学术界不应该吹捧风水术

1月27日,中国无神论学会和本刊编辑部邀请部分建筑、地质和传统文化研究的专家,召开了关于风水迷信问题的学术研讨会。研讨会上,有关专家对于风水迷信近年来的沉渣泛起表示了深深的忧虑。我们选编了他们的一些发言,并希望这个问题能够引起有关部门的高度重视。在这些忧虑之中,对某些所谓专家、学者行为的忧虑,是重要的内涵。因为正是某些专家、学者,把风水说成是建筑上的环境科学,是优秀的传统文化。这就给腐败的官员、行骗的风水先生提供了所谓理论根据。二十多年前特异功能兴起的时候,也是先有一帮所谓专家学者作出理论论证,一些官员表示支持。历史是何其相似,风水看来就要热到社会上层了。为了说明风水到底是什么,会后我们又组织有关学者,标点、翻译了古代有关风水迷信的代表性文献。这些文献告诉我们,如今被某些人鼓吹的“风水”,是一个有特定含义的概念。其特定含义就是讲葬地决定活人吉凶祸福。这里的“风水”,根本不是什么背风向阳,依山傍水之类的风水。某些人故意扩大风水的内容,只是为了给风水迷信披上科学的、合法的外衣。我们希望这里的文章和材料能够帮助某些人清醒一些。     

小学生形成合取概念的策略训练及其迁移效果

采用明确要求、策略讲授、讨论比较、练习巩固的方法,对小学四年级儿童形成合取概念的策略进行训练,结果发现：训练不仅能够促进儿童形成合取概念的能力发展,而且提高了他们的元认知水平,并在相关的问题解决中表现出能力的迁移。     

Conversation Orientation and Cognitive Processes: A Comparison of U.S. Students in Initial Interaction With Native‐ Versus Nonnative‐Speaking Partners

The present study compares thought patterns, perceptions of interaction (perceived interaction smoothness and interaction involvement), and conversation orientation of U.S. students (N = 60) in dyadic interaction with a partner who is either another American or a non‐American nonnative speaker of English. As hypothesized, U.S. participants with nonnative‐speaking partners perceived interaction as more difficult, or less smooth, than did their counterparts with native‐speaking partners. U.S. participants with nonnative‐speaking partners also displayed different thought patterns, having more thoughts showing confusion, as well as more thoughts focused on the partner and less on the content of the ongoing conversation, than those with fellow native‐speaking partners. U.S. participants with a nonnative‐speaking partner also exhibited a different conversation orientation pattern, focusing more on understanding of the other's message, less on clarifying their own message, and less on displaying their own involvement. Specific thought categories and perceived interaction smoothness were correlated with conversation orientation indices for participants in interactions between native and nonnative speakers. Finally, interaction involvement was found to contribute most to variation in perceived interaction smoothness for both U.S. and non‐U.S. participants in interactions between native and nonnative speakers. Implications of the findings are discussed.     

Chinese Folk Christianity and Its Possibly Missional Nature

During the last four decades, Christianity in China has grown quickly. There are about 50 million Protestant Christians in today's China. The majority of them, however, are in rural areas. This rural Christianity, or folk Christianity, is influenced by Chinese folk religion. This article explores the features and the missional nature of Chinese folk Christianity. It exposes several main features of folk Christianity, including its charismatic orientation, pragmatic concern, moral emphasis, and superstitious factors. Its main argument is that Chinese folk Christianity is missional in a situation where the absolute majority of the population is non‐Christian. Through describing and analyzing Chinese folk Christianity as biblical, historical, contextual, eschatological, and practicable, which are fundamental affirmations about the missional church, this article reaches the following conclusion: Although it is somewhat syncretic, Chinese folk Christianity, as God's people called in a particular context, has its missional nature. It is a contextualized form of Christianity. Given the particular Chinese context in participating in God's mission, it might be inevitable for Chinese folk Christianity to be syncretic to some degree. In the contexualization of Christianity, however, Chinese folk Christianity has raised some theological questions: How deeply and thoroughly contextualized can folk Christianity become? Are there limits to its contextualization? If yes, what are the limits?     

Parent–child attachment as a mediator of the relationship between parenting style and gelotophobia among adolescents

Fear of being laughed at and family interaction are highly related. Parental over‐control and over‐protection influence children's excessive anxiety over being laughed at. Conversely, parental attachment is an important index of the parent–child relationship and is closely correlated to children's gelotophobia. However, is it the style of parenting or the outcome of parenting (i.e. attachment) that influences a child's gelotophobia? To answer this question, the present study analysed the relationships between gelotophobia, perceived parenting of children and parent–child attachment, as well as the mediating role of attachment between parenting and children's gelotophobia, using a sample of 373 high‐school students. The results show that being highly communicative and close attachment completely weakened the negative correlation between warm, caring parenting and the child's gelotophobia; moreover, being highly communicative and close attachment, together with over‐protective and over‐controlling parenting, influence children's gelotophobia. In sum, this study indicates that parent–child attachment has a direct and indirect influence on perceived parental care and protection and children's fear of being laughed at.     

The God Mysticism Scale: a Brief Version

Pastoral Psychology - This paper presents two studies concerned with developing a brief version of the 32-item God Mysticism Scale (GMS; Hood Jr. and Williamson Journal of Psychology and...     

The relationships among parental psychological control/autonomy support,self‐trouble,and internalizing problems across adolescent genders

This study aimed to explore the relationships among early adolescents’ perceived parental psychological control/autonomy support, self‐trouble, and internalizing problems as well as the potential gender differences in these relationships. Multiple‐group path analysis was performed on the data collected from 1,089 adolescents in Beijing junior high schools. Results revealed that parental psychological control (autonomy support) was associated with adolescents’ more (fewer) internalizing problems, and self‐trouble acted as a mediator in these two relationships. Moreover, only the indirect relationship between parental autonomy support and internalizing problems via self‐trouble was moderated by gender, with girls showing a little stronger indirect effect than boys, and specifically, it was the relationship between autonomy support and self‐trouble that existed gender differences, with girls showing higher coefficient than boys. The relationship between parental psychological control/autonomy support and early adolescents’ internalizing problems was discussed with regard to self‐trouble and gender differences.     

Determining Normal Deviance: Adolescent Drug Use?

This research examines change in lifetime drug use frequency among three drugs, marijuana, alcohol and inhalants, and antisocial behaviors using a cohort longitudinal model. Findings indicate marijuana and alcohol use increases with grade level. Inhalants are the only drugs which use decline with grade level. Focus of the paper is whether the use of these three drugs is a normal part of adolescent development. Using three determinants: associations between drug use and grade and scores on an antisocial behavior scale; and percent of abstainers; the authors determined none of the three drugs represent normal deviance. Data are from 2008 thru the 2014 the Caring Communities Youth Survey (CCYS). The concept of normal deviance is discussed.