中学生消费决策风格的特点及其与家庭理财教育方式的关系

该研究以377名中学生为被试,探讨了中学生消费决策风格的特点及其与家庭理财教育方式的关系。结果表明:(1)中学生消费决策风格部分符合Shim(1996)提出的二阶模型(包括质量导向、非理性导向、享乐导向和价格导向等四个二阶因子);(2)中学生消费决策风格的年级差异不显著,性别差异显著,男生在品牌导向上高于女生,在流行导向和娱乐导向上低于女生;(3)中学生消费决策风格可划分为决策随意型、决策紊乱型、决策理智型和决策实惠型;(4)父母消极的理财教育方式会导致中学生形成非理性导向或享乐导向的消费决策风格,而积极的教育引导则能在一定程度上减弱中学生的非理性决策风格,促进其形成质量导向的决策风格。     

Influence of brain-derived neurotrophic factor and catechol O-methyl transferase polymorphisms on effects of meditation on plasma catecholamines and stress

Meditation may show differential effects on stress and plasma catecholamines based on genetic polymorphisms in brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) and catechol O-methyl transferase (COMT). Eighty adults (40 men, 40 women; mean age 26 years) who practiced meditation regularly and 57 healthy control adults (35 men, 22 women; mean age 26 years) participated. Plasma catecholamines (norepinephrine (NE), epinephrine (E), and dopamine (DA)) concentrations were measured, and a modified form of the Stress Response Inventory was administered. The results were analyzed using two-way analysis of covariance (ANCOVA) with control and meditation subjects, gene polymorphism as factors, and meditation duration as the covariate. Two-way ANCOVA showed a significant interaction between control and meditation subjects, and BDNF Val66Met polymorphism on DA/NE+DA/E (p = 0.042) and NE/E+NE/DA (p = 0.046) ratios. A significant interaction was found for control and meditation subjects with COMT Val158Met polymorphism and plasma NE concentrations (p = 0.009). Post hoc ANCOVA in the meditation group, adjusted for meditation duration, showed significantly higher plasma NE concentrations for COMT Met carriers than COMT Val/Val subjects (p = 0.025). Significant differences of stress levels were found between the control and meditation subjects in BDNF Val/Met (p < 0.001) and BDNF Met/Met (p = 0.003), whereas stress levels in the BDNF Val/Val genotype did not differ between the control and meditation groups. This is the first evidence that meditation produces different effects on plasma catecholamines according to BDNF or COMT polymorphisms.     

Students’ Perceptions of Unsafe Schools: An Ecological Systems Analysis

In the aftermath of several school shooting incidents in recent years, students’ perceptions of unsafe schools has been a major concern for parents, teachers, school officials, school practitioners, and policy-makers. Using Bronfenbrenner’s ecological systems framework, we examined the micro-, meso-, and exosystem level factors associated with perceptions of unsafe school environments in a nationally representative sample of 10- to 15-year-old youth in the United States. We found that for the socio-demographic characteristics, students who were older, male, and poor had increased risks of perceiving higher levels of unsafe school environments. Within the microsystem of the family, our results indicate that parent-youth discussions of school activities/events decreased the risk of students perceiving unsafe schools. All of the school environment variables—ease of making friends, teachers’ involvement, observed weapon carrying, and school rule enforcement—were related in the expected direction to students’ perceiving their schools as unsafe. At the mesosystem level, findings from our study demonstrate that variables measuring parental school involvement were unrelated to perceptions of school safety. Finally, at the exosystem level, we found that students’ perceptions of residing in a safer neighborhood and residence in a non-central city metropolitan area, compared with a central city, decreased the odds of perceiving school environments as unsafe. School policy and practice implications are discussed.     

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.     

fMRI correlates of inhibition of return in perifoveal and peripheral visual field

When a target appears in the same peripheral location as a previous cue, responding is typically delayed if the cue-target interval is relatively long. This phenomenon is termed inhibition of return (IOR) and has been suggested to reflect an attentional bias in favour of novel visual space. It has been demonstrated recently that IOR is much stronger in the far periphery than in the perifoveal visual field. The present study further investigated the neural mechanisms underlying this eccentricity effect of IOR with an event-related fMRI technique. The results demonstrated a stronger activation in visual cortex for perifoveal processing and a broader activation in multiple brain areas for peripheral processing. When IOR effects were compared between these two areas, a stronger activation of the fronto-parietal network was evidenced for perifoveal versus peripheral IOR, while the prefrontal cortex was more strongly involved in the peripheral IOR versus perifoveal IOR. These results suggest that different neural mechanisms are mediating the dissociable inhibitory functions between the perifoveal and peripheral visual field.     

Effect of baseline self-efficacy on physical activity and psychological stress after a one-week pedometer intervention

Physical activity and psychological stress were hypothesized to improve more in participants with high self-efficacy than in those with low and medium self-efficacy after a one-week intervention. 39 female university students participated. The intervention had two steps: a lecture on self-monitoring and goal setting (160 min.) and a one-week pedometer intervention. Analyses were conducted on tertile groups according to self-efficacy at baseline. Pedometer step counts were higher in the high self-efficacy group than in the low self-efficacy group after intervention. Helplessness decreased time dependently after intervention only in the high-self-efficacy group. Because physical activity improved more in the high self-efficacy group after a one-week intervention, one hypothesis was supported.     

Non-target language processing in Chinese-English bilinguals: a study of event-related potential

The event-related brain potential (ERP) technique was used to investigate the neural mechanism of non-target language processing in Chinese-English bilinguals. Participants were presented with a mixed list of Chinese and English words and required to make conceptual decisions for words in one language and ignore words in the other non-target language. Regardless of whether the nontarget word was in Chinese or English, the ERPs they elicited were modulated by word frequency, suggesting that their meaning had been accessed. The N400 peak was delayed in the English as the non-target language condition, probably because participants were less proficient in English. The results suggest that the non-target language can be processed during conceptual tasks with participants' proficiency in this language being a critical factor.     

Perspective-taking and depth of theory-of-mind reasoning in sequential-move games

Theory-of-mind (ToM) involves modeling an individual's mental states to plan one's action and to anticipate others' actions through recursive reasoning that may be myopic (with limited recursion) or predictive (with full recursion). ToM recursion was examined using a series of two-player, sequential-move matrix games with a maximum of three steps. Participants were assigned the role of Player I, controlling the initial and the last step, or of Player II, controlling the second step. Appropriate for the assigned role, participants either anticipated or planned Player II's strategy at the second step, and then determined Player I's optimal strategy at the first step. Participants more readily used predictive reasoning as Player II (i.e., planning one's own move) than as Player I (i.e., anticipating an opponent's move), although they did not differ when translating reasoning outcome about the second step to optimal action in the first step. Perspective-taking influenced likelihood of predictive reasoning, but it did not affect the rate at which participants acquired it during the experimental block. We conclude that the depth of ToM recursion (related to perspective-taking mechanisms) and rational application of belief-desire to action (instrumental rationality) constitute separate cognitive processes in ToM reasoning.     

道德判断中心理状态和事件因果关系的作用:兼对道德判断双加工过程理论的检验

考察青少年儿童和成人在道德判断中利用心理状态和事件因果关系信息的差异,并验证道德判断双加工过程理论.以道德判断中“行为坏的”程度和“应担负的道德责任程度”作为判断问题类型,共有10～11岁和13～15岁的青少年儿童及大学生各120名,完成道德判断测试任务.结果表明在不同的道德判断问题类型下,事件中他人愿望和信念、因果关系信息的作用模式是不同的,支持道德判断双加工过程理论.10～11岁儿童和13～15岁青少年在判断行为坏的程度时,利用心理状态信息和因果关系信息与成人类似.在判断应担负的道德责任程度时,10～11岁儿童更注重行为结果,并且不能综合应用心理状态信息和事件的因果关系信息.13～15岁青少年的道德判断中心理状态信息和事件因果关系信息的作用与成人的情况类似,但在进行应担负的道德责任程度判断时,还不能融合信念与因果关系信息进行道德判断.研究结果为道德判断双加工过程理论提供了支持,而且表明从儿童青少年到成人,利用心理状态和因果关系信息进行道德判断存在不断发展和成熟的过程.     

Implicit phonetic symbolism in voicing of consonants and visual lightness using Garner's speeded classification task

The present study examines implicit phonetic symbolism which posits that arbitrary linguistic sound is related to certain aspects of characteristics of other modalities, such as color, touch, or emotion. In consonant discrimination and lightness discrimination using Garner's speeded classification paradigm, spoken sounds (voiced/voiceless consonants) and lightness of visual stimuli (black/white squares) were systematically varied to assess cross-modal interactions. Congruent audio-visual pairs (voiced consonants and black, and between voiceless consonants and white) facilitated consonant discrimination. In lightness discrimination, no congruent facilitation or congruence effect was observed. These results indicated that cross-modal interactions in implicit phonetic symbolism can be found in correlations between linguistic spoken sounds and visual lightness.