Intergenerational relationships and marriage in China: Within-family longitudinal associations and between-family differences

Marriage is embedded in the web of spouses' broader social ties, and relationship quality with parents and parents-in-law is associated with marital quality. Guided by Family Systems theory and using three waves of dyadic data from 268 Chinese different-sex couples across the first several years of marriage, we first conducted a Random-Intercept Actor-Partner Interdependence Cross-lagged Panel Model (RI-APIM-CLPM) to examine the within-family longitudinal associations among husbands' and wives' relationship quality with parents, parents-in-law, and spouse. Then, husbands' and wives' filial obligations were added as predictors of between-family differences in their own and their partner's relationship quality in the three social ties. Among husbands, increased relationship quality in one social tie (e.g., with parents) predicted reductions in relationship quality in the other social ties (e.g., relationships with parents-in-law and marital quality). Our examination of between-family differences demonstrated that high levels of filial obligations predicted higher intergenerational relationship quality and marital quality. By simultaneously considering the within-family associations of multiple social ties and how filial obligations account for between-family differences in relationship quality, we contribute to a nuanced understanding of how Chinese couples' romantic partnerships are embedded in their broader family system.     

Bi-directional relations between behavioral problems and executive function: Assessing the longitudinal development of self-regulation

During childhood, the ability to limit problem behaviors (i.e., externalizing) and the capacity for cognitive regulation (i.e., executive function) are often understood to develop in tandem, and together constitute two major components of self-regulation research. The current study examines bi-directional relations between behavioral problems and executive function over the course of childhood and adolescence. Relying on a diverse sample of children growing up in low-income neighborhoods, we applied a random intercept cross-lagged panel model to longitudinally test associations between behavioral problems and executive function from age 4 through age 16. With this approach, which disaggregated between- and within-child variation, we did not observe significant cross-lagged paths, suggesting that within-child development in one domain did not strongly relate to development in the other. We also observed a moderate correlation between the stable between-child components of behavioral problems and executive function over time in our preferred model, suggesting that these two domains may be relatively distinct when modeled from early childhood through adolescence.     

How do friendship artificial intelligence chatbots (FAIC) benefit the continuance using intention and customer engagement?

Although there have been many AI chatbots in industry service, social media, and e-commerce platforms, research on AI chatbots such as Replika, neglected the effects of human-like traits on users' continuance using intention. This article aims to explore the main effects of human-like traits (perceived warmth vs. perceived competence) of friendship AI chatbots (FAIC) on continuance using intention and customer engagement, and the moderating effects of the need to belong and information sensitivity. Three studies are conducted to collect data (N_total = 1420). Our findings of Study 1 demonstrate that perceived warmth and perceived competence can increase the continuance using intention to FAIC and customer engagement, and perceived usefulness plays a mediating role in our conceptual model. Additionally, consumers' need to belong (high vs. low) (Study 2) and information sensitivity (high vs. low) (Study 3) related to chat contents moderate the main effects significantly. This article contributes to the literature on the relationship between FAIC and consumers by presenting the influence of perceived warmth and perceived competence and establishing the underlying process. Analogously, the findings can be beneficial for marketers and firms in designing and developing the coding program of FAIC to promote consumers' continuance using intention and customer engagement.     

Should a luxury Brand's Chatbot use emoticons? Impact on brand status

Luxury brands are increasingly adopting chatbots for online customer service. But, little is known about the role of adding design features such as emoticons on customers' luxury experience. This study fills this research gap by exploring the influence of a luxury brand chatbot's adoption of emoticons on status perception and its underlying mechanisms. Results from two experiments suggest that luxury brands might be better off not using emoticons in chatbot communications because it dampens the brand status perception due to perceived unexpectedness, which in turn decreases the perception of the appropriateness of the interaction with chatbots. However, this negative effect of luxury brand's use of emoticons in chatbot communication only exists for traditional luxury brands, not for masstige brands. This study advances the literature on AI, particularly regarding luxury brand-specific chatbot applications. It also offers insights for luxury brand managers that they should be cautious in adopting emoticons in chatbot communication given the risk of ruining the brand status, especially when the brand is a traditional luxury brand as opposed to a masstige brand.     

Individual differences in harm-related moral values are associated with functional integration of large-scale brain networks of emotional regulation

Emotions affects moral judgements, and controlled cognitive processes regulate those emotional responses during moral decision making. However, the neurobiological basis of this interaction is unclear. We used a graph theory measurement called participation coefficient (‘PC’) to quantify the resting-state functional connectivity within and between four meta-analytic groupings (MAGs) associated with emotion generation and regulation, to test whether that measurement predicts individual differences in moral foundations-based values. We found that the PC of one of the MAGs (MAG2) was positively correlated with one of the five recognized moral foundations–the one based on harm avoidance. We also found that increased inter-module connectivity between the ventromedial prefrontal cortex, dorsolateral prefrontal cortex and middle temporal gyrus with other nodes in the four MAGs was likewise associated with higher endorsement of the Harm foundation. These results suggest that individuals' sensitivity to harm is associated with functional integration of large-scale brain networks of emotional regulation. These findings add to our knowledge of how individual variations in our moral values could be reflected by intrinsic brain network organization and deepen our understanding of the relationship between emotion and cognition during evaluations of moral values.     

The Transformation of Chinese Cultural Images of the Plague through Chinese Characters,Legends and Folkways1

The human experience of survival from a plague is about distinguishing the sick from the healthy as quickly as possible, establishing a barrier to stop the infection, and protecting healthy people. Nevertheless, the various quarantine rules and the acceptance and compliance of the population are a kind of battle between policy implementers and the public. This paper tries to understand how Chinese cultural attitudes (Henderson, 1984) unconsciously influence the Chinese people to be most cooperative with the strict containment and quarantine measures to confront the COVID-19 pandemic. This article begins with the Chinese characters, exemplified by the four characters of disease and plague, to discuss how the pictograph nature and spatial structural way profoundly shaped the cultural mind. Then, through plague-related Chinese legends, stories and folklore, the paper sets out the Chinese cultural attitudes which are also manifested in the analogical associations between disease, plague and seasons, the balance of the five elements of the universe and ghosts, gods and the government bureaucrats in the Kingdom of the Heaven. All of these approaches are well in line with Jung’s method of associative amplification as a way to locate the archetypal wisdom that assures survival.     

Mixture-modelling-based Bayesian MH-RM algorithm for the multidimensional 4PLM

Several recent works have tackled the estimation issue for the unidimensional four-parameter logistic model (4PLM). Despite these efforts, the issue remains a challenge for the multidimensional 4PLM (M4PLM). Fu et al. (2021) proposed a Gibbs sampler for the M4PLM, but it is time-consuming. In this paper, a mixture-modelling-based Bayesian MH-RM (MM-MH-RM) algorithm is proposed for the M4PLM to obtain the maximum a posteriori (MAP) estimates. In a comparison of the MM-MH-RM algorithm to the original MH-RM algorithm, two simulation studies and an empirical example demonstrated that the MM-MH-RM algorithm possessed the benefits of the mixture-modelling approach and could produce more robust estimates with guaranteed convergence rates and fast computation. The MATLAB codes for the MM-MH-RM algorithm are available in the online appendix.     

The Duality of American Christian Nationalism: Religious Traditionalism versus Christian Statism

While posited as a unified ideology, Christian Nationalism (CN) actually contains two distinct views of what it means to be a “Christian Nation”—one which envisions a Christian civil society separate from the profanities of politics, what we call “Religious Traditionalism.” The other envisions a Christian federal government where power is wielded exclusively by ethno-religious insiders, or “Christian Statism.” Multiple waves of two national surveys confirm that current measures of CN contain these two factors, which have become increasingly divergent in the past 20 years. In addition, we find that Christian Statism predicts nativism, Islamophobia, anti-Semitism, and racial distrust while Religious Traditionalism, in most instances, predicts the opposite. Historically, Religious Traditionalists have always sought to influence civil society and focused mainly on family/sexual issues. But a different brand of CN has emerged, wherein all federal and state authority should rightfully and exclusively belong to Christian Statists.     

性自由及其限度

性的自由和解放是人的自由解放的重要组成部分,性自由权利是人权的一部分.但是性自由的权利不是无条件的、随心所欲的,而是一定社会规则限定下的人们的自觉自主活动.性自由必须在法律的界限内实现,且必须承担由此而带来的道德责任.     

关于先秦齐国是我国职业教育思想策源地的论证

本文在春秋时期齐国齐桓公和管仲的经济政治改革中相伴产生了“四民分业”的社会职业教育思想,这是据现有文献记载的中国最早的比较全面系统而深刻的社会职业教育思想,有很强的时代和自身的特色,对后世的职业教育产生了深远的影响。从中可以看出当时先进国家中,教育是如何为富国强兵的政策服务的。