Analytic Standard Errors for Exploratory Process Factor Analysis

Exploratory process factor analysis (EPFA) is a data-driven latent variable model for multivariate time series. This article presents analytic standard errors for EPFA. Unlike standard errors for exploratory factor analysis with independent data, the analytic standard errors for EPFA take into account the time dependency in time series data. In addition, factor rotation is treated as the imposition of equality constraints on model parameters. Properties of the analytic standard errors are demonstrated using empirical and simulated data.     

Materialism and well-being: the moderating effects of religiosity on young Malaysian consumers

This article presents the results of a large-scale study of the relationship between materialism and well-being by examining the moderating role of religiosity. By confining the present study to a sample of young consumers drawn from Malaysia – a country of diverse subcultures who share similar cultural values (collectivistic), we attempt to validate findings of previous research that may reflect the influence of age, country, culture, subculture, and the variety of measures of religiosity, materialism and well-being. This study finds that having strong religious orientations makes Muslim youths happier, whereas such a relationship does not hold for their Buddhist counterparts. The present study also finds no relationship between materialism and well-being among youths in either religious subculture, but finds that religiosity has a significant negative effect on the well-being of Muslims who have strong materialistic values as their Buddhist counterparts who hold equally strong materialistic orientations.     

When Being Discrepant from One's Ideal or Ought Selves Hurts: The Moderating Role of Neuroticism

Self‐discrepancy theory posits that people experience emotional consequences when they perceive discrepancies between their actual and possible selves. However, the extent to which people react emotionally to these self‐discrepancies (i.e. ideal, ought and undesired) may be a function of individual differences in neuroticism. Across both experimental (Study 1; N = 155) and correlational designs (Study 2; N = 139) involving college students, the authors demonstrated that neuroticism moderated the discrepancy–emotion associations such that high‐neuroticism individuals showed elevated depression and anxiety symptoms when their self‐discrepancies were activated. The heightened symptoms were maintained over time. Negative repetitive thoughts (i.e. rumination and worry) were examined as potential mediating mechanisms between the discrepancy × neuroticism interaction and symptoms. Partial support was obtained in that rumination mediated between undesired discrepancy × neuroticism interaction and anxious/depressive symptoms. Implications and possible theoretical extensions for self‐discrepancy theory are discussed. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Metalinguistic Filters Within the Bilingual Language Faculty: A Study of Young English-Chinese Bilinguals

This study reports two metalinguistic parameters that constitute the schematic control of lateral inhibitory links between translation equivalents within the bilingual lexico-semantic system of Green’s (Bilingualism: Language and Cognition 1:67–81, 1998a, Bilingualism: Language and Cognition 1:100–104, 1998b, The bilingualism reader, Routledge, London, 2007) inhibitory control (IC) model. Building on Green’s postulation that the bilingual lexico-semantic system is controlled by a hierarchy of schemas under a supervisory attentional system, the bilingual unconsciously filters activated lemmas during fluent spontaneous codeswitching, such that lemmas that are semantico-syntactically versatile or morphosyntactically transparent are likely to reach a threshold of activation first while other lemmas are inhibited. To investigate the issue, we collected code-paired naturalistic and elicited data with a focus on code-switched determiner phrases from 140 Mandarin-English simultaneous bilinguals who were post-secondary students in Singapore. We found that the semantico-syntactic and morpho-syntactic dissimilarities between Mandarin and English activated both filters. As most Mandarin determiners are economical vis-à-vis their English counterparts, their lemmas were selected frequently while English lemmas were largely inhibited. It was also found that our participants preferred English nouns in filling the lexical category for their interpretable feature of number, a feature that is normally absent in Mandarin nouns.     

An examination of the relationships among emotion management,interpersonal hassles,and depressive symptomatology

This study extended previous research by testing three models predicting depressive symptoms from emotion management (EM) and interpersonal hassles in a sample with a wide range of depression scores. Adults (n = 218) from sources including a depression internet site completed measures of interpersonal hassles, depression, and three aspects of EM (attention to, clarity of, and repair of emotions). Regression analyses supported a model in which lower clarity and repair scores and greater frequency of interpersonal hassles each contributed directly to depression scores. While lower attention to emotions was associated with fewer interpersonal hassles, it did not correlate significantly with depression scores. Moderation analyses did not support a model of EM components acting on depression by buffering effects of interpersonal hassles. A model of depression and hassles predicting EM difficulties was also considered; when both hassles and depression scores were entered to predict EM, only depressive symptoms uniquely predicted clarity and repair.     

Comparative loneliness of users versus nonusers of online chatting

Online chatting is an important component of improving interpersonal relationships online, but it may reduce participants' communication time with family members. We conducted a study of the relationship between participants' intent to engage in online chatting and three dimensions of loneliness: social, familial, and romantic. This study was designed to show the effect of online chatting on each of these three dimensions of loneliness. The participants in the study were 709 students at two universities in Taiwan who were classified on the basis of whether or not they had ever engaged in online chatting. Of the participants, 651 (91.82%) fully completed the questionnaires that served as the study instruments and were included in data analysis. The study found that individuals who had participated in online chatting exhibited greater familial loneliness than those who had not because the time spent in online chatting reduced the time spent in familial relationships. Social loneliness was related to the quality of Internet relationships rather than to the time spent online. Individuals who participated in online chatting had less romantic loneliness because of a greater ease of maintaining romantic relationships online. We conclude that online chatting can reduce social loneliness through high-quality Internet relationships but may exacerbate familial loneliness.     

Life hassles, experiential avoidance and distressing delusional experiences

Life hassles have been implicated in both the formation and maintenance of psychosis symptoms. However, little is understood about the mechanism through which these stressors impact on psychosis. The current study proposed experiential avoidance (EA), a psychological coping style that is a central focus for change in Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), as a potential mediator of the link between life hassles and both the emergence and maintenance of delusional ideation. Participants were recruited to a non-clinical sample (N = 133) and a clinical sample of psychosis patients (N = 100). All participants completed a self-report questionnaire including a measure of delusions and delusional distress (Peters Delusions Inventory), life hassles (Survey of Recent Life Experiences) and EA (Acceptance and Action Questionnaire-II). Mediation testing (bootstrapping) indicated a significant mediation effect of EA in the relationship between life hassles and both delusions and delusional distress, in both clinical and non-clinical samples. The findings suggest that individuals (irrespective of their diagnostic status) with a tendency to suppress or avoid unwanted thoughts are significantly more likely to experience distressing delusions in response to stressful life occurrences. The use of ACT and Cognitive Behavioural Therapy to reduce EA in those at risk of emerging delusions and in patients with an already established psychosis is discussed.     

Perceptual training strongly improves visual motion perception in schizophrenia

Schizophrenia patients exhibit perceptual and cognitive deficits, including in visual motion processing. Given that cognitive systems depend upon perceptual inputs, improving patients’ perceptual abilities may be an effective means of cognitive intervention. In healthy people, motion perception can be enhanced through perceptual learning, but it is unknown whether this perceptual plasticity remains in schizophrenia patients. The present study examined the degree to which patients’ performance on visual motion discrimination can be improved, using a perceptual learning procedure. While both schizophrenia patients and healthy controls showed decreased direction discrimination thresholds (improved performance) with training, the magnitude of the improvement was greater in patients (47% improvement) than in controls (21% improvement). Both groups also improved moderately but non-significantly on an untrained task—speed discrimination. The large perceptual training effect in patients on the trained task suggests that perceptual plasticity is robust in schizophrenia and can be applied to develop bottom-up behavioral interventions.