Practical marketing for dentistry. 3. Relationship marketing and patient/customer satisfaction

In this article, we look at the philosophy of customer focus and value, and how dental practices can produce and deliver high customer value and satisfaction, to retain as well as attract their customers-the patients. Total quality concepts will also be discussed in the context of their relationship with marketing activities. In all cases, where 'customer' is referenced, this means 'patient' in the context of a dentistry, since patients are the customers, their requirements must be considered in targeting the marketing of a dental practice.     

Repression and self-presentation: When audiences interfere with self-deceptive strategies.

To defend against threatening feedback, one may avoid and ignore it, or one may dwell on it and think of refutations. Repressors who received threatening feedback privately spent the least amount ot time reading it, whereas repressors who received the same feedback publicly spent a long time reading it. Thus, the audience prevented repressors from ignoring threatening feedback; instead, they thought and worried about the partner's (bad) impression of them. Nonrepressors were unaffected by the favorability of the evaluation or the public nature of the situation. Repressors showed superior recall for the few bits of threatening information embedded in a generally favorable evaluation, suggesting that they are especially sensitive when their defenses are down. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Shifting strategies for behavioral thermoregulation in developing golden hamsters.

Studied developmental changes in the golden hamster pup's capacity for behavioral temperature regulation. Groups of 3 pups aged 4-24 days were tested at room temperature (22°C), on a strong gradient (34-22°C), and on a mild gradient (30-22°C). The proportion of time engaged in the following behaviors was recorded: contact with the warm edge (thermotaxis), active huddling, and quiet huddling. Results show that Ss tested at 22° engaged in active huddling, and their temperature dropped rapidly. Only on Day 14 were they able to maintain their temperature constant with a combination of vigorous exploration and quiet huddling. On the strong gradient, Ss were able to regulate their temperature at all ages. Young Ss (4-5 days) depended on thermotaxis rather than huddling, separating when their temperature started to rise. With age, quiet huddling replaced thermotaxis as a dominant behavior. On the mild gradient, Ss combined active and quiet huddling with thermotaxis, so that their temperature dropped at a slow steady rate. It is concluded that hamster pups have a well-developed capacity for behavioral temperature regulation. Whether they attempt to keep their temperature constant or tolerate a slow rate of drop depends on the amount of exogenous heat available, which under natural conditions would be supplied predominantly by the mother. (30 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Decoding emotional messages: Influence of ethnicity, sex, message type, and channel.

Studied whether sex of sender and receiver, ethnic group of sender, positivity of affect, and communication channel would influence decoding of emotional messages. 34 male and 47 female Anglo-Australian Ss viewed videotapes of male or female Australian, British, or Italian speakers, who each presented 18 content-ambiguous messages with positive, negative, or neutral affect. Ss guessed the intended affect in each message. Analyses revealed that female encoders were better decoded than male encoders for positive and negative messages on all channels, but female decoders were more accurate than males only in the audiovisual (picture and sound) condition. Positive messages were decoded least accurately, especially when the speakers were Australian men. Although Italian men in the audiovisual condition were decoded worse than other men on neutral and negative messages, in the visual (picture only) condition, Italian men were decoded as well as other men. Italian women were decoded as accurately as other women for positive and neutral messages in both the audiovisual and visual conditions. In the audio (sound only) condition, Italian speakers of both sexes were decoded less accurately than other speakers of their sex. It is suggested that Italian accents were a distractor of decoding and that Anglo-Australian Ss paid less attention because of more negative attitudes toward male Southern European immigrants. (31 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Communication mode, affect and recall.

Investigated whether there is an interaction effect of communication mode on the joint recall of affect-laden vs affect-free prose. It was expected that joint recall of a passage of affect-laden prose would be less when the interaction was in an audio-only mode than in a face-to-face condition and that joint recall of affect-free prose would be higher in an audio-only medium than in a face-to-face condition. 64 female undergraduates were randomly assigned to pairs. Each member of the pair individually memorized a vivid, affect-laden narration or a more factual, logical popular science article, and then, together with the partner, jointly recalled the passage. A 2nd passage of the opposite type was then memorized and recalled. The joint memorization sessions took place over face-to-face and audio-only communication modes. Findings indicate that the face-to-face mode showed significantly greater recall than the audio-only mode and that the narrative was recalled better than the popular science passage. The overall effect of mode, whereby face-to-face recall gave better results over both passages, suggests that, contrary to expectations, the face-to-face mode generally supports enhanced recall in a joint-recall task. (French abstract) (22 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Psychological interventions for terroristic trauma: Symptoms, syndromes, and treatment strategies.

Terrorist attacks combine features of criminal assaults, disasters, and acts of war. Accordingly, much of the clinical knowledge in treating this relatively new kind of traumatic event is adapted from experiences in treating victims of criminal assault, homicidal bereavement, natural and manmade disasters, war and political violence, workplace homicide, and school shootings. This article reviews the pertinent literature on these types of trauma and combines this information with the author's own experience in treating direct and indirect victims and survivors of recent terrorist attacks. The article describes the psychological syndromes resulting from terrorism and discusses crisis intervention, individual therapy, and family therapy modalities for treating victims of terror. Last, the role of mental health clinicians in the larger national and international response to terroristic trauma is highlighted. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Science, technology and health literacy for the 21st century. A future for dentistry. Percy T. Phillips Memorial Lecture

Group II phospholipase A2 has been proposed to play an important role in the pathophysiology of inflammatory bowel diseases. This enzyme has also been linked to host defence mechanisms against bacteria. The current study aimed at measuring the mass concentrations of group II phospholipase A2 in serum and colonic mucosa of patients with Crohn's disease of different severity and of appropriate control patients without any inflammatory disease. The activity of the disease was determined by clinical factors (the simple index score) and endoscopic and histological scoring. The mass concentration of group II phospholipase A2 was measured by a time-resolved fluoroimmunoassay. The mass concentrations of group II phospholipase A2 in serum and colonic mucosa were significantly higher both in patients with active and inactive Crohn's disease when compared with controls. There was statistically significant difference in the mass concentration of group II phospholipase A2 in colonic mucosa but not in serum between inactive and active Crohn's disease. The current results indicate that the mass concentration of group II phospholipase A2 is increased in serum and colonic mucosa of patients with Crohn's disease and that the latter is associated with the degree of the inflammatory activity in the intestinal wall. These results support the idea that group II phospholipase A2 is involved in the local and generalised pathological processes of Crohn's disease.     

Validity of MMPI codetypes in identifying DSM-III schizophrenics, unipolars, and bipolars.

Evaluated the validity of MMPI codetypes for schizophrenia and depression according to the DSM-II and DSM-III. Mini-Mults, codetyped according to the rules of P. A. Marks et al (1974), were obtained from schizophrenic and affectively ill inpatients (N?=?115) who were diagnosed according to the DSM-II and then the DSM-III. The MMPI codetypes were valid indicators of DSM-II diagnosis of schizophrenia and depression but were not successful in identifying DSM-III schizophrenics. (8 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Observational validation of a peer nomination technique for identifying aggressive, withdrawn, and aggressive/withdrawn children.

Membership in peer-identified aggressive, withdrawn, or aggressive and withdrawn groups and in a nondeviant contrast group was predicted based on quantitative observations of playground behavior. Subjects were selected from a pool of 174 fifth and sixth graders who had completed the Pupil Evaluation Inventory. Of 43 selected aggressive, withdrawn, aggressive and withdrawn, and contrast subjects, 65% were correctly classified, based on their behavior on the playground. These results confirm the ability of peers to identify children who show specific patterns of atypical social interaction. (6 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Social and cognitive strategies for coping with accountability: Conformity, complexity, and bolstering.

This experiment tested predictions derived from a social contingency model of judgment and choice that identifies 3 distinctive strategies that people rely on in dealing with demands for accountability from important interpersonal or institutional audiences. The model predicts that (a) when people know the views of the audience and are unconstrained by past commitments, they will rely on the low-effect acceptability heuristic and simply shift their views toward those of the prospective audience, (b) when people do not know the views of the audience and are unconstrained by past commitments, they will be motivated to think in relatively flexible, multidimensional ways (preemptive self-criticism), and (c) when people are accountable for positions to which they feel committed, they will devote the majority of their mental effort to justifying those positions (defensive bolstering). The experiment yielded results supportive of these 3 predictions. The study revealed some evidence of individual differences in social and cognitive strategies for coping with accountability. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Communication restraints, group flexibility, and group confidence.

"This study was designed to explore the relationship between selected group structure variables and the group's ability to adjust to the requirements of a new situation (group flexibility) and the group members' expressed confidence in the ability of the group to succeed in a problem-solving situation." About 1000 men in 96 aircrews did a group task (8-item intelligence exam). Leaders in flexible groups scored low on the F scale and high on conformity. Greater confidence was expressed by members of high attraction groups and groups whose leaders tended to conform to the group members' opinions. "… groups with more open communication systems (group with fewer communication restraints) are more flexible and more confident." (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Communication, commitment, and cooperation in social dilemma.

Intragroup communication promotes cooperation in social dilemmas. Two explanations are plausible: discussion may (1) enhance feelings of group identity or (2) induce commitments to cooperate. Some remedies for social dilemmas (like group communication) may be subclassified as public welfare remedies (of which enhanced group identity is an example) vs cooperation-contingent remedies (of which commitment is an example). The efficacy of a cooperative act for enhancing the collective welfare should moderate remedies of the former but not the latter type. An experiment, using 441 female undergraduates, is reported in which group communication and the efficacy of cooperation were manipulated. As expected if communication induced commitments, but contrary to the group identity explanation, efficacy did not moderate the effect of group discussion. Other analyses provided more direct evidence that group members made and honored commitments to cooperate. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Health promotion, wellness programs, quality of life and the marketing of psychology.

This paper focusses on 15 yrs of research into the definition of quality of life and the factors that influence it. Four studies with 3 samples of 780 residents of London, Ontario, are presented. Results suggest (1) that different measures of global quality of life and well being are measuring essentially the same thing; (2) that there may be some basis for viewing the mental health component measure on the SF-36 Health Survey as highly indicative of quality of life; and (3) that important psychological factors contributing to health and quality of life include such personality factors as hardiness, self-esteem, optimism, locus of control, and extraversion. The application of the research to health promotion and the development of wellness programs is discussed. A strategy to enhance quality of life using the Quality of Life Questionnaire, and group interventions to enhance specific personality characteristics are described. The current research program is used as a case study to demonstrate some of the factors that contribute to the invisibility of psychology. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Development of strategies for recall and recognition.

40 kindergartners, 42 3rd graders, and 40 5th graders (CA's 5 yrs, 5 mo; 8 yrs, 3 mo; and 12 yrs, 4 mo, respectively) viewed 30 pictures of familiar objects, and then their free recall of the object names and their recognition of the original pictures were tested. The recognition test included pairing each picture with another similar picture of the same object. Half the Ss in each age group were prepared for recall with a strategy known to improve it in adults, and half were prepared for recognition with a strategy known to improve recognition in adults. Children encoded the stimuli differentially in accordance with the expected memory task and retrieved different stored information for each task. Both free recall and picture recognition memory improved with age. The recall strategy improved free recall performance at all ages, but the recognition strategy improved recognition performance only at the oldest age tested. (16 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)