Category: Behavior

— A large meta-analysis conducted by researchers at Moffitt Cancer Center has concluded that breast cancer patients treated with chemotherapy are at risk for mild cognitive deficits after treatment. The meta-analysis, or analytic review of previously published studies, found that study participants on average had mild impairments in verbal abilities (such as difficulty choosing words) and visuospatial abilities (such as getting lost more easily). The study noted that cognitive functioning varies across survivors, with some reporting no impairments and others reporting more severe or pervasive deficits.

The study was published in a recent issue of the Journal of Clinical Oncology. The research was supported in part by the National Cancer Institute, part of the National Institutes of Health, through grant number K07 CA138499.

"The objective of our analysis was to clarify existing research on cognitive functioning in patients who had received standard dose chemotherapy for breast cancer at least six months previously," said study lead author Heather S.L. Jim, Ph.D., an assistant member at Moffitt whose research focuses on the psychosocial and behavioral aspects of cancer survivorship. "Earlier studies had reported conflicting evidence on the severity of cognitive deficits, especially over the long term."

Although this is an active area of research, an overall analysis of the studies had not been performed since 2006, explained the researchers.

"Our analysis indicated that patients previously treated with chemotherapy performed significantly worse on tests of verbal ability than individuals without cancer," noted co-author Paul B. Jacobsen, Moffitt senior member and associate center director of Population Sciences. "In addition, patients treated with chemotherapy performed significantly worse on tests of visuospatial ability than patients who had not had chemotherapy."

"Breast cancer patients treated with chemotherapy who have subsequent cognitive deficits should be referred to a neuropsychologist for evaluation and management of the deficits," Jim said. "Management usually involves developing an awareness of the situations in which their cognitive difficulties are likely to arise so that they can come up with strategies to compensate. Research shows that such strategies can make a big difference in daily life when cognitive difficulties do arise."

Young children whose families immigrate to Australia, Canada, the United Kingdom, and the United States are as prepared and capable of starting school as their native-born counterparts, with one exception — vocabulary and language development. That's the finding of a new study published in the September/October 2012 issue of the journal Child Development in a special section on the children of immigrants.

The study was conducted by researchers at the University of Bristol, Columbia University, the London School of Economics and Political Sciences, the University of New South Wales, the University of Ottawa, and the Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA), an independent research institute.

"In spite of important differences in some of the resources immigrant parents have to invest in their children, and in immigrant selection rules and settlement policies, across the four countries there are significant similarities in the relative positions of 4- and 5-year-old children of immigrants," notes Elizabeth Washbrook, lecturer in education at the University of Bristol, who led the study.

"The differences between immigrant families according to their home language are more striking than the differences across countries, with children of immigrants doing worse than their counterparts with native-born parents on vocabulary tests, particularly if a language other than the official language is spoken at home," Washbrook continues. "But these second-generation immigrants are not generally disadvantaged in nonverbal cognitive domains, nor are there notable behavioral differences, which suggests that the cross-country differences in cognitive outcomes during the teen years documented in the existing literature are much less evident during the early years."

Specifically, the children studied did as well in the areas of hyperactive and antisocial behaviors, aggressive behavior, and nonverbal skills as their counterparts who had native-born parents. According to Washbrook, this suggests that, "in spite of sometimes crucial differences in their backgrounds, the process of child development in immigrant families is such that children receive, on average, a start in life that puts them on par with other children — with the one exception of language."

This finding contrasts with research on older second-generation immigrants which has shown, for example, that second-generation teens in Canada and Australia perform as well or even better than teens of native-born parents in reading, math, and science tests, while second-generation teens in the United Kingdom and the United States tend to perform worse in these areas than their peers who have native-born parents.

The study used similar large-scale longitudinal datasets from each of the four countries to study more than 40,000 children born in the first four years of the 2000s. While all four of the countries have historically been immigrant-receiving nations with common cultural, demographic, and labor market

characterisitcs, there are important differences among them in the way in which immigrants are selected, their settlement policies, and their more general schooling, family, and labor market policies.

"Our findings suggest that, to the extent cross-country differences exist across a wide range of cognitive skills in later years, these reflect not so much disadvantages during the preschool years, but rather differences in the capacity of social institutions―particularly the education system―to help children overcome their initial disadvantage in language skills, the single hurdle that is beyond the capacity of some of their parents," Washbrook explained.

The study was funded by the Australian Research Council, the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, the Russell Sage Foundation, and the Sutton Trust, with support from Statistics Canada. The Longitudinal Study of Australian Children is conducted in partnership between the Department of Families, Housing, Community Services, and Indigenous Affairs, the Australian Institute of Family Studies, and the Australian Bureau of Statistics.

 When companies combine different pricing structures — such as asking for effort or information in combination with or instead of money — consumers perceive a greater risk in the decision to buy.

A sedentary lifestyle is a common cause of obesity, and excessive body weight and fat in turn are considered catalysts for diabetes, high blood pressure, joint damage and other serious health problems. But what if lack of exercise itself were treated as a medical condition? Mayo Clinic physiologist Michael Joyner, M.D., argues that it should be. His commentary is published this month in The Journal of Physiology.

 Arrogant bosses can drain the bottom line because they are typically poor performers who cover up their insecurities by disparaging subordinates, leading to organizational dysfunction and employee turnover.

A new measure of arrogance, developed by researchers at The University of Akron and Michigan State University, can help organizations identify arrogant managers before they have a costly and damaging impact.

The Workplace Arrogance Scale (WARS) will be presented at the American Psychological Association convention in Orlando on Aug. 2 by industrial and organizational psychologist and professor Stanley Silverman, dean of UA's Summit College and University College.

What is arrogance covering up?

Arrogance is characterized by a pattern of behavior that demeans others in an attempt to prove competence and superiority. Silverman says this behavior is correlated with lower intelligence scores and lower self-esteem when compared to managers who are not arrogant.

"Does your boss demonstrate different behaviors with subordinates and supervisors?" Silverman asks. He says a "yes" answer could mean trouble. Silverman warns that "yes" replies to these other questions raise red flags and signal arrogance.

• Does your boss put his/her personal agenda ahead of the organization's agenda?
• Does the boss discredit others' ideas during meetings and often make them look bad?
• Does your boss reject constructive feedback?
• Does the boss exaggerate his/her superiority and make others feel inferior?

Silverman and his colleagues Russell Johnson, assistant professor of management at the Eli Broad College of Business at Michigan State University, and Nicole McConnell and Alison Carr, both Ph.D. students in The University of Akron's Industrial and Organizational Psychology program, published details of the Workplace Arrogance Scale in the July 2012 issue of The Industrial-Organizational Psychologist.

Effect on morale

Left unchecked, arrogant leaders can be a destructive force within an organization, notes Silverman. With power over their employees' work assignments, promotion opportunities and performance reviews, arrogant bosses put subordinates in a helpless position. They do not mentor junior colleagues nor do they motivate a team to benefit the organization as a whole, contributing to a negative social workplace atmosphere.

Silverman says that arrogance is less a personality trait than a series of behaviors, which can be addressed through coaching if the arrogant boss is willing to change. He recommends that organizations incorporate an assessment of arrogance into the employee review and performance management process.

Silverman emphasizes that cultivating humility among leaders and promoting a learning-oriented work climate go far in reducing arrogance and increasing productive leadership and employee social interaction.

Many people, whether they know it or not, are philosophical dualists. That is, they believe that the brain and the mind are two separate entities. Despite the fact dualist beliefs are found in virtually all human cultures, surprisingly little is known about the impact of these beliefs on how we think and behave in everyday life.

But a new research article forthcoming in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, suggests that espousing a dualist philosophy can have important real-life consequences.

Across five related studies, researchers Matthias Forstmann, Pascal Burgmer, and Thomas Mussweiler of the University of Cologne, Germany, found that people primed with dualist beliefs had more reckless attitudes toward health and exercise, and also preferred (and ate) a less healthy diet than those who were primed with physicalist beliefs.

Furthermore, they found that the relationship also worked in the other direction. People who were primed with unhealthy behaviors — such as pictures of unhealthy food — reported a stronger dualistic belief than participants who were primed with healthy behaviors.

Overall, the findings from the five studies provide converging evidence demonstrating that mind-body dualism has a noticeable impact on people's health-related attitudes and behaviors. Specifically, these findings suggest that dualistic beliefs decrease the likelihood of engaging in healthy behavior.

These findings support the researchers' original hypothesis that the more people perceive their minds and bodies to be distinct entities, the less likely they will be to engage in behaviors that protect their bodies. Bodies are ultimately viewed as a disposable vessel that helps the mind interact with the physical world.

Evidence of a bidirectional relationship further suggests that metaphysical beliefs, such as beliefs in mind-body dualism, may serve as cognitive tools for coping with threatening or harmful situations.

The fact that the simple priming procedures used in the studies had an immediate impact on health-related attitudes and behavior suggests that these procedures may eventually have profound implications for real-life problems. Interventions that reduce dualistic beliefs through priming could be one way to help promote healthier — or less self-damaging — behaviors in at-risk populations.

Research presented at the Annual Meeting of the Society for the Study of Ingestive Behavior (SSIB) introduces novel cost-effective strategies to facilitate healthy eating among weight-conscious consumers. A number of experiments, by Esther Papies and colleagues of Utrecht University, The Netherlands, now suggest that simply adding words related to health and weight on posters, restaurant menu's, or recipe cards can stimulate healthy food choices among dieters and overweight individuals, in a variety of real-life settings.

Affecting the choices of these individuals is especially relevant since their eating behavior is heavily influenced by attractive food temptations which abound in our daily lives. The current living environment in most Western societies makes weight control a difficult enterprise for health-conscious individuals. Numerous studies have now revealed that conscious intentions for healthy eating and dieting are not sufficient for healthy eating pattern — rather, consumers are heavily influenced by their eating habits, and by food temptations in their environment. Furthermore, people struggling with their weight are especially susceptible to the effects of such easily available food temptations. Chronic dieters and overweight people show strong hedonic responses to tasty, high-calorie food cues in both behavioral and neuro-imaging studies, and easily overeat when they are around attractive food. Thus, it is especially important to bolster these individuals against these detrimental effects of our "obesity promoting environment."

Previous research by Papies and colleagues has shown that priming methods can help dieters eat fewer high-calorie tasty snacks. In a field experiment, customers of a local butcher store were observed on days when a poster announcing a dieting recipe had been mounted on the door, and on other days when the poster was not present. When the diet recipe reminded dieters of their health goal, they ate less of the bite-size meat snacks the store offered than on other days. Customers who were not concerned with controlling their weight were not affected. Thus, goal priming is an effective strategy to help weight-concerned individuals translate their intentions into behavior, especially when faced with temptation .

More recent experiments have replicated this finding in different settings. A study now under review shows that subtle goal primes incorporated into the menu of a restaurant lead overweight and weight-concerned individuals to order more healthy meals, such as salads.

Most recently, this priming method was applied in a field experiment in a grocery store. Here, overweight and diet-concerned individuals who were handed a recipe flyer with health-related words before shopping bought less unhealthy snacks, such as chips, cookies, and cake. Interestingly, this was hardly affected by how much attention participants said they had paid to the recipes. It seems very little conscious awareness is needed for such primes to affect health behavior. Although preliminary, these findings are especially promising: food decisions made in the grocery store affect eating behavior at home, and that means the whole family could benefit.

This technique has great potential as an intervention to help weight control — it is unobtrusive, easy to implement and low in cost making it attractive to policy makers.

Most people call it the "art" of persuasion, but public health researchers at the University of Southern California (USC) are trying to pinpoint the "science" behind social influence.

They hope a better understanding of human interactions — both face-to-face and online — can help prevent disease and promote general health.

Whether the goal is to curb smoking at a local school or to reduce the spread of sexually transmitted diseases within a community, it is important to understand the social structure of the group and the dynamics of influence at play, says Thomas W. Valente, Ph.D., professor of preventive medicine at the Keck School of Medicine of USC.

"If I want to go into a high school and change physical activity or other obesity behaviors, I have to understand there are cliques and subgroups of students that exhibit different risks," Valente said. "I would design different interventions for the different groups. We constantly are concerned about how ineffective our interventions are — this is a big reason why those interventions are not working. We can do a much better job promoting healthy behaviors if we understand the social network contexts and design these interventions with those cues in mind."

Valente, whose research focuses on social networks and influence, has compiled a collection of methods that public health advocates use to stimulate changes in behavior and explains why certain methods may be more effective than others in particular situations. The analysis appears in the July 6 edition of the peer-reviewed journal Science, the world's leading outlet for scientific news, commentary and research.

Due to the large number of interventions available to researchers — Valente identifies 24, each with at least several variations — the researcher says a more robust framework is needed for deciding which tactics are best used in particular settings.

Word-of-mouth interventions, for example, depend on the social network to succeed. In some cases, word of mouth is used to spread the word and in other cases to create groups of like-minded friends.

"Existing evidence indicates that network interventions are quite effective," Valente writes. "Yet, the science of how networks can be used to accelerate behavior change and improve organizational performance is still in its infancy. Research is clearly needed to compare different network interventions to determine which are optimal under what circumstances."

Valente notes that behavioral research is often used in marketing and business arenas; the public health sector is just beginning to implement that information as tools like Facebook and Twitter have made it easier to collect data and spread information, he says.

A study of students at seven public high schools in Texas suggests that "sexting" was prevalent and may be linked to teens' sexual behaviors, according to a report published Online First by Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine, a JAMA Network publication.

Sexting (a combination of the words sex and texting) is the practice of electronically sending sexually explicit images or messages from one person to another. The study background suggests pediatricians, policy makers, schools and parents have insufficient information about the nature and importance of teen sexting because there is not enough empirical data.

Jeff. R.Temple, Ph.D., of UTMB (University of Texas Medical Branch) Health, Galveston, and colleagues sought to identify the prevalence and nature of sexting, and to examine the association between sexting and sexual behaviors. The data were from part of a longitudinal study and 948 students (55.9 percent female) participated.

Teens, who ranged in age from 14 to 19 years old, self-reported their history of dating, sexual behaviors and sexting. Researchers assessed teen sexting with four questions: have they ever sent naked pictures of themselves through text or email, have they ever asked someone to send them a naked picture, have they been asked to send naked pictures of themselves to someone, and, if so, how bothered were they by it.

"Specifically, more than 1 in 4 adolescents have sent a nude picture of themselves through electronic means, about half have been asked to send a nude picture, and about a third have asked for a nude picture to be sent to them. Boys were more likely to ask and girls more likely to have been asked for a sext," the authors note.

White/non-Hispanic and African American teens were more likely than the other racial/ethnic groups to have both been asked and to have sent a sext, according to the study.

The study also suggests that for both boys and girls, teens who sexted were more likely to have begun dating and to have had sex than those who did not sext.

"Given its prevalence and link to sexual behavior, pediatricians and other tween-focused and teen-focused health care providers may consider screening for sexting behaviors. Asking about sexting could provide insight into whether a teen is likely engaging in other sexual behaviors (for boys and girls) or risky sexual behaviors (for girls)," the authors comment.

Editorial: A Closer Look at New Media

In an editorial, Megan A. Moreno, M.D., M.S.Ed., M.P.H., of the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and Jennifer M. Whitehill, Ph.D., of the Harborview Injury Prevention & Research Center, University of Washington, Seattle, write: "In summary, pediatricians should view social media as part of the integrated self of the adolescent patient. Pediatricians have new opportunities to ask their patients about social media, including questions about how time is spent in this environment."

"Discussing social media with patients may provide new ways to identify intentions or engagement in risky health behaviors," they continue.

"Health care providers and researchers may also consider building education or prevention efforts within social media, as previous work illustrates that teens may be willing to investigate topics such as sexual behavior in a social media setting," they conclude.

 Simply ejecting your rear from the couch means your hand will spend less time digging into a bag of chocolate chip cookies.

That is the simple but profound finding of a new Northwestern Medicine study, which reports simply changing one bad habit has a domino effect on others. Knock down your sedentary leisure time and you'll reduce junk food and saturated fats because you're no longer glued to the TV and noshing. It's a two-for-one benefit because the behaviors are closely related.

The study also found the most effective way to rehab a delinquent lifestyle requires two key behavior changes: cutting time spent in front of a TV or computer screen and eating more fruits and vegetables.

"Just making two lifestyle changes has a big overall effect and people don't get overwhelmed," said Bonnie Spring, a professor of preventive medicine at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, and lead author of the study published in Archives of Internal Medicine.

"Americans have all these unhealthy behaviors that put them at high risk for heart disease and cancer, but it is hard for them and their doctors to know where to begin to change those unhealthy habits," Spring said. "This approach simplifies it."

With this simplified strategy, people are capable of making big lifestyle changes in a short period of time and maintaining them, according to the study.

Spring wanted to figure out the most effective way to spur people to change common bad health habits: eating too much saturated fat and not enough fruits and vegetables, spending too much sedentary leisure time and not getting enough physical activity.

She and colleagues randomly assigned 204 adult patients, ages 21 to 60 years old, with all those unhealthy habits into one of four treatments. The treatments were: increase fruit/vegetable intake and physical activity, decrease fat and sedentary leisure, decrease fat and increase physical activity, and increase fruit/vegetable intake and decrease sedentary leisure.

During the three weeks of treatment, patients entered their daily data into a personal digital assistant and uploaded it to a coach who communicated as needed by telephone or email.

Participants could earn $175 for meeting goals during the three-week treatment phase. But when that phase was completed, patients no longer had to maintain the lifestyle changes in order to be paid. They were simply asked to send data three days a month for six months and received $30 to $80 per month.

"We said we hope you'll continue to keep up these healthy changes, but you no longer have to keep them up to be compensated," Spring said.

The results over the next six months amazed Spring. "We thought they'd do it while we were paying them, but the minute we stopped they'd go back to their bad habits," she said. "But they continued to maintain a large improvement in their health behaviors."

From baseline to the end of treatment to the end of the six-month follow-up, the average servings of fruit/vegetables changed from 1.2 to 5.5 to 2.9; average minutes per day of sedentary leisure went from 219.2 to 89.3 to 125.7 and daily calories from saturated fat from 12 percent to 9.4 percent to 9.9 percent.

About 86 percent of participants said once they made the change, they tried to maintain it. There was something about increasing fruits and vegetables that made them feel like they were capable of any of these changes," Spring said. "It really enhanced their confidence."

"We found people can make very large changes in a very short amount of time and maintain them pretty darn well," Spring said. "It's a lot more feasible than we thought."