Rice-farming areas report more anxiety across two years of the COVID-19 pandemic in China

Cultures responded to the COVID-19 pandemic differently. We investigated cultural differences in mental health during the pandemic. We found regional differences in people's reports of anxiety in China over two years from 2020 to 2021 (N = 1186). People in areas with a history of rice farming reported more anxiety than people in wheat-farming areas. Next, we explored more proximal mechanisms that could help link the distal, historical factor of rice farming to people's modern experience of anxiety. Rice areas scored higher on collectivism and tight social norms than wheat areas, and collectivism, rather than norm tightness, mediated the rice-anxiety relationship. These findings advance our understanding of the distal sources of cultural differences, the proximal mechanisms, and mental health problems during the pandemics.     

Behavioral consequences of intergroup sensitivity

Communication of criticism between groups is important to productive societal discourse, but may serve to inflame conflict. The defensive rejection of intergroup, relative to intragroup, criticism (intergroup sensitivity effect [ISE]) may contribute to such divides. The ISE has been observed in self-report measures, but such measures are weak and biased predictors of actual (divisive) behavior. We review recent research demonstrating that the ISE does have costly behavioral consequences. We next consider the debate concerning whether the ISE reflects defense of a valued social identity or enforcement of a conversational norm. We therefore review recent evidence for an ISE among individuals lacking identification with the target of the criticism. Third, we examine how the ISE may affect a variety of behaviors relevant to societal divisions, including political reconciliation, environmental sustainability, and vaccination. Lastly, we outline future research that can clarify the underlying mechanisms of the ISE and promote conciliatory intergroup behavior.     

An individual difference model for the multidimensional analysis of preference data

A model for the analysis of paired comparison data is presented which combines features of the BTL-model with features of the Unfolding model. The model is metric, mathematically tractable, and has an exact algebraic solution. Since it is multidimensional and allows for individual differences, it is thought to be more realistic for some choice situations than either the Thurstone model or the BTL-model. No claim is made that the present model will be appropriate for all conceivable choice situations. Rather, it is argued that the fact that it is explicitly falsifiable is a point in its favor.This work was supported by a grant of the United States Public Health Service (1 R03 MH19139 01 MSM) and a David Ross (XR) grant of the Purdue Research Foundation (PRF 2132), both of which are gratefully acknowledged. We also owe thanks to Dr. Terry Cooper, whose careful scrutiny of an earlier draft of this paper allowed us to reduce the number of errors from n to n-1.     

Some new results on factor indeterminacy

Some relations between maximum likelihood factor analysis and factor indeterminacy are discussed. Bounds are derived for the minimum average correlation between equivalent sets of correlated factors which depend on the latent roots of the factor intercorrelation matrix . Empirical examples are presented to illustrate some of the theory and indicate the extent to which it can be expected to be relevant in practice.     

Choice behavior and the accessibility of the reinforcer

In Experiment 1, matching of relative response rates to relative rates of reinforcement was obtained in concurrent variable-interval schedules when the absolute values of the two concurrent variable-interval schedules varied from 6 sec and 12 sec to 600 sec and 1200 sec. Increases in the duration of the changeover delay, however, produced decreases in the relative response rates and, consequently, some deviation from matching. In Experiment 2, matching of relative response rates to the relative duration of the reinforcer failed to occur when the equal variable-interval schedules arranging access to the two different reinforcer durations (1.5 and 6 sec) were varied in size from concurrent variable-interval 10-sec schedules to concurrent variable-interval 600-sec schedules.     

Differential-psychologische Untersuchungen zum Vigilanzverhalten

Zusammenfassung Mit Hilfe von Korrelationsmethoden wurden inter-individuelle Leistungsunterschiede in einer ein- und einer mehrflächigen Vigilanzaufgabe untersucht. In beiden Aufgaben korrelieren bestimmte Vigilanzscores mit Interferenzindikatoren im Stroop-Versuch. In der mehrflächigen Anordnung zeigte sich eine negative Korrelation zwischen der Entdeckungswahrscheinlichkeit und der Rate der falschen Alarme. Hinsichtlich der zeitlichen Merkmale der Vigilanzleistung ergab sich, daß die Vpn den geringsten Abfall der Entdeckungswahrscheinlichkeit erkennen lassen, die zu Beginn der Vigilanzaufgabe die Rate der falschen Alarme am stärksten reduzieren konnten. Die Ergebnisse wurden im Rahmen des detection-Modells interpretiert.

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Experiments in individual differences of vigilance behavior

Summary This paper is concerned with individual differences of vigilance performance in a simple and a complex vigilance task. In both tasks certain aspects of vigilance behavior were correlated with interference in the Color Word Test by Stroop. In the complex vigilance task there was a negative correlation between the probabilities of signal detections and false alarms rates. With regard to the temporal characteristics of vigilance behavior it was found out that subjects with the least decrease of detection rate showed the greatest reduction of their false alarms rate to the beginning of the vigilance task. The results were discussed in the context of the detection model.

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Teil II der Dissertation, die im Januar 1969 der Philosophischen Fakultät der Freien Universität Berlin vorgelegt wurde.