The spirit and development of Neo‐Gonfugianism

The ideal of human life as a life of sagehood is the core of Confucian thought. In neo‐Confucianism the stress is on the self‐perfectibility of man, and the central concern of neo‐Confucianist thinkers has accordingly been with the question of how man can cultivate his own potentiality to be a sage. The different answers they give are in the form of teachings about the ‘way’, these teachings incorporating different philosophical views of mind, human nature, and the universe. The author outlines the views of successive neo‐Confucianists and their versions of the ‘way’, seeing their teachings as developments towards the doctrine presented by Wang Yang‐ming (b. 1472), whose thought can be seen in particular as a synthesis of the views of Chu Tzu and Lu Shiang‐shan.     

Solution strategies as possible explanations of individual and sex differences in a dynamic spatial task

When individuals perform spatial tasks, individual differences emerge in accuracy and speed as well as in the response patterns used to cope with the task. The purpose of this study is to identify, through empirical criteria, the different response patterns or strategies used by individuals when performing the dynamic spatial task presented in the Spatial Orientation Dynamic Test-Revised (SODT-R). Results show that participants can be classified according to their response patterns. Three different ways of solving a task are described, and their relation to (a) performance factors (response latency, response frequency, and invested time) and (b) ability tests (analytical reasoning, verbal reasoning, and spatial estimation) are investigated. Sex differences in response patterns and performance are also analyzed. It is found that the frequency with which men and women employ each one of the strategies described here, is different and statistically significant. Thus, employed strategy plays an important role when interpreting sex differences on dynamic spatial tasks.     

Effect of 45‐Day −6° Head‐Down Bed Rest on Cooperation and Aggression

High levels of cooperation and low aggression seem obviously vital to the successful implementation of space missions. To elucidate the effect of microgravity on these behaviors, we investigated whether cooperative and aggressive behaviors would be affected in 16 male volunteers during 45‐day ?6° head‐down bed rest, which is a reliable simulation model for most physiological effects of spaceflight. We used an ultimatum game task to evaluate the cooperative behavior and a revised competitive reaction time test to evaluate the aggressive behavior simultaneously. We found that (1) the participants became less cooperative in the post‐bed rest phase in comparison with the pre‐bed rest phase and (2) the participants became more aggressive in the in‐bed rest phase in comparison with the pre‐bed rest phase. These findings provide evidence that head‐down bed rest may affect both cooperative and aggressive behaviors in males, suggesting an important perspective for future studies in space psychology.Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Associations Between Sexual Orientation Discrimination and Depression Among Same-Sex Couples: Moderating Effects of Dyadic Coping

Drawing from minority stress theory and the systemic–transactional model, we examined whether perceptions of partner's dyadic coping behavior moderated the association between sexual orientation discrimination stress and symptoms of depression among individuals in a same-sex relationship. Data from 95 same-sex couples revealed that, overall, sexual orientation discrimination stress was positively associated with depressive symptoms; however, perceived partner emotion-focused supportive dyadic coping weakened this association. Specifically, higher sexual orientation discrimination stress was associated with greater depressive symptoms only for individuals perceiving low partner emotion-focused supportive dyadic coping. Implications for researchers and clinicians are presented.     

The Mediating Processes Linking Applicant Personality Traits and Interviewer Evaluation

This study examines interview preparations (i.e., social preparation and background preparation) and impression management (IM) tactics (i.e., self‐focused IM and other‐focused IM) as the mechanisms between applicant personality characteristics and interviewer evaluation. Data were collected from both actual job applicants and interviewers. Results show that personality characteristics (i.e., extraversion and conscientiousness) have indirect effects on interviewer evaluation in terms of perceived person–job fit (P–J fit) and interpersonal liking through these two types of applicant behaviors. This study accomplishes two goals: (1) it extends the socioanalytic theory of personality ( Hogan, 1996 ) by testing the intervening roles played by applicants' behaviors that correspond to getting along with and getting ahead of others; and (2) it suggests that these applicant behaviors might be important cues for practical interviewers' effective assessment of applicants' performance‐related characteristics.     

Cathodal transcranial direct current stimulation of the right Wernicke's area improves comprehension in subacute stroke patients

Previous studies have shown the appearance of right-sided language-related brain activity in right-handed patients after a stroke. Non-invasive brain stimulation such as transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) and repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) have been shown to modulate excitability in the brain. Moreover, rTMS and tDCS have been found to improve naming in non-fluent post-stroke aphasic patients. Here, we investigated the effect of tDCS on the comprehension of aphasic patients with subacute stroke. We hypothesized that tDCS applied to the left superior temporal gyrus (Wernicke’s area) or the right Wernicke’s area might be associated with recovery of comprehension ability in aphasic patients with subacute stroke. Participants included right-handed subacute stroke patients with global aphasia due to ischemic infarct of the left M1 or M2 middle cerebral artery. Patients were randomly divided into three groups: patients who received anodal tDCS applied to the left superior temporal gyrus, patients who received cathodal tDCS applied to the right superior temporal gyrus, and patients who received sham tDCS. All patients received conventional speech and language therapy during each period of tDCS application. The Korean-Western Aphasia Battery (K-WAB) was used to assess all patients before and after tDCS sessions. After intervention, all patients had significant improvements in aphasia quotients, spontaneous speech, and auditory verbal comprehension. However, auditory verbal comprehension improved significantly more in patients treated with a cathode, as compared to patients in the other groups. These results are consistent with the role of Wernicke’s area in language comprehension and the therapeutic effect that cathodal tDCS has on aphasia patients with subacute stroke, suggesting that tDCS may be an adjuvant treatment approach for aphasia rehabilitation therapy in patients in an early stage of stroke.     

弗洛伊德论上帝的形成（二）

上帝是西方宗教信仰体系中一个核心的概念,它是宗教信仰者将他们不能理性解释的各种恐怖力量人格化之后所形成的崇拜对象,同时信仰者也通过祈祷、牺牲、读经、参拜等各种宗教仪式来表达他们与上帝的联系。那么,在弗洛伊德的精神分析学说中这个上帝又是怎样形成的呢?弗洛伊德认为所谓上帝就是人类在原始状态中对父亲形象的一种扭曲的记忆和病态反应。他的这个结论来源于他对人类原始社会关系的猜测和对儿童普遍心理情结的分析,其意图是将个人行为的理论与人类古老的历史融合在一起,通过分析上帝的形成史来支持他在心理学方面的发现。在《图腾…     

Correction for Item Response Theory Latent Trait Measurement Error in Linear Mixed Effects Models

Psychometrika - When latent variables are used as outcomes in regression analysis, a common approach that is used to solve the ignored measurement error issue is to take a multilevel perspective on...     

The development of psychological testing in China

The Chinese have been interested in assessing individual differences for thousands of years. This article traces the development of early psychological measurements in China through to the arrival of modern psychometric techniques in the early 20th century. Following the social disruption caused by the Sino‐Japanese War and the Chinese Civil War, the doctrines of the Communist Revolution and finally the Cultural Revolution forced the total abandonment of the idea of measuring individual differences. Since the end of the Cultural Revolution in the 1970s, however, the need for psychological measurement has been increasingly recognised, particularly because of needs in the fields of clinical and educational practice. As a result, there are now many university courses for training testing professionals. It is also important to have tests that are suitable to use in China. Simply to translate English‐language tests into Chinese may bias their results because of cultural differences, so tests should be revised in order to make their results equivalent, or new tests appropriate to their culture should be devised by Chinese psychologists. Psychological testing is now used in China in education, mental health, and, increasingly, in personnel selection. The expanding market economy means that effective processes for the selection of managers in business and industry are essential in China. As in many other scientific fields, the Chinese are making progress in psychometric testing and it is likely that psychological measurement of individual differences will make an important contribution to China's continued rapid economic progress in the 21st century.     

Visual marking: selective attention to asynchronous temporal groups

In visual search, when a subset of distractors is previewed 1 s before the target and the remaining distractors, search speed is independent of the number of previewed items. This is visual marking. What allows old items to be marked? Four experiments show that marking is disrupted if the onset of the new items is accompanied by synchronous changes to the old items, but it is not disrupted by changes restricted to the background or by asynchronous changes to the old items. Further, behaviorally relevant old items can be prioritized over new items. Visual marking is based on temporal asynchrony between new and old items, which allows segregation of these items into 2 temporal groups. Attention is then selectively applied to 1 group.