Chinese philosophy: A characterization

This article offers a synthetic characterization of Chinese philosophy based on an analytical reconstruction of its main traditions and thinking. Three main traditions in Chinese philosophy, Confucianism, Taoism and Chinese Buddhism, are depicted and discussed, together with some comments on Chinese Marxism in the contemporary scene. Four characteristics of Chinese philosophy are presented: intrinsic humanism, concrete rationalism, organic naturalism, and a pragmatism of self‐cultivation. It is clear from the discussion that these four characteristics are interrelated and mutually supporting and thus should be better understood in the context of one another. Many open problems of philosophy, such as transcendence, evil, logic, and theoretical knowledge, are raised by an inquiry into Chinese philosophy. If Chinese philosophy serves to make us critically aware of these problems and to provide alternative ways of thinking, we are more than justified in presenting Chinese philosophy as a philosophy of universal concern and universal significance.     

Why does ingroup essentialism increase prejudice against minority members?

A study with British participants (N = 90) tested a potential mediator of the effect of essentialist beliefs about the national ingroup on prejudice against immigrants. Essentialist beliefs were defined as beliefs in genetic determinism, a basic assumption that group membership is “written in the blood” and that the groups’ boundaries and characteristics are determined by genetic and/or biological factors. Essentialist beliefs were expected to play an important role in the formation of prejudice. They were predicted to be associated with a reduction in the perceived possibility of immigrants’ adopting the mainstream culture. Further, it was expected that essentialist beliefs would be positively associated with perceptions of intergroup threat, which in turn would be associated with a stronger demand for immigrants adopting the mainstream culture. Taken together, essentialist beliefs were predicted to be associated with a greater discrepancy between the demand for and perceived feasibility of culture adoption. This discrepancy was hypothesized to mediate the effect of essentialist beliefs on prejudice against immigrants. Structural equation modeling analysis and mediation analysis supported the hypotheses, showing that essentialism attributed to the national ingroup results in people demanding something seemingly impossible from immigrants, and that this situation in which immigrants have little chance of fulfilling majority members’ expectations results in prejudice against them. Thus, results show that perceptions of the ingroup are associated with attitudes to the outgroup, and they outline an explanatory mechanism for the positive correlation between essentialism and prejudice which has been found in previous research. Theoretical and applied implications are discussed.     

The Effect of Companion's Gender on Impulsive Purchasing: The Moderating Factor of Cohesiveness and Susceptibility to Interpersonal Influence

Most impulse purchasing research investigates individual‐level factors. This paper, however, examines the influence of shopping companion gender on impulse purchasing. The results of the three studies show that shoppers were more likely to exhibit impulse purchase behavior when shopping with an opposite gender companion. In addition, shoppers who were in the low‐cohesive condition and who shopped with an opposite gender companion were more likely to exhibit impulse purchase behavior than those who shopped with the same gender companion, and those who were susceptible to interpersonal influence were also more likely to exhibit impulse purchase behavior when shopping with an opposite gender companion. For shoppers who were not as susceptible to interpersonal influence, the influence of their companion's gender appeared to diminish on impulsive purchasing.     

The phenomenon of hate crimes in the United States

This review examines the phenomenon of hate crimes in the United States. Findings derived from the FBI data for the period 1996–2008 revealed that the incidence of anti‐racial hate crimes varied among different racial groups, that antireligious hate crimes were committed toward Jews and Muslims more than toward others, and that antisexual orientation hate crimes focused on male homosexuals more than others. Antireligious hate crimes were more likely to be directed against property, whereas anti‐racial and antisexual orientation hate crimes were more likely to be directed against people. We discuss these findings in the light of some relevant theoretical perspectives from social psychology. Potential solutions to hate crimes could be developed by focusing on the most relevant predictive factors.     

Perceptions of Age and Creativity in the Workforce

As the workforce ages it becomes important to examine if there is misperception of creativity and age in work contexts. A laboratory experiment examined perceptions of the creativity of a team with both young and old workers and of a team composed entirely of young workers. Scripted videos portrayed such teams engaged in designing an outdoor advertising campaign. Altogether, 220 participants were randomly assigned to watch one of the video clips and complete a structured questionnaire. No significant differences were observed in the perceptions of the two teams' performance or of the quality of the resulting advertising proposal. In general, there was also no significant difference in the individual characteristics attributed to the four characters on the teams. However, participants aged 35 or above evaluated both teams and all four characters more favorably than participants aged 20–34.     

Toward Meaningful Noise Research

The present review considers a series of studies of noise conducted in collaboration with Dr. Michel Loeb. This review attempts to provide a theoretical perspective as well as to summarize the most important findings of those studies. The work reviewed shows that noise effects interact with other variables, such that a noise effect on one sex is reversed for the other, and is also reversed at different times of the day. A second experiment confirmed this finding with a different arithmetic task. Further work indicated parallels between noise and fatigue, with aftereffects depending upon both work and noise. The final experiment repeated some of these findings with a different task battery of information processing tasks while showing that noise effects further depend on the meaningfulness of the noise background.     

Development of a Screening Instrument for Early Language Delay in Hong Kong Chinese: A Preliminary Study

Having language delay—one of the common neurodevelopmental difficulties during childhood—does not only imply an impairment in communication in the 1st few years of life. Previous studies have suggested that language problems have long-term implications for social, emotional, and intellectual development. Researchers have found that early identification and intervention of speech and language delay yields better treatment effects. However, unlike most of the motor developmental assessment tools, language assessment tools are not readily transferred across cultures because of the different linguistic features and the developmental stages of such features in a particular language or dialect. The present study presents an empirical example of the initial development of a culturally sensitive screening protocol, using vocabulary size as the indicator to minimize the effect of linguistic differences.     

Age Differences in Coping Resources and Satisfaction With Life Among Middle-Aged,Young-Old,and Oldest-Old Adults

The authors examined age differences in perceived coping resources and satisfaction with life across 3 older-adult age groups (45-64, 65-74, and 75 years and older). The 98 participants represented healthy, socially active, community-residing adults. Group comparisons were made on 12 individual coping scales, and an overall coping resource effectiveness score was computed. No significant differences were found for 11 of the coping resources or for overall coping resource effectiveness. Similar consistencies in life satisfaction were found across the 3 age groups. The findings indicate that (a) for healthy adults, the oldest old cope at least as effectively as their younger counterparts, despite their likelihood of encountering increased levels of stress; and (b) psychologically, old age may be viewed as a time of resilience and fortitude.     

Risk Versus Effort in the Assessment of Motor Fatigue

The choice of probability leffort (COPE) devices require fatigued subjects to choose between risk and effort. In a first experiment, where fatigue was induced by an intense or by a prolonged motor task and where the required effort was perceptual, the fatigue did not generalize to the test mode. A second experiment used motor fatigue of the arm or leg, and tested with arm muscle effort, showing that subjects fatigued with either limb chose riskier alternatives in order to avoid the effort. The data correlated with self-rated fatigue, and closely paralleled earlier work using perceptual fatigue and perceptual effort.