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ABSTRACT: Very little prior research has examined public perceptions of research funding and the life chances associated with various
fields of study. In the present task, 315 members of the Austrian general public rated 34 higher-education courses in terms
of funding cuts or increases, and the perceived life chances of graduates, respectively. The results showed a high degree
of correspondence in the ratings of both questionnaires. Overall, professional and biological stream courses were rated the
most favourably, whereas arts and humanities courses were rated the least favourably. Participants’ demographic variables
had little influence on their decisions. The implications of these findings for the way higher education is managed and organised
are discussed.
Higher Education 05/2012; 59(1):105-113. · 1.06 Impact Factor
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ABSTRACT: The present study examined various factors associated with the likelihood of having cosmetic surgery in a community sample
of Austrian participants. One-hundred and sixty-eight women and 151 men completed a questionnaire measuring how likely they
were to consider common cosmetic procedures. The results showed that women were more likely than men to consider most cosmetic
procedures. Path analysis revealed that personal experience of having had cosmetic surgery was a significant predictor of
future likelihood, while media exposure (viewing advertisements or television programs, or reading articles about cosmetic
surgery) mediated the influence of vicarious experience and sex. These results are discussed in relation to previous work
examining the factors associated with the likelihood of having cosmetic surgery.
European Journal of Plastic Surgery 04/2012; 30(5):211-218.
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Viren Swami,
David A Frederick,
Toivo Aavik,
Lidia Alcalay,
Jüri Allik,
Donna Anderson,
Sonny Andrianto,
Arvind Arora,
Ake Brännström,
John Cunningham, [......],
Dhachayani Sinniah,
Mira Swami,
Griet Vandermassen,
Marijke van Duynslaeger,
Markku Verkasalo,
Martin Voracek,
Curtis K Yee,
Echo Xian Zhang,
Xiaoying Zhang,
Ivanka Zivcic-Becirevic
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ABSTRACT: This study reports results from the first International Body Project (IBP-I), which surveyed 7,434 individuals in 10 major world regions about body weight ideals and body dissatisfaction. Participants completed the female Contour Drawing Figure Rating Scale (CDFRS) and self-reported their exposure to Western and local media. Results indicated there were significant cross-regional differences in the ideal female figure and body dissatisfaction, but effect sizes were small across high-socioeconomic-status (SES) sites. Within cultures, heavier bodies were preferred in low-SES sites compared to high-SES sites in Malaysia and South Africa (ds = 1.94-2.49) but not in Austria. Participant age, body mass index (BMI), and Western media exposure predicted body weight ideals. BMI and Western media exposure predicted body dissatisfaction among women. Our results show that body dissatisfaction and desire for thinness is commonplace in high-SES settings across world regions, highlighting the need for international attention to this problem.
Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 03/2010; 36(3):309-25. · 2.22 Impact Factor
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ABSTRACT: There is a scarcity of evidence pertaining to the general public's perception of public sector pay. Hence, in the present study, 161 women and 149 men were asked to estimate the wages 35 public sector professions should receive annually in the fictitious nation of Maldoria, based on a comparison value of an annual income of T10,000 for general practitioners. Analysis showed that only pilots were given a higher annual income than general practitioners; miners and local government workers were also provided with relatively high annual incomes. By contrast, newscasters were provided with the lowest annual income. Participants' sex did not affect these evaluations, and other demographic variables and public sector-related information of the participants were poor predictors of their evaluations. The implications of this research on public attitudes toward wage determination are discussed, and avenues for further research highlighted.
Psychological Reports 12/2009; 105(3 Pt 1):957-69. · 0.44 Impact Factor
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ABSTRACT: Previous investigators of extraterrestrial beliefs have relied on single-item scales, which limit the researchers' understanding of such beliefs. The present authors report responses to a 37-item scale about extraterrestrial beliefs from 320 participants in Austria and 257 participants in Britain. A factor analysis revealed 3 primary factors that were stable across sites: (a) belief that extraterrestrial life has visited Earth and that governmental agencies have knowledge of this fact, (b) scientific search for extraterrestrial life, and (c) general beliefs about the existence of extraterrestrial life. Participants rated only Factor 3 positively, suggesting that there is a distinction between paranormal-related beliefs and science-related beliefs. The authors found only political orientation and religiosity to be significantly correlated with factor scores. They discuss their results in relation to previous reports of extraterrestrial beliefs.
The Journal of Social Psychology 03/2009; 149(1):29-43. · 0.64 Impact Factor
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ABSTRACT: The present study sought to extend recent work by examining individual and relationship variables that predict the love-is-blind bias, that is, a tendency to perceive one's romantic partner as more attractive than oneself. A sample of 113 men and 143 women completed a battery of tests that included various demographic, individual difference, and relationship-related measures. Results pro-vided support for a love-is-blind bias, in that both women and men rated their romantic partners as significantly more attractive than themselves on overall attractiveness and the attractiveness of various body components. Results also showed that the Big Five person-ality factor of Extraversion, self-esteem, relationship satisfaction, and romantic love were positively correlated with the love-is-blind bias, whereas relationship length and playful love were negatively correlated with the bias. The results of this study are considered in relation to previous work on positive partner illusions. In the past several decades, psychologists have shown that our everyday experiences of social interactions are based, at least in part, on perceptions and cognitions that deviate from reality (e.g., Alicke, 1985; Lipkus, Martz, Panter, Drigotas, & Feaganes, 1993; Showers, 1992). One such deviation is positive illusions – misconceptions or misunderstandings (rather than "errors" in the strict sense) that are self-enhancing in some way (Taylor & Brown, 1988). Positive illusions may be protective for the individual that possesses them because they act as self-esteem buffers in the face of threats posed by nega-tive information (see Taylor, Lerner, Sherman, Sage, & McDowell, 2003). In the present paper, we examine one specific type of positive illusion, namely the "love-is-blind bias" in perceived physical attractiveness of a ro-mantic partner, which refers to a tendency to view one's romantic partner as being more physically attractive than oneself (Swami, Furnham, Georgiades, & Pang, 2007). More specifically, we investigated whether there are any individual and relationship correlates of the love-is-blind bias.
01/2009; 30:35-43.
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ABSTRACT: Nonpaternity (i.e., discrepant biological versus social fatherhood) affects many issues of interests to psychologists, including familial dynamics, interpersonal relationships, sexuality, and fertility, and therefore represents an important topic for psychological research. The advent of modern contraceptive methods, particularly the market launch of the birth-control pill in the early 1960s and its increased use ever since, should have affected rates of nonpaternity (i.e., discrepant genetic and social fatherhood). This cross-temporal meta-analysis investigated whether there has been a recent decline in nonpaternity rates in the western industrialized nations. The eligible database comprised 32 published samples unbiased towards nonpaternity for which nonoverlapping data from more than 24,000 subjects from nine (mostly Anglo-Saxon heritage) countries with primarily Caucasian populations are reported. Publication years ranged from 1932 to 1999, and estimated years of the reported nonpaternity events (i.e., the temporal occurrence of nonpaternity) ranged from 1895 to 1993. In support of the hypothesis, weighted meta-regression models showed a significant decrease (r = -.41) of log-transformed nonpaternity rates with publication years and also a decrease, albeit not significant (r = -.17), with estimated years of nonpaternity events. These results transform into an estimated absolute decline in untransformed nonpaternity rates of 0.83% and 0.91% per decade, respectively. Across studies, the mean (and median) nonpaternity rate was 3.1% (2.1%). This estimate is consistent with estimates of 2 to 3% from recent reviews on the topic that were based on fewer primary studies. This estimate also rebuts the beliefs and hearsay data widespread among both the public and researchers which contend nonpaternity rates in modern populations might be as high as about 10%.
Psychological Reports 01/2009; 103(3):799-811. · 0.44 Impact Factor
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ABSTRACT: Since the emergence of twin studies in the 1920s, time and again the question of possible twin-singleton differences in intelligence has been posed. This study addressed the issue through a meta-analysis of published studies on this theme. Twins on the average seem to have lower IQs than singletons. The best estimate for this group difference is 4.2 IQ points (less than one-third of a standard deviation), with a great divide between study outcomes of less vs more recent birth cohorts (5.1 vs 0.5 IQ points, respectively). The evidence is based on studies from six countries (including population-based ones of entire birth cohorts), a massive database (comparisons of more than 30,000 twins with nearly 1.6 million singletons), a variety of intelligence tests, and birth cohorts spanning most of the 20th century, but, for the most part, on an age range limited to children and adolescents. The effect shows considerable between-study heterogeneity but appears robust (fail-safe N calculations), not due to influential individual studies (sensitivity analysis) or publication bias, was present since the very first published studies (cumulative meta-analysis), and appears generalizable across sex, zygosity, and other intelligence domains beyond the verbal. There are insufficient data as to whether the effect persists over the lifespan, exists as well within families, or has ceased in recent birth cohorts of highly developed countries (Denmark and The Netherlands). Likely causes of the effect appear to be prenatal and perinatal factors (reduced fetal growth and shorter gestation for twins).
Psychological Reports 07/2008; 102(3):951-62. · 0.44 Impact Factor
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ABSTRACT: This paper examined the psychometric properties of the German version of the Body Appreciation Scale (BAS), a novel scale for the assessment of positive body image. Based on a community sample of 156 women and 144 men in Austria, results showed good internal reliability and construct validity for the BAS scores, as well as a unidimensional factor structure for both women and men. Specifically, Cronbach's alpha was high for both women (alpha=.90) and men (alpha=.85), and the BAS was correlated with the body esteem scale and self-esteem. In addition, women with lower BMIs reported greater body appreciation, but no such association was found for men. Finally, there were small sex differences in BAS scores, with men scoring more positively than women (Cohen's d=0.26). The German BAS, a useful indicator of positive body image among Austrian adults, should prove valuable for the assessment of body image in German-speaking countries.
Body image 04/2008; 5(1):122-7. · 2.19 Impact Factor
