VR experiments manipulate how people feel about coffee
A new study looks at how images of coffee's origins affect the perception of its premiumness and quality.
11 April, 2021
Credit: Escobar / Petit / Velasco, Frontiers in Psychology
- Images can affect how people perceive the quality of a product.
- In a new study, researchers show using virtual reality that images of farms positively influence the subjects' experience of coffee.
- The results provide insights on the psychology and power of marketing.
<p>Are coffee consumers influenced by the imagery and story around the production of the drink? Such was one of the central questions of a new <a href="https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.586983/full" target="_blank">study</a> that explored the power of marketing on how "premium" aficionados consider coffee to be. </p><p>The researchers set out to explore whether the origins of the coffee can affect the perception of its quality in the minds of the drinkers. In particular, they focused on the concept of terroir, the special characteristics conferred upon the coffee by the specific terrain in which it was grown. </p><p>"Terroir is more than a mere geographical link between product and land," write the authors. "It relates to the idea that products are a unique expression of different environmental and sociocultural characteristics of a specific place." Thus, focusing a customer's attention on the environment in which the coffee was grown might make the product seem more authentic and of better quality.</p><p>Therefore, the researchers examined the effect of images on the coffee-drinking experience in three experiments. The study was carried out by the food scientist Francisco Barbosa Escobar from Aarhus University in Denmark and marketing experts Olivia Petit from the Kedge Business School in Marseille, France, and Carlos Velasco from the BI Norwegian Business School in Oslo, Norway. Incidentally, Norwegians are among the world's top coffee consumers, with an average Norwegian adult consuming around 4 cups of coffee a day, reports<a href="https://www.ssb.no/utenriksokonomi/artikler-og-publikasjoner/kaffeavhengige-nordmenn" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"> Statistics Norway</a>.</p><p>The first experiment involved 770 non-expert participants from the UK. They were shown online images and descriptions of four different specialty coffees, traded by a Norwegian coffee company. The researchers found that coffees with pictures of farms were rated higher in premiumness by the subjects than coffees with pictures of cities.</p><p>For the second and third experiments, the study used virtual reality environments of Times Square in New York City and a farm in Kenya as well as a control setting of a white room. The second experiment engaged 143 non-expert participants recruited via a behavioral studies platform at the BI Norwegian Business School in Oslo, Norway. The participants were asked to smell a sample of quality ground coffee from Kenya while at the same time traversing a virtual reality atmosphere. The subjects were then asked to rate the coffee. </p><p><br></p><p class="shortcode-media shortcode-media-rebelmouse-image">
<img class="rm-lazyloadable-image rm-shortcode" type="lazy-image" data-runner-src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yNjAzOTYxMC9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYyMzM1OTM3Mn0.Bo8fM6zWiMO6cz0q8sgWy94OKPq48Q18W3gKnvB3cd0/img.jpg?width=980" id="ef190" width="660" height="1339" data-rm-shortcode-id="0ee1c7ccc92b9b1ec616aebb7fa00ff7" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image">
<small class="image-media media-caption" placeholder="Add Photo Caption..."> Image (A) shows the instruments used in Experiment 2: Oculus GO virtual reality (VR) headset and sample coffee bag. The other panels show the VR environments used in the study - (B) farm, (C) city, and (D) control.</small><small class="image-media media-photo-credit" placeholder="Add Photo Credit...">Credit: Escobar / Petit / Velasco, Frontiers in Psychology</small></p><p><br></p><p>Compared to the control (white room), subjects in the farm VR atmosphere rated the coffee as more acidic. Conversely, subjects rated coffee as sweeter when inside the control VR atmosphere compared to the city VR atmosphere. Furthermore, coffee was considered more premium when subjects were in the farm VR atmosphere compared to the control, but there was no difference in premiumness score between farm and city.</p><p>For the third experiment, the research team involved 34 people who were professionals in the coffee industry. They were asked to taste and score Kenyan coffee while being in the same city and farm VR environments used in the previous experiment. The results revealed a strong effect of atmosphere on how much the experts enjoyed their experience, with a much greater preference for the farm setting versus the control environment of a white room. </p><p>But the different VR atmospheres had little effect on how the experts rated the premiumness of the coffee. The researchers believe that "given their specialized knowledge, coffee professionals examined more objective attributes of the coffee and could discriminate intrinsic factors relevant for the assessment of the coffee from irrelevant extrinsic cues."</p><p>The researchers think their results can lead to developing more immersive marketing experiences in virtual reality, which could be groundbreaking in many industries. A premium experience can lead to customers paying premium prices.</p>
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Despite social pressure, boys and girls still prefer gender-typical toys
Fifty years of research on children's toy preferences shows that kids generally prefer toys oriented toward their own gender.
09 April, 2021
Credit: tan4ikk via Adobe Stock
- A recent meta-analysis overviewed 75 studies on children's gender-related toy preferences.
- The results found that "gender-related toy preferences may be considered a well-established finding."
- It's a controversial topic: Some people argue that these preferences stem from social pressure, while others say they're at least partly rooted in biology.
<p>There's more gender equality in Western societies today than in the past. Inequalities still exist, of course, but <a href="https://www.pnas.org/content/117/13/6990" target="_blank">research</a> shows a general uptrend in women joining and <a href="https://www.catalyst.org/research/women-in-management/#:~:text=Globally%20the%20Share%20of%20Women%20in%20Senior%20Management%20is%20Increasing%20Incrementally&text=In%202019%2C%20the%20proportion%20of,this%20percentage%20remains%20the%20same." target="_blank">rising within the workforce</a>, <a href="https://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d12/tables/dt12_310.asp" target="_blank">obtaining degrees</a>, and earning more money. The social expectations of men and women also seemed to have changed; this is harder to measure empirically, but it seems safe to say that our ideas about gender roles are more fluid today than they were, in say, the 1950s.<br></p><p>So, have these changes affected a crucial part of children's development: play? More specifically, as gender roles have become more fluid, have children's preferences toward gender-typed toys become more fluid, too?</p><p>The short answer seems to be no. For decades, <a href="https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/07/160715114739.htm" target="_blank">studies</a> <a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/homo-consumericus/201212/sex-specific-toy-preferences-learned-or-innate" target="_blank">have shown</a> that boys and girls generally prefer playing with toys typically associated with their biological sex: toy trucks for boys and dolls for girls, to give a rough example.</p><p>These results have remained remarkably stable over the past 50 years, according to a 2020 meta-analysis of research on gender differences in toy preferences. Published in <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10508-021-01989-8" target="_blank"><em>Archives of Sexual Behavior</em></a> and titled "The Magnitude of Children's Gender‐Related Toy Interests Has Remained Stable Over 50 Years of Research," the analysis examined 75 previous studies, 113 effect sizes, and a range of toy preference measurements. </p><blockquote>No matter what society wants, it's worth noting that there seems to be some biological drivers behind children's preferences for gender-typical toys.</blockquote><p>The authors, Jac T. M. Davis and Melissa Hines, found "a broad consistency of results across the large body of research on children's gender-related toy preferences: children showed large and reliable preferences for toys that were related to their own gender. Thus, according to our review, gender-related toy preferences may be considered a well-established finding."</p><p>A letter to the editor in the same journal sought to challenge these findings in a separate <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10508-021-01916-x" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">analysis</a>, which concluded that children actually spend less time playing with gender-typical toys these days. </p><p>The authors of that analysis speculated that the reason for this decline "might reflect social pressures in recent times for children to be less gender-typical in their behavior." In other words, the decline stems from parents wanting to be more in line with progressive ideas about gender fluidity. </p><p>However, Davis and Hines disagreed, proposing that the supposed decline appeared in the analysis only because of the specific methodology employed by the researchers. What's more, they noted that toy advertisers have been using more gender stereotypes to boost sales in recent decades—a finding that potentially complicates the claim that social pressures are causing kids to spend less time playing with gender-typical toys.</p><p>Davis and Hines concluded:</p><p style="margin-left: 20px;">"It may be tempting to think that social changes over time might be reducing children's play with gender-related toys, given arguments that play with a broader set of toys would be beneficial for both boys and girls. Unfortunately, however, broad change in the social roles of men and women do not seem to have influenced children's toy choices, perhaps because they have been counteracted by stronger marketing of different toys to girls and boys over recent time. If society wants girls and boys to play with the full range of toys, more targeted action is probably required."<span></span></p><p class="shortcode-media shortcode-media-rebelmouse-image">
<img class="rm-lazyloadable-image rm-shortcode" type="lazy-image" data-runner-src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yNjAzNTA4My9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTY2ODk4MDkzNH0.ZJC_sylmbACQiQu1zssRSPUnHdPU3qUmeNfKDWDnYf0/img.jpg?width=980" id="97213" width="6658" height="4444" data-rm-shortcode-id="fb367869686ad03cbd1dd84aada1224a" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" alt="Little boy playing mathematics wooden toy at nursery">
<small class="image-media media-caption" placeholder="Add Photo Caption...">Little boy playing mathematics wooden toy at nursery</small><small class="image-media media-photo-credit" placeholder="Add Photo Credit...">Credit: <a href="https://stock.adobe.com/contributor/204567087/rawpixel-com?load_type=author&prev_url=detail" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Rawpixel.com</a> via Adobe Stock</small></p><p><br></p><h2>Why are we so concerned about which toys kids play with? </h2><p>But does society really want kids to play with less gender-typical toys? Some research suggests the answer is yes. A <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/12/19/most-americans-see-value-in-steering-children-toward-toys-activities-associated-with-opposite-gender/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">2017 survey from Pew Research Center</a> found that a majority of Americans considered it a "somewhat or very good thing" to steer kids toward toys and activities traditionally associated with the opposite gender (though respondents were less enthusiastic about doing so for boys than girls). </p><p>Encouraging kids to play with a wider range of toys could yield benefits. For example, a 2020 study published in <a href="https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fnhum.2020.560176/full" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"><em>Frontiers in Human Neuroscience</em></a> found that when both boys and girls play with dolls, they experience heightened activation within brain regions associated with empathy and perspective-taking. </p><p>But no matter what society wants, it's worth noting that there seems to be some biological drivers behind children's preferences for gender-typical toys. </p><p>For example, <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/19016318/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">studies</a> have shown that babies tend to prefer toys oriented to their own gender, a finding that suggests their preference is innate because they're in the pre-socialization stage of development. Supporting that argument are <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2583786/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">studies showing</a> that baby monkeys also display gender-typical toy preferences. </p><p>Still, it's easy to see how social pressures might affect kids' toy preferences as they grow up. So, the question of why kids prefer the toys that they do likely boils down to a familiar answer: a tangled mix of environmental and biological factors.</p><div></div><ul class="ee-ul"></ul><div></div>
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The four moral judgments you make every day
Our brains make snap moral decisions in mere seconds.
05 April, 2021
Photo by Brett Sayles from Pixabay
- Moral psychology studies how we process moral questions and come to be moral beings.
- A new framework says there are four kinds of moral judgment we all make.
- Understanding how we evaluate moral or immoral actions can help us make better choices.
<p>Moral psychology is the study of how we process moral ideas in our minds, how we become moral creatures, and how our brains handle moral issues. Variations of it date back to Plato and Confucius, and the area is currently enjoying a tremendous amount of attention as thinkers from a variety of fields, including philosophy, psychology, and neuroscience, consider the different aspects that go into making moral judgments.</p><p>But what is a moral judgment? Is there only one kind of judgment, or do we use different kinds in different situations? Are they all the same at the cognitive level?</p><p>A new <a href="https://www.annualreviews.org/doi/10.1146/annurev-psych-072220-104358" target="_blank">article</a> by <a href="https://www.brown.edu/academics/cognitive-linguistic-psychological-sciences/people/faculty/bertram-f-malle" target="_blank"><u>Dr. Bertram F. Malle</u></a> of Brown University offers a framework for understanding how people make moral judgments and what factors go into those judgments.</p><h2>You are judgmental</h2><p>The first type of judgment is dubbed "<strong>evaluations</strong>." These are the simple evaluations we make of things being good, bad, positive, or negative. We do this for just about everything, including in non-moral situations like when evaluating writing, and our brains are very good at doing it quickly. Some studies suggest that our brains begin to evaluate for goodness or badness within half a second of getting the information. This first pass doesn't have all the data the other kinds of judgments do, but it helps set the stage for more complicated moral judgments.</p><p>The second type is "<strong>norm judgments</strong>." This expansive category involves deciding if some action or thing is allowed, permissible, taboo, or otherwise acceptable. This determination is related to, but not dependent on, how we evaluate something. While evaluations can be done on any thing or action, norm judgments are limited to actions and often to future ones. Less reactive than the other judgments, this one can be applied before any action is taken and is often used to help determine what should be done before anything happens. Often invoking abstract notions of virtue and value, this category can be a bit more deliberative than the others. </p><p>The third kind is "<strong>wrongness judgments</strong>." These combine elements of the previous two to identify intentional violations of norms that are considered egregious. Our brains can do this fairly accurately in less than half a second. In experiments asking test subjects to identify actions as morally wrong or neutral, the accuracy rate neared 90% when given a little more time to do it. </p><p>While they are similar, a wrongness judgment is not the same as a norm judgment. Studies asking people to rank actions in terms of permissibility and wrongness find that people will often consider an action to be both wrong and permissible, such as pulling a lever to save five people at the cost of another person's life in the classic trolley problem. </p><p>Likewise, these judgments differ from evaluations in that wrongness is an entirely moral trait. While we might evaluate a "dad joke" as "bad," we likely won't consider it "wrong" unless it's sexist, racist, or otherwise egregious.</p><p>Last is "<strong>blame judgment</strong>." If wrongness judgments combine evaluations and norm judgments in a new way, then blame judgments combine all three. This is the most complex of the judgment categories. It includes factors of intentionality and justification -- most people blame somebody for accidentally spilling milk less than they'd blame them for intentionally pouring a gallon on the floor.</p><p>Like the other reactive judgments, this one is carried out quickly. Our brains start to place blame in less than two seconds. Blame is not only a social tool; it can help us understand who did what but can also help us regulate our moral behavior in the future.</p><h2>What use does this have? Can I use this to understand my behavior?</h2><p>Perhaps most striking is how quickly our brains process moral information. Within less than two seconds of seeing an action with a moral dimension to it, your brain has already made a basic judgment on if it was good or bad, morally wrong or not, and who to blame for it. Importantly, some of these quick decisions will be erroneous because they rely on preexisting biases and limited information.</p><p>The four-category framework can also help us understand that every moral situation can be considered from various angles and that holding beliefs on a single issue that are contradictory is entirely natural.</p><p>Something can be "bad" and "wrong," like letting a person die by being hit by a trolley car, and also "permissible," since the alternative in most trolley considerations is to let five other people get hit. The person who pulls the lever in the trolley problem might be "blameworthy" in this case, but not in the same way as a person who pushes a man on the tracks to stop the trolley.</p>
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Cannibalistic pantry moths prove a key principle of evolution
Biologists use commonly-found insects that engage in cannibalism to prove a key evolutionary concept.
28 March, 2021
Credit: Wikimedia
- Researchers studied cannibalism among commonly-found moths to test an evolutionary principle.
- The scientists concluded that moths with more sibling interaction were less selfish.
- The principle applies to humans and other animals.
<p>A common moth, found in pantries, could explain a crucial link between society and selfishness, according to a new study. Researchers showed that an increase in sibling interaction resulted in less selfish behavior in Indian meal moth caterpillars. In particular, the scientists observed an effect on cannibalism, a behavior some times observed in the moths.</p><p>While the experiments dealt with insects, the researchers claim its evolutionary principle conclusions can be extrapolated to humans.</p>
<p>Known also as pantry or weevil moths, the Indian meal moths tend to be a nuisance, laying eggs in cereals, flour, and other foods. What's noteworthy is that they sometimes eat each other, including members of their own brood.</p><p>The researchers were able to effect the rates of cannibalism in these moths by controlling how much individual insects could travel from each other. This had an impact on whether sibling moth larvae interacted with each other. The more interaction, the less selfish behavior like cannibalism was observed within 10 moth generations.</p><p><a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/ele.13734" target="_blank">The study </a>was carried out by the Rice University Biologist Volker Rudolf, Mike Boots of the University of California, as well as Dylan Childs, Hannah Tidbury, and Jessica Crossmore from U.K.'s University of Sheffield. </p>
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In enclosures (top) where food was stickier, caterpillars were more likely to interact with their siblings.
Credit: Volker Rudolf/Rice University
<p>Volker explained why cannibalism, which has been found in over 1,000 species, was worth studying:</p><p>"At one end of the continuum are altruistic behaviors, where an individual may be giving up its chance to survive or reproduce to increase reproduction of others," <a href="https://phys.org/news/2021-03-evolutionary-link-social-selfishness.html" target="_blank">said Rudolf</a>. "Cannibalism is at the other extreme. An individual increases its own survival and reproduction by literally consuming its own kind."</p><p>The study supported a 2010 theoretical prediction by Rudolf and Boots, providing experimental proof of a key idea from evolutionary theory. The scientists proposed that as local interactions would increase, the pressure to avoid selfish behaviors would also increase.</p>
<p>"Families that were highly cannibalistic just didn't do as well in that system," shared Rudolf. "Families that were less cannibalistic had much less mortality and produced more offspring."</p><p>Applying their conclusions to humans, Rudolf claims that in societies where people live in large family units, there'd be less selfish behavior to find. In more isolated groups, however, where people are separated from their families and live among strangers (because of moving, for example), the reverse would be true.</p>
<p>Eating your own kind can also be influenced by food options, with Rudolf suggesting that "If food conditions are poor, cannibalism provides additional benefits, which could push for more selfish behavior."</p><p>Another factor effecting this type of phenomena – spotting your relatives. If an animal recognizes kin, "that limits the cost of cannibalism" but also means "you can afford to be a lot more cannibalistic in a mixed population, which can have evolutionary benefits," proposed Rudolf.</p><p>The scientists plan to study further how cannibalism functions in animal groups.</p><p>Check out their paper published in <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/ele.13734" target="_blank">Ecology Letters. </a></p>
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Study: Does the label "straight" worsen perceptions of gay people?
A new study explores how using positive labels to describe a majority group may negative impact perceptions of minority groups.
24 March, 2021
Credit: Pixabay
- In a recent study published in The Journal of Sex Research, heterosexual people were asked to rate their impressions of fictitious men.
- Some of the fictitious men were described as "heterosexual," the others as "straight."
- Across multiple studies, participants reported worse impressions of gay men after being exposed to the word "straight," but only if the participants were highly religious.
<p>It's no surprise that using negative language to refer to a minority group can produce negative effects among those being targeted. But what about using positive language to refer to a majority group? Could doing so suggest negative ideas about the minority group?</p><p>Noting a "surprising" lack of research on this question, a new study titled "If I Am Straight You Are Askew": Labelling Heterosexuals as Straight Worsen Gay Men's Perception" (published in <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00224499.2020.1825605" target="_blank">The Journal of Sex Research</a>) aimed to fill the gap by exploring whether referring to heterosexual people as "straight" produces negative perceptions of gay men.</p><p>Previous research suggests people associate moral perceptions with certain spatial concepts. For example, one <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/ejsp.2358" target="_blank">study</a> found that people are more likely to prefer straight figures after recalling moral deeds. </p><p>The researchers behind the recent study noted that those prior findings proved "true not only in the European language but also in Chinese, Arabic, and Russian, thus suggesting this relation to be spread in different cultural contexts."</p><p style="margin-left: 20px;">"Giving a look at the dictionary, <em>straight</em> is defined as continuing in one direction without curving (adv.), being without bend (adj.), being honest and respectable (adj.) and being heterosexual (adj.)," study author Simona Sacchi , a professor at the University of Milano-Bicocca, told <a href="https://www.psypost.org/2021/03/the-label-straight-negatively-impacts-judgments-of-gay-men-among-highly-religious-people-60085" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">PsyPost</a>. </p><p style="margin-left: 20px;">"For this reason we decided to investigate the possible impact of this association between straightness (related to morality) and heterosexuality on social perception and prejudice towards sexual minorities."</p><p>To examine how the word "straight" might affect heterosexual participants' perceptions of gay men, Sacchi and her colleagues conducted three studies involving 275 English-speaking and 131 Italian-speaking participants. The researchers collected data on participants' levels of religiosity and prejudice against gay men, as measured by the <a href="https://www.midss.org/content/modern-homonegativity-scale-mhs" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Modern Homonegativty Scale</a>.</p>
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Pixabay
<p>In the first study, participants were shown a fictitious Facebook profile belonging to a man named James. All participants read the same profile describing James, except for one difference: Half of the participants read that he was "heterosexual," while the other half read that he was "straight."</p><p>Then, both groups were shown a fictitious Facebook profile of a man named Chris, who was described as gay. The researchers asked participants to rate their impressions of Chris. The results showed that participants who had been recently exposed to the word "straight" tended to report worse perceptions of Chris, however this was true only among participants with higher levels of religiosity and prejudice.</p><p>The researchers conducted the same study again, but this time they included a third group of participants who read a profile of James that didn't describe him as "straight" or "heterosexual."</p><p>The second study produced similar results: Highly religious participants reported worse impressions of Chris after being exposed to the label "straight," although in general there wasn't a significant difference between the three groups ("heterosexual," "straight" and control).</p><p>The first two studies involved participants who commonly used the word "straight" to refer to heterosexual people. But what about cultures that don't use such language?</p><img
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Credit: Sacchi et al.
<p>The researchers decided to conduct a third study in Italy, where people don't use the word "straight" to refer to heterosexual people. In the study, all participants were asked to classify 20 pictures. Ten pictures showed heterosexual couples, while the other ten showed non-romantic partners, such as a pair of police officers.</p><p>The first group of participants was asked to apply the Italian word for "straight" ("retti") to pictures of people in romantic relationships, and to label those who weren't as "other" ("altro"). Meanwhile, the second group was asked to perform the same task, but to label the romantic couples with the Italian word for yellow ("gialli").</p><p style="margin-left: 20px;">"The word "gialli" was selected because this is a common, neutral adjective, related to a visual feature (in this case, color instead of shape) and unrelated to sexual orientation," the researchers wrote.</p><p>Again, the results showed that being exposed to the word "straight" tended to worsen participants' perceptions of gay men — but only for highly religious participants. Interestingly, all three studies showed that participants low in religiosity actually reported better impressions of gay men after reading the word "straight."</p><img
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<p class=""><br></p>Hering illusion
Credit: Gwestheimer via Wikipedia
<p>The researchers said their study is the first to examine the consequences of using positive language to describe majority groups, and that they hope the results will lead to "fruitful" future research to better understand the effects of positive labeling.</p><p style="margin-left: 20px;">"We should remember that modern prejudice is often subtle, indirect, invisible to the perpetrator, and revealed more by ingroup favoritism than explicit outgroup derogation," Sacchi told PsyPost. "In contemporary society, ingroup-directed favoritism and accentuated positive feelings, as sympathy and admiration, toward ingroup members could be the 'modern' basis for discrimination."</p>
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