Abnormalities in early visual processes are linked to hypersociability and atypical evaluation of facial trustworthiness: An ERP study with Williams syndrome

Accurate assessment of trustworthiness is fundamental to successful and adaptive social behavior. Initially, people assess trustworthiness from facial appearance alone. These assessments then inform critical approach or avoid decisions. Individuals with Williams syndrome (WS) exhibit a heightened social drive, especially toward strangers. This study investigated the temporal dynamics of facial trustworthiness evaluation in neurotypic adults (TD) and individuals with WS. We examined whether differences in neural activity during trustworthiness evaluation may explain increased approach motivation in WS compared to TD individuals. Event-related potentials were recorded while participants appraised faces previously rated as trustworthy or untrustworthy. TD participants showed increased sensitivity to untrustworthy faces within the first 65–90 ms, indexed by the negative-going rise of the P1 onset (oP1). The amplitude of the oP1 difference to untrustworthy minus trustworthy faces was correlated with lower approachability scores. In contrast, participants with WS showed increased N170 amplitudes to trustworthy faces. The N170 difference to low–high-trust faces was correlated with low approachability in TD and high approachability in WS. The findings suggest that hypersociability associated with WS may arise from abnormalities in the timing and organization of early visual brain activity during trustworthiness evaluation. More generally, the study provides support for the hypothesis that impairments in low-level perceptual processes can have a cascading effect on social cognition.     

Positive Approaches to Coping with the Challenges of Ageing: Research Priorities

This article identifies research priorities in respect of the social dimension of ageing. Three areas are explored; ageing in one's own community; ageing in another community as a consequence of migration and ageing in a residential community. Exemplar research studies, conducted by the authors (singly) are presented briefly and contextualised in the literature to reveal key research priorities. The determination of research priorities should take account of those aspects of social functioning that are associated with factors amenable to change. Key research priorities identified include the development of a better understanding of the importance of social networks; how these are created, maintained to promote the successful social ageing of individuals.     

Employee perceptions of corporate social responsibility: Effects on pride,embeddedness, and turnover

We examined socioemotional microfoundations of perceived corporate social responsibility (CSR) and posited that employees’ perceived CSR triggers a perception-emotion-attitude-behavior sequence. Drawing from appraisal theory of emotion, we hypothesized that perceived CSR relates to emotions (i.e., organizational pride), which relate to job attitudes (i.e., organizational embeddedness) that in turn relate to job behaviors (i.e., decreased turnover). To test this model, we conducted a multistudy investigation involving different samples, designs, and data-analytic methods. In Study 1, we conducted an experiment and found that participants who envisioned working in a firm that was active regarding CSR activities reported greater pride and organizational embeddedness. We then conducted two field studies using a nonmanagerial sample (Study 2) and a managerial sample (Study 3) and found that participants’ perceived CSR was positively related to their pride, which in turn was related to stronger organizational embeddedness. Stronger organizational embeddedness was related to lower turnover 6 months later in Study 2 but not in Study 3. In Study 4, we conducted a longitudinal four-wave 14-month study to test the proposed relationships from a within-person conceptualization, and the results were also supportive. Thus, the proposed perception-emotion-attitude-behavior framework received broad support and illustrated that stronger microfoundations of CSR research could be constructed through understanding employees’ emotional, attitudinal, and behavioral reactions to their perceptions of their employers’ CSR.     

Fixed-target efficient search has logarithmic efficiency with and without eye movements

Stage 1 processing in visual search (e.g., efficient search) has long been thought to be unaffected by factors such as set size or lure–distractor similarity (or at least to be only minimally affected). Recent research from Buetti, Cronin, Madison, Wang, and Lleras (Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 145, 672–707, 2016) showed that in efficient visual search with a fixed target, reaction times increase logarithmically as a function of set size and, further, that the slope of these logarithmic functions is modulated by target–distractor similarity. This has led to the proposal that the cognitive architecture of Stage 1 processing is parallel, of unlimited capacity, and exhaustive in nature. Such an architecture produces reaction time functions that increase logarithmically with set size (as opposed to being unaffected by it). However, in the previous studies, eye movements were not monitored. It is thus possible that the logarithmicity of the reaction time functions emerged simply as an artifact of eye movements rather than as a reflection of the underlying cognitive architecture. Here we ruled out the possibility that eye movements resulted in the observed logarithmic functions, by asking participants to keep their eyes at fixation while completing fixed-target efficient visual search tasks. The logarithmic RT functions still emerged even when participants were not allowed to make eye movements, thus providing further support for our proposal. Additionally, we found that search efficiency is slightly improved when eye movements are restricted and lure–target similarity is relatively high.     

Prototypical actions with objects are more easily imagined than atypical actions

Tool use is an important facet of everyday life, though sometimes it is necessary to use tools in ways that do not fit within their typical functions. Here we asked participants to imagine characters using objects based on instructions that fit the prototypical actions for the object or were atypical in a novel object-action imagery task. Atypical action instructions either described sensible, substitute uses of the object, or actions that were bizarre but possible. Participants were better able to imagine the prototypical than atypical actions, but no effect of bizarreness was found. We additionally assessed inter-individual differences in movement imagery ability using two objective tests. Performance in the object-action imagery task correlated with the movement imagery tests, providing a link between motor simulations and mental imagery ability.     

Chinese Proverb Scale: Development and validation of an indigenous measure of Chinese traditional values

The aim of this study was to develop and validate an indigenous measure of Chinese traditional values using Chinese proverbs. A sample of 363 Mainland Chinese undergraduates participated in Study 1, in which a 26‐item Chinese Proverb Scale (CPS) was developed through factor analysis on an initial pool of 118 Chinese proverbs. Four factors were clearly identified: (a) Diligence, (b) Integrity, (c) Self‐Preservation, and (d) Self‐Interest. The CPS showed satisfactory convergent validity with personal values (S. H. Schwartz, 1992, Advances In Experimental Social Psychology, San Diego, Academic Press) and social axioms (K. Leung et al., 2002, Journal of Cross‐Cultural Psychology, 33, p. 286). For incremental validity, the CPS predicted life satisfaction beyond the Big Five personality, personal values, and social axioms. In Study 2, a sample of 239 Mainland Chinese participants completed the CPS across two measurement occasions with an interval of 6 months. Longitudinal structural equation modeling (SEM) revealed the structure of the CPS was robust and invariant over time. In Study 3, a sample of 167 Chinese undergraduates from Hong Kong responded to an adapted version of the CPS. Multigroup SEM showed structural equivalence of the scale across the mainland and Hong Kong samples. The cultural origins of the factors in the CPS and future applications of the scale in various research areas are discussed.     

Organizational citizenship behavior and counterproductive work behavior: Do males and females differ?

While there has been considerable research on gender differences in core task performance, gender differences in organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) and counterproductive work behavior (CWB) have been largely ignored. Gender-consistent roles of females as being supportive would lead to the prediction that females engage in more OCB and less CWB than males. Using meta-analytic data gathered across 395 samples, we found several (weak) gender differences in CWB but none in OCB. We explain null and weak relationships from the perspective of social role theory, especially regarding males' roles being career-focused.     

Effects of dilemma type,language, and emotion arousal on utilitarian vs deontological choice to moral dilemmas in Chinese–English bilinguals

The present study examines how dilemma type (personal or impersonal moral dilemma), language (native or foreign) and emotion arousal to a dilemma could affect Chinese–English bilinguals' deontological vs utilitarian moral choices regarding 39 moral dilemmas. How emotion arousal plays a mediating role in the effects of dilemma type and language on moral choices is also investigated. As shown in multilevel analyses, participants made fewer utilitarian choices for personal dilemmas than impersonal dilemmas. Although emotion arousal of dilemmas significantly mediated this effect of dilemma type, the indirect effect of dilemma type through arousal on moral choices was inconsistent with the direct effect of dilemma type on moral choices. For the effect of language, participants made more utilitarian choices in the Footbridge (personal) dilemma that was presented in foreign language than in native language. However, this effect was not mediated by arousal, suggesting that it could not be attributed to the emotion‐reducing effect of foreign language. Moreover, there was no language effect on moral choices in analyses that included all 39 dilemmas or only 22 personal dilemmas, indicating the need in future research for further identifying the potential mediators that trigger the foreign language effect on moral choices.     

Action Type-Based Factorial Structure of Brief COPE among Hong Kong Chinese

Brief COPE (Carver in International journal of Behavioral Medicine, 4(1), 92–100, 1997) is a multidimensional scale that measures situational and dispositional coping responses. This study evaluated its factor structure and psychometric properties using two Hong Kong college samples (Sample 1; n = 204 & Sample 2; n = 221). Results of confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) indicated that an eleven-factor model, based on action goals (Skinner et al. in Psychological Bulletin, 129(2), 216, 2003), demonstrated a good fit across the two samples. The eleven-factor model fit the data better than five alternative models. We also validated a Traditional Chinese translation of the scale. Multiple-groups CFAs indicated partial scalar invariance across the English and Chinese versions in Hong Kong participants. Nonetheless, convergent validity was supported by the associations between the scores of some, but not all, of the dimensions and related psychological constructs, including psychological distress, optimism, and locus of control. Such associations might help differentiate conceptually distinct coping dimensions. Likewise, our results provided support for the reliability of some, but not all, of the subscale scores. In sum, our results support the multidimensionality of Brief COPE and the use of some of the measure’s factors and subscales. Moreover, Brief COPE and its translated version demonstrated acceptable psychometric properties in Hong Kong Chinese.     

Indigenous Psychotherapies and Religion: Moral Vision and Embodied Communities

Over the past century, the dominant model for addressing mental illness has been the treatment of individuals, largely by individual therapists who assume the availability of individual psychological resources. That form of therapy is a scarce commodity in capitalist societies, and social models of healing have been largely marginalized and forgotten. From the point of view of an indigenous psychology of religion, this essay (1) reports on local cultural and community models of healing that honor the common good, draw on local, communal narratives, and involve a given community in the process of healing. However, because it is not simply community in itself that is therapeutic, the authors argue (2) that healing cultures have communities that are guided by their moral vision and are committed to justice, moral integrity, and the sharing of resources. They draw on intergenerational studies that detail the effects in Inuit communities where a moral vision and a sense of community was present but then was eroded. Therapists whose interventions draw on the moral resources of the community may facilitate healing, as demonstrated by the use of allocentric imaging in more communal traditions. Finally, it is not simply communities with moral ideals that are therapeutic but (3) indigenous communities whose structures and whose role models embody their ethic that is critical for healing. The authors examine ecological communities in China committed to Confucian values and protection of the earth. The L’Arche communities begun in France by Jean Vanier and Alcoholics Anonymous groups around the world serve as examples of embodied moral communities.