Nostalgia and Satisfaction with Life: A Behavioral Genetic Analysis

Journal of Happiness Studies - Nostalgia, a bittersweet but predominantly positive emotion, arises from self-relevant and social memories. Evidence suggests that nostalgia is a potential source of...     

The generalization of deliberative and automatic behavior: The role of procedural knowledge and affective reactions

Individuals’ goal-directed activity in one situation can affect their behavior in a later, ostensibly unrelated situation. This effect can depend on whether the latter behavior is also goal-directed or is performed automatically. Three studies showed that participants’ rate of speaking in the course of performing a speech shadowing task has a positive influence on the speed with which they later complete an ostensibly unrelated marketing survey. Furthermore, when participants’ attention is called to the goal of working rapidly on the survey, the effect of their past behavior depends on their perception of the goal's desirability. When the time to complete the survey is not mentioned, however, participants’ speed of working on the survey is influenced by their speed of speaking in the earlier situation without their awareness and it does not depend on the desirability of the goal with which their behavior is associated. An additional experiment showed that the relative impact of goal-directed and automatic processes also depends on the cognitive resources that people have available to construe the evaluative implications of their decisions.     

A motivational hierarchy within: Primacy of the individual self,relational self,or collective self?

The individual self, relational self, and collective self are important and meaningful aspects of identity. However, they plausibly differ in their relative importance such that one self lies closer to the motivational core of the self-concept, better represent the “home base” of selfhood, or, simply stated, is motivationally primary. Four multi-method studies tested the relative motivational-primacy of the selves. Despite their disparate methods, the studies yielded consistent evidence of a three-tiered hierarchy with the individual self at the top, followed by the relational self, and trailed at the bottom by the collective self. The same hierarchy emerged in the Eastern culture of China and the Western cultures of the US and UK. Such pancultural consistency suggests that the motivational hierarchy is a fundamental pattern of the human self.     

Standing in the glory or shadow of the past self: Cultures differ in how much the past self affects current subjective well-being

Research in the past 2 decades has made great strides in understanding cross-cultural differences in the correlates and causes of subjective well-being. On the basis of past findings on the cross-cultural differences in temporal perspectives of the self, the present research examined a cross-cultural difference in individuals' subjective well-being as a function of how positively they viewed their present and past selves. Study 1 showed that both European and Asian Americans had higher subjective well-being when they viewed their present selves more positively. However, positive evaluations of the past self were accompanied by higher subjective well-being only among Asian Americans. Study 2 showed that when induced to think positively (vs. negatively) of the present self, both European and Asian Americans judged their current lives more favorably. However, when led to view the past self positively (vs. negatively), only Asian Americans made more favorable judgments about their current lives. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved).     

A new allotropic structure of silver nanocrystals nucleated and grown over planar polymer molecules

Polymer molecules of polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) serve as a good Ag⁺?→?Ag⁰ reducer as well as a template to produce Ag⁰ nanocrystals of anisotropic shapes. Thin Ag–PVA films (50–100?µm thick) were prepared by carrying out the reaction in aqueous PVA (under heating conditions) and then spin casting the sample in this shape. A topotactic Ag⁺?→?Ag⁰ reaction and in-situ Ag⁰ growth occur in support over the PVA molecules (as per the local structure and Ag⁰–PVA interactions) of elongated surfaces. The Ag⁰ state is confirmed with 3d _5/2 and 3d _3/2 XPS signals of 368.37 and 374.13?eV binding energies, respectively. As analyzed with X-ray diffraction, it is a new allotrope with an orthorhombic structure, lattice parameters a?=?0.8535, b?=?0.8410?nm and c?=?0.4119?nm, and density ρ?=?9.69?g?cm^?3. On heating in air, the well-known cubic structure develops, a?=?0.4082?nm (ρ?=?10.53?g?cm^?3) after 150°C, whereas a?=?0.4071?nm (ρ?= 10.61?g?cm^?3) after 300°C for 2?h. According to proposed models, it is a vacancy-stabilized allotrope, which evolves from multiply twinned particles.     

Transmission electron microscopy study of a new silicon nitride phase

An abnormally large phase, which was found in the precursor-derived Si 3.0 B 1.1 C 5.3 N 3.0 ceramics after crystallization under a nitrogen pressure of 100bar at 1800C for 3h, has been characterized by means of transmission electron microscopy and electron-energy-loss spectroscopy (EELS). EELS analysis shows that this phase consists of only silicon and nitrogen, no other elements being detected. The analysis of selected-area diffraction and convergent-beam electron diffraction in conjunction with EELS reveals that the unknown phase is a variant of silicon nitride. It has a hexagonal structure with lattice parameters a =0.737nm and c =0.536nm, and the space group P62c. .     

Buddhist Impact on Chinese Culture

The Chinese traditional culture includes three systems of thought: Confucianism, Daoism and Buddhism. The first two are Chinese culture, and Buddhism is a foreign religion introduced from India. Although there had been conflicts among the three systems of thoughts, but integration is the mainstream in the development of Chinese cultural thought. Thus, Chinese culture has developed into a system by uniting the three religions into one with Confucianism at the centre supported by Daoism and Buddhism. For over 2,000 years, Buddhism has interacted with all levels of Chinese culture such as literature, philosophy, morality, arts, architecture and religions. As a result, Buddhism has successfully integrated into the traditional Chinese culture and has become one of the three pillars. In this paper, I will discuss the Buddhist impact on Chinese culture from the following four points: (1) philosophy and moral teaching; (2) religions and popular beliefs; (3) language and literature; and (4) art and architecture.     

Re-examining hope: The roles of agency thinking and pathways thinking

A considerable amount of research in hope is driven by Snyder's (1994) model which proposes that hope is positively associated with agency thinking and pathways thinking. However, the current research suggests that hope as understood by the layperson (Hope) is only associated with agency thinking and not with pathways thinking. This was found over four studies using different agency and pathways variables, different Hope variables, different methods, and different cultures. Implications of these findings for Snyder's model are discussed.     

Time does not flow without language: Spatial distance affects temporal duration regardless of movement or direction

Much evidence has suggested that people conceive of time as flowing directionally in transverse space (e.g., from left to right for English speakers). However, this phenomenon has never been tested in a fully nonlinguistic paradigm where neither stimuli nor task use linguistic labels, which raises the possibility that time is directional only when reading/writing direction has been evoked. In the present study, English-speaking participants viewed a video where an actor sang a note while gesturing and reproduced the duration of the sung note by pressing a button. Results showed that the perceived duration of the note was increased by a long-distance gesture, relative to a short-distance gesture. This effect was equally strong for gestures moving from left to right and from right to left and was not dependent on gestures depicting movement through space; a weaker version of the effect emerged with static gestures depicting spatial distance. Since both our gesture stimuli and temporal reproduction task were nonlinguistic, we conclude that the spatial representation of time is nondirectional: Movement contributes, but is not necessary, to the representation of temporal information in a transverse timeline.     

提高医学生法律素质促进医患关系健康发展——由“佛山弃婴”案引发的思考

“佛山弃婴”案反映了当前医患关系的紧张和医务人员法律素质的缺乏,唤起了高等医学教育对医学生法律素质培养的重视,由此提出深化医学生对医患关系的理解、提高医学生的人文执业能力、提高医学生的职业道德修养三个培养目标,并从完善教育体系、创新教育模式和搭建实践平台三个层面提高医学生法律素质、促进医患关系健康发展的构想.