Background: Autonomy, defined as the perception that one's outcomes and actions are determined by personal thought and free will, exerts a substantial influence on human interactions with their...Show moreBackground: Autonomy, defined as the perception that one's outcomes and actions are determined by personal thought and free will, exerts a substantial influence on human interactions with their environment. This study focuses on how our need for autonomy may act as a barrier to demanding financial help when one is in debt to a person or company. Methods: A regression study was conducted, amongst 91 participants who were either currently enrolled in or had recently finished university (mean age = 22.64). A participant's implicit need for autonomy was measured with the Picture Story Exercise (PSE) and was used to predict whether a participant would accept help from a debt relief company, whilst being primed with a debt/financial scarcity scenario. Results and conclusion: The confirmatory analysis yielded non-significant results. Despite the results being non-significant a negative correlation was observed between the need for autonomy and help acceptance. A couple of methodological issues may have accounted for a lack of replication The confirmatory analysis did reveal a strong predictive effect of shame on help acceptance when indebt.Show less
A volunteer’s dilemma is a social dilemma where a collective good can be produced when one person is willing to incur some costs by volunteering. This study investigates the effects of increasing...Show moreA volunteer’s dilemma is a social dilemma where a collective good can be produced when one person is willing to incur some costs by volunteering. This study investigates the effects of increasing costs and social value orientation (SVO) on a volunteer’s dilemma with a time limit. In an online experiment, it was tested if a higher score on SVO leads to more volunteering and whether increasing volunteering costs or decreasing group benefits led to faster volunteering. A significant effect of SVO was observed, where a higher score on SVO (indicative of a more prosocial disposition) led to more volunteering. Furthermore, the time to volunteer in the decreasing group benefit and the increasing volunteer’s costs condition both differed significantly from the control condition, indicating that with changing costs or benefits people volunteered faster. No significant difference was found between the increasing volunteer’s cost and the decreasing group benefit condition. Potential explanations, limitations, and suggestions for further studies are addressed.Show less
This experimental study with three between-subject conditions investigated the influence of increasing costs and decreasing benefits on decision making in a volunteer’s dilemma. It is important to...Show moreThis experimental study with three between-subject conditions investigated the influence of increasing costs and decreasing benefits on decision making in a volunteer’s dilemma. It is important to investigate factors that influence decision making in volunteer’s dilemmas, as these situations are frequently encountered in everyday life. This research focused on individual costs that increase over time and group benefits that decrease over time. Specifically, it was hypothesized that participants would volunteer more rapidly in increasing costs/decreasing benefits conditions than in the control condition. Further, it was hypothesized that participants would volunteer less frequently in total in the increasing costs / decreasing benefits conditions compared to the control condition. These hypotheses were based on the literature on inaction inertia. A linear regression analysis showed that participants volunteered more rapidly if the costs of volunteering increased over time and even more rapidly when the benefits decreased over time compared to the control condition where costs and benefits remained the same. Lastly, a binary logistic regression analysis showed that the frequency of volunteering did not differ significantly across conditions. Implications of this research are discussed.Show less
Based on integrated threat theory, the current study examined the influence of economic (H1), safety (H2) and value (H3) threats from China on purchase intentions regarding products from China. In...Show moreBased on integrated threat theory, the current study examined the influence of economic (H1), safety (H2) and value (H3) threats from China on purchase intentions regarding products from China. In addition, we investigated the impact of these different intergroup threats from China on the purchase intention of products from the US (H4). Consumer ethnocentrism (H5) and negative emotions (H6) were examined as mediators between an intergroup threat (economic, safety and value threats) and purchase intentions regarding products from China. The manipulations (experimental design) did not seem successful, but we still found negatively correlational evidence that various forms of intergroup threat were negatively related to the purchase intention of products from China. Surprisingly, we found that threats from China also led to fewer US buying intentions. In addition, we found that negative emotions and consumer ethnocentrism mediated the effects of purchase intentions toward China. The implications for work on intergroup threat and consumer behaviour are discussed, together with the practical implications for international and domestic marketing. In addition, the study's limitations are indicated, and suggestions for future research are made.Show less
People change their career on basis of objective career success, such as salary, and subjective career success, such as sense of fulfilment the job provides. Literature suggests that subjective...Show morePeople change their career on basis of objective career success, such as salary, and subjective career success, such as sense of fulfilment the job provides. Literature suggests that subjective career success in influenced by ability-related constructs, such as mindset and work self-efficacy. Current study investigated the interplay between mindset, work self-efficacy, and subjective career success. The sample of working adults based in the United Kingdom (N = 190) completed Dweck Mindset Instrument, Subjective Career Success Inventory, and Work Self-Efficacy Scale online. Linear regressions showed that mindset did not predict subjective career success while work self-efficacy did. Mediation analysis was non-significant, suggesting that the relationship between mindset and subjective career success was not mediated by work self-efficacy. Exploratory moderation analysis showed that mindset did not significantly moderate the relationship between work self-efficacy and subjective career success. Further theoretical and practical implications are discussed.Show less
Reducing the harmful effects of climate change on the planet is one of the most important, yet challenging issues countries across the world are currently facing. Doing so requires cooperation, but...Show moreReducing the harmful effects of climate change on the planet is one of the most important, yet challenging issues countries across the world are currently facing. Doing so requires cooperation, but collectively mitigating the effects of climate change results in a public goods dilemma in which everyone benefits, despite contributing to the costs accompanied. With this, questions regarding fairness on distributing these costs arise. This study adds to the small body of literature on solving public goods dilemmas related to climate change by examining how the six cultural dimensions defined by Hofstede (2001) correlate with the preference to pay more to reduce the effects of climate change. Doing so, the distribution preferences of 3771 participants in 51 countries were measures. The results show that long-term orientation correlates with the preference to pay more, especially for the richest set of countries. Individualism, power distance, masculinity, uncertainty avoidance and indulgence do not significantly correlate to the preference to pay more to reduce the effects of climate change, contradicting previous research on public good dilemmas and pro-environmental behavior. Implications of these findings, alongside limitations of the study and further research directions are discussed.Show less
