Culture and institutional agency: difference in judgments of economic behavior and organizational responsibilities

The current research tested the concept of institutional agency (IA) and its implications for laypeople's attribution patterns related to economic behaviors and organizational responsibilities. The term “institutional agency” refers to a set of lay theories about whether or not an organization can have personhood and related mental properties, such as wishes, desires, intents, and responsibility. Through three cross‐cultural studies, we found that people do form certain beliefs about IA which are similar to the legal discourse of institutional responsibility. However, there are significant cultural differences in views of IA, and the concept is more mentally salient for Americans than for Chinese. In Study 1, we distinguished institutional from group agency by showing the cultural differences on attributions in the scenario with “individual vs. group agency” and the scenario with “individual vs. institutional agency.” In Study 2, we again demonstrated the stronger salience of IA for Americans than for Chinese by including the individual, group, and institutional agencies together in one scenario. In Study 3, we further demonstrated that the concept of IA is more salient for Americans by presenting three different agents in separate scenarios. The practical implications of these cultural differences for cross‐cultural understanding and the psychological effects of economic globalization are discussed.     

Family Functioning and Social Support in Men and Women Diagnosed with Depression in China

Previous research has demonstrated the association between family functioning and depression. This study evaluated family functioning and perceived social support in men and women in Shanghai who had received a diagnosis of a major depressive disorder (N = 100), including sixty-six women and thirty-four men. The relationship between family functioning and social support of outpatients with major depressive disorders was explored using the Chinese Family Assessment Device and the Multidimensional Scale of Perceived Social Support. The scores from all dimensions of family functioning for both men and women indicated that depressed men and women all reported experiencing unhealthy family functioning. The clinical implications of these findings for the developing practice of family therapy in China are discussed.     

An internet survey of emotional health,treatment seeking and barriers to accessing mental health treatment among Chinese-speaking international students in Australia

The present internet survey examined the demographic characteristics of Chinese-speaking international students in Australia, psychological distress levels as measured by the Kessler-10 (K-10) Item scale, help-seeking history and preferences, as well as treatment barriers. Of the 144 respondents, 54% reported high psychological distress (mean K-10 score?=?23.96; SD?=?9.03). However, only 9% of those who were highly distressed reported they had sought mental health services in the past year. While the majority preferred help from informal social networks, they tended to favour mental health services over traditional culture-specific forms of help. Common barriers to accessing mental health services reported by respondents with high psychological distress included costs or transportation concerns, limited knowledge of available services, time constraints, the perception that symptoms were not severe enough to warrant treatment, language difficulties and lack of knowledge of symptoms of psychological distress. Although the majority preferred face-to-face treatments over internet treatments, a considerable percentage of respondents were willing to try either treatment modality. Chinese-speaking international students are a high risk group for developing psychological distress, yet they tend to underuse mental health services. Education about the effectiveness of face-to-face and online treatments may increase treatment seeking by this population.     

Type D personality,but not Type A behavior pattern,is associated with coronary plaque vulnerability

Personality traits are associated with major adverse coronary events (MACE) in patients with coronary artery disease (CAD). However, the link between personality traits and intravascular morphology in CAD patients is poorly understood. This study investigated the relationship between personality traits, specifically Type A behavior pattern and Type D personality, and plaque vulnerability. After adjustment for demographic and clinical factors, multivariable regression analysis showed no association between Type A and optical coherence tomography indices. However, Type D personality was independently associated with lipid plaque, thin cap fibroatheroma (TCFA), and fibrous cap thickness. More specifically, negative affectivity of Type D was related to lipid plaque, TCFA and fibrous cap thickness, and social inhibition was associated with plaque rupture. Our results show that Type D personality was associated with plaque vulnerability, independent of clinical factors. Measurement of negative affectivity and social inhibition will increase our understanding of the progressive phase of the plaque vulnerability, which can contribute to the early identification of high risk patients and reduce the incidence of MACE.     

Effects of telephone support on exercise capacity and quality of life in patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease: a meta-analysis

The aim of this meta-analysis was to evaluate the effects of disease education or pulmonary rehabilitation programs assisted with telephone support on physical capacity and quality of life (QOL) in chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) patients. A systematic search of PubMed, Embase, Web of Science and The Cochrane Library was conducted until May 2017. Randomized controlled trials (RCTs) examining the effects of telephone-assisted intervention versus a control group on exercise tolerance and QOL in patients with COPD were included. Two independent authors assessed the methodological quality of the trials using the Cochrane risk of bias tool. A meta-analysis was conducted with the Revman5.3 to quantify the effects of telephone-assisted interventions on walking capacity and QOL. In total, 10 studies involving 1037 participants were included. Due to the effect of telephone-assisted interventions, statistically significant results were found on Saint-George’s Respiratory Questionnaire (SGRQ) symptom scores [standard mean difference (SMD) ?.18, 95% confidence interval (CI) ?.33, ?.03, p-value .02)], SGRQ impact scores [SMD ?.35, 95% CI ?.60, ?.10, p-value .006)], SGRQ activity scores [SMD ?.30, 95% CI ?.45, ?.15, p-value < .0001)], SGRQ total score [SMD ?.36, 95% CI ?.51, ?.21, p-value < .00001)]. The effects on 6-min walk test (6MWT) and all Chronic Respiratory Questionnaire (CRQ) subscales were not significant (p > .05) based on the insufficient evidence. In conclusion, the role of telephone-assisted interventions in the management of COPD remains equivocal. Some encouraging results were seen with regard to SGRQ symptom, SGRQ impact, SGRQ activity and SGRQ total score. We believe that more methodologically rigorous large-scale randomized controlled trials are necessary to answer this study question.     

Object representations are biased toward each other through statistical learning

The visual system is remarkably efficient at extracting regularities from the environment through statistical learning. While such extraction has extensive consequences on cognition, it is unclear how statistical learning shapes the representations of the individual objects that comprise the regularities. Here we examine how statistical learning alters object representations. In three experiments, participants were exposed to either random arrays containing objects in a random order, or structured arrays containing object pairs where two objects appeared next to each other in fixed spatial or temporal configurations. After exposure, one object in each pair was briefly presented and participants judged the location or the orientation of the object without seeing the other object in the pair. We found that when an object reliably appeared next to another object in space, it was judged as being closer to the other object in space even though the other object was never presented (Experiments 1 and 2). Likewise, when an object reliably preceded another object in time, its orientation was biased toward the orientation of the other object even though the other object was never presented (Experiment 3). These results demonstrated that statistical learning fundamentally shapes how individual objects are represented in visual memory, by biasing the representation of one object toward its co-occurring partner. Importantly, participants in all experiments were not explicitly aware of the regularities. Thus, the bias in object representations was implicit. The current study reveals a novel impact of statistical learning on object representation: spatially co-occurring objects are represented as being closer in space, and temporally co-occurring objects are represented as having more similar features.