The ethical implications of Sengzhao’s concept of the Sage

This paper is an exploration of the ethical significance of Sengzhao’s concept of the sage as exhibited through a Buddhist practitioner’s expanded understanding and cognition of reality. From a philosophical point of view, I aim to show that the ethical significance of his concept of the sage comprises a shift first from ontology to epistemology, and then from epistemology to ethics. I firstly define Sengzhao’s concept of the sage and present a preliminary account of this concept before elaborating on its philosophical aspects. Next, I attempt to illustrate how ethical implications can be derived from Sengzhao’s ethical shift, and lastly, I shed light on the value and significance of this philosophical standpoint within Buddhist philosophy.     

A mixed-effects expectancy-valence model for the Iowa gambling task

The Iowa gambling task (IGT; Bechara, Damasio, Damasio, & Anderson, 1994) was developed to simulate real-life decision making under uncertainty. The task has been widely used to examine possible neurocognitive deficits in normal and clinical populations. Busemeyer and Stout (2002) proposed the expectancy-valence (EV) model to explicitly account for individual participants’ repeated choices in the IGT. Parameters of the EV model presumably measure different psychological processes that underlie performance on the task, and their values may be used to differentiate individuals across different populations. In the present article, the EV model is extended to include both fixed effects and subject-specific random effects. The mixed-effects EV model fits the nested structure of observations in the IGT naturally and provides a unified procedure for parameter estimation and comparisons among groups of populations. We illustrate the utility of the mixed-effects approach with an analysis of gender differences using a real data set. A simulation study was conducted to verify the advantages of this approach.     

Family factors of internet addiction and substance use experience in Taiwanese adolescents.

The aim of the study is to examine the differences in the diversity of family factors between adolescents with and without Internet addiction and substance use experience. A total of 3662 students (2328 boys and 1334 girls) were recruited from seven junior high schools, six senior high schools, and four vocational high schools in southern Taiwan. Internet addiction and substance experience were classified according to the score of Chen Internet Addiction Scale Questionnaires for Experience of Substance use. The family factors assessed included perceived family satisfaction, family economic status, parents' marriage status, care-givers, the frequency of intra-family conflict, families' habitual alcohol use, and perceived parents' or care givers' attitude toward adolescents' substance use. This study demonstrated that the characteristics of higher parent-adolescent conflict, habitual alcohol use of siblings, perceived parents' positive attitude to adolescent substance use, and lower family function could be used develop a predictive model for Internet addiction in the multiple logistic regression analysis. The former three family factors were also sufficient in themselves to develop a predictive model for substance use experience. The results revealed that adolescent Internet addiction and substance use experience shared similar family factors, which indicate that Internet addiction and substance use should be considered in the group of behavioral problem syndromes. A family-based preventive approach for Internet addiction and substance use should be introduced for adolescents with negative family factors.     

Children's understanding and experience of mixed emotions

Though some models of emotion contend that happiness and sadness are mutually exclusive in experience, recent findings suggest that adults can feel happy and sad at the same time in emotionally complex situations. Other research has shown that children develop a better conceptual understanding of mixed emotions as they grow older, but no research has examined children's actual experience of mixed emotions. To examine developmental differences in the experience of mixed emotions, we showed children ages 5 to 12 scenes from an animated film that culminated with a father and daughter's bittersweet farewell. In subsequent interviews, older children were more likely than younger children to report experiencing mixed emotions. These results suggest that in addition to having a better conceptual understanding of mixed emotions, older children are more likely than younger children to actually experience mixed emotions in emotionally complex situations.     

Suicide and Its Association with Individual,Family, Peer,and School Factors in an Adolescent Population in Southern Taiwan

A representative sample of 10,233 adolescent students was recruited to examine the rate of suicidal attempt and its correlates in the adolescents living in southern Taiwan. Five questions from the Kiddie Schedule for Affective Disorders and Schizophrenia (Kiddie‐SADS‐E) were used to inquire about the participants' suicidality. The associations between suicidal attempt and multidimensional factors were examined by using logistic regression analysis: 9.1% of the participants reported a suicidal attempt in the preceding year. Female gender, low self‐esteem, weekly alcohol use, illicit drugs use, depression, high family conflict, low maternal education level, poor family function, low connectedness to school, low rank, poor feeling in peer group, and drop out from school were associated with adolescent suicidal attempt. The rate of suicidal attempt was found to be high in Taiwanese adolescents, and multidimensional factors were correlated to adolescent suicidal attempt.     

Relationships between Involvement in School Bullying and Quality of Life in Taiwanese Adolescents

This study aimed to examine the associations between involvement in bullying and perceived quality of life (QOL) among adolescents in Taiwan. A total of 5488 students whose grade ranged from 7 to 12 participated in this study. Their experiences of victimization by and perpetration of verbal, relational, and physical bullying (including the snatching of belongings) were assessed through using the Chinese version of the School Bullying Experience Questionnaire. The level of perceived QOL was assessed using the Taiwanese Quality of Life Questionnaire for Adolescents (TQOLA). The associations between involvement in bullying and QOL were examined using multiple regression analysis. After controlling for the effects of sex, age, and depression, victimization by verbal and relationship bullying was negatively associated with QOL on all subscales of the TQOLA except for the Family subscale. Victimization by physical bullying and the snatching of belongings was negatively associated with QOL on the Social Relationships and Pain subscales. Perpetration of verbal and relationship bullying was negatively associated with QOL on the Family, Psychological Wellbeing, and Pain subscales, but positively associated with QOL on the Social Relationships subscale. Perpetration of physical bullying and snatching of belongings was negatively associated with QOL on the Residential Environment and Personal Competence subscales, but positively associated with QOL on the Psychological Wellbeing and Pain subscales. The directions of associations between bullying involvement and QOL in adolescents vary according to the types of bullying involvement and the dimensions of QOL. The results may serve as the basis on which mental health and educational professionals can develop comprehensive need-assessment and resource-allocation strategies for adolescents who have been involved in bullying.     

Investigating sexual harassment in online video games: How personality and context factors are related to toxic sexual behaviors against fellow players

Online video games are social spaces for players from around the world. They use this space to form communities, relationships, and identities. However, gaming communities are not always welcoming, and some are even perceived as being “toxic.” A prevalent issue is online sexual harassment, which is keeping many women from participating in the gaming community. Research on the factors contributing to the problem is limited, though. The present study replicates and expands previous research, using a sample of 856 online gamers. The study supports earlier findings that found hostile sexism and social dominance orientation as predictors of sexual harassment perpetration in online video games. In addition, we expanded the previous research with additional predictors: machiavellianism, psychopathy, and gamer identification predicted higher sexual harassment perpetration. Our results have implications for the gaming community's role in curtailing sexual harassment and making itself a more inclusive community.     

Early parafoveal processing in reading Chinese sentences

The possibility that during Chinese reading information is extracted at the beginning of the current fixation was examined in this study. Twenty-four participants read for comprehension while their eye movements were being recorded. A pretarget-target two-character word pair was embedded in each sentence and target word visibility was manipulated in two time intervals (initial 140 ms or after 140 ms) during pretarget viewing. Substantial beginning- and end-of-fixation preview effects were observed together with beginning-of-fixation effects on the pretarget. Apparently parafoveal information at least at the character level can be extracted relatively early during ongoing fixations. Results are highly relevant for ongoing debates on spatially distributed linguistic processing and address fundamental questions about how the human mind solves the task of reading within the constraints of different writing systems.