Does Parental Relational Aggression Interact with Parental Psychological Control in the Prediction of Youth Relational Aggression?

In a sample of 117 youth and their parents, the associations between parental relational aggression, psychological control, youth gender, and youth relational aggression were examined. Boys with parents high on relational aggression and psychological control reported more relational aggression than boys with parents high on relational aggression and low on psychological control. Girls with parents low on relational aggression and high on psychological control reported more relational aggression than girls with parents low on relational aggression and psychological control. Results indicate youth may learn to use relational aggression from their parents, and have implications for intervention with relationally aggressive youth.     

Knowing Your Ability

In this article, we present an attempt to reconcile intellectualism and the anti‐intellectualist ability account of knowledge‐how by reducing “S knows how to F” to, roughly speaking, “S knows that she has the ability to F demonstrated by a concrete way w.” More precisely, “S has a certain ability” is further formalized as the proposition that S can guarantee a certain goal by a concrete way w of some method under some precondition. Having the knowledge of our own ability, we can plan our future actions accordingly, which would not be possible by merely having the ability without knowing it, and this pinpoints the crucial difference between knowledge‐how and ability. Our semi‐formal account avoids most of the objections to both intellectualism and the anti‐intellectualist ability account, and provides a multistage learning process of knowledge‐how, which reveals various subtleties.     

The Hong Kong version of the Oxford Cognitive Screen (HK-OCS): validation study for Cantonese-speaking chronic stroke survivors

This study reports the validation of the Hong Kong version of Oxford Cognitive Screen (HK-OCS). Seventy Cantonese-speaking healthy individuals participated to establish normative data and 46 chronic stroke survivors were assessed using the HK-OCS, Albert’s Test of Visual Neglect, short test of gestural production, and Hong Kong version of the following assessments: Western Aphasia Battery, MMSE, MoCA, Modified Barthel Index, and Lawton Instrumental Activities of Daily Living scale. The validity of the HK-OCS was appraised by the difference between the two participant groups. Neurologically unimpaired individuals performed significantly better than stroke survivors on the HK-OCS. Positive and significant correlations found between cognitive subtests in the HK-OCS and related assessments indicated good concurrent validity. Excellent intra-rater and inter-rater reliabilities, fair test–retest reliability, and acceptable internal consistency suggested that the HK-OCS had good reliability. Specific HK-OCS subtests including semantics, episodic memory, number writing, and orientation were the best predictors of functional outcomes.     

蒙汉族大学生父母教养方式、成人依恋与心理困扰的关系研究

通过整群抽样方法抽取了576名大学生,对其施测父母养育方式量表、亲密关系体验量表和心理困扰量表,运用结构方程模型技术,分别考察了父母养育方式的蒙汉族差异以及成人依恋模式在父母养育方式和心理困扰间的中介作用。结果表明:(1) 蒙古族父母对孩子的关爱程度和给孩子的自主性要显著高于汉族;(2) 汉族的成人依恋模式在父母过度保护与抑郁-焦虑-压力之间起着部分中介作用,而蒙古族成人依恋的中介作用不明显,但母亲的冷漠拒绝和过度保护会导致个体依恋回避和依恋焦虑,父亲的冷漠拒绝和过度保护会影响个体的抑郁和焦虑,母亲的过度保护和父亲的冷漠拒绝会影响个体的压力。     

Selective Association Between Tetris Game Play and Visuospatial Working Memory: A Preliminary Investigation

Recent experimental and clinical research has suggested that Tetris game play can disrupt maladaptive forms of mental imagery because Tetris competes for limited cognitive resources within visuospatial working memory (WM) that contribute to imagery. Whether or not Tetris performance is selectively associated with visuospatial WM remains to be tested. In this study, young adults (N = 46) completed six standardized measures indexing verbal and non‐verbal reasoning, verbal and visuospatial short‐term memory, and verbal and visuospatial WM. They also played Tetris. Consistent with the hypothesis that visuospatial WM resources support Tetris game play, there was a significant moderate positive relationship between Tetris scores and visuospatial WM performance but no association with other cognitive ability measures. Findings suggest that Tetris game play involves both storage and processing resources within visuospatial WM. These preliminary results can inform interventions involving computer games to disrupt the development of maladaptive visual imagery, for example, intrusive memories of trauma. © 2017 The Authors. Applied Cognitive Psychology Published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.     

In the Face of Uncertainty: A Twin Study of Ambiguous Information,Anxiety and Depression in Children

Anxiety and depression share genetic influences, and have been associated with similar cognitive biases. Psychological theories of anxiety and depression highlight threat interpretations of ambiguity. Little is known about whether genes influence cognitive style, or its links to symptoms. We assessed ambiguous word and scenario interpretations, anxiety and depression symptoms in 300 8-year-old twin pairs. There were significant correlations between both negative interpretations of ambiguous words and scenarios and depression symptoms after controlling for anxiety symptoms (r = .13 and .31, respectively), but no significant correlations with anxiety independent of depression. Genetic effects ranged from 16% for depression to 30% for ambiguous word interpretations. Non-shared environmental influences were large (68–70%). Both genetic and environmental influences contributed to the association between depression and ambiguous scenario interpretations. These findings support psychological theories, which emphasise the role of environmental stress both on the development of threat interpretations and on their links with symptoms. The data also support a role for genetic influence on threat interpretations, which may mediate responses to stress.     

Direct assessment of qualia in a blindsight participant

Experimenters generally infer whether participants have visual experiences based on metacognitive responses. We showed a well-studied blindsight participant, GY, several definitions of the term "qualia" and then questioned him about whether he felt or he experienced qualia in his normal and blind fields. We found, contrary to others who have used different methods for measuring qualia, that GY does not have qualia for stationary stimuli in his blind field. This novel method for directly assessing qualia embraces the idea that experiences should be related by the experiencer, not the experimenter.     

The interactive effects of duality expertise and coping frames on responses to ambivalent messages

We examine the interactive effects of biculturals' duality expertise and externally provided coping resources on attitudinal responses to ambivalence. Three studies reveal that ambivalence is associated with greater discomfort for biculturals more (vs. less) conflicted about their cultural duality and with limited exposure to accessing their two cultural knowledge systems simultaneously. Among biculturals with lower duality expertise, coping frames lower their negative evaluation of messages that elicit ambivalence because coping frames help these biculturals resolve the discomfort associated with ambivalence. Provision of coping frames does not impact attitudes of biculturals with greater levels of duality expertise.     

Self-Interest, Symbolic Attitudes, and Support for Public Policy: A Multilevel Analysis

This paper examines the role of self-interest and symbolic attitudes as predictors of support for two domestic policy issues—guaranteed jobs and incomes and national health insurance—in the American National Election Survey (ANES) between 1972 and 2004. As was the case in 1976 when Sears, Lau, Tyler, and Allen (1980 ) first explored this topic, symbolic attitudes continue to be much more important predictors of policy attitudes than various indicators of self-interest over the 30 years we analyze. We explore this finding further to determine whether any individual/internal and external/contextual variables affect the magnitude of self-interest effects on policy support. Five possible internal moderators of self-interest effects are examined: (1) political knowledge, (2) issue publics, (3) political values, (4) social identifications, and (5) emotions, but none are found to boost the magnitude of the self-interest effect. However, we do find some evidence that contextual variables representing the social/information environment moderate the impact of self-interest on public opinion.