Religiousness and Quality of Life Among Older Adults of Different Ethnic Groups in Malaysia: A Five-Year Follow-up Study

Journal of Religion and Health - Research has shown that religion is associated with a better quality of life (QoL). This study aims to examine ethnic differences in the association between...     

The Relationship Between Prosociality,Meaning, and Happiness in Everyday Life

Journal of Happiness Studies - Prosocial behaviors benefit others, but what benefits do they hold for those who enact them? Prosociality can enhance the actor’s well-being, yet whether it is...     

Is there a dose-response relationship? Investigating the functional form between COVID-19 incidence rates and life satisfaction in a multilevel framework

Journal of Happiness Studies - While there is plenty of research linking the effects of the global COVID-19 pandemic to a drastic reduction of life satisfaction in the population, there is little...     

Unemployed and exhausted? Job-search fatigue and reemployment quality

Job loss and job search are particularly devastating and stressful events that individuals can experience in their careers. However, less research attention has been paid to fatigue or burnout in the context of unemployment and job search. Drawing from Conservation of Resources theory, this study highlights the role that fatigue plays during unemployment and job search among displaced employees — defined as individuals who have lost their jobs involuntarily and are currently not engaged in any form of paid employment. In a two-wave longitudinal study involving 89 displaced employees, we illustrate how financial difficulties and social exclusion can lead to job search fatigue, while psychological capital serves as a personal resource that reduces job seekers' fatigue. We also demonstrate how job search fatigue at Time 1 can lead to lower reemployment quality at Time 2, which, in turn, can lead to lower organizational commitment and increased turnover intentions. Our findings bring into attention the important role that fatigue can play in the context of unemployment and job search.     

Addressing Criticisms of Global Religion Research: A Consumption‐Based Exploration of Status and Materialism,Sustainability, and Volunteering Behavior

Religion is a key source of core values and one of the most deeply psychological experiences; however, prior research has often inadequately measured religion's influence on consumption behaviors. Our research addresses criticisms of prior research by (1) reducing cultural bias by conducting research within one country, (2) examining both religious affiliation and religiosity, (3) exploring numerous consumption behaviors (social status desire, materialism views, sustainable behaviors, environmental views, and volunteering behavior) in a within‐subjects design, and (4) testing religion's effect on consumption behavior with over 1,000 participants. Findings provide insight for consumer well‐being. Specifically, consumers high in external religiosity are more materialistic, more sustainable, and more likely to volunteer than consumers low in external religiosity. Consumers high in internal religiosity are also more likely to be sustainable and hold pro‐environmental views. In addition, Buddhists and Hindus are less likely to hold pro‐environmental views than Christians. Buddhists are more materialistic than Christians, and Hindus are less desiring of social status than Christians. In addressing the criticisms of prior research in the context of consumption, our research builds on values‐based and social‐based theories.     

Resource availability hypothesis: Perceived financial and caloric status affect individuals' height preferences for potential partners

Height is an important concern in human mate choices. Prior research indicates that people who live in areas with abundant resources differ from those who live in areas with scarce resources regarding height preferences. Based on a health‐maximizing principle, we propose a resource availability account for such differences. Compared with women's height preferences, men's height preferences are hypothesized to be more dependent on either financial or caloric resource availability. Specifically, taller females would be more preferred by males who are poor in resources than those who are rich in resources. Results from three studies supported these hypotheses. In Study 1, men from remote areas of China who had lower family income preferred taller women more than those from eastern China who had higher family income. In Study 2, men who were financially dissatisfied preferred taller women more than those who were financially satisfied. In Study 3, men with low caloric status preferred taller women more than men with high caloric status. In addition, women's height preferences in Studies 1, 2 and 3 were less determined by resource availability. These findings suggest that height preferences are changeable, depending on financial or caloric status.     

Processing overlap-dependent distractor dilution rather than perceptual target load determines attentional selectivity

The perceptual load theory of attentional selection argues that the degree to which distractors interfere with target processing is determined by the “perceptual load” (or discrimination difficulty) of target processing: when perceptual load is low, distractors interfere to a greater extent than when it is high. A well-known exception is load-independent interference effects from face distractors during processing of name targets. This finding was reconciled with load theory by proposing distinct processing resources for faces versus names. In the present study, we revisit this effect to test (a) whether increasing the processing overlap (perceptual, lexical, conceptual) between potential targets and distractors would reinstate the classic load effect, and (b) whether this data pattern could be better explained by load theory or by a rival account that argues that distractor dilution rather than target load determines the degree of distractor interference. Over four experiments, we first replicate the original finding and then show that load effects grow with increasing processing overlap between potential targets and distractors. However, by adding dilution conditions, we also show that these processing overlap dependent modulations of distractor interference can be explained by the distractor dilution perspective but not by perceptual load theory. Thus, our findings support a processing overlap dilution account of attentional selection.     

Academic expectations as sources of stress in Asian students

Education is highly valued in Confucian Heritage Culture (CHC) countries such as China, Taiwan, Singapore, Hong Kong, Japan and Korea but the expectations of parents, teachers and students themselves to excel academically can also be a source of intense stress for many students. The Academic Expectations Stress Inventory (AESI), developed by Ang and Huan (Educ Psychol Meas 66: 522–539, 2006) to measure parent, teacher and self expectations as sources of academic stress in Asian adolescents, was administered to 176 Singaporean secondary and college students one month before their major examinations. Rasch analyses of the students’ responses to the AESI showed the nine items in the inventory formed a robust unidimensional scale of academic stress, with two separate unidimensional subscales of Expectations of Parents and Teachers and Expectations of Self complementing the factor analysis conducted by Ang and Huan (Educ Psychol Meas 66: 522–539, 2006). The item thresholds showed the AESI measured the student trait range adequately, and affirmed the inventory as a brief yet valid measure of academic stress for Asian students from a CHC background. The AESI is a valuable tool for teachers and researchers, as it provides an understanding of the role of parents, teachers and self expectations as sources of academic stress among students from a CHC background.     

自我解释的研究现状与展望

自我解释(self-explanation)是指学习者在学习过程中通过自己向自己解释学习内容而获得知识的过程。文章主要阐述了自我解释的含义、分类、三种自我解释效果的认知机制,并且提出自我解释研究中尚待解决的问题及对其进行展望。