Transitions of Developmental Trajectories of Depressive Symptoms Between Junior and Senior High School Among Youths in Taiwan: Linkages to Symptoms in Young Adulthood

We investigated the heterogeneous developmental trajectories of depressive symptoms in junior and senior high school, the transitions to different trajectories after entering senior high school, and the linkages to the development of depressive symptoms in early adulthood among Taiwanese adolescents. An eight-wave longitudinal data set was analyzed, including 2687 Taiwanese adolescents (51.2% boys, M age?=?14.3 at first wave). Using a manual three-step latent transition growth mixture model, we found that a three-class solution fit the data for both junior high school (termed high-improving, cumulative, and JS-low-stable) and senior high school period (termed heightening, moderate-stable, and HS-low-stable). The depressive symptoms of most individuals maintained at a low level (i.e., low-stable) from adolescence to early adulthood; however, nearly a quarter of the adolescents reported depressive symptoms that were moderately or highly severe in senior high school and beyond. More than 30% of the participants experienced transitioning into a different developmental trajectory between junior and senior high school. When perceiving a higher level of paternal behavioral control, adolescents categorized in the high-improving class in junior high school would have a higher chance to transition to the moderate-stable class than to HS-low-stable class in senior high school. Adolescent boys and girls did not differ in the probability of transitioning between trajectories across junior and senior high school. However, a clear and consistent pattern of symptoms between late adolescence and early adulthood was not observed. These results help elucidate the heterogeneity and fluidity associated with the development of depressive symptoms between early adolescence and early adulthood in light of school transition among youths in Taiwan.     

Evaluating public posting,goal setting,and rewards to increase physical activity during school recess

We evaluated a pedometer‐based intervention consisting of public posting between two teams of students, with additional self‐monitoring, goal setting, and reinforcement components, to increase physical activity during school recess. In the absence of self‐monitoring, performance feedback alone did not increase physical activity levels above those observed during baseline. Additionally, higher levels of physical activity were observed when goal‐setting was introduced, with the highest levels of activity observed when raffle tickets could be earned for exceeding a specified step‐total goal.     

Risk preference and choice stochasticity during decisions for other people

In several contexts, such as finance and politics, people make choices that are relevant for others but irrelevant for oneself. Focusing on decision-making under risk, we compared monetary choices made for one’s own interest with choices made on behalf of an anonymous individual. Consistent with the previous literature, other-interest choices were characterized by an increased gambling propensity. We also investigated choice stochasticity, which captures how much decisions vary in similar conditions. An aspect related to choice stochasticity is how much decisions are tuned to the option values, and we found that this was higher during self-interest than during other-interest choices. This effect was observed only in individuals who reported a motivation to distribute rewards unequally, suggesting that it may (at least partially) depend on a motivation to make accurate decisions for others. Our results indicate that, during decision-making under risk, choices for other people are characterized by a decreased tuning to the values of the options, in addition to enhanced risk seeking.     

Access to excess: media as religion and the new cargo cults

Recent studies of religion and the media generally assume the secular nature of the latter impacting on the former. Religious relevance is set against a media culture of screens and networks that purportedly shape and reshape the symbols of sacredness. Yet the media itself may also be regarded as constituting a form of sacredness in its generation of excess. Within an expanding digital universe, the media creates and channels an abundance of information to overwhelm the attention of billions of people. The power to access excess places the sacred in the resources and practices of interconnectedness made possible by the use of digital devices that readies populations to anticipate limitless flows of data. Parallels can be drawn with the cargo cults of Melanesia where natives in contact with their colonisers came to anticipate the arrival of unlimited wealth and goods. This comparison may be used to illustrate the dual face of the media as secular in its operating system and religious in its production of excess. It also raises the question of whether the secular in digital culture could be treated as if it were wholly autonomous of the religious.     

Using Video Feedback to Improve Martial Arts Performance

This study used video feedback to enhance the martial arts performance of capoeira, an Afro‐Brazilian martial art that utilizes acrobatic movements (revesado, au de costa, and macaco). A multiple baseline across behaviors was used for five participants where baseline conditions consisted of standard coaching. The intervention consisted of video feedback, in which the participants were filmed attempting a movement and immediately viewed the video afterwards, while receiving positive and corrective feedback from the instructor. The target behaviors were scored on a 15‐item checklist, resulting in a percentage correct. A second video feedback condition similar to the first was also introduced to some participants, in which participants practiced the movements with live feedback before being filmed again. Results show that the video feedback conditions increased performance over baseline in most cases. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Predictive remapping gives rise to environmental inhibition of return

Neurons in various brain regions predictively respond to stimuli that will be brought to their receptive fields by an impending eye movement. This neural mechanism, known as predictive remapping, has been suggested to underlie spatial constancy. Inhibition of return (IOR) is a bias against recently attended locations. The present study examined whether predictive remapping is a mechanism underlying IOR effects observed in environmental coordinates. The participant made saccades to a peripheral location after an IOR effect had been elicited by an onset cue and discriminated a target presented around the time of saccade onset. Immediately before the required saccade, IOR emerged at the retinal locus that would be brought to the cued location. A second task in which the participant maintained fixation during the entire trial ruled out the possibility that this IOR effect was simply the spillover of IOR from the cued location. These findings, for the first time, provide direct behavioral evidence that predictive remapping is a mechanism underlying environmental IOR.     

Cognitive and affective components of empathy and their relationship with personality dimensions in a Chinese sample

Empathy is an essential component of social interactions and may be related to personality characteristics. However, this issue has not been extensively examined in a Chinese sample. Students at six universities in China (N = 257) completed the Interpersonal Reactivity Index (IRI), the Eysenck Personality Questionnaire‐Revised (EPQ‐R), and the Depression, Anxiety and Stress Scale (DASS‐21). Using multiple regression analyses, and after accounting for demographic variables (sex and age), it was found that the affective empathy component Personal Distress positively predicted EPQ‐R Neuroticism scores (β = .49), negatively predicted Extraversion (β = –.21) and Lie scale scores (β = –.22), and positively predicted DASS‐21 Depression (β = .26), Anxiety (β = .34) and Stress scores (β = .39). Empathic Concern positively predicted Lie Scale scores (β = .21), and negatively predicted Psychoticism scores (β = –.24). Individuals with high scores in Empathic Concern were also found to score more highly on Fantasy, Personal Distress, Neuroticism, Stress and Anxiety. Thus, more empathic individuals are likely to experience elevations in negative affectivity when they perceive the emotional suffering of others.     

Effects of dilemma type,language, and emotion arousal on utilitarian vs deontological choice to moral dilemmas in Chinese–English bilinguals

The present study examines how dilemma type (personal or impersonal moral dilemma), language (native or foreign) and emotion arousal to a dilemma could affect Chinese–English bilinguals' deontological vs utilitarian moral choices regarding 39 moral dilemmas. How emotion arousal plays a mediating role in the effects of dilemma type and language on moral choices is also investigated. As shown in multilevel analyses, participants made fewer utilitarian choices for personal dilemmas than impersonal dilemmas. Although emotion arousal of dilemmas significantly mediated this effect of dilemma type, the indirect effect of dilemma type through arousal on moral choices was inconsistent with the direct effect of dilemma type on moral choices. For the effect of language, participants made more utilitarian choices in the Footbridge (personal) dilemma that was presented in foreign language than in native language. However, this effect was not mediated by arousal, suggesting that it could not be attributed to the emotion‐reducing effect of foreign language. Moreover, there was no language effect on moral choices in analyses that included all 39 dilemmas or only 22 personal dilemmas, indicating the need in future research for further identifying the potential mediators that trigger the foreign language effect on moral choices.     

Sources of Meaning in Life Among Chinese University Students

The current studies were designed to explore the structure of sources of meaning in life among Chinese university students. In Study 1, we content-analyzed 171 students’ answers to the question of what made their lives meaningful and derived 74 frequently mentioned ideas. Then, we composed a questionnaire based on these ideas and administered it to another sample of 523 university students in Study 2. Seven underlying dimensions were identified through exploratory factor analysis: Self-development (i.e., to accomplish one’s aspirations and actualize one’s potential), social commitment (i.e., to contribute to society and to adhere to moral principles), interpersonal relationships (i.e., relationships with family members, friends and others), secular pursuits (i.e., stable jobs, material possessions and social status), experiences in life (i.e., to experience all the joys and sorrows in life), civilization (i.e., reading, thinking, music and arts), and autonomy (i.e., to make decisions freely and take charge of one’s own life). Results are discussed in light of the philosophical influences in Chinese culture, especially those from Confucianism and Taoism.     

Evaluation of increasing antecedent specificity in goal statements on adherence to positive behavior‐management strategies

We evaluated the impact of antecedent specificity in goal statements on adherence to positive behavior‐management strategies. Teaching staff were recruited from 2 different school settings where there were routine expectations to use behavior‐specific praise in the classroom, but adherence was poor. In a concurrent multiple baseline design, the use of behavior‐specific praise by 4 participants was found to be unaffected by goal statements that increasingly specified the behavior to be used and the conditions under which the behavior should occur. However, adherence by 3 of the 4 participants did change when goal statements included teacher‐specified frequencies with which the behavior should occur. Results were systematically replicated in a second study in which, in a concurrent multiple baseline design, 3 participants showed marked increases in adherence when goal statements specified the target behavior, the conditions under which it should occur, and the frequency with which it should occur.