WHY IS CONFUCIANISM NOT A RELIGION? THE IMPACT OF ORIENTALISM

This study attempts to answer the question why Confucianism, the dominant “teaching” among the Three Teachings, is not a religion in contemporary China, unlike the other two “teachings,” Buddhism and Daoism. By examining this phenomenon in the social‐historical context, this study finds its origin in Orientalism. The Orientalist conceptualization of religion became part of the New Culture discourse at the turn of the twentieth century. While China has undergone tremendous social changes over the past century, the old discourse remains.     

Cross-level moderating effects of Conscientiousness on within-person relationships of self-efficacy to effort allocation

Studies examining within-person level self-efficacy effects on effort allocation have produced mixed results, ranging from positive, to null, to negative. Drawing on individual differences literature, we propose that the within-person relationship between self-efficacy and effort allocation depends on Conscientiousness, a personality trait reflecting the will to achieve and capacity to self-discipline. Individuals with higher levels of Conscientiousness will respond to lower self-efficacy with increased effort, resulting in an inverse relationship between self-efficacy and effort expenditure. In contrast, individuals with lower levels of Conscientiousness will need higher self-efficacy to stay task focused and sustain effort allocation, leading to a positive effect of self-efficacy on effort expenditure. Findings from a 3-week daily diary study generally support the hypothesized moderating effects of Conscientiousness. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.     

When Does Dispositional Gratitude Help Athletes Move Away From Experiential Avoidance? The Moderating Role of Perceived Autonomy Support From Coaches

Experiential avoidance, the attempt to avoid negative experiences, can prevent athletes from reaching their goals. To mitigate this tendency, the authors offer a relational approach and propose that dispositional gratitude and perceived autonomy support from coaches will have an interaction effect in mitigating experiential avoidance. Time-lagged data from 140 athletes were analyzed. Dispositional gratitude and perceived coach autonomy support had a significant interaction effect on predicting experiential avoidance when Time 1 experiential avoidance was controlled. Those high in dispositional gratitude and perceived coach autonomy support decreased their experiential avoidance over time. Implications and application for experiential avoidance and gratitude are discussed.     

The Influence of Family Socio-economic Status on Learning Burnout in Adolescents: Mediating and Moderating Effects

According to family investment theory, a family’s socio-economic status can have a noteworthy impact on the academic performance and future lives of adolescents. However, the mechanism for this remains poorly understood. We examined the mediating and moderating effects of family emotional and cultural environment on the relations between family socio-economic status and learning burnout. Specifically, we investigated whether different family emotional environments have a moderating effect on the relationship between family socio-economic status and learning burnout and on the mediating effect of family cultural environment. A sample of 1181 junior and senior high school students completed multidimensional measures of family socioeconomic status, family emotional and cultural environment, and learning burnout. A regression analysis showed that socio-economic status significantly predicted learning burnout. The achievement, cultural, and recreational dimensions of family cultural environment were all mediators of this relationship. Moreover, cultural dimension was moderated by the family conflicts factor of family emotional environment.     

Language-specific memory for everyday arithmetic facts in Chinese-English bilinguals

The role of language in memory for arithmetic facts remains controversial. Here, we examined transfer of memory training for evidence that bilinguals may acquire language-specific memory stores for everyday arithmetic facts. Chinese-English bilingual adults (n = 32) were trained on different subsets of simple addition and multiplication problems. Each operation was trained in one language or the other. The subsequent test phase included all problems with addition and multiplication alternating across trials in two blocks, one in each language. Averaging over training language, the response time (RT) gains for trained problems relative to untrained problems were greater in the trained language than in the untrained language. Subsequent analysis showed that English training produced larger RT gains for trained problems relative to untrained problems in English at test relative to the untrained Chinese language. In contrast, there was no evidence with Chinese training that problem-specific RT gains differed between Chinese and the untrained English language. We propose that training in Chinese promoted a translation strategy for English arithmetic (particularly multiplication) that produced strong cross-language generalization of practice, whereas training in English strengthened relatively weak, English-language arithmetic memories and produced little generalization to Chinese (i.e., English training did not induce an English translation strategy for Chinese language trials). The results support the existence of language-specific strengthening of memory for everyday arithmetic facts.     

Familial Influences on Dating Violence Victimization Among Latino Youth

Despite theoretical and empirical evidence suggesting that the family environment plays a central role in Latino youth development, relatively little is known about how family processes influence dating violence victimization among Latino adolescents. To address this gap in the literature, we used data from 210 Latino parents and their 13- to 15-year-old adolescents to examine associations between several different family processes, including both parenting practices (parent monitoring, parent–adolescent communication) and aspects of the family relational climate (family cohesion, family conflict, acculturation conflict) and psychological, physical, and sexual dating violence victimization. Consistent with expectations, lower levels of family cohesion and higher levels of family and acculturation conflict were associated with risk for dating violence victimization, although associations varied depending on victimization type. In contrast, neither parental monitoring nor parent–adolescent communication was significantly associated with any type of dating violence victimization. In addition, we found that parent, but not teen, Anglo-American acculturation was associated with higher dating violence victimization risk. Findings suggest that family-based dating abuse prevention programs for Latino youth should seek to increase family cohesion and decrease family conflict, including acculturation-based conflict.     

Priming modernity and work experiences strengthens the association between fairness/harm concerns and anger in China

According to the CAD model of emotional responses to immorality, if an event violates the moral foundations of justice and harm, people will feel angry. However, the model is silent on whether the strength of association between anger and perceived injustice/harm is context‐dependent. Using a contextual priming paradigm, the current research shows that in China, the association between anger and perceived injustice/harm is stronger when work (vs family) and modern (vs traditional) contexts are primed. Specifically, we primed modernity versus traditionality (Experiment 1) and work experiences (Experiment 2) and measured the strength of association between justice/harm concerns and anger. The results show that: (i) the linkage between justice/harm concern and anger was stronger in the modernity priming condition than in the tradition priming or control conditions; and (ii) the linkage between justice/harm concern and anger was stronger in the work experience priming condition than in the control condition. In short, priming modern and work contexts strengthens the association between justice/harm concerns and anger, suggesting the strength of the morality–emotion link is context‐dependent.