves via self-enhancement processes. Under other circumstances, they seek out and retain self-confirmatory information via self-verification processes. Research on both of these self-evaluation processes has been based heavily on domains such as social skills, in which people have a large database of prior information that presumably influences the way in which incoming self-relevant information is interpreted. In the present research, participants were asked to evaluate themselves on a set of imaginary "pseudotraits" to investigate how self-esteem influences the self-evaluation process when prior information is unavailable. Participants who had been identified through pre-testing as either high or low in self-esteem received false feedback on five pseudotraits (e.g., "casortic"), after which they evaluated the favorability of this feedback. High self-esteem participants tended to view their feedback as favorable, whereas low self-esteem participants did not.

The role of attitudes and self-efficacy in predicting condom use and purchase intentions.

This study examines the condom purchasing and use habits of 256 college students in Norway and English-speaking Canada, and develops a structural equation model to explain condom purchase and use. In the model, intention to purchase condoms is influenced by self-efficacy in condom purchasing, as well as by intention to use condoms. Intention to use condoms is influenced by having a positive attitude toward condom usage and by self-efficacy in persuading a partner to use condoms. The implications for health promotion and social marketing campaigns are discussed.

Do dispositional attributions regarding peer endorsers influence product evaluations?

The effect of a peer endorsement advertisement on research participants' attitudes toward the advertised product was examined. An advertisement for a Seiko watch and a questionnaire were administered to participants. The degree of dispositional attributions regarding the endorser's motivation and participants' subsequent attitudes associated with the Seiko watch were measured. In addition, other factors that might affect product evaluation were measured. Whether product evaluation could be accounted for by correspondence bias was investigated. The results showed that the degree of dispositional attributions correlated with product evaluations. There was no correspondence bias. Possible causes for the lack of correspondence bias are discussed and a model suggesting factors accounting for participants' product evaluations is presented.

Are oral, obsessive, and hysterical personality traits related to disturbed eating patterns? A general population study of 6,313 men and women.

In this study, we explored 3 psychodynamically defined personality traits as predictors of eating disturbances among men and women in the general population. The Basic Character Inventory (Torgersen, 1980) was used to measure oral, obsessive, and hysteria traits along with the Eating Disturbance Scale (Rosenvinge et al., 2001). Oral personality factors were the primary predictors of eating disturbances in both genders-both men and women with eating disturbances tended to score highly on measures of emotional instability, self-doubt, compliance, and sensitivity. In women, the presence of oral personality factors in addition to the absence of the obsessive factor Parsimony accounted for 16% of the variance in eating disturbances. In men, oral personality factors in addition to the presence of the hysterical factor Imagination accounted for 13% of the variance in eating disturbances. This last finding suggests that, in addition to oral characteristics, men with eating disturbances may exhibit dissociative traits and imaginative absorption.