Analyzing Negative Experiences Without Ruminating: The Role of Self-Distancing in Enabling Adaptive Self-Reflection

Both common intuition and findings from multiple areas of research suggest that when faced with distressing experiences, it is helpful to understand one’s feelings. However, a large body of research also indicates that people’s attempts to make sense of their feelings often backfire, leading them to ruminate and feel worse. In this article, we describe a program of research that focuses on disentangling these seemingly contradictory sets of findings. The research program we describe proposes that psychological distance from the self plays a key role in determining whether people’s attempts to understand their feelings lead to adaptive or maladaptive self-reflection. It suggests that people’s attempts to understand their feelings often fail because they analyze their feelings from a self-immersed perspective rather than a self-distanced perspective. Empirical evidence from multiple levels of analysis is presented to support this prediction. The basic science and clinical implications of these findings are discussed.     

"西天"漫记--印度访问考察十日记

2004年12月7日,我与平遥国际摄影大展代表团一行10人,应邀前往南亚的人口大国印度访问,并在班加罗尔市一所著名的美术学院举行了“中国五台山佛教艺术摄影展”开幕式。12月8日下午3点(当地时间)多,我们到了新德里,这里比我国晚两个半小时,气温比上海略热些。印度共和国位于南亚     

Associations of self‐esteem and temperament traits to self‐ and teacher‐reported social status among classmates

Hintsanen, M., Alatupa, S., Pullmann, H., Hirstiö‐Snellman, P. & Keltikangas‐Järvinen, L. (2010). Associations of self‐esteem and temperament traits to self‐ and teacher‐reported social status among classmates. Scandinavian Journal of Psychology 51, 488–494. The present study examined the validity of self‐ and teacher‐reported social status and its relations to self‐esteem and temperament in a geographically representative cohort of Finnish adolescents (N = 3941, mean age 15.1 years). High agreement was found between self‐ and teacher‐rated social status (r = 0.42). Different aspects of self‐esteem were differently related to social status. When other temperament and self‐esteem variables were included in the analyses, strongest predictor for self‐rated social status in both genders was social self‐esteem (p < 0.01) and for teacher‐rated social status general self‐esteem (p < 0.01). The strongest temperamental predictors of social status were lower inhibition in girls (p < 0.01, self‐ and teacher‐rated) and higher impulsivity (p < 0.01, self‐rated) and activity (p < 0.01, teacher‐rated) in boys. The present findings are consistent with the view that social functioning and peer relations are associated with individual differences in self‐concept and temperament dimensions.     

道教法思想初探

道教的政治哲学,直接继承了战国、秦汉黄老道家的精神传统,既固守黄老自然无为的核心理念,又充分吸收了法家的合理思想成分,对"法"、"术"、"势"的为治功能予以充分的肯定,形成了以道德为主,法术势为辅的政治哲学理念。     

“加冕”“风水文化师”的思考

一、一条惊人的信息报载:南京某著名大学易学研究所和建设部、中国建筑文化中心等联合举办“建筑风水文化师”培训班,并将在国内首次开展“建筑风水文化师”认证,经考试合格者可获得建设部中国建筑文化中心颁发的“建筑风水文化执行官(师)”职业资格证书。这就是说一向被视为搞迷信活动,以相宅基、点墓穴为职业的江湖术士们可以“加冕”了, 可以冠冕堂皇地挂牌营业了。某些笃信“风水”、为保佑官运亨通的共产党员领导干部们,以公费“埋单”、请风水先生选址建办公大楼的行为也无需     

Blind Speakers Show Language‐Specific Patterns in Co‐Speech Gesture but Not Silent Gesture

Sighted speakers of different languages vary systematically in how they package and order components of a motion event in speech. These differences influence how semantic elements are organized in gesture, but only when those gestures are produced with speech (co‐speech gesture), not without speech (silent gesture). We ask whether the cross‐linguistic similarity in silent gesture is driven by the visuospatial structure of the event. We compared 40 congenitally blind adult native speakers of English or Turkish (20/language) to 80 sighted adult speakers (40/language; half with, half without blindfolds) as they described three‐dimensional motion scenes. We found an effect of language on co‐speech gesture, not on silent gesture—blind speakers of both languages organized their silent gestures as sighted speakers do. Humans may have a natural semantic organization that they impose on events when conveying them in gesture without language—an organization that relies on neither visuospatial cues nor language structure.     

Job satisfaction among Swedish soldiers: Applying the Job Characteristics Model to newly recruited military personnel

A professional military organization was introduced in Sweden in 2010. This means that the Swedish Armed Forces (SAF) need to attract and employ soldiers, and to retain them within the organization. This scenario creates new types of challenges in manning the organization. The transition to an all-volunteer force puts job satisfaction in focus in order to retain personnel. This cross-sectional study of the relations between working conditions and job involvement among 300 recently employed soldiers showed that the dimensions of the Job Characteristics Model related significantly to job satisfaction and work motivation and (negatively) to turnover intentions from the SAF. The results further showed that all the critical psychological states contributed independently to the variance in the outcome variables.