The persistence of food preferences, which are crucial for diet-related decisions, is a significant obstacle to changing unhealthy eating behavior. To overcome this obstacle, the current study ...investigates whether posthypnotic suggestions (PHSs) can enhance food-related decisions by measuring food choices and subjective ratings. After assessing hypnotic susceptibility in Session 1, at the beginning of Session 2, a PHS was delivered aiming to increase the desirability of healthy food items (e.g., vegetables and fruit). After the termination of hypnosis, a set of two tasks was administrated twice, once when the PHS was activated and once deactivated in counterbalanced order. The task set consisted of rating 170 pictures of food items, followed by an online supermarket where participants were instructed to select enough food from the same item pool for a fictitious week of quarantine. After 1 week, Session 3 mimicked Session 2 without renewed hypnosis induction to assess the persistence of the PHS effects. The Bayesian hierarchical modeling results indicate that the PHS increased preferences and choices of healthy food items without altering the influence of preferences in choices. In contrast, for unhealthy food items, not only both preferences and choices were decreased due to the PHS, but also their relationship was modified. That is, although choices became negatively biased against unhealthy items, preferences played a more dominant role in unhealthy choices when the PHS was activated. Importantly, all effects persisted over 1 week, qualitatively and quantitatively. Our results indicate that although the PHS affected healthy choices through resolve, i.e., preferred more and chosen more, unhealthy items were probably chosen less impulsively through effortful suppression. Together, besides the translational importance of the current results for helping the obesity epidemic in modern societies, our results contribute theoretically to the understanding of hypnosis and food choices.
Food preferences are crucial for diet-related decisions, which substantially impact individual health and global climate. However, the persistence of unfavorable food preferences is a significant ...obstacle to changing eating behavior. Here we explored the effects of posthypnotic suggestions (PHS) on food-related decisions by measuring food choices, subjective ratings, and indifference points. In Session 1, demographic data and hypnotic susceptibility of participants were assessed. In Session 2, following hypnosis induction, PHS aiming to increase the desirability of healthy food was delivered. Afterward, a task set was administrated twice, once when PHS was activated and once deactivated. The order of PHS activation was counterbalanced across participants. The task set included a liking-rating task for 170 pictures of different food items, followed by an online supermarket where participants were instructed to select enough food for a fictitious week of quarantining from the same item pool. After 1 week, Session 3 repeated Session 2 without hypnosis induction in order to assess the persistence of PHS. The crucial dependent measures were food choices, subjective ratings, and the indifference points as a function of time and PHS condition.
Values and Ethics in Information Systems Spiekermann, Sarah; Krasnova Hanna; Hinz, Oliver ...
Business & information systems engineering,
04/2022, Letnik:
64, Številka:
2
Journal Article
Previous research offers equivocal results regarding the effect of social networking site use on individuals' self-esteem. We conduct a systematic literature review to examine the existing literature ...and develop a theoretical framework in order to classify the results. The framework proposes that self-esteem is affected by three distinct processes that incorporate self-evaluative information: social comparison processes, social feedback processing, and self-reflective processes. Due to particularities of the social networking site environment, the accessibility and quality of self-evaluative information is altered, which leads to online-specific effects on users' self-esteem. Results of the reviewed studies suggest that when a social networking site is used to compare oneself with others, it mostly results in decreases in users' self-esteem. On the other hand, receiving positive social feedback from others or using these platforms to reflect on one's own self is mainly associated with benefits for users' self-esteem. Nevertheless, inter-individual differences and the specific activities performed by users on these platforms should be considered when predicting individual effects.
The field of healthcare is characterized by constant innovation, with gender-specific medicine emerging as a new subfield that addresses sex and gender disparities in clinical manifestations, ...outcomes, treatment, and prevention of disease. Despite its importance, the adoption of gender-specific medicine remains understudied, posing potential risks to patient outcomes due to a lack of awareness of the topic. Building on the Innovation Decision Process Theory, this study examines the spread of information about gender-specific medicine in online networks. The study applies social network analysis to a Twitter dataset reflecting online discussions about the topic to gain insights into its adoption by health professionals and patients online. Results show that the network has a community structure with limited information exchange between sub-communities and that mainly medical experts dominate the discussion. The findings suggest that the adoption of gender-specific medicine might be in its early stages, focused on knowledge exchange. Understanding the diffusion of gender-specific medicine among medical professionals and patients may facilitate its adoption and ultimately improve health outcomes.
•We assess the applicability of graph metrics to predict purchase probabilities.•Real-world clickstream data of two online retailers is used.•Graphs are derived out of sessions of website ...visitors.•Distance- and centrality-based graph metrics are useful for prediction.•Closeness vitality, radius, number of circles and self-loops are most important.
The prediction of online user behavior (next clicks, repeat visits, purchases, etc.) is a well-studied subject in research. Prediction models typically rely on clickstream data that is captured during the visit of a website and embodies user agent-, path-, time- and basket-related information. The aim of this paper is to propose an alternative approach to extract auxiliary information from the website navigation graph of individual users and to test the predictive power of this information. Using two real-world large datasets of online retailers, we develop an approach to construct within-session graphs from clickstream data and demonstrate the relevance of corresponding graph metrics to predict purchases.
Technology for Humanity Meythaler, Antonia; Baumann, Annika; Krasnova, Hanna ...
Business & information systems engineering,
10/2023, Letnik:
65, Številka:
5
Journal Article
Abstract
Active use of social networking sites (SNSs) has long been assumed to benefit users’ well-being. However, this established hypothesis is increasingly being challenged, with scholars ...criticizing its lack of empirical support and the imprecise conceptualization of active use. Nevertheless, with considerable heterogeneity among existing studies on the hypothesis and causal evidence still limited, a final verdict on its robustness is still pending. To contribute to this ongoing debate, we conducted a week-long randomized control trial with N = 381 adult Instagram users recruited via Prolific. Specifically, we tested how active SNS use, operationalized as picture postings on Instagram, affects different dimensions of well-being. The results depicted a positive effect on users’ positive affect but null findings for other well-being outcomes. The findings broadly align with the recent criticism against the active use hypothesis and support the call for a more nuanced view on the impact of SNSs.
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