Outcome of the Psychological Intervention Program: Internet Use for Youth

The prevalence of problematic Internet use (PIU) is reportedly higher in South East Asian adolescent populations. The exacerbation of problematic adolescent behaviors has been found to associate significantly with PIU and is expected to worsen with age. Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT)-integrated therapy has been shown to significantly reduce in the presence of psychological symptoms such as depression and social anxiety. The Psychological Intervention Program-Internet Use for Youth (PIP-IU-Y) is a CBT-based program designed for adolescents and comprises of a series of interpersonal skills to improve their face-to-face interaction. It focuses on taking preventative measures against Internet addiction before it develops by addressing the participant’s PIU as a negative coping style and incorporating positive psychological techniques. A total of 157 participants between the ages of 13 and 18 completed the program which consisted of eight weekly, 90 min sessions in a group format. Treatment outcomes were measured using mean change at the end of the program and 1 month post-treatment. The majority of the participants showed improvement after the eight weekly sessions of PIP-IU-Y and continued symptom maintenance at the 1 month follow-up. An overwhelming majority of participants were able to manage PIU symptoms after the intervention program, reinforcing the efficacy of the PIP-IU-Y. Not only did it addresses the PIU behaviour but also helped in reducing social anxiety and increasing social interaction. Further research could investigate treatment differences among the various subtypes of PIU (e.g., online gaming and pornography) in order to see if treatment differences exist.     

The Acquisition of Exhaustive Pairing in Multiple Wh-Questions in Mandarin

The comprehension of paired wh-questions is examined in child Mandarin, to compare the age of acquisition with that of children speaking European languages like English and German. In Study 1, participants were 734 Mandarin speakers aged 2;6–7;11, drawn from four regions of China. Results reveal a striking parallel between the acquisition of exhaustive answers in Mandarin and that in languages with wh-movement. The significant correlation with children’s exhaustive interpretations of the universal quantifier every (dou) also parallels findings in English. In Study 2, the performance of children (N?=?100) identified as having language impairment is compared to that of non-impaired children (N?=?130), and the results support the idea that answering these paired wh-questions is a potential semantic deficit in language-delayed children.     

An Investigation of Entrepreneurs' Venture Persistence Decision: The Contingency Effect of Psychological Ownership and Adversity

We incorporate psychological ownership theory and adversity literature to examine the joint effect of psychological ownership and adversity on entrepreneurs' persistence decision. The results of two experiments and one survey show that both low adversity and high psychological ownership for the venture increase entrepreneurs' likelihood of persistence. We also identify the moderating effect of adversity. Psychological ownership is more relevant to the likelihood of persistence when adversity is high than when it is low. Our research contributes to psychological ownership theory and the entrepreneurial persistence literature and has practical implications for entrepreneurs.     

Asymptotic efficiency of the pseudo‐maximum likelihood estimator in multi‐group factor models with pooled data

A multi‐group factor model is suitable for data originating from different strata. However, it often requires a relatively large sample size to avoid numerical issues such as non‐convergence and non‐positive definite covariance matrices. An alternative is to pool data from different groups in which a single‐group factor model is fitted to the pooled data using maximum likelihood. In this paper, properties of pseudo‐maximum likelihood (PML) estimators for pooled data are studied. The pooled data are assumed to be normally distributed from a single group. The resulting asymptotic efficiency of the PML estimators of factor loadings is compared with that of the multi‐group maximum likelihood estimators. The effect of pooling is investigated through a two‐group factor model. The variances of factor loadings for the pooled data are underestimated under the normal theory when error variances in the smaller group are larger. Underestimation is due to dependence between the pooled factors and pooled error terms. Small‐sample properties of the PML estimators are also investigated using a Monte Carlo study.     

The effects of mood on spontaneous trait inferences about the actor: Evidence from Chinese undergraduates

Prior research has indicated that positive moods increase but negative moods decrease the trait activation of spontaneous trait inferences (STIs). However, it is unknown whether this difference is also present in STIs about the actor. In Study 1, using a false recognition paradigm, we found that Chinese undergraduates made STIs about the actor. In Study 2, we found that the happy Chinese undergraduates were more likely to make STIs about the actor than the sad Chinese undergraduates. These findings showed that Chinese people made STIs about the actor and moods had an influence on their STIs about the actor.     

Dissociable effects of fear and disgust in proactive and reactive inhibition

Numerous studies have demonstrated that negative emotional distracters impair inhibitory control. Nevertheless, two issues have emerged in prior studies. First, fear and disgust were inappropriately treated as a single category, which is particularly concerning given that they have been recently demonstrated to exert different impacts on inhibitory control. Second, inhibitory control might not be a unitary construct, as it can be further divided into proactive and reactive inhibition. Therefore, the present study aimed to investigate whether fearful and disgusting distracters have differential effects on proactive and reactive inhibition. Twenty-four female participants were instructed to perform a modified stop-signal task superimposed on a fearful, disgusting, or neutral image cue. Results showed that fearful distracters improved reactive inhibition when compared to disgusting and neutral distracters, while disgusting distracters enhanced proactive inhibition when compared to fearful distracters. Further, reactive and proactive inhibition was positively correlated under fearful, disgusting, and neutral contexts. This study is the first to provide evidence that fear and disgust may affect proactive and reactive inhibition differently. These results add to a growing literature linking emotion and inhibitory control, and they expand our understanding of the relationship between emotion and inhibition.     

面孔识别的眼动研究

采用眼动记录法探讨面孔识别的加工过程。在实验一中,通过记录被试识别面孔图片和非面孔图片时的即时加工过程,考查被试在知觉面孔与一般物体时的眼动差异。在实验二中,考察被试在知觉熟悉面孔与陌生面孔时的眼动差异与时间进程的差异。结果表明:(1)个体在加工面孔时倾向于首先在双眼间平移而后向嘴巴运动,完成面孔识别,而在识别物体图片时则没有固定的运动轨迹。(2)在知觉熟悉面孔时被试倾向于只注视眼睛,而在知觉陌生面孔图片时则与实验一的面孔图片眼动轨迹相似。     

聋生“是……的”句的句法意识

聋生在书面语语法学习中遇到极大困难。以"是……的"句为实验材料,使用移动窗口式自步速逐词句子阅读任务进行3项实验研究发现,和既懂手语又懂口语的(听力损失不高于70 d B的)中轻度聋生相比,(听力损失高于70 d B的)重度聋生对句尾助词"的"的句法信息加工尤其困难,他们对"是……的"句的句法意识较弱。本研究对重度聋生的书面语语法教学训练具有重要的心理学指导意义。     

Exploring thematic influences on theme park visitors' satisfaction: An empirical study on Disneyland China

This study aims to explore thematic influences on theme park visitors' satisfaction through user-generated data. To this end, we first used an unsupervised machine learning method, structural topic modeling, and analyzed 112,000 reviews post by visitors to Shanghai Disney Resort from June 16, 2016 to March 4, 2022. Our findings are of great significance for reflecting consumer behavior through user-generated data. Specifically, we find that visitors' satisfaction is highly related to service in the theme park and their playing feeling, and early tourists pay more attention to the experience of specific playing items while later tourists focus on the overall playing experience. In addition, an empirical study is conducted by treating the ratings associated with each review as dependent variable and each topic represented by comments as independent variables, which shows that the relationship between the customer reviews and ratings by tourists becomes less pronounced over time. In other words, as time goes, customers review can reflect their subjective feelings or experience, but the rating is not. We discover the “dynamics” of user-generated data over time and gain a better understanding of the aspects and concerns of visitors' satisfaction over time. The findings of the study contribute to the literature on tourism, service, and consumer behavior while also providing valuable practical implications.