The development of generosity and moral cognition across five cultures

Morality is an evolved aspect of human nature, yet is heavily influenced by cultural environment. This developmental study adopted an integrative approach by combining measures of socioeconomic status (SES), executive function, affective sharing, empathic concern, theory of mind, and moral judgment in predicting sharing behavior in children (N = 999) from the age of 5 to 12 in five large‐scale societies: Canada, China, Turkey, South Africa, and the USA. Results demonstrate that age, gender, SES, culture, and social cognitive mechanisms explain over 20% of the variance worldwide in children's resource allocation. These findings are discussed in reference to standard cultural comparisons (individualist/collectivist), as well as the degree of market integration, and highlight continuities and discontinuities in children's generosity across urban contexts.     

The lasting impression of chairman Mao: hyperfidelity of familiar-face memory

We examined the accuracy of a highly-familiar-face representation in memory. In experiment 1, a famous portrait of Chairman Mao was digitally altered in terms of the distance between his two eyes, two pixels at a time. Mainland Chinese adults were shown the original or altered photos, one at a time, and asked to determine whether each was that of Chairman Mao or altered. Eastern Asian and Caucasian participants, who were unfamiliar with Mao's photo, were shown simultaneously the original face paired with the altered ones and asked to determine whether the photos were identical. The Mainland Chinese participants' memory threshold approximated the perceptual discrimination threshold of the Eastern Asian and Caucasian participants. Experiments 2 and 3 ruled out that the result of experiment I was due to artifacts of photographic alteration. The findings of the present study suggest that our memory of a very familiar face is highly accurate, at least in terms of the interocular configuration. The accuracy is perhaps only limited by the perceptual resolution capacity of our visual system.     

Defensive pride and consensus: strength in imaginary numbers

Failure (Study 1) and attachment separation thoughts (Study 2) caused exaggerated consensus estimates for personal beliefs about unrelated social issues. This compensatory consensus effect was most pronounced among defensively proud individuals, that is, among those with the combination of high explicit and low implicit self-esteem (Study 1) and the combination of high attachment avoidance and low attachment anxiety (Study 2). In Study 3, another form of defensive pride, narcissism, was associated with exaggerated consensual worldview defense after a system-injustice threat. In Study 4, imagined consensus reduced subjective salience of proud individuals' troubling thoughts. Compensatory consensus is seen as a kind of defensive self-affirmation that defensively proud people turn to for insulation from distressing thoughts.     

"Remember where you last saw that card": children's production of external symbols as a memory aid

Four experiments examined the age at which children start to use external symbols to aid their memory and how external symbol use affects both their memory performance and information allocation strategies. In Experiment 1, children in Grades 1, 3, 5, and 7 played a memory card game (Concentration) twice, once with the opportunity to make notes to aid performance and once without the opportunity. Grades I and 3 students tended to produce nonmnemonic notations, whereas Grades 5 and 7 students were more likely to produce functional, adultlike notations that aided performance in the task. In Experiments 2a and 2b, unexpected removal of children's notations led to a decrease in performance. suggesting that the spontaneously produced notations were being used as an external store rather than as an aid to encoding information. Experiment 3 examined whether all information was placed in external storage or if some types of information remained in memory. Grade 7 students who had their notations unexpectedly taken away were able to recognize the identity of the cards they had previously seen but had more difficulty remembering their locations. They appeared to place the location information mainly in external storage while retaining the identity information in memory. These results suggest that in mid-childhood, children begin to distribute information actively between internal and external memory storage.     

Sex-specific finger-length patterns linked to behavioral variables: consistency across various human populations

In humans, as in nonhuman primates, the digits of the hands are similar in length during early fetal development. Subsequently, differentiation leads to a patter of unequal finger lengths, described by George as the finger-length pattern. Recent work by Manning and colleagues suggested that digit length patterns are due to early influences of sex hormones. Most importantly for psychology, such patterns might also relate to cognitive activities that are influenced by early organizing actions of sex hormones. The exciting possibility of having an easily measurable indicator of early action of sex hormones that relates to behavior led us to examine the universality of digit length patterns. With samples from Brazil, Canada, India, Turkey, and Korea, we showed that patterns of distal extent of finger tips are similar across different human populations. Consistent sex differences were found across the samples, showing that the index finger in males extends less far distally relative to the middle finger than is the case for females and that the difference in distal extent between index and ring fingers, relative to the middle finger, is smaller in females than in males.     

Handedness and footedness in Korean college students

This study was conducted to obtain normative data on foot preference and to compare footedness and handedness in a large sample (N = 866) of college students in Korea, where left-hand use for writing and other public acts is severely restricted (Kang & Harris, 1993). Based on scores from Korean-language versions of the Edinburgh Handedness Inventory (EHI; Oldfield, 1971) and the Waterloo Footedness Questionnaire Revised (WFQ-R; Elias, Bryden, & Bulman-Fleming, 1988), 11% of the subjects were left-footed but only 4.2% as left-handed. A significantly higher percentage of left-handers than right-handers showed crossed lateral preference, that is, for preference of the opposite-side foot. Of the left-handers with crossed preference, the majority were inconsistent left-handers (ILH; Peters & Servos, 1989), whereas most of those with uncrossed preference were consistent left-handers (CLH). Factor analysis of the EHI and WFQ-R revealed 2 handedness factors and 2 footedness factors. The footedness factors for skilled unipedal actions and for balancing-stabilizing varied in direction, strength, and relation to handedness in mixed-footers and left-handers, consistent with the possibility that the division of footedness into these categories might be neuropsychologically meaningful.     

Power,communion and satisfaction: Authenticity as a common mediator in China

We investigated the mediating effect of authenticity on the ability of power and communion to predict feelings of satisfaction in work, romantic and friendship roles in a Chinese sample. That authenticity mediates the effect of power on satisfaction in specific roles has been previously demonstrated in studies with Western participants, and this study sought to replicate these findings in an East Asian context. Furthermore, given the importance of communion in maintaining Chinese satisfaction, our second aim was to extend previous studies by testing whether authenticity mediates the effects of communion on Chinese satisfaction. One hundred and fifty Chinese participants completed the surveys addressing work, romantic relationships and friendships. The results reveal that both power and communion are significant predictors of Chinese satisfaction but their impact differed according to relationship type. Power and communion significantly predicted satisfaction in an interactive manner in business roles, but did so in an additive manner in close roles. More importantly, authenticity mediated the effects of both power and communion on Chinese satisfaction. These results show that authenticity is one of the common essences in the prediction of power and communion to Chinese satisfaction.     

Imageability and semantic association in the representation and processing of event verbs

This study examined the relative salience of imageability (the degree to which a word evokes mental imagery) versus semantic association (the density of semantic network in which a word is embedded) in the representation and processing of four types of event verbs: sensory, cognitive, speech, and motor verbs. ERP responses were recorded, while 34 university students performed on a lexical decision task. Analysis focused primarily on amplitude differences across verb conditions within the N400 time window where activities are considered representing meaning activation. Variation in N400 amplitude across four types of verbs was found significantly associated with the level of imageability, but not the level of semantic association. The findings suggest imageability as a more salient factor relative to semantic association in the processing of these verbs. The role of semantic association and the representation of speech verbs are also discussed.     

做会后悔还是不做会后悔?——自我调节模式对不作为惯性的影响

从消费者的不作为惯性反应差异出发,探讨运动模式和评估模式的消费者在错过第一次合意机会、面对第二次次优机会时购买可能性的差异及原因。通过3个研究发现,相比评估模式的消费者而言,运动模式的消费者具有更高的二次购买可能性。在自我调节模式影响次优购买可能性的过程中,预期后悔起到重要的中介作用。此外,研究还发现,当第二次次优机会中提供了与第一次机会中的产品类似但不同的替代产品时,运动模式和评估模式消费者之间的购买可能性差异消失了。     

JUMPING TOGETHER: A WAY FROM SOCIOBIOLOGY TO BIO‐SOCIO‐HUMANITIES

Sociobiology is a grand narrative of evolutionary biology on which to build unified knowledge. Consilience is a metaphorical representation of that narrative. I take up the same metaphor but apply it differently. I evoke the image of jumping together, not on solid ground but on the strong, flexible canvas sheet of a trampoline, on which natural sciences, social sciences, and the humanities jump together. This image overlaps with the traditional East Asian way of understanding—that is, the “Heaven‐Earth‐Person Triad.” Using recent insights from cognitive science—metaphor, embodiment, and conceptual blending—I propose the alternative way of “bio‐socio‐humanities” to understand and experience the world.