Children’s Life Satisfaction: Developmental Trajectories and Environmental and Personality Predictors

Life satisfaction is a key indicator of children’s healthy development. Although the developmental changes of life satisfaction during adolescence have been investigated, the developmental trajectories of life satisfaction and related predictors during childhood remain unclear. Thus, the current study aimed to identify the developmental trajectories of life satisfaction covering the period from middle to late childhood as well as to examine the predictive roles of environmental factors (i.e., family dysfunction and basic psychological needs satisfaction at school), personality factors (i.e., neuroticism and extraversion), and their interactions in these developmental trajectories. An accelerated longitudinal design was used with Chinese elementary school students (N?=?1069, 45.8% girls, M _age?=?9.43, SD?=?0.95) of 3 cohorts (grade 3, grade 4, and grade 5) on 4 occasions at 6-month intervals. Growth mixture modeling analyses revealed three distinct trajectories of life satisfaction: “High-Stable” (88.8%), “High-Decreasing” (6.8%), and “Low-Increasing” (4.4%). Multivariate logistic regression analyses revealed that family dysfunction and neuroticism served as risk factors for adverse developmental trajectories of life satisfaction; whereas basic psychological needs satisfaction at school served as a protective factor. Furthermore, the interaction between family dysfunction and extraversion suggested that higher levels of extraversion buffered children against the negative effect of family dysfunction on the development of life satisfaction. The identification of three heterogeneous trajectory groups of children’s life satisfaction and key personality and environmental predictors associated with the trajectories suggests that specific interventions need to be tailored to the unique characteristics of the relevant trajectory groups.

     

多元文化经历对领导者能力及发展的影响

随着全球化发展的深入, 越来越多的企业领导者具有多元文化经历。多元文化经历是指个体具有直接或间接与外国文化元素或人群进行交互的经历。拟从领导者发展(leader development)和领导力发展(leadership development)两个层面, 全面地探讨多元文化经历对企业领导者能力形成及发展的影响：第一, 探讨多元文化经历对领导者能力发展(包括个人层面、关系层面和社会层面能力)的影响及内部机制; 第二, 探讨多元文化经历对领导力发展(包括领导力涌现、领导力选拔和领导力效能)的影响及内部机制。项目成果不仅能够丰富领导者能力形成与发展等组织管理相关理论, 还能为企业的全球化管理及国际化人才培养实践提供建议。     

Effects of Father-Adolescent and Mother-Adolescent Relationships on Depressive Symptoms among Chinese Early Adolescents

Parent–adolescent relationships play an important role in protecting adolescents from depressive symptoms. However, there are no consistent conclusions about the extent to which fathers and mothers uniquely contribute to adolescents’ depressive symptoms. The present study aimed to acquire knowledge in this research area in two ways. First, this study separated the potential impacts of father–child and mother–child relationships on depressive symptoms in Chinese adolescents. Second, this study used a longitudinal design with nationally representative samples from the China Education Panel Survey. A total of 8794 middle school students in grade 7 completed measures of father–adolescent and mother–adolescent relationships, and depressive symptoms twice (T1 and T2; one-year interval). Results indicated that both positive father–adolescent and mother–adolescent relationships had negative effects on depressive symptoms in female adolescents. However, positive father-adolescent, not mother-adolescent, relationships had a negative effect on depressive symptoms in male adolescents. These findings suggest that positive parent–adolescent relationships could reduce early adolescents’ depressive symptoms, but positive father–adolescent and mother–adolescent relationships might have different protective effects on early adolescents’ depressive symptoms among male and female adolescents in China.

     

Parents’ Attachment Styles and Adolescents’ Regulatory Emotional Self-efficacy: The Mediating Role of Adolescents’ Attachment to Parents in China

Guided by attachment theory, this longitudinal study examined the mediating role of parent-adolescent attachment on the relation between parents’ attachment styles and adolescents’ regulatory emotional self-efficacy (RESE, including managing negative affect and expressing positive affect). Five hundred seventy-three Chinese junior high school students (46% male; aged 11–14 years, M = 12.76 years, SD = 0.74) completed measures of RESE at T1, parent-adolescent attachment at T2 (six months later), and RESE at T3 (another six months later), while 573 students’ parents (one student only has a parent, 241 fathers and 332 mothers) completed measures of adult attachment styles (anxiety and avoidance) at T1. Results from structural equation modeling indicated that father-adolescent attachment mediated the association between fathers’ attachment anxiety and adolescents’ self-efficacy beliefs in managing negative affect, while mother-adolescent attachment marginally mediated the relation between mothers’ attachment anxiety and adolescents’ self-efficacy beliefs in managing negative affect and expressing positive affect. These findings suggest that parents’ attachment anxiety could predict their children’s attachment to parents, in turn, impacting their children’s regulatory emotional self-efficacy.

     

The Impact of Perceived Discrimination on Mental Health Among Chinese Migrant and Left-Behind Children: A Meta-analysis

In China, rural–urban migration is one of major influences on the mental health of migrant and left-behind children. Literature suggests that the perception of discrimination is an important factor that influences the mental health of these children. The present research explores (1) whether migrant children and left-behind children are different in the relationship between the perception of discrimination and mental health, and (2) whether the relationship between the perception of discrimination and mental health of these children is moderated by gender and age. Using a meta-analytic technique, the authors included 26 studies (generating 48 independent samples) with a total sample size of 28,883 participants. Results showed that the perception of discrimination of migrant children was negatively correlated with positive indicators of mental health, and it has a stronger effect than left-behind children; the perception of discrimination of migrant children was positively correlated with negative indicators of mental health, and it has a weaker effect than left-behind children. Additionally, gender moderated the relationship between the perception of discrimination and the positive indicators of mental health among left-behind children, while age moderated such relationship among migrant children.

     

Monitoring Emotion Through Body Sensation: A Review of Awareness in Goenka’s Vipassana

Awareness is one of the two most important abilities cultivated in Goenka’s Vipassana meditation, which refers to sensitivity to subtle bodily sensations and the associated psychological processes. This sensitivity and its derived function of monitoring emotion are not of notable concern in modern mindfulness-based psychotherapies. Evidence supports that Vipassana meditation truly enhances sensitivity to bodily sensations, but further study is required to assess the awareness of psychological processes. The value of monitoring mental processing has been widely accepted in psychology, as has enhanced sensitivity along with the potential dangers to mental health. Implications for practice and future studies are discussed.     

Inserting spaces before and after words affects word processing differently in Chinese: Evidence from eye movements

Unlike in English, there are no spaces between printed words in Chinese. In this study, we explored how inserting a space before or after a word affects the processing of that word in Chinese reading. Native Chinese readers' eye movements were monitored as they read sentences with different presentation conditions. The results show that inserting a space after a word facilitates its processing, but inserting a space before a word does not show this effect and inhibits the processing of that word in some cases. Our results are consistent with the prediction of a word segmentation and recognition model in Chinese Li et al., 2009, Cognit. Psychol., 58, 525. Additionally, we found that a space guides the initial landing position on the word: the initial landing position was further away from the space that inserted into the text, whether it was before or after a word.     

Morphological Structure Processing During Word Recognition and Its Relationship to Character Reading Among Third-Grade Chinese Children

In the present study, we explored the characteristics of morphological structure processing during word recognition among third grade Chinese children and its possible relationship with Chinese character reading. By using the modified priming lexical decision paradigm, a significant morphological structure priming effect was found in the subject analysis when reaction time difference was considered as dependent variable. In the regression analyses, the children’s implicit morphological structure processing demonstrated a significant effect on Chinese character reading, even though its effect became non-significant when morphological awareness was entered. We achieved this result after controlling for the children’s age, non-verbal intelligence, and phonological awareness. These findings indicate that third grade Chinese children are sensitive to morphological structure information in the processing of compound words. Moreover, such sensitivity is, to some extent, a good predictor of Chinese children’s word reading performance.     

A Life Domains Perspective on Acculturation and Psychological Adjustment: A Study of Refugees from the Former Soviet Union

The study articulates a contextual approach to research on acculturation of immigrants, suggesting that the relationship between acculturation and adjustment is dependent on the cultural demands of the life domains considered. Specifically, the study investigated the mediating effects of adjustment in occupational and social life domains on the relationship between acculturation and psychological adjustment for 391 refugees from the former Soviet Union. The study used bilinear measures of acculturation to the host (American) and heritage (Russian) cultures. Using Structural Equation Modeling, the study confirmed the hypothesized relationships, such that the positive effects of American acculturation on psychological adjustment were mediated by occupational adjustment, and the effects of Russian acculturation on psychological adjustment were mediated by satisfaction with co-ethnic social support. Psychological adjustment was measured in two ways, as psychological well-being, using a measure of life satisfaction, and as symptoms of depression and anxiety, using the Hopkins symptom checklist (HSCL). Life satisfaction served as a mediator between adjustment in occupational and social domains and HSCL, suggesting that it may be an intervening variable through which environmental stress associated with immigration contributes to the development of symptoms of mental disorder.