Developing Social Entrepreneurship as an Intervention to Enhance Disadvantaged Young People’s Sense of Self-Worth and Career Competence in Hong Kong

Applied Research in Quality of Life - This is the first empirical research in Hong Kong to examine the impact of social entrepreneurship training on disadvantaged young peoples’ career...     

Intersubjective model of value transmission: parents using perceived norms as reference when socializing children

What values do parents want to transmit to children? The intersubjective model of value transmission posits that parents want to transmit not only the values they personally endorse but also the values they perceive to be normatively important in the society. The present research shows support to this premise. Furthermore, Studies 1 and 2 revealed that the use of perceived norms is moderated by families' social contexts and parents' personality: It was particularly pronounced among parents who were immigrants, who had a stronger need for closure, and who were more conforming. In addition, Studies 3 and 4 demonstrated that parents' perceived norms can explain actual value transmission: Values parents perceived to be normatively important were to some extent internalized by children. The intersubjective model paves some new directions for value transmission research, contributes to the understanding of cultural transmission and cultural change, and extends the intersubjective approach to culture.     

Standing in the glory or shadow of the past self: Cultures differ in how much the past self affects current subjective well-being

Research in the past 2 decades has made great strides in understanding cross-cultural differences in the correlates and causes of subjective well-being. On the basis of past findings on the cross-cultural differences in temporal perspectives of the self, the present research examined a cross-cultural difference in individuals' subjective well-being as a function of how positively they viewed their present and past selves. Study 1 showed that both European and Asian Americans had higher subjective well-being when they viewed their present selves more positively. However, positive evaluations of the past self were accompanied by higher subjective well-being only among Asian Americans. Study 2 showed that when induced to think positively (vs. negatively) of the present self, both European and Asian Americans judged their current lives more favorably. However, when led to view the past self positively (vs. negatively), only Asian Americans made more favorable judgments about their current lives. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved).     

Narcissism and punitiveness in a non-ego-threatening condition

Punitiveness of overt and covert narcissists was examined in a non-ego-threatening condition. In judging fictitious criminal cases, high scorers in overt narcissism were as punitive as low scorers; this result was independent of crime severity. For covert narcissism, however, high scorers were more punitive toward a serious crime and more lenient toward a mild crime, when compared to low scorers. This study provides pioneering data on narcissists’ punitive judgments in the absence of ego threat, which has been overlooked by previous research. The findings not only support the theoretical distinction between the overt and covert subtypes of narcissism, but also help clarify the meaning of punishment to narcissists.     

Recognition of tactile relief by children and adults

This study was designed to compare tactile sensitivity of children and adults on printed target stimuli covering a wide range of elevations and requiring different resolutions. A recognition-relief task using 9 digits at 6 levels of elevation from a surface (0.5, 0.4, 0.3, 0.2, 0.1, and 0.05 mm) was presented to 24 young adults and 24 children. As predicted, relief elevations as low as 0.05 mm were recognized above chance. As predicted, children performed significantly more poorly than the adults on recognition at all elevations, although the difference increased as elevation increased. Adults performed significantly better than children on high-resolution digit 8, but there was no reliable age difference on low-resolution digit 1. Recognition difference between the high- and low-resolution digits decreased nonlinearly as elevation increased, irrespective of age. Overall, the findings support previous research indicating greater tactile sensitivity in adults than in children, but the superiority was moderated by the elevation and resolution requirements of the stimuli.     

The money attitude of covert and overt narcissists

The money attitude of covert and overt narcissists was studied. Both covert and overt narcissism predicted the power-prestige dimension of money attitude, which were both mediated by the need for social power. Interestingly, the relationship for covert narcissism was also mediated by the fear of negative social evaluation, confirming its socially vulnerable and hypersensitive features. In addition, the anxiety and distrust factors of money attitude were correlated with covert narcissism only. Anxiety was explained by the need for power and avoidance motivation, but no significant mediator was found for distrust. These findings provide evidence to the similarities and differences between the two types of narcissism. They also shed light on narcissists’ money-related behaviors, such as investment strategy and consumer behaviors.     

The development of memory maintenance: Children’s use of phonological rehearsal and attentional refreshment in working memory tasks

Past research suggests that children begin to phonologically rehearse at around 7 years of age. Less is known regarding the development of refreshment, an attention-based maintenance mechanism. Therefore, the use of these two maintenance methods by 6- and 8-year-olds was assessed using memory span tasks that varied in their opportunities for maintenance activity. Experiment 1 showed that nonverbal processing impaired both groups’ performance to similar extents. Experiment 2 employed phonologically similar or dissimilar memory items and compared the effects of verbal versus nonverbal processing on recall. Both groups showed evidence of phonological maintenance under nonverbal processing but not under verbal processing. Furthermore, nonverbal processing again impaired recall. Verbal processing was also more detrimental to performance in 8-year-olds than in 6-year-olds. Together, the results suggest that nonverbal processing impairs recall by obstructing refreshment and that developmental change in maintenance between 6 and 8 years of age consists primarily of an increase in phonological rehearsal.     

Intersubjective cultural representations predicting behaviour: The case of political culture and voting

Research has shown that cultural identification is influenced by the congruence between people's personal values and intersubjectively represented cultural values. The current research extended this finding to voter choice and behaviour. We hypothesized that people whose values and attitudes are similar to the collective representations of the political party that an election candidate belongs to would be more likely to vote for that candidate. Also, this relationship would be mediated by party identification. We found support for our hypotheses in two studies, one on the Legislative Council election in Hong Kong and the other on the 2004 US presidential election.