John L. Christensen

Reducing shame in a game that predicts HIV risk reduction for young adult MSM: a randomized trial delivered nationally over the Web.

Men who have sex with men (MSM) often face socially sanctioned disapproval of sexual deviance from the heterosexual “normal.” Such sexual stigma can be internalized producing a painful affective state (i.e., shame). Although shame (e.g., addiction) can predict risk‐taking (e.g., alcohol abuse), sexual shames link to sexual risk‐taking is unclear. Socially Optimized Learning in Virtual Environments (SOLVE) was designed to reduce MSMs sexual shame, but whether it does so, and if that reduction predicts HIV risk reduction, is unclear. To test if at baseline, MSMs reported past unprotected anal intercourse (UAI) is related to shame; MSMs exposure to SOLVE compared to a wait‐list control (WLC) condition reduces MSMs shame; and shame‐reduction mediates the link between WLC condition and UAI risk reduction.

The Personality-Enabled Architecture for Cognition (PAC)

The Personality-enabled Architecture for Cognition (PAC) is a new modeling architecture designed to create Intelligent Virtual Agents (IVAs) with specific personality traits. PAC integrates theory and empirical data from personality psychology, social psychology, cognitive science, and neuroscience to build a model of personality that is based on fundamental underlying human motivational systems.

Serious Games for Sexual Health

Program developers and researchers in the sexual health domain have increasingly embraced technological trends as they emerge. With the emergence of serious game applications to impact health behaviors, a natural step for research enquiry will be the investigation of serious games for sexual health education. We invited a panel of sexual health researchers who are working at the intersection of sexual health behavior change and technology applications to comment on the place of serious games in furthering the field of sexual health. The panel grappled with six questions.

The social implications of casual online gaming

The theory of bounded generalized reciprocity has recently been applied to the study of video games, particularly those that offer cooperative and competitive settings. Emphasizing casual online gameplay, this study investigates how individuals respond to manipulated performance feedback in either a competitive or cooperative game play setting. An interaction between competitive setting and performance feedback was detected on measures of interpersonal liking and perceived competence. Specifically, perceptions of partners and competitors were relatively favorable in the cooperation/success and competition/failure conditions, respectively. On the other hand, participants rated their partners and competitors less favorably during cooperative failure and competitive success, possibly reflecting a unique self-serving bias. The results also suggest that individuals in a cooperative setting experience greater enjoyment than those in a competitive setting. The effectiveness of the two manipulations in this study may also have important implications for the design of serious or educational games, which often have the goal of strategically motivating players in an attempt to promote desired outcomes. Online casual games are ubiquitous and influence socially comparative perceptions.Game performance and social setting are common and valuable gaming elements.Manipulated performance and setting interacted on other competence and liking.Users favored others during team-win/personal-loss versus team-loss/personal-win.Implications for gaming person-perception, enjoyment, and design are discussed.

Predicting Continuance—Findings From a Longitudinal Study of Older Adults Using an eHealth Newsletter

While eHealth technologies are promisingly efficient and widespread, theoretical frameworks capable of predicting long-term use, termed continuance, are lacking. Attempts to extend prominent information technology (IT) theories to the area of eHealth have been limited by small sample sizes, cross-sectional designs, self-reported as opposed to actual use measures, and a focus on technology adoption rather than continuance. To address these gaps in the literature, this analysis includes empirical evidence of actual use of an eHealth technology over the course of one year. This large (n = 4,570) longitudinal study focuses on older adults, a population with many health needs and among whom eHealth use may be particularly important. With three measurement points over the course of a year, this study examined the effects of utilitarian and hedonic beliefs on the continued use of an eHealth newsletter using constructs from IT adoption and continuance theories. Additional analyses compared the relative strength of intentions compared to earlier use in predicting later use. Usage intention was strongly predicted by both hedonic beliefs and utilitarian beliefs. In addition, utilitarian beliefs had both direct effects on intention and indirect effects, mediated by hedonic beliefs. While intention predicted subsequent use, earlier use was a significantly stronger predictor of use than intention. These findings make a theoretical contribution to an emerging literature by shedding light on the complex interplay of reasoned action and automaticity in the context of eHealth continuance.

Young Men’s Shame about Their Desire for other Men Predicts Risky Sex and Moderates the Knowledge – Self-Efficacy Link

Background: Nationally, HIV incidence is rising rapidly among young (18–24 years old) men who have sex with men (YMSM). Knowledge of safer sex generally enhances self-efficacy for safer sex, an important predictor of safer-sex behaviors. Recent findings suggest that a strong negative social emotion (i.e., shame) increases YMSM’s sexual risk-taking. Unchangeable shame (e.g., desire for other men) might undermine (moderate) the link between knowledge and self-efficacy or between self-efficacy and unprotected anal intercourse (UAI): this may be less likely for changeable shame (e.g., shame about risky sexual behavior). Aim: To test the hypotheses that shame (i.e., sexual desire shame), but not shame about behavior (i.e., sexual behavior shame), will be positively related to UAI and will moderate the relationship between knowledge and self-efficacy and/or self-efficacy and UAI among YMSM. Method: In an online national study, 1177 young adult (18–24 years old) MSM reported one or more acts of UAI in the past 90 days with a casual partner. Eligible MSM filled out a survey in which they provided information about their knowledge of safer sex, self-efficacy for safer sex, reported levels of shame, and reported past 90-day UAI. Results: Sexual desire shame was negatively correlated with knowledge and self-efficacy and positively correlated with UAI, the pattern reversed for sexual behavior shame. Sexual desire shame significantly lowered the knowledge to self-efficacy and the self-efficacy to UAI links. Sexual behavior shame also reduced the link from knowledge to self-efficacy, but not the self-efficacy to UAI link. Conclusion: The present study shows that there are different types of shame that may produce different effects with different implications for health behavior. Sexual desire shame may better reflect an emotion that is activated prior to risky behavior (e.g., when men reflect upon or feel desire for another man). Sexual behavior shame, on the other hand, better reflects what has already happened, thus, those higher in knowledge, efficacy, and therefore, safer sex are least likely to experience shame behavior.

Attachment Fertility Theory: Complex Systems of Mechanisms Simplify Sex, Mating, and Sexual Risks

Sex and mating are central to evolutionary processes. Understanding the factors, including the evolved mechanisms, affecting men’s and women’s sexual decision-making, is of interest to scientists, and the public at-large. But, “getting it right” is critical to researchers trying to develop more effective interventions to address today’s important health issues (e.g., preventing HIV, the sexually transmitted virus that causes AIDS, in high-risk populations). In the current work, we briefly describe Attachment Fertility Theory (AFT) (Miller & Fishkin, 1997; Miller, Putcha-Bhagavatua, & Pedersen, 2002; Miller, Pedersen, & Putcha-Bhagavatula, 2005; Pedersen, Miller, Putcha, & Yang, 2002; Pedersen, Putcha-Bhagavatula, & Miller, 2011), and Stewart-Williams and Thomas approach (this issue), then we discuss the communalities and differences between these approaches. AFT’s ability to provide a unified, universal (sex-similar) framework for understanding intra-individual and inter-individual sexual diversity (e.g., from short-term relationships to pair-bonds) has guided unique research questions, including in HIV prevention research. It has done so with high-risk populations (e.g, men who have sex with men) who engage in high levels of sex (and unprotected anal intercourse [UAI)]) with numerous sexual partners. One might think that high-risk MSM might be an unlikely population for testing AFT’s predictions. Nevertheless, we briefly present a new set of findings that demonstrates how generalizable and useful AFT can be in developing testable hypotheses regarding sexual behaviors and sexual risk-taking. Finally, along with our conclusions, we discuss what tools are needed to better understand systems of evolved mechanisms and advance future work in this field.

The Impact of Goal Achievement Orientation on Student Technology Usage in the Classroom.

The aim of this study was to investigate whether students with differing goal achievement orientations were more likely to engage in on-task or off-task mobile device usage, as well as whether particular devices (specifically, laptops and smartphones) have a positive or negative relationship with specific task usage. The results of this study found the mastery approach goal achievement orientation to be negatively associated with off-task device usage, and the mastery avoidance goal achievement orientation to be positively associated with on-task usage behaviors. In addition, it was found that on-task behaviors were positively associated with laptop usage, while off-task behaviors were positively associated with smartphone usage. This study focused on student behavior in a higher education classroom, although the results may be applicable in any context in which users of personal electronic and internet-enabled devices are focused on specific learning objectives.

Protection Motivation Theory as an Explanatory Framework for Proenvironmental Behavioral Intentions

Environmental issues have become important topics in the 21st century. Communication practitioners and scholars struggle with effectively communicating the threat of climate change and other changes to the natural world, partially due to the lack of concern by the general public. We present Protection Motivation Theory as a framework for explaining proenvironmental behavioral intentions among a college sample. Participants (N = 607) responded to an online survey, and the results indicate support for the proposed model, with severity (H1), vulnerability (H2), response efficacy (H3), and self-efficacy (H4) positively predicting proenvironmental behavioral intentions and response costs (H5) negatively predicting intentions. Implications for practitioners and scholars are discussed, and areas of future exploration in this domain are identified.

Identity Conflict and Sexual Risk for Black and Latino YMSM

Young (aged 18–30) Black and Latino men who have sex with men are at a higher risk of contracting HIV than their White counterparts. In order to better understand the unique nature of sexual risk-taking, we examined the extent to which ethnic group, ethnic identity, and sexual pride predicted condomless anal sex with casual partners among 161 young men who have sex with men (YMSM) who identify as Black or Latino. Negative binomial regressions were conducted using a cross-sectional design. Sexual pride was a negative predictor of condomless anal sex across all participants, but this effect was moderated by ethnic exploration and ethnic group; the relationship between sexual pride and condomless anal sex was strengthened by greater ethnic exploration among Latino YMSM, and weakened by greater ethnic exploration among Black YMSM. Implications for intersectional identity, identity conflict, and HIV prevention among young gay men of color are discussed.ResumenLos hombres jóvenes (en edades de 18 a 30 años) negros y latinos que tienen sexo con hombres tienen mayor riesgo de contraer VIH que sus homólogos blancos. Con el fin de comprender mejor la naturaleza única de los comportamientos sexuales de riesgo, examinamos hasta qué punto el grupo étnico, la identidad étnica y el orgullo sexual predijeron quiénes de los que tuvieron sexo anal sin condón con parejas ocasionales, entre 161 hombres jóvenes que tienen sexo con hombres (HSHJ), se identifican como negros o latinos. Se realizaron regresiones binomiales negativas utilizando un diseño transversal. El orgullo sexual fue un predictor negativo de que el sexo anal sin condón se realiza a través de todos los participantes, pero este efecto fue moderado por la exploración y grupo étnico; la relación entre el orgullo sexual y el sexo anal sin condón fue reforzada por una mayor exploración étnica entre los HSHJ latinos, y debilitada por una mayor exploración étnica entre HSHJ negros. Las implicaciones para la múltiple identidad, los conflictos de identidad y la prevención del VIH entre los jóvenes homosexuales de color son discutidos.