Social Anxiety and Peer Relations in Early Adolescence: Behavioral and Cognitive Factors

This study investigated factors associated with social anxiety during early adolescence using multiple informants, including self and peer perspectives, teacher ratings, and direct observations. Negative social performance expectations, maladaptive coping strategies, and social skill deficits were examined as correlates of social anxiety and mediators linking social anxiety with poor peer relations. Participants were 84 middle school students (47 girls, 37 boys) over-sampled for elevated social anxiety. Analyses revealed correlations linking social anxiety with decreased peer acceptance and increased peer victimization. Path analysis indicated that negative social performance expectations and social withdrawal-disengagement accounted for the association between social anxiety and decreased peer acceptance. Social anxiety, self-directed coping strategies, and social withdrawal-disengagement were each directly linked with increased peer victimization for boys. The results replicate findings based on clinical samples, extend understanding of cognitive, social, and behavioral factors associated with social anxiety in middle school, and provide new information regarding gender differences in the correlates of social anxiety.     

日本的宗教法与宗教管理

自1946年颁布宗教法人令,日本的宗教法历经十余次修订,但其一贯的原则都是宗教自由、政教分离,政府对宗教法人的自治权和自律权给予充分的尊重。在宗教界内部的管理方面,宗议会制度和责任役员制度体现了民主的原则和平等的原则,为战后宗教的发展提供了制度性保障。由于宽松的政策环境和民主化管理,宗教在日本战后获得了很大发展。但1995年的奥姆真理教事件之后,日本政府对宗教法做出了重大修改,在尊重教团的自律性前提下强化了政府对宗教教团的管理,宗教团体的活动空间受到一定的限制。     

类同一性与群体差异性:道德产生的可能性与必然性——兼与易小明商榷

人类最初的生存状态是群聚,群聚是人的类属性的自发聚集,它使人类本能地意识到人类的同一性;群聚之后人类走向群居,群居是人的群体属性的自觉结合,它体现了人类的同一性之外的群体差异性.类同一性使人类能够彼此交往,是道德产生的可能性主体基础;群体差异性使人类必须交往,是道德产生的必然性主体基础,二者都是道德产生的主体基础.     

聆听自然 随道而动——简论道教生态智慧的现代价值

当今世界,有一个有关生态的热议话题——全球气候变暖。9月22日各国领导人齐聚联合国总部纽约联合国气候变化峰会,共商应对气候变化的大计。     

Kinship Support and Academic Efficacy Among College Students: A Cross-Sectional Examination

The study examined whether relationships with extended kin were related to higher levels of mental health and academic functioning among college students. Specifically, the study tested whether perceived emotional support from extended (non-nuclear) family was related to self-esteem, psychological distress, and academic efficacy and dedication above and beyond relationships with one’s primary caregivers, and whether these associations varied by class year in college. The sample consisted of 530 students (average age = 20.82), at a public, four-year university. The results revealed that freshmen and seniors who reported high levels of positive relationships with their extended kin also reported higher levels of academic-efficacy and dedication, as well as lower levels of psychological distress. However, the relation between kin emotional support and these outcomes were not significant for sophomores and juniors. There was also a significant association between kinship support and self-esteem for participants in all four class levels. The study underscores the need to examine extended social support systems among college students, above and beyond those maintained with primary caregivers, as well as the dynamic nature of family support during young adulthood.     

On AGM for Non-Classical Logics

The AGM theory of belief revision provides a formal framework to represent the dynamics of epistemic states. In this framework, the beliefs of the agent are usually represented as logical formulas while the change operations are constrained by rationality postulates. In the original proposal, the logic underlying the reasoning was supposed to be supraclassical, among other properties. In this paper, we present some of the existing work in adapting the AGM theory for non-classical logics and discuss their interconnections and what is still missing for each approach.     

Using Daily Creativity Planning to Promote Creative Behavior

Research has demonstrated that on the path from a creative idea to a creative outcome, high creativity motivation and self-efficacy do not necessarily lead to creative behavior. The present study proposed and examined the notion that daily creativity planning could promote creative behavior and contribute to the cultivation of creativity. A total of 77 middle school students (39 students in the experimental group and 38 in the control group) participated in this study, for which a quasi-experimental design was administered. The experimental group conducted a two-week daily planning for creative activities, while the control group did not conduct any intervention. The results showed that students' creativity motivation and creative self-efficacy were at relatively high levels overall and were positively and moderately correlated with creative behavior. Daily planning could effectively facilitate students' creative behavior. These findings point to a promising and simple creativity enhancement strategy for cultivating students to develop the habit of making creative plans in their daily lives.     

Smaller holistic processing of faces associated with face drawing experience

The type of experience involved with an object category has been regarded as one important factor in shaping of the human object recognition system. Laboratory training studies have shown that different kinds of learning experience with the same set of novel objects resulted in different perceptual and neural changes. Whether this applies to natural real-world objects remains to be seen. We compared two groups of observers who had different learning experiences with faces, using holistic processing as a dependent measure. We found that, while ordinary observers had extensive individuation experience with faces and displayed typical holistic face processing, art students who had acquired additional experience in drawing faces, and thus in attending to parts of a face, showed less holistic processing than did ordinary observers. These results converge with laboratory training studies on the role of type of experience in the development of different perceptual markers for different object categories. It is thus insufficient to categorize expertise simply in terms of object domains (e.g., expertise with faces). Instead, perceptual expertise should be classified in terms of the underlying process or task demand.