The nature and consequences of topic avoidance in Chinese and Taiwanese close relationships

Two studies examined topic avoidance in Chinese and Taiwanese opposite‐sex friendships and romantic relationships. Five areas of topic avoidance emerged through analytic induction and cluster analysis: negative appraisal, relational issues, sexual issues, politics, and personal experience. Partner protection, negative relational impact, and self inefficacy emerged as the most common reasons for avoidance. Results revealed that friends, relative to romantic partners, engaged in higher levels of topic avoidance. Taiwanese participants, moreover, avoided discussing politics to a greater extent than did mainland Chinese participants. Lacking closeness was the main reason behind avoidance of political discussion. Topic avoidance was also linked to relationship quality, as relational satisfaction negatively predicted relational issue avoidance and topic avoidance breadth (i.e. the number of topics regularly avoided in the relationship). The authors explain these and other findings based on Chinese cultural codes and historically‐embedded concepts that shape interpersonal interaction.     

Mapping novel labels to actions: how the rhythm of words guides infants' learning

We investigated the effect of lexical stress on 16-month-olds' ability to form associations between labels and paths of motion. Disyllabic English nouns tend to have a strong-weak (trochaic) stress pattern, and verbs tend to have a weak-strong (iambic) pattern. We explored whether infants would use word stress information to guide word-action associations during learning. Infants heard two novel words with either verb-like iambic stress or noun-like trochaic stress. Each word was paired with a single novel object performing one of two path actions and was tested using path-switch trials. Only infants in the iambic stress condition learned the association between the novel words and the path actions. To further investigate infants' difficulty in mapping the trochaic labels to the actions, we conducted an additional study in which infants were given an object switch task using the trochaic labels. In this case, infants were able to associate the trochaic labels with the objects, providing further support that infants use lexical stress to guide label-referent associations. This study demonstrates that by 16months, English-learning infants have developed a bias to expect disyllabic action labels to have iambic stress patterns, consistent with native language stress patterns.     

Visual assessment of camouflaged targets with different background similarities

The study investigated the effectiveness of different camouflage designs using a computational image quality index. Camouflaged human targets were presented on a natural landscape and the targets were designed to be similar to the landscape background with different levels of background similarity as estimated by the image index. The targets were presented in front of the observer (central 0 degrees) or at different angles in the left (-7 degrees, -14 degrees, -21 degrees) or right (+7 degrees, +14 degrees, +21 degrees) visual fields. The observer had to detect the target using peripheral vision if the target appeared in the left and right visual fields. The camouflage effectiveness was assessed by detection hit rates, detection times, and subjective ratings on detection confidence and task difficulty. The study showed that the psychophysical measures correlated well with the image similarity index, suggesting a potentially more efficient camouflage effectiveness assessment tool if the relationship between the psychophysical results and the index can be quantified in the future.     

The reciprocal cycle of self‐concealment and trust in romantic relationships

We propose that perceived partner concealment, self‐concealment from one's partner (i.e., keeping secrets from one's partner), and trust in one's partner form a reciprocal cycle in romantic relationships. In Study 1, participants in a romantic relationship (N = 94) completed a two‐time point survey within a span of 8 to 10 weeks. Results revealed that perceived partner concealment was associated with a loss of trust in partner, and low trust in partner was associated with an increase in self‐concealment from one's partner. Furthermore, the association between perceived partner concealment and self‐concealment from one's partner was mediated by trust. In Study 2, couples (N = 50) completed daily records for 14 consecutive days. Multilevel analyses indicated that on the days the individuals reported more self‐concealment, their partners reported lower trust in them. Moreover, on the days the partners reported lower trust, the partners also reported higher self‐concealment. These findings suggest that self‐concealment in romantic relationships can create a reciprocal cycle that involves loss of trust and more self‐concealment between partners, which would slowly deteriorate the relationship well‐being. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Decision making in children and adolescents: impaired Iowa Gambling Task performance in early adolescence

Disadvantageous decision making is cited as one of the premier problems in childhood development, underlying risky behavior and causing adolescents to make poor choices that could prove detrimental later in life. However, there are relatively few studies looking at the development of decision making in children and adolescents, and fewer still comparing it with the performance trajectories of more typically developing cognitive functions. In the current study, we measured the affective decision-making abilities of children and adolescents 8- to 17-years-old using the Iowa Gambling Task (IGT; Bechara, 2007) in conjunction with a battery of established cognitive neuropsychological assessments. In contrast to the typical linear development of executive functions, affective decision-making abilities progressed in a J-shaped curve. Younger, more developmentally naive children performed better on the IGT than older, early-adolescent individuals, with performance becoming advantageous again toward the end of the teenage years. This trajectory is thought to coincide with asymmetric neural development in early adolescents, with relatively overactive striatal regions creating impulsive reward-driven responses that may go unchecked by the slower developing inhibitive frontal cortex. This trajectory is in stark contrast with the linear development of memory, speed of processing, and other cognitive abilities over the ages.     

A Review of Carolyn Chen’s <Emphasis Type="Italic">Getting Saved in America: Taiwanese Immigration and Religious Experience</Emphasis>

Becoming religious among immigrants to the U.S. is undoubtedly a complex transformation. It takes place with both external sociocultural conditions and internal spiritual and psychological volitions. While marveling at Carolyn Chen’s fine scholarship on Taiwanese immigrants’ conversion experience, this review offers a critical reading of Chen’s equation: becoming American = becoming religious or vice versa with the reviewer’s own experience as both an Asian immigrant and a cultural anthropologist. It also discusses Chen’s assessment of the gendered identity of both Asian-American men and women, be it religious, cultural, or political.     

Sports spectator behavior: a test of the theory of planned behavior

The theory of planned behavior has been applied to sports and exercise behaviors. According to this theory, human intention to take action in a specific context is guided by three antecedents: attitude, subjective norm, and perceived behavioral control. Behavioral intention mediates the relationships between these three considerations and its ultimate performance. However, this theory has seldom been applied to the behaviors of spectators of sporting events. A sample of 269 volleyball spectators in Taiwan was studied to examine whether people's intention mediated their attitudes, subjective norms, and perceived behavioral control toward a given behavior, watching the 2010 Fédération Internationale de Volleyball World Grand Prix in Taipei. Regression analyses did not support behavioral intention as a mediator. This result is discussed in the context of planned behavior.     

Higher-order factors of the Big Five predict exploration and threat in life stories

Research has not previously examined whether higher-order traits of the Big Five are related to characteristics of life story narratives. The current study explored possible links between the broad dispositions of Stability (comprising the shared aspects of Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, and Emotional Stability) and Plasticity (comprising the shared aspects of Extraversion and Openness) with narrative accounts of threat and exploration in the life-stories of 128 adults. Stability was inversely related to construals of threat in narratives, and Plasticity was positively related to exploration in narratives after controlling for the suppressor effects of demographic variables. These findings add to the research linking higher-order factors of the Big-Five to important domains as well as research linking dispositional traits to narrative identity.