Does integral affect influence intentions to use artificial intelligence for skin cancer screening? A test of the affect heuristic

Objective: This study investigated how affect influences people’s processing of messages about risks and benefits of using autonomous artificial intelligence (AI) technology to screen for skin cancer. We examined integral affect (emotion derived during decision making) separately from incidental affect (extraneous mood states).

Design: Using the affect heuristic framework, we randomly assigned 273 participants to conditions featuring risk (high, low, uncertain) or benefit (high, low, uncertain) messages about AI. Following ‘affect-as-spotlight’, we also explored whether people’s integral affect towards skin cancer moderated the relationship between risk/benefit messages and AI screening intentions.

Outcomes: Perceived risk, perceived benefit, positive and negative affect toward AI, intention to use AI screening.

Results: After controlling for incidental affect and risk perceptions, we found that compared to low risk messages, uncertain risk messages increased participants’ negative affect toward AI, decreased positive affect toward AI, increased AI risk evaluations and reduced AI benefit evaluations. Perceptual variables significantly mediated participants’ intentions to use AI for risk messages but not benefit messages. No moderation effects were found.

Conclusions: Results suggest extending the affect heuristic framework to include uncertain risk conditions. Integral AI affect influenced people’s interpretation of messages, which then impacted likelihood to use AI technology for health.     

The Role of Friends’ Appearance and Behavior on Evaluations of Individuals on Facebook: Are We Known by the Company We Keep?

This research explores how cues deposited by social partners onto one’s online networking profile affect observers’ impressions of the profile owner. An experiment tested the relationships between both (a) what one’s associates say about a person on a social network site via “wall postings,” where friends leave public messages, and (b) the physical attractiveness of one’s associates reflected in the photos that accompany their wall postings on the attractiveness and credibility observers attribute to the target profile owner. Results indicated that profile owners’ friends’ attractiveness affected their own in an assimilative pattern. Favorable or unfavorable statements about the targets interacted with target gender: Negatively valenced messages about certain moral behaviors increased male profile owners’ perceived physical attractiveness, although they caused females to be viewed as less attractive.     

Biblical stories removed,Christian beliefs retained: religious elements in the life education curriculum of Hong Kong’s Methodist Church primary schools

ABSTRACT

The Methodist Church of Hong Kong has promoted a life education programme since 2004, and has progressively applied it in all affiliated schools. This article analyses the characteristics of the latest primary school life education curriculum compiled by this Christian school sponsoring body. There are three significant findings: 1) religious elements remain rich in the four strands of life education the Universe, oneself, other people, and environment; 2) biblical stories have been removed, but Christian beliefs are integrated into the curriculum materials and summaries in terms of Christian role models and the Holy Scriptures, in order to develop students’ relevant values, good character and positive attitudes towards life; and 3) the importance of prayer as a religious practise for action. The intended curriculum demonstrates how religious elements like Christian beliefs can be applied in secular education to build students’ sense of meaning and purpose in life.     

张三丰籍贯辽东懿州考

张三丰是我国历史上著名的道教传奇人物,关于他的籍贯,历来就有多种说法.作者赞同<明史>说"辽东懿州人",这是正确的.辽东懿州,即现在的阜新蒙古族自治县塔营子乡.他在懿州度过了青少年时代.儒、释、道并修,创建了太极拳,极大地丰富和发展了道家学派.道教羽士那种孤云野鹤、栖无定所、到处为家的生活方式,造成了张三丰出生地有多种说法.     

Can a Robot Be Perceived as a Developing Creature?

This study tests the effect of long‐term artificial development of a robot on users' feelings of social presence and social responses toward the robot. The study is a 2 (developmental capability: developmental versus fully matured) × 2 (number of participants: individual versus group) between‐subjects experiment (N= 40) in which participants interact with Sony's robot dog, AIBO, for a month. The results showed that the developmental capability factor had significant positive impacts on (a) perceptions of AIBO as a lifelike creature, (b) feelings of social presence, and (c) social responses toward AIBO. The number of participants factor, however, affected only the parasocial relationship and the buying intention variables. No interaction between the two factors was found. The results of a series of path analyses showed that feelings of social presence mediated participants' social responses toward AIBO. We discuss implications of the current study on human–robot interaction, the computers are social actors (CASA) paradigm, and the study of (tele)presence.     

汉魏六朝佛诞节仪考述

以早期传译佛诞经文为支持,汉魏六朝时,如浴佛、行像、散花、伎乐表演、造幡求福等印度传统佛诞节仪先后被引介进入中国,而如施斋、抄经、造像之类非印度传统佛诞节仪也在地方化过程中先后被增衍出来,最终把佛诞日这样一个宗教性的纪庆日子演变成了中国人的一个岁时节日.就中展示出来的,既是一个佛教文化传播的过程,更是一个中外文化变迁的过程.讨论佛教中国化问题,这个过程为我们揭示出了许多值得关注的细节.     

Need satisfaction,work–school interference and school dropout: An application of self-determination theory

Background. In many parts of the world, it is common for secondary school students to be involved in part-time employment. Research shows that working can have a negative impact on school engagement. However, the majority of studies have focused on the amount of time that students spend working rather than on the quality of work experience and its influence on school engagement. Aims. This study explored the relation of part-time work and school experiences to dropout intentions among secondary school and junior college students. The study was conceptualized from a self-determination theory perspective (Deci & Ryan, 2000). Sample. Participants were 3,248 students from rural and suburban schools in the greater region of Montreal, Canada. Method. Questionnaires were used to assess the number of hours worked, the extent to which work interfered with or facilitated school functioning, autonomy, competence, and relatedness experienced in the work and school domains. School performance and school dropout intentions were also assessed. Results. A curvilinear relation between work hours and dropout intentions was found, reflecting that part-time work began to be associated with higher dropout intentions only when students worked more than 7 hr per week. Analyses also showed that work–school interference was related to dropout intentions, and that this variable served to mediate the relation of employer autonomy support to dropout intentions. Conclusions. These results suggest that both the quantity and the quality of students’ part-time work experiences need to be considered when examining the relation of work to school engagement.     

谈摩尼教在中国的本土化

摩尼教作为世界十大宗教之一,盛极一时.摩尼教在中国的传播与衰败与回鹘的兴衰密切相关.值得关注的是,摩尼教在中国的传播极其巧妙地运用了当时在中国占主导地位的宗教--道教和佛教的外在文化,后以极短的时间广为传播,展示了其独特的生存演进特征.     

在宪政与民主之间——从2000年大选透析美国宪政的二元个性

2000年大选暴露了美国宪政制度的危机.究其实质,这一危机是宪政与民主的冲突加剧的外在表现.由这一次大选提供的个案入手,本文分析了美国宪政的传统与改革的进程,并对最高法院与民主的关系做了一个审视.本文认为,宪政与民主的冲突与均衡在政治制度和政治意识等多个方面构造了美国政治文明的二元个性.