惠能“心量广大”的文化心理学解读

惠能及其开创的禅宗的核心思想“明心见性”是明白“心量广大”。它包括如下几层含义:(1)“本心”中所包含的估量标准或尺度广大;(2)“心”度量、衡量、审度的对象众多,范围广大;(3)“心”的容量广大;(4)人心的耐受程度和转化能力强大;(5)人心的范围广大和创造力强大;(6)人的心态积极强大。“心量广大”具体体现在平常心、包容心或宽容心、认知力、精神力、心理能量等几个方面。“心量广大”具有浓郁的中国文化特色,蕴含有“自强不息,厚德载物”的中国文化精神,“道德自律和躬身自省”的中国文化伦理与价值追求,“以人为本的人道主义和人文情怀”的中国文化核心思想理念。由此来看,惠能的“心量广大”思想在当代社会仍具有积极的现实价值,对当代文化建设,社会道德构建等有积极作用。     

Childhood Maltreatment and Prospectively Observed Quality of Early Care as Predictors of Antisocial Personality Disorder Features

Few studies have evaluated the separate contributions of maltreatment and ongoing quality of parent-child interaction to the etiology of antisocial personality features using a prospective longitudinal design. 120 low-income young adults (aged 18-23) were assessed for extent of ASPD features on the Structured Clinical Interview for Diagnosis-Axis II, for presence of maltreatment on the Conflict Tactics Scale, Traumatic Experiences Scale, and Adult Attachment Interview, and for referral in infancy to parent-infant clinical services. Fifty-six of these families had been studied longitudinally since the first year of life. In infancy, attachment disorganization and disrupted mother-infant interaction were assessed; in middle childhood, disorganized-controlling attachment behaviors were reliably rated. In kindergarten and second grade, behavior problems were assessed by teacher report. In cross-sectional analyses, maltreatment was significantly associated with ASPD features but did not account for the independent effect of early referral to parent-infant services on ASPD features. In longitudinal analyses, maternal withdrawal in infancy predicted the extent of ASPD features twenty years later, independently of childhood abuse. In middle childhood, disorganized attachment behavior and maladaptive behavior at school added to prediction of later ASPD features. Antisocial features in young adulthood have precursors in the minute-to-minute process of parent-child interaction beginning in infancy.     

Glutamatergic activation of anterior cingulate cortex mediates the affective component of visceral pain memory in rats

Studies of both humans and animals suggest that anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) is important for processing pain perception. We identified that perigenul ACC (pACC) sensitization and enhanced visceral pain in a visceral hypersensitive rat in previous studies. Pain contains both sensory and affective dimensions. Teasing apart the mechanisms that control the neural pathways mediating pain affect and sensation in nociceptive behavioral response is a challenge. In this study, using a rodent visceral pain assay that combines the colorectal distension (CRD)-induced visceromotor response (VMR) with the conditioning place avoidance (CPA), we measured a learned behavior that directly reflects the affective component of visceral pain. When CRD was paired with a distinct environment context, the rats spent significantly less time in this compartment on the post-conditioning test days as compared with the pre-conditioning day. Effects were lasted for 14 days. Bilateral pACC lesion significantly reduced CPA scores without reducing acute visceral pain behaviors (CRD-induced VMR). Bilateral administration of non-NMDA receptor antagonist CNQX or NMDA receptor antagonist AP5 into the pACC decreased the CPA scores. AP5 or CNQX at dose of 400 mM produced about 70% inhibition of CRD-CPA in the day 1, 4 and 7, and completely abolished the CPA in the day 14 after conditioning. We concluded that neurons in the pACC are necessary for the "aversiveness" of visceral nociceptor stimulation. pACC activation is critical for the memory processing involved in long-term negative affective state and prediction of aversive stimuli by contextual cue.     

Dopamine receptor D4 gene variation predicts preschoolers' developing theory of mind

Individual differences in preschoolers' understanding that human action is caused by internal mental states, or representational theory of mind (RTM), are heritable, as are developmental disorders such as autism in which RTM is particularly impaired. We investigated whether polymorphisms of genes affecting dopamine (DA) utilization and metabolism constitute part of the molecular basis of this heritability. Seventy-three 42- to 54-month-olds were given a battery of RTM tasks along with other task batteries that measured executive functioning and representational understanding more generally. Polymorphisms of the dopamine D4 receptor gene (DRD4) were associated with RTM performance such that preschoolers with shorter alleles outperformed those with one or more longer alleles. However, polymorphisms of the catechol-O-methyl transferase gene (COMT) and the dopamine transporter gene (DAT1) genes were not associated with children's RTM performance. Further tests showed that the association between DRD4 allele length and RTM performance was not attributable to a common association with executive functioning or representational understanding more generally. We conclude that DRD4 receptors, likely via their effects on frontal lobe development and functioning, may represent a neuromaturational constraint governing the stereotypical and universal trajectory of RTM development.     

Media Exposure,Perceived Personal Impact,and Third-Person Effect

This article examines the influence of perceived personal impact on third-person perception and on protective behaviors in connection with exposure to media coverage of the H1N1 swine flu pandemic. Survey results show that the perceived personal impact of the disease spreading in the local community positively predicts perceived media effects on self and others. However, its impact on self-evaluation of media effect is more salient and, thus, negatively influences third-person perception. In terms of corresponding behaviors, people's concerns for their own safety rather than for others' predict the intention to take protective measures. The greater the third-person perception, the less likely that people will take protective actions.     

Quantitative defect evolution of nanocrystalline nickel during cold rolling

The defect evolution of cold-rolled nanocrystalline nickel is quantitatively investigated. We report that the density of dislocations (or stacking faults) first increases and then decreases after an equivalent strain of ～0.30. The density of stacking faults decreases more significantly than that of dislocations when the grain size increases above 35?nm. This is attributed to the grain size dependence of dislocation activity. The roles of texture and deformation twins are also considered to help understanding of the decreasing density of dislocations (or stacking faults).     

Effort and negative affect interact to predict cardiovascular responses to stress

Objective: Although traditional models posit that negative emotional responses to stress increase cardiovascular reactivity (CVR), laboratory studies have generally not found a strong emotion–CVR association. In this paper, we took a multidimensional approach to examining psychological reactions to stress in three studies.

Methods: In each study we assessed the amount of effort exerted by a participant and the negative affect (NA) felt by the participant with different self-reported measures and an effort behavioural measure.

Results: Our findings consistently demonstrated that NA was associated with CVR when effort was relatively high, but not when effort was relatively low.

Conclusion: This suggests that the weak NA–CVR correlations reported in past research may have been confounded by a third effort-related variable and that CVR is significantly associated with NA under certain circumstances. Furthermore, our findings suggest that by considering the multidimensional nature of psychological responses to stress, we may come to better understand the links between stress-related emotion and physiology.