28th International Congress of Psychology August 8 ... - U-netSURF

This paper examines beliefs about the causes of Bulimia Nervosa held by the general public,
university students and professional groups involved in the diagnosis and management of this
condition. Professional groups included psychiatrists, general practitioners, psychologists, social
workers, mental health nurses and dieticians. Participants rated 44 potential causal explanations of
Bulimia. Principal components analysis was used to reduce the causal explanations to a smaller set
of underlying dimensions. The professional and non-professional groups were compared on their
mean endorsement of these dimensions. Implications of differences in causal beliefs between
professional and non-professional groups for treatment acceptance and compliance are discussed.
3118.71 Effects of affective states on verbal communication, Ai Kato, Minoru Karasawa,
Junko Ohshita, Kobe University, Japan
The present study examined how affect influences the use of language. On the basis of the Affect
Infusion Model (Forgas, 1995), we predicted that negative affect, as compared to positive affect,
would increase politeness when the speaker makes a request. Japanese undergraduates received an
affect manipulation by means of success/failure feedback on an achievement task and by a
background visual stimulus. They then responded verbally to a scenario of request making. The
results partly supported the hypothesis and revealed a gender difference. The influence of the
seniority norm in Japanese culture is also discussed.
3118.72 Young children’s beliefs about the stability of traits, Wen Gao, Li-zhu Yang, liaoning
Normal University, China
Prior research has demonstrated individual differences in children's beliefs about the stability of
traits, but this focus on developmental differences about it. In a series of experiments, we
individually investigated 280 Chinese young children, found the youngest children (3-4 years old)
could not understand traits, the younger children (5-6 years old)were optimistic in their beliefs
about traits and the oldest children (7-9 years old) began to learn some traits were malleable. The
sources of young children's optimism and implications of this optimism for age differences are
discussed.
3118.73 The interpretive theory of mind and peer rejection in adolescence, Hongmei Zhao,
Yanjie Su, Peking University, Beijing, China
This study amied to investigate whether and how the ways that adolescents used the "interpretive
theory of mind" were linked to their sociometric status. 376 adolescents aged 12 to 15 performed
four tasks about interpretation of peer rejection event. Results showed that peer rejected
adolescents presented a similar way of interpretation to other peers' rejected events, however they
interprete their own rejected events in a completely different way compared with popular,
negelected and average adolescents. It was suggested that the ways the rejected adolescents used
to interpret other people's behaviors may related to their levels of peer acceptance.
3118.74 How do people make social judgements based on summarized information? Bert
Timmermans, Frank Van Overwalle, Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Belgium
How do people process summarized social information as opposed to on-line information of
separate exemplars or instances? We suggest that, at least under some conditions, when making
trait- or category judgments based on summary information, people first "transform" this
767