Rice-farming areas report more anxiety across two years of the COVID-19 pandemic in China

Cultures responded to the COVID-19 pandemic differently. We investigated cultural differences in mental health during the pandemic. We found regional differences in people's reports of anxiety in China over two years from 2020 to 2021 (N = 1186). People in areas with a history of rice farming reported more anxiety than people in wheat-farming areas. Next, we explored more proximal mechanisms that could help link the distal, historical factor of rice farming to people's modern experience of anxiety. Rice areas scored higher on collectivism and tight social norms than wheat areas, and collectivism, rather than norm tightness, mediated the rice-anxiety relationship. These findings advance our understanding of the distal sources of cultural differences, the proximal mechanisms, and mental health problems during the pandemics.     

Stop the blame game: An analysis of blaming on Weibo during the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic in rice and wheat areas in China

In the pandemic era, social media has provided the public with a platform to make their voice heard. One of the most important public opinions online during a pandemic is blame. Blame can lead to stigma towards patients as well as potential patients and decrease social cooperation, which might impede prevention and control measures during epidemics. Thus, studying online blame during the early days of COVID-19 can facilitate the management and control of future pandemics. By analyzing 3791 posts from one of the most popular social media sites in China (Weibo) over the 10 days immediately after COVID-19 was declared to be a communicable disease, we found that there were four main agents blamed online: Individuals, corporations, institutions, and the media. Most of the blame targeted individual agents. We also found that there were regional-cultural differences in the detailed types of blamed individual agents, that is, between rice- and wheat-farming areas in China. After controlling influence of distance from the epicenter of Wuhan, there were still stable differences between regions: people in wheat areas had a higher probability of blaming agentic, harmful individuals, and people in rice areas had a higher probability of blaming individuals with low awareness of social norms for preventive health behavior. Findings have implications for preventing and predicting blame across cultures in future pandemics.     

Are there biological programming effects for psychological development? Findings from a study of Romanian adoptees

Associations between experiences and outcomes could be due to (a) continuation of adversity or (b) organismic changes, including experience-expectant and experience-adaptive developmental programming. The adoption into British families of children who had been reared in profoundly depriving institutions in Romania presented an opportunity to test mechanisms. Romanian children reared from infancy in very depriving institutions for periods up to 42 months were compared with 52 nondeprived UK-born children placed into adoptive families before the age of 6 months. The results at 6 years of age showed substantial normal cognitive and social functioning after the provision of family rearing but also major persistent deficits in a substantial minority. The pattern of findings suggests some form of early biological programming or neural damage stemming from institutional deprivation, but the heterogeneity in outcome indicates that the effects are not deterministic.     

Parents' and teachers' concordance with children's self-ratings of suicidality: findings from a high-risk sample

This study examined concordance between adult and child reports of child suicidality using a sample of 1,046 8-year-old children at risk for, or having experienced, maltreatment. Concordance was low with both caregivers and teachers. For children reporting no suicidality, caregiver-child agreement was associated with few transitions in caregiver and low social withdrawal and aggression, and teacher-child agreement was associated with non-White ethnicity, good academic performance, and low thought problems. For children reporting suicidality, care-giver-child agreement was associated with perceptions of child mental health needs, aggression, and somatic complaints, and teacher-child agreement was associated with thought problems.     

Reduction of the misinformation effect by arousal induced after learning

Misinformation introduced after events have already occurred causes errors in later retrieval. Based on literature showing that arousal induced after learning enhances delayed retrieval, we investigated whether post-learning arousal can reduce the misinformation effect. 251 participants viewed four short film clips, each followed by a retention test, which for some participants included misinformation. Afterward, participants viewed another film clip that was either arousing or neutral. One week later, the arousal group recognized significantly more veridical details and endorsed significantly fewer misinformation items than the neutral group. The findings suggest that arousal induced after learning reduced source confusion, allowing participants to better retrieve accurate details and to better reject misinformation.     

Children's Reasoning in Solving Relational Problems of Deduction

This article reports on a study of children's deductive reasoning in solving novel relational problems. Detailed protocols were obtained from 264 children (aged 9- 12 years) who verbalised their thinking as they solved the problems. The study included the development of a three-phase theory based on Johnson-Laird and Byrne's mental models perspective, but with some distinct modifications. These include a focus on the relational complexity entailed in model construction and in premise integration, and the advancement of four reasoning principles that are applied throughout problem solution (in contrast to Johnson-Laird's falsification processes as the hallmark of deductive reasoning). The reported case studies and the results of statistical analyses supported predictions arising from the proposed theory, including the key role of the reasoning principles. The results also showed that problem difficulty is a function of relational complexity, not of the number of models to be constructed, as argued by Johnson-Laird and Byrne.     

The Point of Scientificity,the Fall of the Epistemological Dominos,and the End of the Field of Educational Administration

The point of scientificity, or pos,represents a place in history whereeducational administration was founded as ascience. A pos creates a field of memoryand a field of studies. A pos isepistemologically sustained in its claim forscientific status by a line of demarcation orlod. A lod is supported by truthclaims based on various forms ofcorrespondence. As these forms have beeninterrogated and abandoned, correspondence hasgiven way to coherentism and finally to testsof falsification. As falsification has shownto contain serious flaws when compared to theactual history of scientific discoveries, theentire project of a distinct and unitaryfield known as educational administration isseriously cast into doubt. Contemporaryexaminations in educational administrationdiscourse show that even when the lod hasbeen undermined by epistemological shifts, theinitial pos has remained to supportclaims regarding the project of a ``science ofleadership.' The analysis contained in thisarticle show, however, that when claims of thelod are demonstrably unsustainable, theinitial pos must be similarly abandoned. With that collapse the concept of a fieldis likewise effaced. The epistemologicalalternative is to envision fields ofstudy which do not require a lod, excepton a longitudinal basis to ascertain whether aresearch program shaped and sustained by it isprogressive or regressive. In short, there areno aprori meta-criteria to separate sciencefrom non-science in educationaladministration.     

The impact of politeness and relationship on perceived quality of advice about a problem

Advice is a common but potentially problematic way to respond to someone who is distressed. Politeness theory (Brown & Levinson, 1987) suggests advice threatens a hearer's face and predicts that the speaker‐hearer relationship and the use of politeness strategies can mitigate face threat and enhance the effectiveness of advice messages. Students (N=384) read 1 of 16 hypothetical situations that varied in speaker power and closeness of the speaker‐hearer relationship. Students then read 1 of 48 advice messages representing different politeness strategies and rated the message for regard shown for face and for effectiveness. However, neither speaker‐hearer relationship nor politeness strategies was consistently associated with perceived threat to face or perceived advice effectiveness. We suggest revisions to politeness theory and additional factors that may affect judgments of face sensitivity and advice effectiveness.