Development and Validation of the Holistic Cognition Scale

Do ambiguous images provide psychological insights? Testing a popular claim

Social media posts and websites claim that the way in which people perceive ambiguous images reveals insights into their personality and thinking style. To explore this notion, participants indicated the first image that they perceived in four ambiguous pictures (Duck-Rabbit, Younger-Older Woman, Rubin's Vase and Horse-Seal), and completed a Five Factor personality measure along with scales relating to optimism, procrastination, holistic thinking, and decision-making style. Many of the claims received no empirical support and so constitute a new type of psychological myth. Future research could explore why these claims remain popular with the public and why people frequently share the material with others. In addition, several significant and interesting findings emerged, including associations between Duck-Rabbit, personality, and optimism, and Younger-Older Woman and age. Possible future research into these phenomena is discussed.

Cultural differences in appraisals of control and posttraumatic stress disorder symptoms

Background: Appraisals are central to posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Yet, few studies have examined how culture influences the associations between different types of trauma-related appraisals and PTSD symptoms.Objective: This study investigated cultural influences on appraisals of control and their associations with PTSD symptoms.Method: European Australian (n = 140, Mage = 35.80, SD = 12.44; 21 men, 97 women, 20 gender diverse/prefer not to report) and Chinese Australian (n = 129, Mage = 30.16, SD = 8.93, 21 men, 97 women, 20 gender diverse/prefer not to report) trauma survivors completed measures of appraisals, cultural values, and PTSD symptoms.Results: Findings showed that the Chinese Australian group was associated with greater Chinese cultural beliefs about adversity (i.e. emphasizing the value of adversity and people's ability to overcome adversity) and fewer fatalism appraisals (i.e. appraising one's destiny as externally determined), which in turn were atemporally associated with fewer PTSD symptoms; these atemporal indirect associations were moderated by self-construal and holistic thinking. The Chinese Australian group also reported fewer secondary control appraisals (i.e. attempts to change aspects of the self and accept current circumstances), which were atemporally associated with greater PTSD symptoms. In contrast, the European Australian group was associated with fewer primary control appraisals (i.e. perceived ability to personally change or control a situation), which were atemporally associated with greater PTSD symptoms.Conclusion: These findings highlight the importance of considering the influence of culture on appraisals in PTSD. However, it must be noted that causal relationships cannot be inferred from cross-sectional mediation analyses and thus, future longitudinal research is needed.

Consumer susceptibility to front-of-package (FOP) food labeling: Scale development and validation

Current research in food science has explored the influence of front-of-package (FOP) labeling systems on consumer decision-making, yielding mixed results. We suggest that these inconsistent findings regarding FOP labeling effectiveness stem from a failure to consider a pivotal individual-level variable: consumer susceptibility to FOP labeling (CSFL). In the present research, we define this focal construct and develop and psychometrically validate a seven-item instrument that captures the construct across six studies (N = 1134). The current research may assist in segmenting consumers based on their susceptibility to FOP labeling, thereby facilitating the creation of targeted interventions tailored to this individual difference. Notably, the CSFL scale is positively correlated with consumers' willingness to purchase food items with genuine, third-party FOP labels, but not products lacking labels or products with fictitious FOP labels. This supports the predictive validity of the scale in determining important consumption-related outcomes.

Analytic-holistic cognitive styles affect consumer responses to food and beverage samples during sensory evaluation

Recent studies have shown that the analytic-holistic theory is applicable in sensory science-related areas. Analytic and holistic cognitive style groups have been found to have significantly different perceptions and behaviors within food-related scenarios. These differences were further investigated and identified within the current study, focusing on specific areas of common sensory tests and analyses where analytic and holistic cognitive style groups may differ from one another. Before the main study, 419 volunteers were classified into three groups based on their scores to the Analysis-Holism Scale (AHS). The extreme groups (65 adults for each) were identified as the "analytic" and "holistic" cognitive style groups, respectively. Participants evaluated fruit-flavored beverages and fruit samples for their impression of the intensity or hedonic aspects in the study conducted over two sessions. Each session either employed solely category or line scale for the questions. Analyses focused on the analytic and holistic group comparisons in mean, variance, penalty analysis, and pre- and post-AHS score differences. Results showed that the holistic group exhibited significantly higher mean scores and standard deviations in the hedonic ratings of fruit samples than the analytic group did. Compared to the analytic group, the holistic group showed significantly smaller mean drops in overall liking across the five Just-About-Right (JAR) questions related to flavors or tastes of the mixed-fruit flavored water. A significant difference between the AHS scores measured before and after the sensory evaluation was observed in the holistic group, but not in the analytic group. In conclusion, our findings provide empirical evidence that cognitive styles affect consumer responses to food or beverage samples during sensory evaluation tasks. This implies that sensory professionals may consider these analytic-holistic contrasts while exploring consumer responses to their target samples.

Development and validation of a food-related analysis-holism scale (F-AHS)

Recent studies have indicated analytic-holistic cognitive style differences of consumers can significantly impact perceptions, opinions, and behaviors toward foods. Interestingly, these studies have also offered evidence that the sole measurement tool to assess analytic-holistic tendencies, the analysis-holism scale (AHS), may not accurately apply to food-experience-related research scenarios. Due to these notions, Studies 1 and 2 employed the use of 465 and 487 participants, respectively, to develop, refine, and finalize a food-related AHS (F-AHS) using exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses and prior research on analytic-holistic differences and scale development. Study 3 was conducted to validate the newly developed F-AHS, based on the results of Studies 1 and 2, by replicating the procedures and analyses from prior research while using the F-AHS instead of the AHS to segment participants (N = 130). The results of Study 3 provided consistent evidence that the F-AHS better separated participants into analytic and holistic groups than the AHS through larger analytic-holistic differences that more closely aligned with prior analytic-holistic research. Our findings showed that the F-AHS is capable of separating consumers into analytic and holistic cognitive style groups and is better suited to sensory and consumer-related applications than the AHS. PRACTICAL APPLICATION: Our findings provide researchers with an optimized tool to separate consumers into analytic and holistic groups in food-experience-related situations. The food-related analysis-holism scale can then be used in both academia and industry to separate consumers based on cognitive style to better understand how and why consumers show variations in perception, acceptance, and behavior in food-related experiences.

You Eat How You Think: A Review on the Impact of Cognitive Styles on Food Perception and Behavior

Sensory perception is understood to be a complex area of research that requires investigations from a variety of different perspectives. Although researchers have tried to better understand consumers’ perception of food, one area that has been minimally explored is how psychological cognitive theories can help them explain consumer perceptions, behaviors, and decisions in food-related experiences. The concept of cognitive styles has existed for nearly a century, with the majority of cognitive style theories existing along a continuum with two bookends. Some of the more common theories such as individualist-collectivist, left-brain-right-brain, and convergent-divergent theories each offered their own unique insight into better understanding consumer behavior. However, these theories often focused only on niche applications or on specific aspects of cognition. More recently, the analytic-holistic cognitive style theory was developed to encompass many of these prior theoretical components and apply them to more general cognitive tendencies of individuals. Through applying the analytic-holistic theory and focusing on modern cultural psychology work, this review may allow researchers to be able to answer one of the paramount questions of sensory and consumer sciences: how and why do consumers perceive and respond to food stimuli the way that they do?

Cultural Context or Generational Cohort: Which Influences Tourist Behavior More?

According to most academics, different generations share common characteristics. This undoubtedly helps to better understand their behavior in different scenarios, predicting their responses. However, this seems questionable and that is the main purpose of this study. This research, although preliminary, try to confirm if millennials have common characteristics, or if, on the contrary, there are differences between them due to the culture in which they are immersed. To this end, it has been contextualized in a sector that is very sensitive to cultural differences, such as tourism. Data collection was carried out through a questionnaire administered in 2019 via e-mail to young South Korean and Spanish millennials (born 1982-2002). The results suggest that there do not appear to be common personality traits between the countries analyzed. The differences between the two groups for most personality traits and travel motivations were significant. The findings of this research provide several practical implications since it will make possible a more appropriate management of the tourist destination.