焦虑中的安全行为及其影响

安全行为是个体用于预防或者减轻恐惧后果的行为, 它被认为是焦虑障碍维持的重要机制之一, 也会对焦虑的暴露治疗产生干扰。安全行为与焦虑水平、焦虑相关的认知偏差存在联系, 错误归因假说、注意资源偏离假说和行为信息假说对这种联系做出了解释。此外, 安全行为的使用会削弱焦虑暴露治疗的效果、提高暴露的接受性。未来研究应对安全行为做出更清晰的界定和准确的测量, 进一步改进研究设计, 借鉴第三代行为治疗的理论解释安全行为与焦虑的关系; 同时还需要考察安全行为的双重作用, 开发聚焦于安全行为的治疗方案并评估其效果。     

人格相似性与关系质量的关系：单向视角

温州两所大学的199个大学生在人际形容词量表上对自己的人际特质进行评定,并对自己选定的一个关系对象进行评定,感知与选定对象的人格相似性,同时评定与该对象的关系质量。根据自我报告和评定对象计算出假定相似性。对关系质量的分层回归分析得到人际特质两个维度的交互效应均为正,即表现出假定相似相吸的效应趋势,亲和性维度显著;相关显示假定的相似性和感知的相似性与关系质量均呈中等程度相关;路径分析表明感知的相似性中介假定相似性与关系质量的关系。     

广东省中职生生涯规划问题研究

本研究以广东省中等职业学校学生为研究对象,考察一直走在全国职业教育前沿的广东省中职生的生涯规划现状。通过自编的生涯规划测量量表对广州地区近800名中职学生的调查结果显示(1)积极方面:对专业的接受度较高、中职生的就业准备时间较早和对工作的薪酬较为理性;(2)消极方面:缺乏生涯规划意识、学习动力不足,学习动机复杂、中职生的就业地点较为局限等。     

Young children's use of statistical sampling evidence to infer the subjectivity of preferences

A crucial task in social interaction involves understanding subjective mental states. Here we report two experiments with toddlers exploring whether they can use statistical evidence to infer the subjective nature of preferences. We found that 2-year-olds were likely to interpret another person’s nonrandom sampling behavior as a cue for a preference different from their own. When there was no alternative in the population or if the sampling was random, 2-year-olds did not ascribe a preference and persisted in their initial beliefs that the person would share their own preference. We found similar but weaker patterns of responses in 16-month-olds. These results suggest that the ability to infer the subjectivity of preferences based on sampling information begins to emerge between 16 months and 2 years. Our findings provide some of the first evidence that from early in development, young children can use statistical evidence to make rational inferences about the social world.     

Control deprivation and styles of thinking

Westerners habitually think in analytical ways, whereas East Asians tend to favor holistic styles of thinking. We replicated this difference but showed that it disappeared after control deprivation (Experiment 1). Brief experiences of control deprivation, which stimulate increased desire for control, caused Chinese participants to shift toward Western-style analytical thinking in multiple ways (Experiments 2-5). Western Caucasian participants also increased their use of analytical thinking after control deprivation (Experiment 6). Manipulations that required Chinese participants to think in Western, analytical ways caused their sense of personal control to increase (Experiments 7-9). Prolonged experiences of control deprivation, which past work suggested foster an attitude more akin to learned helplessness than striving for control, had the opposite effect of causing Chinese participants to shift back toward a strongly holistic style of thinking (Experiments 10-12). Taken together, the results support the reality of cultural differences in cognition but also the cross-cultural similarity of using analytical thinking when seeking to enhance personal control.     

Trichotomous goals of elementary school students learning English as a foreign language: a structural equation model

This study applied structural equation modeling (SEM) techniques to define the relations among trichotomous goals (mastery goals, performance-approach goals, and performance-avoidance goals), self-efficacy, use of metacognitive self-regulation strategies, positive belief in seeking help, and help-avoidance behavior. Elementary school students (N = 105), who were learning English as a foreign language, were surveyed using five self-report scales. The structural equation model showed that self-efficacy led to the adoption of mastery goals but discouraged the adoption of performance-approach goals and performance-avoidance goals. Furthermore, mastery goals increased the use of metacognitive self-regulation strategies, whereas performance-approach goals and performance-avoidance goals reduced their use. Mastery goals encouraged positive belief in help-seeking, but performance-avoidance goals decreased such belief. Finally, performance-avoidance goals directly led to help-avoidance behavior, whereas positive belief assumed a critical role in reducing help-avoidance. The established structural equation model illuminated the potential causal relations among these variables for the young learners in this study.     

A Longitudinal Examination of Serious Adolescent Offenders’ Perceptions of Chances for Success and Engagement in Behaviors Accomplishing Goals

We examined antisocial adolescents’ perceptions of the importance of and their ability to accomplish positive life outcomes (e.g., employment) and avoid negative ones (e.g., arrests) during their transition from adolescence to young adulthood. Participants were 1,354 adolescents from the Pathways to Desistance project, a multisite longitudinal study of seriously antisocial adolescents. Participants’ perceptions of the importance and likelihood of accomplishing positive adult goals at one age uniquely predicted how often they engaged in behaviors that were consistent with these goals the following year. Our findings suggest that among serious adolescent offenders aspirations to achieve positive goals are related to engaging in behaviors that bring adolescents’ current selves more in line with their aspired-to future selves. We discuss the implications of these findings for prevention and intervention efforts.     

Social presence and service satisfaction: The moderating role of cultural value‐orientation

Two studies examine the role of the cultural value orientation, self‐construal, as a moderator of the relationship between social presence and service satisfaction. Cross‐cultural data are collected in China and the USA to maximize variation on self‐construal. Results suggest that social presence effects vary depending on the consumer's independent self‐construal. Regardless of whether the service encounter is positive or negative, social presence increases the strength of satisfaction or dissatisfaction for low independents but not for high independents. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Emotions and suicidal ideation among depressed women with childhood sexual abuse histories

Depressed women with sexual abuse histories have a heightened risk of suicidal ideation (SI), which may be only in part attributable to psychiatric symptoms of depression and posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Emotions and SI were studied among 106 women with histories of childhood sexual abuse enrolled in treatment trials for major depression. Assessments were conducted at baseline, 10, 24, and 36 weeks. Sadness, guilt, and shame-proneness were associated with self-reported and observer-rated SI across time after adjusting for depressive and PTSD symptoms, suicide attempt history, and sociodemographic characteristics associated with SI. These findings highlight the need for clinical attention to self-directed negative emotions to potentially reduce suicide-related risk.     

Semantic priming from crowded words

Vision in a cluttered scene is extremely inefficient. This damaging effect of clutter, known as crowding, affects many aspects of visual processing (e.g., reading speed). We examined observers' processing of crowded targets in a lexical decision task, using single-character Chinese words that are compact but carry semantic meaning. Despite being unrecognizable and indistinguishable from matched nonwords, crowded prime words still generated robust semantic-priming effects on lexical decisions for test words presented in isolation. Indeed, the semantic-priming effect of crowded primes was similar to that of uncrowded primes. These findings show that the meanings of words survive crowding even when the identities of the words do not, suggesting that crowding does not prevent semantic activation, a process that may have evolved in the context of a cluttered visual environment.