Reference point adaptation: Tests in the domain of security trading

According to prospect theory [Kahneman, D., & Tversky, A. (1979). Prospect theory: An analysis of decision under risk, Econometrica, 47, 263–292], gains and losses are measured from a reference point. We attempted to ascertain to what extent the reference point shifts following gains or losses. In questionnaire studies, we asked subjects what stock price today will generate the same utility as a previous change in a stock price. From participants’ responses, we calculated the magnitude of reference point adaptation, which was significantly greater following a gain than following a loss of equivalent size. We also found the asymmetric adaptation of gains and losses persisted when a stock was included within a portfolio rather than being considered individually. In studies using financial incentives within the BDM procedure [Becker, G. M., DeGroot, M. H., & Marschak, J. (1964). Measuring utility by a single-response sequential method. Behavioral Science, 9(3), 226–232], we again noted faster adaptation of the reference point to gains than losses. We related our findings to several aspects of asset pricing and investor behavior.     

学龄早期Asperger综合症儿童行为问题和注意、行为抑制功能研究

研究采用Achenbach儿童行为量表(父母用表)和注意、行为抑制及动作协调性行为任务对12名学龄早期的Asperger综合征儿童与29名在年龄及智力水平上与之匹配的正常儿童在行为问题、注意、行为抑制及动作协调等方面进行了比较.结果发现,在控制了年龄和智力因素后:1)Asperger综合征儿童的社会能力与正常儿童相比明显较差,同时常伴随有交往不良、社交退缩、焦虑、忧郁、强迫性、攻击性和多动等一系列行为问题;2)Asperger综合征儿童表现出一定的注意和行为抑制障碍,动作的协调性和灵活性较差.     

文化价值观是一种特殊货币形式

金钱是一种经人们约定的用来测量商品价值的独特测量工具。同样地, 文化价值也是能让人对自身价值做出一致评价的一种独特的测量工具。本文在综述有关研究的基础上提出一个观点：文化价值和金钱价值在人类的发展史上、神经机制、行为以及认知方面是重叠的。作者认为, 文化价值和货币都是基于类似的进化功能而产生的。其次, 当进行与社会价值观一致的活动(如捐赠和合作)时, 其行为所激活的脑区和获得金钱时所激活的脑区是相同的。同样地, 当进行违反社会价值观的活动(如欺骗和攻击)时, 其行为所激活的脑区和失去金钱所激活的脑区是相同的。第三, 相对于亲社会行为和获得金钱, 我们对社会背叛和失去金钱会更敏感(如厌恶损失)。第四, 全球化对金钱体系和价值体系的影响是相似的。     

Obstetricians and violence against women

I argue that the American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG), as an organization and through its individual members, can and should be a far greater ally in the prevention of violence against women. Specifically, I argue that we need to pay attention to obstetrical practices that inadvertently contribute to the problem of violence against women. While intimate partner violence is a complex phenomenon, I focus on the coercive control of women and adherence to oppressive gender norms. Using physician response to alcohol use during pregnancy and court-ordered medical treatment as examples, I show how some obstetrical practices mirror the attitudes of abusive men insofar as they try to coercively control women's behavior through manipulation and violence. To be greater allies in the prevention of violence against women, obstetricians should stop participating in practices that inadvertently perpetuate violence against women.     

Emotion enhances the subjective feeling of remembering, despite lower accuracy for contextual details

Emotion strengthens the subjective experience of recollection. However, these vivid and confidently remembered emotional memories may not necessarily be more accurate. We investigated whether the subjective sense of recollection for negative stimuli is coupled with enhanced memory accuracy for contextual details using the remember/know paradigm. Our results indicate a double-dissociation between the subjective feeling of remembering, and the objective memory accuracy for details of negative and neutral scenes. "Remember" judgments were boosted for negative relative to neutral scenes. In contrast, memory for contextual details and associative binding was worse for negative compared to neutral scenes given a "remember" response. These findings show that the enhanced subjective recollective experience for negative stimuli does not reliably indicate greater objective recollection, at least of the details tested, and thus may be driven by a different mechanism than the subjective recollective experience for neutral stimuli.     

Culture and the quest for universal principles in moral reasoning

The importance of including cultural perspectives in the study of human cognition has become apparent in recent decades, and the domain of moral reasoning is no exception. The present review focuses on moral cognition, beginning with Kohlberg's model of moral development which relies heavily on people's justifications for their judgments and then shifting to more recent theories that rely on rapid, intuitive judgments and see justifications as more or less irrelevant to moral cognition. Despite this dramatic shift, analyses of culture and moral decision-making have largely been framed as a quest for and test of universal principles of moral judgment. In this review, we discuss challenges that remain in trying to understand crosscultural variability in moral values and the processes that underlie moral cognition. We suggest that the universalist framework may lead to an underestimation of the role of culture in moral reasoning. Although the field has made great strides in incorporating more and more cultural perspectives in order to understand moral cognition, theories of moral reasoning still do not allow for substantial variation in how people might conceptualize the domain of the moral. The processes that underlie moral cognition may not be a human universal in any simple sense, because moral systems may play different roles in different cultures. We end our review with a discussion of work that remains to be done to understand cultural variation in the moral domain.     

社交网站在社会认同发展中的作用

社会认同是个体对属于某特定社会群体的意识, 以及这种意识对个体情绪、情感的价值与意义。当前, 社交网站已逐渐渗透到了人们生活的各个方面, 改变了传统社会认同的环境。主要体现在扩展社交范围、促进信息交换、提供表达舞台、允许隐私设置和提供多重选择这五个方面。社交网站在个体社会认同的建构、表达、管理、重构和建立归属感等过程中均发挥了重要作用。未来研究仍需在研究方法、研究内容和实践应用上做进一步深化。     

微信使用强度与大学生自尊之间的关系:上行社会比较和好友亲密度的作用

为探讨微信使用强度与大学生自尊的关系,采用微信使用强度问卷、上行社会比较问卷、好友亲密度量表和自尊量表,对330名大学生的微信经历和自尊情况进行问卷调查。结果发现：（1）微信使用强度与自尊显著负相关,且上行社会比较在其中起显著中介作用;（2）好友亲密度在上行社会比较与自尊之间起调节作用：在好友亲密度较低的情况下,上行社会比较与自尊显著负相关;在好友亲密度较高时,上行社会比较与自尊相关不显著。结果提示,微信使用程度越强,上行社会比较越多,大学生的自尊水平越低,但是网上亲密的好友关系可以缓解这一关系。     

时间与金钱概念对消费者购买决策的不同影响及其心理机制

时间与金钱是影响人们消费行为决策的两种不同的重要资源。消费者在进行产品购买时, 常常会受到商家广告语和购物环境中所隐含的时间或金钱概念的影响, 从而做出不同的决策。具体而言, 时间与金钱概念会对消费者的购前决策、购中决策及购后决策三个方面产生不同的影响。从双加工理论的角度来看, 产生这种不同影响背后的心理机制在于时间与金钱概念启动了个体不同的认知加工方式和思维定势, 进而影响了消费者不同的购买决策。未来的研究方向有：(1)细化时间和金钱概念启动对消费者购买决策的不同影响; (2)考虑时间与金钱的权衡对购买决策的影响; (3)进一步探究时间和金钱概念的激活对购前决策的不同影响; (4)探讨时间概念与金钱概念对购买决策不同影响的神经机制。     

Exploring the Relationships Between Maternal Mental Health Symptoms and Young Children’s Functioning in a Low-Income,Minority Sample

Poor maternal mental health, including depression and high stress levels, can negatively impact many domains of child development, particularly among low-income, ethnic minority families experiencing multiple stressors. Low-income minority mothers, particularly Hispanic mothers, are also at increased risk of experiencing exposure to community violence and other types of trauma. However, studies exploring the additional impact of maternal trauma symptoms on children’s functioning are rare. This study aims to address this gap by examining the impact of maternal trauma symptoms on young children’s functioning in a low-income, predominantly Hispanic sample through the mechanisms of maternal depressive symptoms, and mother’s experiences of parenting stress and strain. The sample consisted of 158 biological mothers (58% Hispanic, 13% African American, 5.7% White American) who were participating in community-based mental health treatment for their children (M_AGE?=?3.7, SD?=?1.2). Mothers completed questionnaires providing information on their children’s behaviors and their own mental health and stress levels at intake. Path analysis indicated that there was a significant indirect effect of maternal trauma symptoms on children’s behavior problems through maternal depressive symptoms and maternal stress in the parent-child relationship (β?=?0.09, p?<?0.01). In addition, there was a direct effect of maternal trauma symptoms on children’s behavior problems (β?=?0.32, p?<?0.001). The results suggest that maternal trauma symptoms, in addition to maternal depressive symptoms, contribute to poor maternal and child functioning.