Resilience is associated with better recovery in Chinese people diagnosed with coronary heart disease

This study investigated the impact of personal resilience (a composite measure of optimism, perceived control and self-esteem) on outcome measures in 67 Chinese coronary heart disease patients in response to an 8-week rehabilitation programme. The effect of personal resilience on posttraumatic growth attributed to the onset of heart disease was also examined. Results indicated that coronary heart disease patients high in personal resilience achieved better outcomes than those low in personal resilience, as indicated by higher physical and mental summary measures in SF-36, lower cholesterol levels and better performance on the 6?min walk test. Moreover, personal resilience was demonstrated to be a significant predictor of the level of posttraumatic growth although the rehabilitation programme exerted a weak mediating effect on the link between personal resilience and posttraumatic growth. Findings were discussed in relation to clinical implications of the construct of personal resilience and the intervention programme.     

ERP evidence for conceptual mappings and comparison processes during the comprehension of conventional and novel metaphors

Cognitive linguists suggest that understanding metaphors requires activation of conceptual mappings between the involved concepts. We tested whether mappings are indeed in use during metaphor comprehension, and what mapping means as a cognitive process with Event-Related Potentials. Participants read literal, conventional metaphorical, novel metaphorical, and anomalous target sentences preceded by primes with related or unrelated mappings. Experiment 1 used sentence-primes to activate related mappings, and Experiment 2 used simile-primes to induce comparison thinking. In the unprimed conditions of both experiments, metaphors elicited N400s more negative than the literals. In Experiment 1, related sentence-primes reduced the metaphor-literal N400 difference in conventional, but not in novel metaphors. In Experiment 2, related simile-primes reduced the metaphor-literal N400 difference in novel, but not clearly in conventional metaphors. We suggest that mapping as a process occurs in metaphors, and the ways in which it can be facilitated by comparison differ between conventional and novel metaphors.     

Coaching Behaviors,Satisfaction of Needs,and Intrinsic Motivation Among Chinese University Athletes

This cross-sectional study applied self-determination theory to understand the relationship between coaching behaviors, psychological need satisfaction, and intrinsic motivation among young Chinese athletes from 2 universities in Macao, China (N = 208). In the path model with the demographics adjusted, coaching behaviors (training instruction, democratic behaviors, autocratic behaviors, social support, and positive feedback) and need satisfaction (perceived autonomy, competence, and relatedness) explained 44% of the variance in intrinsic motivation. We also found indirect effects of some coaching behaviors on intrinsic motivation through satisfying the psychological needs. Furthermore, independent self-construal significantly moderated the relationship between perceived relatedness and intrinsic motivation.     

Motivation as Mediator Between National Identity and Intention to Volunteer

Although there is a large volume of research on the relationship between social identity and volunteerism, little attention was given to national identity in volunteerism research. This study examined the role of national identity in motivating people to volunteer in the Chinese culture and its role in differentiating those who showed no interest in voluntary work (i.e. non‐volunteers) from those who wanted to volunteer but did not (i.e. potential volunteers). Two hundred ninety‐nine participants (age, M = 34.14 years) filled out a questionnaire on their demographics, experience of volunteering, intention to volunteer, volunteer motivations, and national identity. Results showed that a stronger national identity was associated with greater volunteer motivations. Mediation analyses further supported the positive indirect effect of national identity on intention to volunteer through strengthening volunteer motivations. Marital status was the only significant factor that differentiated current volunteers from potential volunteers. We concluded that citizens’ volunteer motivation increases with national identity, yet concrete measures to bring potential volunteers to actual volunteering need to be further explored. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Chinese exploration of Orthodox theology: a critical review

ABSTRACT

In spite of the small number of Orthodox Christians in China, Chinese publications relating to Orthodox Christianity, in which many Chinese theologians from other Christian denominations or scholars without formal religious affiliation have been involved in exploring Orthodox theology, have mushroomed in recent years. It is noticeable that these explorations have been shaped not only by the renaissance of Orthodox theology in the twentieth century, but also by the Chinese context. In terms of scope, many of them are related to the Chinese context, including the relationship between Christianity and Chinese culture. In terms of depth, due to the religious backgrounds of the researchers, some of these Chinese explorations fail to integrate the theological, liturgical and spiritual dimensions of the Orthodox tradition, and exhibit difficulties in interpreting, for instance, Orthodox mystical theology. These limitations can be overcome through dialogue with contemporary Orthodox theologians.     

How are depression and autobiographical memory retrieval related to culture?

This study investigated how culture influences the association between autobiographical memory retrieval and depression. Thirty clinically depressed patients and 30 controls, 15 each from Britain and Taiwan, completed the English and Chinese versions of the Autobiographical Memory Cueing Task (AMT). Overall, the depressed individuals from both cultural groups retrieved significantly fewer specific and more categoric autobiographical memories than their matched, nondepressed controls. Within the control groups, the British participants retrieved significantly more specific autobiographical memories and fewer categoric memories than their Taiwanese counterparts. These results suggest that difficulty in retrieving specific autobiographical memories typical of depression may be a cognitive bias that occurs across cultures.     

The impact of adjacent-dependencies and staged-input on the learnability of center-embedded hierarchical structures

A theoretical debate in artificial grammar learning (AGL) regards the learnability of hierarchical structures. Recent studies using an AⁿBⁿ grammar draw conflicting conclusions (Bahlmann and Friederici, 2006 and [De Vries et al., 2008] ). We argue that 2 conditions crucially affect learning AⁿBⁿ structures: sufficient exposure to zero-level-of-embedding (0-LoE) exemplars and a staged-input. In 2 AGL experiments, learning was observed only when the training set was staged and contained 0-LoE exemplars. Our results might help understanding how natural complex structures are learned from exemplars.     

Smiling in newborns during communicative wake and active sleep

Many studies have investigated infant smiling behaviour during wake and active sleep. In the majority of studies authors agreed that two month-old infants exhibit social smiles. However it is not clear if newborns exhibit different kinds of smiles during wake and active sleep to two month-old infants and if the communicative context can affect the quantity and quality of these smiles.The aim of this study was to test if different kinds of communication affects the amount and the quality of smiles during different behavioural states.Smiling behaviour was analyzed during interactive wake (IW) and active sleep (AS), in 40 newborns randomly assigned to 4 groups of 10 newborns each: continuous tactile communication group, discontinuous non periodic tactile communication group, discontinuous periodic tactile communication group, absent communication group. In the total sample the open/closed mouth (social/non social) smiles ratio was 38/5 during IW and 1/28 during AS (p < .001). Moreover these ratios were different between the four groups.Different kinds of tactile communication affect amount and quality of the smiles of newborns during IW and AS. Moreover the morphological difference of the smiles during IW and AS suggested that for newborns the smiling behaviour during IW could have a social meaning, as it does for two month-old infants.     

朱子思想中的四德论

For understanding Zhu Xi's virtue theory as well as its structure and ethical meaning,the first half of this essay analyses Zhu Xi's theory of Four Virtues.And the other half of the essay turns to the theory of universe of Four Virtues from the ethical theory of Four Virtues,then gets the conclusion as follows:in a certain sense,Zhu Xi's philosophy system can be seen from two basic points,namely Li Xue(school of principle) and Ren Xue(school of humanity).From the Li Xue to embody Zhu Xi's philosophy is the ...     

The statistical recommendations of the American Psychological Association Publication Manual: Effect sizes,confidence intervals,and meta‐analysis

Estimation based on effect sizes, confidence intervals, and meta‐analysis usually provides a more informative analysis of empirical results than does statistical significance testing, which has long been the conventional choice in psychology. The sixth edition of the American Psychological Association Publication Manual now recommends that psychologists should, wherever possible, use estimation and base their interpretation of research results on point and interval estimates. We outline the Manual's recommendations and suggest how they can be put into practice: adopt an estimation framework, starting with the formulation of research aims as ‘How much?’ or ‘To what extent?’ questions. Calculate from your data effect size estimates and confidence intervals to answer those questions, then interpret. Wherever appropriate, use meta‐analysis to integrate evidence over studies. The Manual's recommendations can assist psychologists improve they way they do their statistics and help build a more quantitative and cumulative discipline.