Failure-Related Action Orientation and Life Satisfaction: The Mediating Role of Forgivingness

This study examined the association between failure-related action orientation and life satisfaction, with a primary focus on confirmation of the mediating role of forgivingness in Chinese college students. 277 participants (165 males and 112 females) from Mainland China completed a subscale of the Action Control Scale (ACS-90) called the Failure-related Action Orientation Scale (AOF), the Tendency to Forgive Scale (Brown in Personal Soc Psychol Bull 29(6):759–771, 2003) and the Satisfaction with Life Scale (Diener et al. in J Personal Assess 49(1):71–75, 1985). Results from structural equation modeling showed that forgivingness partially mediated the relationship between failure-related action orientation and life satisfaction. Moreover, AOF, forgivingness and life satisfaction did not differ across gender or age groups. Implications for the model of failure-related action orientation, forgivingness and life satisfaction in college students are discussed.     

Effects of product portfolios and recommendation timing in the efficiency of personalized recommendation

Personalized recommendation has important implications in raising online shopping efficiency and increasing product sales. There has been wide interest in finding ways to provide more efficient personalized recommendations. Most existing studies focus on how to improve the accuracy and efficiency of the recommendation algorithms or are more concerned on ways to reduce perceived risks and thus increase consumer satisfaction. Unlike these studies, our study begins from the decision‐making process of consumers, using consumers' two‐stage decision‐making system and preference inconsistency theory as a basis, to reveal the mechanisms involved in consumers' acceptance of recommendations. This paper analyzes the effect of personalized recommendations from two angles, recommendation timing and product portfolio, tries to point out differences in consumer preferences between similar products and related products, and verifies that consumers demand diversity in the recommended content. The study analyzes differences in the acceptance of personalized recommendations between practical products and hedonic products and discovers that recommendations of hedonic products are more effective than that of practical products. Based on the research earlier, the study provides suggestions on how to better plan and operate a personalized recommendation system. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Affect Intensity and Risk Preference in Life-Saving Decisions

The current studies investigated the influence of affect intensity on risk preference in life-saving decisions. Results from 4 experiments found that people are more risk-seeking when affect intensity is higher. This effect occurs in both gain and loss framing conditions (Study 2 and Study 3) and is robust in both between-subject design (Studies 1–3) and within-subject design (Study 4). The effect holds for saving human lives (Study 1 and Study 4), as well as for saving animal lives (Study 2 and Study 3). The results generalize from laboratory hypothetical settings (Studies 1–3) to simulations of a fire emergency (Study 4). Finally, the results from American samples (Studies 1–3) are replicated using a Chinese sample (Study 4). In addition, Study 5 demonstrates that the manipulations used in these experiments have an effect on affect intensity while not influencing alternative explanatory variables. The effect size for risk preference rises and falls with the effect size for manipulations.     

Studying Confucian Thought from the Inside Out

The philosophical study of Confucian thought seeks to both understand the nature of Confucian thought in its historical and cultural context and relate it in an intellectually fruitful manner to contemporary philosophical discourse. Someone engaged in such a study will be pulled inward toward approximating the perspectives of the Confucian thinkers set in the context of their concerns and activities, and pulled outward away from the Confucians’ world of ideas to relate them to our present concerns and interests, specifically those that characterize contemporary philosophical discourse. These two psychological forces, the inward pull and outward pull, can be combined in different ways in the psychological orientation that underlies such a study. This essay presents and discusses the merits of an approach that it describes as “studying Confucian thought from the inside out.” On this approach, the inward pull is maximally dominant, and even as the outward pull leads us to move beyond the Confucians’ own perspectives to relate their ideas to our present concerns and interests, we at the same time seek to do so in a way that is maximally continuous with their perspectives. Such an approach helps draw out the distinctive characteristics and insights of Confucian thought, and also furthers a direction of inquiry that the Confucian thinkers themselves advocate.     

Modeling error distributions of growth curve models through Bayesian methods

Growth curve models are widely used in social and behavioral sciences. However, typical growth curve models often assume that the errors are normally distributed although non-normal data may be even more common than normal data. In order to avoid possible statistical inference problems in blindly assuming normality, a general Bayesian framework is proposed to flexibly model normal and non-normal data through the explicit specification of the error distributions. A simulation study shows when the distribution of the error is correctly specified, one can avoid the loss in the efficiency of standard error estimates. A real example on the analysis of mathematical ability growth data from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, Kindergarten Class of 1998-99 is used to show the application of the proposed methods. Instructions and code on how to conduct growth curve analysis with both normal and non-normal error distributions using the the MCMC procedure of SAS are provided.     

Common magnitude representation of fractions and decimals is task dependent

Although several studies have compared the representation of fractions and decimals, no study has investigated whether fractions and decimals, as two types of rational numbers, share a common representation of magnitude. The current study aimed to answer the question of whether fractions and decimals share a common representation of magnitude and whether the answer is influenced by task paradigms. We included two different number pairs, which were presented sequentially: fraction–decimal mixed pairs and decimal–fraction mixed pairs in all four experiments. Results showed that when the mixed pairs were very close numerically with the distance 0.1 or 0.3, there was a significant distance effect in the comparison task but not in the matching task. However, when the mixed pairs were further apart numerically with the distance 0.3 or 1.3, the distance effect appeared in the matching task regardless of the specific stimuli. We conclude that magnitudes of fractions and decimals can be represented in a common manner, but how they are represented is dependent on the given task. Fractions and decimals could be translated into a common representation of magnitude in the numerical comparison task. In the numerical matching task, fractions and decimals also shared a common representation. However, both of them were represented coarsely, leading to a weak distance effect. Specifically, fractions and decimals produced a significant distance effect only when the numerical distance was larger.     

Maternal Child‐rearing Practices in Hong Kong and Beijing Chinese Families: A Comparative Study

The present study aimed to examine the child‐rearing practices in Chinese families in Beijing and Hong Kong. The sample consisted of 89 mothers in Beijing and 45 mothers in Hong Kong. The mothers were instructed to respond to the Child‐rearing Practice Report (CRPR) in Q‐sort format. Some of the item clusters were combined to produce the authoritarian and authoritative disciplinary styles. The results indicated that mothers in Hong Kong were more likely to adopt an authoritarian child‐rearing pattern than mothers in Beijing; however, the two groups did not differ in authoritative child‐rearing style. The results also showed that mothers in Hong Kong controlled their children more than their counterparts in Beijing, and they were less inclined to show affection towards their children; mothers in Beijing emphasized their children's achievement much more than their Hong Kong counterparts. The findings suggest that Chinese parental disciplinary styles may be quite different in various regions of Chinese societies. Such variance across different geopolitical locations within the same cultural background has been ignored in past cross‐cultural research.     

图形负荷下的字音匹配加工

本研究采用图形负荷法研究汉字语音匹配加工,实验结果倾向支持两半球均势论,并认为右半球可能具有一定的语音加工能力.有关结论和解释还需进一步论证.     

残障儿童家庭教育环境研究

对上海市２８６名残障儿童家长进行问卷调查,了解残障儿童家庭教育环境。结果发现：核心家庭占绝大多数;残障儿童家长学历层次和经济收入较低;家长普遍认为家庭教育很有必要,但对自己在家庭教育中的作用认识不充分;大多数家长除了与教师有较好的交流合作外,在与家庭其他成员、其他残障儿童家长以及邻居的交流合作均不理想。     

高压氧对小鼠学习记忆及脑细胞形态结构的影响

实验用两种行为模型（旷场行为模型和Ｙ－迷宫分辨学习模型）观察了幼龄小鼠在不同压力的高压氧处理后,对新异环境的探究行为和自发活动情况,以及学习记忆能力的变化;并用ＸＹ－生物医学电脑图像分析仪分析了与学习记忆相关的脑区（大脑皮层、海马）神经元密度,细胞核面积,胞核／胞浆比值的变化。结果表明：（１）与对照组相比,吸０.１ＭＰａ高压氧的幼鼠学习记忆能力明显提高,相关脑区的神经元密度、细胞核面积、胞核／浆比均显著增加。（２）吸０.２５ＭＰａ高压氧的幼鼠学习记忆能力与对照组相比无明显变化,但其在新异环境中的自发行为明显减少。提示：慢性吸入０.１ＭＰａ高压氧有利于促进幼鼠脑的生长发育,增强脑功能活动。