Dialectical thinking and creativity among young adults: a postformal operations perspective.

This study used a post-Piagetian perspective to investigate the relation of dialectical thinking and creative performance in early adulthood. The modified version of the Social Paradigm Belief Scale was employed to measure the development of formal and dialectical thinking among 454 young adults, ages 23 to 40 years (M = 32.1, SD = 4.

Substitution of healthy for unhealthy beverages among college students. A health-concerns and behavioral-economics perspective.

Excessive intake of sugar-sweetened beverages by undergraduates is closely related to the increasing prevalence of obesity, making investigations of the substitution of healthy for unhealthy beverages imperative. According to the concept of price elasticity in behavioral economics, the choice of healthy over unhealthy behaviors is facilitated by increasing the cost of less-healthy alternatives or reducing the cost of healthier alternatives. Furthermore, evoking health concerns by using health claims may induce substitution of healthy for unhealthy beverages.

Psychophysical methods in study of consumers' perceived price change for food products.

When adjusting product prices, marketers wish information concerning consumers' price perceptions. The present study aimed to develop an optimal pricing framework for food products by applying Weber's Law and Stevens' Power Law in psychophysics. The first phase attempted to measure the differential thresholds when magnitudes of prices were raised and lowered.

The motivations of adolescents who are addicted to online games: a cognitive perspective.

This research explored, from the perspective of cognitive theory, the psychological motivations of Taiwanese adolescents who are addicted to online games. Study 1 focused on the differential motivations between the addicts and nonaddicts. The findings revealed that the addicts exhibited higher intrinsic than extrinsic motivation, whereas the nonaddicts showed an opposite relationship.

Collectivists' contingency and autonomy as predictors of buffet preferences among Taiwanese adolescents.

In a culture or society with high collectivism, contingent orientation and constrained autonomy are the prominent characteristics of adolescents' self-construal. This article examined whether Taiwanese adolescents' contingency and autonomy were associated with their prevalent preferences for buffet consumption. Findings in a panel survey indicated that contingency was positively correlated with adolescents' buffet preference, whereas autonomy was negatively correlated.

Teachers' modeling advantage and their modeling effects on college students' learning styles and occupational stereotypes: a case of collaborative teaching in technical courses.

In this study, modeling advantage that depicts the likelihood of a teacher model being imitated by students over other competing models in a particular class was developed to differentiate the rival modeling of two kinds of teachers (the technical teachers vs. the lecturing teachers) between college students' learning styles and occupational stereotypes in the collaborative teaching of technical courses. Results of a one-semester longitudinal study indicated that the students perceived a greater modeling advantage of the technical teachers than that of the lecturing teachers.

Adolescents' sexual self-disclosure on the internet: deindividuation and impression management.

This study examined the effect of anonymity on adolescents' sexual self-disclosure on the Internet and the impact of topic intimacy on their reply intent for sexual disclosure by conducting a survey with 1,347 adolescents. It was found that male participants were more likely than females to engage in sexual self-disclosure and to correspondingly respond to cyber partners' sexual disclosure. Results showed that the greater the anonymity, the greater the intent for sexual self-disclosure.

Using cognitive dissonance to enhance faculty members' attitudes toward teaching online courses.

Adopting a reward strategy for inducing college faculty to teach online courses is expected to cause a positive shift of their attitudes. Based upon dissonance theory, a smaller reward will lead to greater attitude change, and this effect will be more pronounced in individualists. The results of an experimental study showed that individualist teachers exhibited greater attitude change under low reward than under high reward, but the reward effect was not prominent in collectivist teachers.

Sexual self-disclosure in Cyberspace among Taiwanese adolescents: gender differences and the interplay of Cyberspace and real life.

This study explored adolescents' sexual self-disclosure in real life and cyberspace, as well as gender differences of sexual self-disclosure in cyberspace. There were 115 male and 92 female adolescents who participated in this pretest and posttest survey. In general, the depth of sexual self-disclosure in real life was greater than in cyberspace, but the breadth of sexual selfdisclosure in both real life and cyberspace was equivalent.

Change in particle size of pectin reacted with pectinesterase isozymes from pea (Pisum sativum L.) sprout.

Four pectinesterase (PE) isozymes were isolated by CM-Sepharose CL-6B chromatography from etiolated pea (Pisum sativum L.) sprouts and then reacted with citrus pectin (degree of esterification = 68%, 30-100 kDa) to observe the change in pectin particle size using a laser particle size analyzer. After incubation of a pectin-PE mixture (pH 6.