There is an ethical obligation to notify individuals about potential pain associated with diagnoses, treatments, and procedures; however, supplying this information risks inducing nocebo hyperalgesia. Currently, there are few empirically derived strategies for reducing nocebo hyperalgesia. Because nocebo effects are linked to negative affectivity, we tested the hypothesis that a positive-affect induction can disrupt nocebo hyperalgesia from verbal suggestion. Healthy volunteers (N = 147) were randomly assigned to conditions in a 2 (affect induction: positive vs neutral) by 2 (verbal suggestion: no suggestion vs suggestion of pain increase) between-subjects design. Participants were induced to experience positive or neutral affect by watching movie clips for 15 minutes. Next, participants had an inert cream applied to their nondominant hand, and suggestion was manipulated by telling only half the participants the cream could increase the pain of the upcoming cold pressor test. Subsequently, all participants underwent the cold pressor test (8 ± 0.04°C), wherein they submerged the nondominant hand and rated pain intensity on numerical rating scales every 20 seconds up to 2 minutes. In the neutral-affect conditions, there was evidence for the nocebo hyperalgesia effect: participants given the suggestion of pain displayed greater pain than participants not receiving this suggestion, P's < 0.05. Demonstrating a blockage effect, nocebo hyperalgesia did not occur in the positive-affect conditions, P's > 0.5. This is the first study to show that positive affect may disrupt nocebo hyperalgesia thereby pointing to a novel strategy for decreasing nocebo effects without compromising the communication of medical information to patients in clinical settings.
Two studies were conducted to examine the relationship between three different types of intergroup contact (i.e., direct contact, extended contact, and online contact) and outgroup evaluation, and the moderating effect of group status and sociopolitical contexts across two cultural contexts. A total of 75 European Americans (majority) and 44 Chinese Americans (minority) participated in Study 1; whereas 61 Javanese (majority) and 72 Chinese Indonesians (minority) participated in Study 2. In both studies, participants completed an outgroup feeling thermometer as well as a set of questionnaires measuring intergroup contact, perceived outgroup political power, perceived outgroup economic power, perceived government support, and perceived quality of the current intergroup relations. Results from the two studies revealed that although contact was beneficial in both cultural contexts, there were notable moderators of the links between contact and outgroup evaluations. Specifically, the value of direct contact was greater for the minority group members in the United States, extended contact only mattered in a specific condition when the perceived government support was taken into account in the United States, and online contact was beneficial across group status in the Indonesian context. Overall, the findings provide evidence of the need to take into account the role of specific sociopolitical relations between the two groups in intergroup relations research.
Sustainable behavior is a behavior that aims to protect physical as well as human resources. Therefore, it is important to understand the behavior to reduce negative consequences of environmental problems. The study aimed to examine the role of appreciation of nature and the need for cognition on the intention to perform sustainable behavior. This study used a quantitative approach with a survey method. A total of 240 respondents aged 18 – 40 years old completed the online survey. Appreciation of nature scale, need for cognition scale, and intention to act scale were used as data collection instruments. Results showed that appreciation of nature and need for cognition positively predicted the intention to carry out sustainable behavior. Combining the two variables in one model increased predictive power to the intention to perform sustainable behavior. Furthermore, need for cognition had greater predictive power than appreciation of nature. This research showed that affective and cognitive aspects are crucial for the sustainable behavior models. Implications regarding the role of the young generation in supporting sustainable behavior may be further discussed.
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