Can people feel worse off as the options they face increase? The present studies suggest that some people-maximizers-can. Study 1 reported a Maximization Scale, which measures individual differences in desire to maximize. Seven samples revealed negative correlations between maximization and happiness, optimism, self-esteem, and life satisfaction, and positive correlations between maximization and depression, perfectionism, and regret. Study 2 found maximizers less satisfied than nonmaximizers (satisficers) with consumer decisions, and more likely to engage in social comparison. Study 3 found maximizers more adversely affected by upward social comparison. Study 4 found maximizers more sensitive to regret and less satisfied in an ultimatum bargaining game. The interaction between maximizing and choice is discussed in terms of regret, adaptation, and self-blame.

Past research has shown that strong emotional or motivational states can cause normally restrained eaters to overeat. In this article it is argued that simple cognitive load can also disinhibit eating by restrained eaters. Two studies examined this disinhibition effect. In Study 1, restrained and unrestrained eaters were given the opportunity to consume high-calorie food while performing either a high cognitive-load or low cognitive-load task. Restrained eaters consumed more food when under high cognitive load than when under low cognitive load; unrestrained eaters showed the opposite pattern. Study 2 replicated the disinhibition effect and ruled out stress, diminished awareness of food consumption, and ironic rebound as probable mediators. Results suggest that cognitive load may disinhibit consumption by preventing restrained eaters from monitoring the dietary consequences of their eating behavior. Implications for theories of self-regulation are discussed.Dieting is like holding your breath.-John Foreyt, quoted in the newsletter Environmental Nutrition

We compared partisan group members' construais and beliefs regarding contentious issues, contrasting actual differences in construal with their assumptions about those differences. Study 1 dealt with the abortion debate and Study 2 with the racially charged Howard Beach incident. Although many significant examples of construal differences were found, ovcrestimation of such differences was far more common than underestimation. Misperception about the extremity and consistency of conservatives was particularly pronounced. Partisans in both studies felt that their own views were less driven by political ideology than those of the other side or their own side. In Study 2, nonpartisans similarly overestimated liberal-conservative differences (again, especially for conservatives). This finding suggests the phenomenon is best characterized as a bias not in partisan perceptions but in the way partisans, and partisanship, are perceived. We tend to resolve our perplexity arising out of the experience that other people see the world differently than we see it ourselves by declaring that these others, in consequence of some basic intellectual and moral defect, are unable to see things "as they really are" and to react to them "in a normal way." We thus imply, of course, that things are in fact as we see them, and that our ways are the normal ways. (Ichheiser, 1949, p. 39

No abstract

Disproportionately higher use of EDs for ACSC care exists for many priority populations and across a broader range of priority populations than previously documented. These differences constitute disparities in potentially avoidable ED visits for ACSC. To avoid exacerbating disparities, health policy efforts to minimize economic inefficiencies in health care delivery by limiting ED visits for ACSC should first address their determinants.