Reminders of COVID-19 social distancing can intensify physical pain.

Social distance regulations have been widely implemented to control the global COVID-19 pandemic. Individuals have thus been experiencing social pain through social distance regulations. Prior research has shown that social and physical pains share a common neural alarm system.

Thoughts of social distancing experiences affect food intake and hypothetical binge eating: Implications for people in home quarantine during COVID-19.

Backgrond And Rationale: Social distance regulations have been suggested as one of the best ways to control and prevent the spread of COVID-19. Social connection and food are intertwined because both have played critical evolutionary roles in human survival. We tested whether the substitutability hypothesis in human motivation applies here in that cues signaling scarcity in one domain (e.

An unintended consequence of social distance regulations: COVID-19 social distancing promotes the desire for money.

Social distance regulations have been widely adopted during the global COVID-19 pandemic. From an evolutionary perspective, social connection and money are interchangeable subsistence resources for human survival. The substitutability principle of human motivation posits that scarcity in one domain (e.

Exposure to Sexual Stimuli Induces Greater Discounting Leading to Increased Involvement in Cyber Delinquency Among Men.

People frequently encounter sexual stimuli during Internet use. Research has shown that stimuli inducing sexual motivation can lead to greater impulsivity in men, as manifested in greater temporal discounting (i.e.

Things online social networking can take away: Reminders of social networking sites undermine the desirability of offline socializing and pleasures.

People are beginning to develop symbiotic relationships with social networking sites (SNSs), which provide users with abundant opportunities for social interaction. We contend that if people perceive SNSs as sources of social connection, the idea of SNSs may reduce the desire to pursue offline social activities and offline pleasures. Experiment 1 demonstrated that priming with SNSs was associated with a weakened desirability of offline social activities and an increased inclination to work alone.

The Power of the Virtual Ideal Self in Weight Control: Weight-Reduced Avatars Can Enhance the Tendency to Delay Gratification and Regulate Dietary Practices.

The tendency to discount larger future benefits in favor of smaller immediate gains (i.e., temporal discounting) is relevant to the issue of obesity.

Real men are made, not born! Incidental exposure to energy drinks may promote men's tolerance of physical pain.

The energy drink market has grown exponentially since the debut of Red Bull. Advertising of energy drinks tends to reinforce an emphasis on masculine identification. However, no previous study has addressed the symbolic effect of energy drinks on pain tolerance, that is, a particular masculine characteristic.

The liberating effect of weight loss supplements on dietary control: a field experiment.

Objectives: Taking weight-loss supplements may create illusion of protection against weight gain and thereby loosen subsequent dietary self-control. The current study examined whether taking weight-loss supplement would increase food intake and further tested whether positive attitudes toward supplements would increase susceptibility to overeating.

Methods: Participants were randomly assigned to take either a known placebo or a purported weight loss supplement (actually, the same placebo).

Does Facebook promote self-interest? Enactment of indiscriminate one-to-many communication on online social networking sites decreases prosocial behavior.

Abstract Communication tools on social networking sites (SNSs) provide users with an efficient way to distribute information to the public and/or their friends simultaneously. In this article, we show that this kind of indiscriminate one-to-many (i.e.

Taking weight-loss supplements may elicit liberation from dietary control. A laboratory experiment.

Given that changes in diet and exercise habits are difficult to initiate and maintain, the use of weight-loss supplements has become an appealing alternative approach to weight management for many individuals. The current research examined whether the use of weight-loss supplements induced overly optimistic assessments of progress toward weight reduction, leading to psychological abdication of dietary regulation. Participants were randomly assigned to take either an identified placebo or a purported weight-loss supplement (actually the same placebo).

Keep logging in! Experimental evidence showing the relation of affiliation needs to the idea of online social networking.

As social networking sites (SNS) increasingly provide social connections that meet the need for affiliation, people are developing symbiotic relationships with these sites. Drawing on the notion that people motivated by affiliation may increase their attention to sources that provide social connections, we conducted a lab experiment to explore whether priming affiliation needs would prompt the idea of online social networking. Participants were randomly assigned to one of three between-subjects conditions (affiliation arousal, social exclusion, control) in which we employed the scrambled-sentence paradigm to manipulate affiliation motivations.

Food as ego-protective remedy for people experiencing shame. Experimental evidence for a new perspective on weight-related shame.

The well-explored association between shame and bulimia is based on research with clinical samples, which limits its generalizability. Moreover, these correlational studies are unable to draw clear conclusions about causality. To fill this gap, we conducted two experimental studies to examine whether shame elicits a desire for food in nonclinical participants.

Escaping the impulse to immediate gratification: the prospect concept promotes a future-oriented mindset, prompting an inclination towards delayed gratification.

People's willingness to postpone receiving an immediate reward in order to gain additional benefits in the future, that is, a tendency to shallow delay discounting, is closely related to one's health, wealth, and happiness. We conducted two experiments investigating how the prospect concept can induce a future-oriented mindset and induce people to behave accordingly. We found that engaging in prospective imagery led the participants to focus on delayed utility over immediate utility in financial decisions (Experiment 1).

Ironic effects of dietary supplementation: illusory invulnerability created by taking dietary supplements licenses health-risk behaviors.

The use of dietary supplements and the health status of individuals have an asymmetrical relationship: the growing market for dietary supplements appears not to be associated with an improvement in public health. Building on the notion of licensing, or the tendency for positive choices to license subsequent self-indulgent choices, we argue that because dietary supplements are perceived as conferring health advantages, use of such supplements may create an illusory sense of invulnerability that disinhibits unhealthy behaviors. In two experiments, participants who took placebo pills that they believed were dietary supplements exhibited the licensing effect across multiple forms of health-related behavior: They expressed less desire to engage in exercise and more desire to engage in hedonic activities (Experiment 1), expressed greater preference for a buffet over an organic meal (Experiment 1), and walked less to benefit their health (Experiment 2) compared with participants who were told the pills were a placebo.

Undergraduates' intentions to take a second language proficiency test: a comparison of predictions from the theory of planned behavior and social cognitive theory.

English competency has become essential for obtaining a better job or succeeding in higher education in Taiwan. Thus, passing the General English Proficiency Test is important for college students in Taiwan. The current study applied Ajzen's theory of planned behavior and the notions of outcome expectancy and self-efficacy from Bandura's social cognitive theory to investigate college students' intentions to take the General English Proficiency Test.

The moderating role of need for cognition on excessive searching bias: a case of finding romantic partners online.

Using online-dating websites to expand social networks and form close relationships is popular for people in information technology era. Wu and Chiou (2009) demonstrated that more options triggered excessive searching, leading to poorer decision-making and reduced selectivity. They proposed that the more-means-worse effect refers to more searching leads to worse choices by reducing users' cognitive resources, distracting them with irrelevant information and reducing their ability to screen out inferior options.

Looking online for the best romantic partner reduces decision quality: the moderating role of choice-making strategies.

The Internet has become a means by which people expand their social networks and form close relationships. Wu and Chiou (2009) demonstrated that more search options triggered excessive searching, leading to poorer decision making and reduced selectivity in finding partners for online romantic relationships. Regarding the more-means-worse effect, they argued that more searching leads to worse choices by reducing users' cognitive resources, distracting them with irrelevant information, and reducing their ability to screen out inferior options.