Justify my love: Cognitive dissonance reduction among perpetrators of online and offline infidelity

A longitudinal survey study was conducted to examine which strategies for reducing cognitive dissonance were used among men engaging in infidelity. Data were collected in two waves, 1 month apart ( n time1 = 1514, n time2 = 425), from a sample of male users of Ashley Madison, a “married dating” site targeting users who are seeking to engage in infidelity. Because perpetrators of infidelity may justify their behaviors differently depending on whether they cheated in an online environment, both online and offline infidelity behaviors were considered. Results indicated that attitude change and self-concept change were positively related to online infidelity, while only self-concept change was positively related to offline infidelity, suggesting their differential effectiveness for various communication media. Self-concept change, attitude change, and denial of responsibility were negatively related to psychological discomfort and perceived negative impact at time 2, indicating their relative success for reducing negative psychological outcomes compared to other strategies such as adding consonant cognitions.

Changes in The Prevalence Of Thin Bodies Biases Young Womens’ Judgements about Body Size

Body dissatisfaction is pervasive among young women in Western countries. Among the many forces that contribute to body dissatisfaction, the overrepresentation of thin bodies in visual media has received notable attention. In this study, we propose that prevalence-induced concept change may be one of the cognitive mechanisms that explain how beauty standards shift. We conducted a pre-registered online experiment with young women (N = 419) and found that when the prevalence of thin bodies in the environment increased, the concept of overweight expanded to include bodies that would otherwise be judged as normal. Exploratory analyses revealed significant individual differences in sensitivity to this effect, both in terms of women’s judgements about other bodies and their own. These results suggest that women’s judgements about other women’s bodies are biased by an overrepresentation of thinness. Policies that aim to increase size-inclusive representation in the media may be one way to curtail this influence.

Shelf Osteotomy for Madelung’s Deformity in Adults: A Novel Technique

Background Madelung's deformity (MD) comprises increased volar and ulnar tilt of the distal radius joint facet, secondary to an idiopathic physeal dysplasia. Such change causes radial shortening and a consequent distal ulnar prominence, along with wrist pain and loss of motion. Classic surgical techniques are problematic for adults, as they are specific for children and adolescents whose distal radial physis is still open. Description of Technique It is suggested a new treatment method for MD in skeletally mature patients: a distal radius osteotomy and joint realignment are performed through a volar approach to increase the support area of the lunate bone. The rotation and lengthening of the distal epiphysis of the radius generate support and cover to the lunate bone, with improvement of both radiocarpal and distal radioulnar joints. Patients and Methods We describe the technique in details and report the treatment of a 25-year-old female patient. Results Early clinical and radiographic outcomes are encouraging for the treatment of symptomatic patients. Conclusion There is a plethora on the literature about conflicting opinions on the best treatment options and surgical techniques are quite variable, although usually with good results. Besides, the technique here described is indicated during a specific stage of disease presentation, consisting of young adults without any wrist-degenerative changes. Having said that, it is possible to claim that MD treatment with shelf osteotomy is a concept change. Our main goal is to reconstruct the diseased segment and improve wrist stability.

Green Pedagogy: Using Confrontation and Provocation to Promote Sustainability Skills

The chapter describes the features of Green Pedagogy, originally developed in Austria in German where it is still being actively researched. Green Pedagogy offers a structured approach to lesson planning to achieve embedded sustainability competencies within a specific vocational or academic field. The Green Pedagogy approach achieves sustainability competency through a controlled appeal to the emotions and the explicit uncovering of learner values to take on new ideas and new perspectives in a more sustainable direction. The approach is compatible with many recommended Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) pedagogies such as project-based teaching and the case study approach. The approach also implements several more general evidence-based pedagogical strategies such as concept change. The key feature of Green Pedagogy is that the process ends with locally based action whose wider implications are explored. We relate some of the challenges involved in translating a pedagogical approach from one language to another as the ProfESus Erasmus project aimed to disseminate Green Pedagogy to a global cohort of teachers of home economics in English. Reactions of participating teachers in the piloting of the training are explored and some practical solutions offered.

THE EFFECTIVENESS OF THE REFUTATION TEXT TO IMPROVE UNDERSTANDING OF THE ACID-BASE CONCEPTS FOR HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS

Acid-base is a difficult subject to learn. It includes conceptually tricky words for the students. The theme is also considered difficult by teachers and prospective teachers in teaching and assessing student mastery. A misconception in chemistry topics is one of the biggest challenges for the teacher. This means that many students do not reach the learning objective. The acid-base question is considered one of the most challenging subjects, and there are many misunderstood concepts on this topic. Lack of understanding can be reduced by providing a simple and natural source of learning, such as a refutation text. This study aimed to determine the effectiveness of the refutation text to improve understanding of concepts and reduce misunderstanding in corrective learning on the acid-base topic for high school. There are six subtopics on acid-base content for high school. The test method used was the pre and post-project of a group, with a limited number of subjects. The test instrument used was the three-tiers of multiple choices for acid-base material (concept understanding’s test). The analysis result showed that 17 of 19 students had increased knowledge of concepts and decreased misconceptions. The concept change was significant, according to Mc Nemar Test. The value of effect size (ES) based on the Crochan-Q test was 4.12, a high category. It could be concluded that refutation text is effective enough to improve students' concepts and apply them to remedial learning.

Distance relationships and educational fragilities: A Student Voice research in digital third spaces

What impact did distance learning and education have on the most fragile students during the COVID-19 emergency? How is ‘educational fragility’ perceived by teachers and school educators, and how did this concept change during the school closure? How did children and young people perceive their remote learning experiences? The pandemic scenario forced to switch from face-to-face to distance educational relationships, triggering new fragilities and increasing digital inequalities. Therefore, in the digital environment of third space, a qualitative Student Voice research was conducted to collect students’, teachers’ and educators’ perceptions of remote schooling via semi-structured interviews. The study was implemented with working university students and school-going students with special educational needs, aged between 7 and 13 years, pursuing the teacher preparation aspect in the field of social justice. Preliminary results show that distance relationships fostered students’ self-regulated learning and awareness of their own learning processes; however, only in-presence schooling is experienced as a real ‘living-learning space.’ All these aspects and especially the practitioners’ awareness of the outcomes of distance education open up a new perspective towards an ecological theory of educational fragility, which could contribute to define new in-depth knowledge-construction tools in support of the education practice.

A snap of your true self: How self-presentation and temporal affordance influence self-concept on social media

This study examined how self-presentation on social media influences the way people view themselves. It also examined whether that varies with sites using two temporal features: posts which have a short life (ephemeral) and those which live indefinitely (permanent). Drawing on both the notion of public commitment and self-symbolizing, our experiment provided a critical test of two rival theory-driven hypotheses—one suggesting a greater internalization of presented self on permanent rather than ephemeral social media and the other suggesting the opposite pattern. Supporting the self-symbolizing perspective, those who publicly presented themselves on ephemeral social media internalized their portrayed personality. Also, such a difference in internalization between the two conditions was triggered by an introverted self-presentation. Results suggest that ephemerality enhances self-symbolizing efforts and the subsequent internalization by affording nonstrategic self-presentation and reducing impression management concerns. Implications for understanding self-concept change in social media contexts are discussed.

Human Ageing is Associated with More Rigid Concept Spaces

Prevalence-induced concept change describes a cognitive mechanism by which someone’s definition of a concept shifts as the prevalence of instances of that concept changes. The phenomenon has real-world implications because this sensitivity to environmental characteristics may lead to substantial biases in judgements. While prevalence-induced concept change has been established in young adults, it is unclear how it changes as a function of human ageing. In this cross-sectional study, we explore how prevalence-induced concept change affects older adults’ lower-level, perceptual, and higher-order, ethical, judgements. We find that older adults are less sensitive to prevalence-induced concept change than younger adults across domains. Using a combination of computational and experimental approaches, we demonstrate that these changes in judgements are sensitive to the pace with which the stimuli occur in the environment and are affected by the effort that subjects invest in order to make accurate decisions. Based on findings from three experiments we argue that older adults’ concept spaces are more rigid than those of younger adults. However, what appear as an age-related cognitive “deficit” may turn out to be beneficial because it makes older adults less susceptible to biases in judgments.

Less Prevalence-induced Concept Change in Older Adults

Prevalence-induced concept change describes a cognitive mechanism by which someone’s definition of a concept shifts as the prevalence of instances of that concept changes. While this phenomenon has been established in young adults, it is unclear how it affects older adults. In this study, we explore how prevalence-induced concept change affects older adults’ lower-level, perceptual, and higher-order, ethical, decision-making. We find that older adults are less sensitive to prevalence-induced concept change than younger adults across both domains. Using a combination of computational and experimental approaches, we demonstrate that these age-related changes in judgements are driven by differences in response times between young and old adults, reflecting the time-sensitive and motivation-dependent nature of concept change. Overall, we argue that older adults’ concept spaces may be less flexible than younger adults’ in a changing world, which can make the elderly less sensitive to biases in their judgement.