The relationship between autonomous motivation and goal pursuit: A cross‐cultural perspective

People pursue their goals for different reasons, and previous research has distinguished two types of autonomous reason: relationally autonomous reasons (RARs) and personally autonomous reasons (PARs). The present study examines how RARs and PARs predict goal performance and well‐being differently for people in individualistic and collectivistic cultures. Participants included 250 American and 246 Chinese undergraduate students. They listed two of the most important goals they were currently pursuing, and completed survey measures to assess their RARs, PARs, goal effort and progress, and personal and collective self‐esteem. The moderating effect of culture on how RARs and PARs influence goal outcomes was tested through structural equation modelling analyses, so that both RARs and PARs could be incorporated into the analyses. The results indicate cultural differences in the degree to which PARs and RARs relate to goal performance and well‐being. Implications regarding the role of autonomy in different cultures are discussed.     

消费者一定偏爱“笑脸”吗?产品外观中的表情元素对消费者的影响

表情是产品拟人化外观设计中重要元素。产品正面或负面的拟人化“表情” (表达正面或负面情感的表情)会影响到消费者对产品的感知。人际交往相关理论验证了正面表情对消费者的积极影响, 并认为负面表情不利于消费者与产品的互动。但是在现实市场中我们却看到, 消费者有时却更喜爱展现负面表情的产品, 营销领域的产品拟人化研究鲜有关注到产品表情的错位影响。具体而言, 在拟人化营销研究领域, 以下三个研究问题尚待探讨: 产品表情有怎样的具体体现及市场效用; 产品表情对消费者行为和态度影响的心理机制为何; 以及来自于消费者特质和产品因素的调节效应。回答以上问题能够进一步拓展和丰富营销领域的拟人化理论, 同时也将从实践上为产品外观设计提供建议和指导。     

慢性心衰患者姑息照护的挑战和策略

慢性心衰患者往往经历呼吸困难、乏力、液体潴留、焦虑抑郁、对生活失去兴趣等身体心理症状,是实施姑息照护的主要对象。但由于其疾病轨迹的不确定性、人们对姑息照护认识不足、缺乏有效工作模式等原因,导致姑息照护使用比例很低,通过系统回顾国内外慢性心衰姑息照护实施现况,建议我国一方面可以加强姑息照护的宣传教育、积极探索慢性心衰患者姑息照护实施的最佳模式和最佳时机,并注重对整个家庭进行需求评估;另一方面,国家应该制定相关的政策和法律以推动姑息照护在慢性心衰患者中的使用。     

关于“代孕爸爸”事件的生命伦理与法律问题思考

全球首位“代孕爸爸”托马斯·比提的高调出现,带来了一场激烈的关于生命伦理与法律的大讨论。变性人的婚姻、生育及代孕问题让我们不得不对变性手术、人工辅助生殖技术以及代孕技术这些新兴生命技术进行再思考。我们不仅要肯定新兴生命技术的合理性,也要防止其所产生的潜在负面影响。合理利用新兴生命技术,客观地分析该事件并制定相应的法规是避免出现伦理道德和社会混乱的有效途径。     

Aging of theory of mind: The influence of educational level and cognitive processing

Previous studies of theory of mind (ToM) in old age have provided mixed results. We predicted that educational level and cognitive processing are two factors influencing the pattern of the aging of ToM. To test this hypothesis, a younger group who received higher education (mean age 20.46 years), an older group with an education level equal to that of the young group (mean age 76.29 years), and an older group with less education (mean age 73.52 years) were recruited. ToM tasks included the following tests: the second‐order false‐belief task, the faux‐pas task, the eyes test, and tests of fundamental aspects of cognitive function that included two background tests (memory span and processing speed) and three subcomponents of executive function (inhibition, updating, and shifting). We found that the younger group and the older group with equally high education outperformed the older group with less education in false‐belief and faux‐pas tasks. However, there was no significant difference between the two former groups. The three groups of participants performed equivalently in the eyes test as well as in control tasks (false‐belief control question, faux‐pas control question, faux‐pas control story, and Eyes Test control task). The younger group outperformed the other two groups in the cognitive processing tasks. Mediation analyses showed that difficulties in inhibition, memory span, and processing speed mediated the age differences in false‐belief reasoning. Also, the variables of inhibition, updating, memory span, and processing speed mediated age‐related variance in faux‐pas. Discussion focused on the links between ToM aging, educational level, and cognitive processing.     

Hearing others’ pain: neural activity related to empathy

The human voice is one of the principal conveyers of social and affective communication. Recent neuroimaging studies have suggested that observing pain in others activates neural representations similar to those from the first-hand experience of pain; however, studies on pain expressions in the auditory channel are lacking. We conducted a functional magnetic resonance imaging study to examine brain responses to emotional exclamations of others’ pain. The control condition comprised positive (e.g., laughing) or negative (e.g., snoring) stimuli of the human voice that were not associated with pain and suffering. Compared to these control stimuli, pain-related exclamations elicited increased activation in the superior and middle temporal gyri, left insula, secondary somatosensory cortices, thalamus, and right cerebellum, as well as deactivation in the anterior cingulate cortex. The left anterior insular and thalamic activations correlated significantly with the Empathic Concern subscale of the Interpersonal Reactivity Index. Thus, the brain regions involved in hearing others’ pain are similar to those activated in the empathic processing of visual stimuli. Additionally, the findings emphasise the modulating role of interindividual differences in affective empathy.     

心理咨询中的突然获益：工作同盟及初始症状的影响

对82位当事人在咨询中的症状改变过程进行纵向研究,检验突然获益模式（Sudden Gain, SG）的发生及其与咨询效果的联系,并探索初始症状水平、工作同盟对SG的影响。结果表明,24.93%的当事人经历了SG,咨询效果显著好于其他当事人;SG组与对照组在初始症状水平和总体工作同盟水平上差异显著。结论：SG出现于本土心理咨询中,经历SG的当事人取得了更好的咨询效果,工作同盟与初始症状水平与SG的发生相关。     

Losing control in front of a fearful face: the effect of emotional information on cognitive control

How is our cognitive control system modulated by emotional information, especially fearful stimuli? An intuitive hypothesis is that fearful stimuli would enhance cognitive control so that people could switch from the ongoing task to emergent events more quickly to secure themselves. To test this hypothesis, we investigated the influence of emotional information on the shift function of cognitive control by using the task-cueing procedure, in which face images were presented as cues. With the gender of faces indicating which task to do, we manipulated the emotional valence of faces (neutral vs. fearful), finding that the switch costs were larger in the trials containing fearful cues than in the trials containing neutral cues (Experiment 1). This effect was not caused by enlarging task-set interference (Experiment 2), nor by slowing down cue encoding (Experiment 3). Contrary to the intuitive hypothesis, our results suggested that the endogenous task-set reconfiguration process was impaired when fearful faces were presented. We speculated that the benefit of decreasing cognitive flexibility in face of fearful stimuli is to speed up response in a dangerous environment, and this accelerating response is achieved by suppressing the goal-directed system to permit the fast, automatic stimulus-driven system to govern behaviours.     

Chasing vs. stalking: interrupting the perception of animacy

Visual experience involves not only physical features such as color and shape, but also higher-level properties such as animacy and goal-directedness. Perceiving animacy is an inherently dynamic experience, in part because agents' goal-directed behavior may be frequently in flux-unlike many of their physical properties. How does the visual system maintain and update representations of agents' animate and goal-directed behavior over time and motion? The present study explored this question in the context of a particularly salient form of perceived animacy: chasing, in which one shape (the "wolf") pursues another shape (the "sheep"). Here the participants themselves controlled the movement of the sheep, and the perception of chasing was assessed in terms of their ability to avoid being caught by the wolf-which looked identical to many moving distractors, and so could be identified only by its motion. The wolf's pursuit was frequently interrupted by periods in which it was static, jiggling in place, or moving randomly (amidst distractors that behaved similarly). Only the latter condition greatly impaired the detection of chasing-and only when the random motion was grouped into temporally extended chunks. These results reveal (1) how the detection of chasing is determined by the character and temporal grouping (rather than just the brute amount) of "pursuit" over time; and (2) how these temporal dynamics can lead the visual system to either construct or actively reject interpretations of chasing.     

阿奎那灵魂学说的立场与方法

阿奎那的灵魂学说虽然从理性辩护主义的立场,调和了亚里士多德关于"灵魂是肉体的形式和现实性"的定义和古代教父关于"灵魂是不朽的精神实体"的论断,但它并非一个将哲学和神学无原则地掺和在一起的理论体系,而是通过意义辨析的方法对前人思想做出了创造性发展。在此过程中,基督教信仰赋予了他的学说以许多独特的内容和积极的影响。