The contribution of self-compassion in the relationship between social support and posttraumatic growth

IntroductionDespite well-established evidence on the relationship between social support and posttraumatic growth (PTG), there remains a paucity of evidence regarding the mechanism that underlie this relationship.ObjectiveThis study examined the relationship between social support and PTG, while exploring self-compassion as an intermediatory factor in this association.MethodA cross-sectional study with 447 college students was conducted in Trabzon, Turkey. The data were analyzed using Structural Equation Modelling (SEM).ResultsResults indicated that perceived social support and self-compassion were associated with PTG. Furthermore, a significant indirect effect between social support and PTG via self-compassion emerged.ConclusionBased on the study findings, tailored intervention programs targeting self-compassion and perceived social support in trauma-exposed young adults may be useful for promoting posttraumatic growth.     

Unknown Truths and False Beliefs: Completeness and Expressivity Results for the Neighborhood Semantics

In this article, we study logics of unknown truths and false beliefs under neighborhood semantics. We compare the relative expressivity of the two logics. It turns out that they are incomparable over various classes of neighborhood models, and the combination of the two logics are equally expressive as standard modal logic over any class of neighborhood models. We propose morphisms for each logic, which can help us explore the frame definability problem, show a general soundness and completeness result, and generalize some results in the literature. We axiomatize the two logics over various classes of neighborhood frames. Most importantly, by adopting the intersection semantics and the subset semantics in the literature, we extend the results to the case of public announcements, which gives us the desired reduction axioms and has good applications related to Moore sentences, successful formulas and self-refuting formulas. Also, we can say something about the comparative merits of the intersection semantics and the subset semantics.

     

Examining Family Living Arrangements,Economic Development,Education Expenditure and Children’s Weight from the Welfare Mix in China

Applied Research in Quality of Life - There is increased social concern regarding children’s weight in China, but there is a relative lack of research concerning its social determinants....     

大学生的理想-现实自我差异及其与抑郁的关系

采用自编的“大学生理想-现实自我差异问卷”和流调中心用抑郁量表,考查了447名1-4年级大学生的理想-现实自我概念差异状况及其与抑郁的关系。结果表明：大学生被试的理想自我概念与现实自我概念存在一定程度的差异;大学生被试的理想-现实自我概念差异在学业、情绪和总分上存在显著的年级差异;家庭经济状况差的大学生被试的理想—现实自我概念差异显著大于家庭经济状况好的被试;大学生的理想-现实自我概念差异与抑郁具有显著的正相关,情绪、人际、家庭自我差异等对抑郁的影响作用较大。     

医患关系若干现象的思考

我国医患关系由“互信、尊重、理解、接受”变化到近年来的多元化.“互信、尊重、理解、接受”依然是我国医患关系的主流,但亦出现了“猜疑、轻视、迷茫、否认”等现象.通过对近年来的不和谐医患关系现象的分析描述,可知不和谐医患关系产生的原因为医学科学技术处于发展阶段的必然,我国卫生法制的相对滞后,国人固有的思维定势和科学知识思想的博弈.     

Stress induces glucocorticoid-mediated apoptosis of rat Leydig cells in vivo

Stress can disrupt endocrine signalling in the male reproductive axis through high concentrations of glucocorticoids, the hallmark of stress. Our previous work revealed that a stress level of exogenous glucocorticoids could induce apoptosis of rat Leydig cells, which are the primary source of testosterone. The aim of this study was to investigate whether stress can induce apoptosis in rat Leydig cells in vivo and, if so, whether the process is the result of a direct effect of glucocorticoids. In a chronically stressed rat model, serum corticosterone concentration was increased significantly whereas serum testosterone was decreased. The frequency of apoptotic Leydig cells in stressed rats was also increased. Adrenalectomised rats subjected to chronic stress showed an elevated serum testosterone, while the apoptotic frequency of Leydig cells was not increased. It was established that glucocorticoid-induced Leydig cell apoptosis is mediated by glucocorticoid receptors (GRs), which translocate from cytoplasm to nucleus. Adenovirus microRNA-induced downregulation of GR expression in vitro alleviated the corticosterone-induced increase in apoptosis of Leydig cells. These results indicate that the stress-induced increase in corticosterone secretion resulted in apoptosis in rat Leydig cells in vivo, and thereby decreased testosterone synthesis.     

Active coping with stress suppresses glucose metabolism in the rat hypothalamus

We used 18F-fluorodeoxyglucose small-animal positron-emission tomography to determine whether different styles of coping with stress are associated with different patterns of neuronal activity in the hypothalamus. Adult rats were subjected to immobilization (IMO)-stress or to a non-immobilized condition for 30 min, in random order on separate days, each of which was followed by brain-scanning. Some rats in the immobilized condition were allowed to actively cope with the stress by chewing a wooden stick during IMO, while the other immobilized rats were given nothing to chew on. Voxel-based statistical analysis of the brain imaging data shows that chewing counteracted the stress-induced increased glucose uptake in the hypothalamus to the level of the non-immobilized condition. Region-of-interest analysis of the glucose uptake values further showed that chewing significantly suppressed stress-induced increased glucose uptake in the paraventricular hypothalamic nucleus and the anterior hypothalamic area but not in the lateral hypothalamus. Together with the finding that the mean plasma corticosterone concentration at the termination of the IMO was also significantly suppressed when rats had an opportunity to chew a wooden stick, our results showed that active coping by chewing inhibited the activation of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis to reduce the endocrine stress response.     

Eye movements of second language learners when reading spaced and unspaced Chinese text

The effect of spacing in relation to word segmentation was examined for four groups of non-native Chinese speakers (American, Korean, Japanese, and Thai) who were learning Chinese as second language. Chinese sentences with four types of spacing information were used: unspaced text, word-spaced text, character-spaced text, and nonword-spaced text. Also, participants' native languages were different in terms of their basic characteristics: English and Korean are spaced, whereas the other two are unspaced; Japanese is character based whereas the other three are alphabetic. Thus, we assessed whether any spacing effects were modulated by native language characteristics. Eye movement measures showed least disruption to reading for word-spaced text and longer reading times for unspaced than character-spaced text, with nonword-spaced text yielding the most disruption. These effects were uninfluenced by native language (though reading times differed between groups as a result of Chinese reading experience). Demarcation of word boundaries through spacing reduces non-native readers' uncertainty about the characters that constitute a word, thereby speeding lexical identification, and in turn, reading. More generally, the results indicate that words have psychological reality for those who are learning to read Chinese as a second language, and that segmentation of text into words is more beneficial to successful comprehension than is separating individual Chinese characters with spaces.