Study on a Christian Chinese sample: sense of self-worth,well-being and locus of control

The purpose of this study was to explore Chinese Christians’ sense of self-worth, well-being, locus of control and the correlations between these variables. One hundred and two Chinese Christians with a range of 18–40 years old were surveyed by the Scale of Self-worth, Chinese version of General Well-Being Scale and internal–external Locus of Control Scale. A control group of 134 Chinese non-Christians participated in the same survey. Christians scored lower on locus of control and higher on self-worth than the non-Christians. No significant general well-being difference was between the Christian and non-Christian samples. The correlations were significant between locus of control and self-worth/general well-being (negative) and between self-worth and general well-being (positive). Results suggest that Christians experience better self-worth and tend to be internals on locus of control.     

How identity related goals moderate the role of attributes in product evaluation

This research examines how identity related goals influence product evaluation. It is proposed that products are evaluated based on an attribute level to fulfill an identity related goal. Further, the positive relationship between an attribute level and product evaluation is strengthened by goal activation (the degree to which a goal occupies a consumer's thinking) and goal‐product fit (the extent to which consumers think a product is related to a particular goal). Results of three experimental studies support the above propositions. The research makes contributions in that it identifies two moderators, that is, goal activation and goal‐product fit, in the relationship between attributes ability and product evaluation. First, identity‐related goals are higher order and likely to have higher priority for consumers. However, results in this paper show that it still needs to be activated before it can exert an influence on attribute importance. Specifically, when an identity related goal (e.g., one supportive of the fair trade goal) is activated, it takes over a lower‐order goal (e.g., seek for a good taste or a good priced coffee in this case). As goal activation increases, relevant attributes become more important, and the positive relationship between an attribute level and product evaluation strengthens. Second, this paper introduces a new construct of goal‐product fit into identity‐related goals and product evaluation literature. The results of study three suggest that when goal‐product fit becomes stronger, the relevant attribute that can fulfill the goal becomes more important in the overall product evaluation.     

Perfectionism mediated the relationship between brain structure variation and negative emotion in a nonclinical sample

In maladaptive respects, perfectionism reflects an individual’s concern over making mistakes and doubting the quality of his or her own actions excessively, which would affect one’s emotion. However, little is known about the neural mechanisms associated with the perfectionism and negative affect. In this study, voxel-based morphometry was performed to identify the brain regions underlying individual differences in perfectionism, which was measured by the Chinese Frost Multidimensional Perfectionism Scale (CFMPS), in a large sample of nonclinical young adults. Our results showed that the two subdimensions of the perfectionism, concern over mistakes (CM) and doubts about actions (DA), were both positively correlated with the self-reported anxiety and depression as well as the gray matter volume (GMV) in the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC), a pivotal brain region in cognitive control, affective state, and regulation. Moreover, CM, DA, and organization scores were respectively correlated with distributed brain regions involved in multiple cognitive and emotion processes. Our results furthermore revealed that the score of DA acted a mediational mechanism underlying the relationship between the GMV of ACC and self-rating negative affect (anxiety and depression). Taken together, these results might suggest the neuroanatomical basis of perfectionism and the association among the perfectionism, negative emotion, and brain architecture. This study emphasized that perfectionism could play a crucial role in the arousal of negative affect.     

Individual differences in skewed financial risk-taking across the adult life span

Older adults are disproportionately targeted by fraud schemes that advertise unlikely but large returns (positively skewed risks). We examined adult age differences in choice and neural activity as individuals considered risky gambles. Gambles were symmetric (50% chance of modest win or loss), positively skewed (25% chance of large gain), or negatively skewed (25% chance of large loss). The willingness to accept positively skewed relative to symmetric gambles increased with age, and this effect replicated in an independent behavioral study. Whole-brain functional magnetic resonance imaging analyses comparing positively (vs. negatively) skewed trials revealed that relative to younger adults, older adults showed increased anticipatory activity for negatively skewed gambles but reduced activity for positively skewed gambles in the anterior cingulate and lateral prefrontal regions. Individuals who were more biased toward positively skewed gambles showed increased activity in a network of regions including the nucleus accumbens. These results reveal age biases toward positively skewed gambles and age differences in corticostriatal regions during skewed risk-taking, and have implications for identifying financial decision biases across adulthood.     

走神对中文阅读绩效的影响

选取36名大学生被试,采用探针检测的方法和逐句阅读范式,考察被试阅读中文材料时走神对阅读正确率和阅读时间的影响。结果发现:(1)中文阅读中出现走神的时间占34.80%;(2)走神会影响阅读理解,降低阅读理解正确率;(3)走神会导致阅读时间变慢。这些发现均证实走神对中文阅读绩效有影响,降低阅读理解正确率和减缓阅读时间。     

Resistance to Cultural Intervention: Formation of Inhibitory Collective and children’s Self-Defensive Regulation in a Chinese School

A sequel to the previous article “Roots of Excellence: The Releasing Effect of Individual Potentials through Educational Cultural Intervention in a Chinese School” (in press), the present study is on the unexpected reversal phenomena in the process of cultural intervention. The goal of the intervention is to construct the dynamics of Jiti (well-organized collective in Chinese) through creative activities to promote students’ development. In the intervention, the releasing effect (Wu et al. 2016) emerged as well, but the teacher’s concern about worsening discipline and academic performance evoked and reinforced his habitual notions and practices of education, turning the joint activities into a way of strengthening discipline. The energy that had been discharging at the beginning of the intervention was inhibited, so that many more problematic behaviors took shape. The whole class formed an inhibitory atmosphere, within which pupils formed self-defensive regulation strategies. By comparing with the productive collective in which intervention was effective and analyzing this unexpected reversal process, we can not only see pupils’ self-construction status in the inhibitory culture but illuminate the formation of the teacher’s resistance to educational and cultural transformation as well. Resistance is originated from teachers not being able to interpret pupils’ inner developmental needs but instead anxious about the ongoing problems.     

Why did adolescents have sleep problems after earthquakes? Understanding the role of traumatic exposure,fear, and PTSD

To examine the relationships between trauma exposure, fear, post‐traumatic stress disorder, and sleep problems in adolescents, 746 adolescent survivors of the 2008 Wenchuan earthquake in China were assessed at 1 year (T1) and 1.5 years (T2) after the earthquake using a trauma exposure questionnaire, a fear questionnaire, a child posttraumatic stress disorder symptom scale, and a subscale on child sleep problems. The results showed that T1 trauma exposure were not directly associated with sleep problems at T1 and T2, but played a positive role in sleep problems at both T1 and T2 indirectly through T1 posttraumatic stress disorder and T1 fear. T1 trauma exposure was also positively and indirectly associated with T2 sleep problems through T1 posttraumatic stress disorder via T1 sleep problems, or through T1 fear via the path from T1 posttraumatic stress disorder to T1 sleep problems. These findings indicated that fear and posttraumatic stress disorder 1 year after the earthquake played a mediating role in the relationship between trauma exposure at 1 year after the earthquake, and sleep problems at both 1 year and 1.5 years after the earthquake, respectively. In particular, posttraumatic stress disorder also had a multiple mediating effect in the path from trauma exposure to sleep problems via fear. Furthermore, the findings indicated that sleep problems were relatively stable between 1 and 1.5 years after an earthquake.     

Effects of Age and Location in Chinese Relative Clauses Processing

Three experiments investigated Chinese relative clause processing with children, youths and elders using sentence-picture matching and self-paced reading methods. In Experiment 1, we found that object-extracted clause were easier to comprehend than subject-extracted clause , and object-modified relative clause (i.e., object-modified subject-extracted clause\(\backslash \)object-modified object-extracted clause) were difficult to comprehend than subject modified relative clause (subject-modified subject-extracted clause\(\backslash \)subject-modified object-extracted clause). Importantly, this paper also found 5–6.5 ages may be critical for children to comprehend RCs in Chinese. Experiment 2 also showed that S-ORCs were easier to comprehend than S-SRCs for youths and elders. Further, elders have more difficulty comprehending RCs than youths. Experiment 3 indicated that there were no significant differences in difficulty between O-SRCs and O-ORCs, and no differences were found between youths and elders. In general, our findings gave support to predictions of working memory-based theory, and also indicated that RCs processing has an intricate course. Many factors such as syntactic, language specificity, experience, personality, must all be considered in sentence processing.     

工作记忆成分的年龄相关差异对算术策略运用的预测效应

采用选择/无选范式,借助工作记忆成套测验,在两位数乘法估算问题中探讨了工作记忆系统各成分对不同年龄段个体算术策略运用的预测效应。结果显示:(1)工作记忆的不同成分与年龄之间存在明显的相关。表现为,除视空模板成分外,其他各成分得分随着年龄增长而呈现上升趋势;(2)估算策略运用中,年龄与策略选择显著相关,表现为随着年龄增长,策略选择表现明显提高;(3)估算策略运用中,不同年龄个体的工作记忆不同成分和策略选择表现出不同的联系,中央执行均显示出显著的预测效应,语音环路和视空模板的预测效应均不显著。不同年龄个体的工作记忆不同成分对策略执行的预测效应均不显著。上述发现对于深刻理解工作记忆系统在算术认知策略运用中的作用机制具有重要理论含义。