《华西教会新闻》研究综述

<华西教会新闻>(West China Missionary News)是华西各差会联合出版的英文月刊.于1899年2月在重庆创刊,至1943年底停刊,时间跨度达45年之久.华西教会许多重要文件和信息都由该刊刊行.作为近代华西第一份外国人创办的英文刊物,该刊保存了大量四川、云南、贵州以及西藏的传教信息和社会信息.近年来,该刊已经引起不少海内外学者的注意和利用.本文重点论述该刊的研究,并讨论进一步深入研究的思路,尽可能为有兴趣的学者提供有价值的信息.     

Parent–Child Conflict Profiles in Chinese American Immigrant Families: Links to Sociocultural Factors and School‐Age Children's Psychological Adjustment

Research suggests that parent–child conflict is a salient family process in Asian immigrant families and often a stressful experience for Asian American youth due to value discrepancies between Asian and Western cultures. The present study examined ratings of parent–child conflict across conflict topics from parents' and children's perspectives in a sample of Chinese American immigrant families with school‐age children (N = 239; age = 7.5–11 years). Latent profile analyses identified three parent‐rated conflict profiles and four child‐rated conflict profiles. Parent and child conflict profiles were unrelated to each other and differentially related to family sociocultural factors and children's psychological adjustment. Parents' moderate conflict profile scored highest on parent‐rated child behavior problems and had the highest household density and lower parent Chinese orientation. Children's moderate‐specific and high conflict profiles scored higher on child‐reported behavior problems than the low conflict profile. These results highlight the need to assess family conflict from both parents' and children's perspectives and target parent–child conflict communication as a pathway to prevent or reduce behavioral problems in Chinese American children of immigrant families.     

Exploring the Effect of Perceived Teacher Support on Multiple Creativity Tasks: Based on the Expectancy–Value Model of Achievement Motivation

The present study explores the effect of perceived teacher support on three forms of thinking related to creativity. Tests of convergent thinking (by means of the Remote Associates Test), insight thinking (explored through a brain‐teaser test), and divergent thinking (by means of a verbal creativity test) were given to 512 middle school students in China, along with assessments of their perceived teacher support and creative self‐efficacy. The results of this study indicate that perceived teacher support positively predicts convergent thinking and insight thinking, with creative self‐efficacy playing a partial mediating role between perceived teacher support and convergent thinking. However, no significant relationships were found between perceived teacher support and divergent thinking. The findings partly lend support to the expectancy–value model of achievement motivation that teacher’s behavior influences student performance through self‐belief pathway.     

What the progressive aspect tells us about processes

Numerous authors have attempted to carve an ontological distinction between events and processes on the basis of a widely noted linguistic datum involving count and mass nouns, where events are thought to be analogous to countable objects while processes to non-countable stuff. By assessing the most developed of these proposals—that of Helen Steward’s—this paper locates the motivations behind the project of carving some such distinction between events and processes, and proceeds to offer considerations toward an alternative account of processes—one whose ontology is more akin to that of states than it is to stuff.

     

Different Strokes for Different Folks: The Impact of Sex Dissimilarity in the Empowerment–Performance Relationship

Organizations often utilize empowerment as a way to bolster performance. It is largely assumed, however, that its impact in this capacity is equivalent across organizational members. We tested this notion within a sample of 420 employees belonging to 75 teams in a Chinese organization and found that team empowerment related positively to supervisor‐rated in‐role and self‐rated extra‐role performance through its effect on individual psychological empowerment. More important, employee–coworker demographic dissimilarity moderated both stages of this indirect relationship. Specifically, when employee–coworker sex dissimilarity was higher, the following relationships were attenuated: (a) team empowerment–individual empowerment, (b) individual empowerment–in‐role performance, and (c) individual empowerment–extra–role performance. Collectively, the results illustrate that the impact of empowerment is contingent upon demographic dissimilarity.     

A Hierarchical Modeling Approach to Data Analysis and Study Design in a Multi-site Experimental fMRI Study

We propose a hierarchical Bayesian model for analyzing multi-site experimental fMRI studies. Our method takes the hierarchical structure of the data (subjects are nested within sites, and there are multiple observations per subject) into account and allows for modeling between-site variation. Using posterior predictive model checking and model selection based on the deviance information criterion (DIC), we show that our model provides a good fit to the observed data by sharing information across the sites. We also propose a simple approach for evaluating the efficacy of the multi-site experiment by comparing the results to those that would be expected in hypothetical single-site experiments with the same sample size.     

Approaching Success or Avoiding Failure? Approach and Avoidance Motives in the Work Domain

In our set of studies, we extended research on approach and avoidance motivations by investigating (i) motives in a work setting, (ii) interactions among approach and avoidance motives, and (iii) motives at implicit levels. Results of Studies 1 through 3 provided support for the construct validity of our work motives measure by demonstrating that approach and avoidance work motives are markers of more general approach and avoidance temperaments, they are distinct from other individual difference variables commonly studied by organisational psychologists (e.g. conscientiousness, regulatory focus and cognitive ability) and they are stable over time. In Studies 4 through 7, we confirmed our predictions that approach and avoidance motives predict employees' goal orientations, job appraisals and attitudes (e.g. job satisfaction and perceived support) and supervisor‐rated job behaviours (e.g. task performance and citizenship behaviour). Importantly, we provide the first empirical evidence that approach and avoidance motives interact to predict task performance and that the motives operate at implicit levels. Copyright © 2012 European Association of Personality Psychology     

Antecedents and Outcomes of Challenging Job Experiences: A Social Cognitive Perspective

There is debate whether the social objectives met by banding can justify the loss in performance. To rationally assess this trade-off, one must know the magni- tude of performance lost. This article presents a mathematical model that allows computation of (a) the expected difference in performance between the top- ranked and bottom-ranked person in the band, and (b) the likelihood that the top-ranked person will actually outperform the bottom-ranked person, under various common testing situations. The model shows that, in most situations, a small loss in average performance may be expected, and that a person at the top of the band is only slightly more likely to actually outperform a person at the bottom of the band. The results support the use of banding and selection based on secondary criteria and generally show that the social gains of banding may be greater than the economic cost.