Taiwanese and American mothers' goals and values for their children's futures

Cross-cultural research on parents' socialization goals and practices with young children has increasingly shown that parents promote aspects of both independence and interdependence in their children. However, few studies have examined parents' long-term goals for their children's futures, which may be equally or more influential than short-term socialization goals on children's development. This study compared long-term goals and values for young children in a sample of 201 mothers from two industrialized countries: Taiwan and the United States. Six dimensions of long-term goals and values were measured: agency and self-direction, power and achievement, intimacy and enjoyment, conformity and tradition, family relatedness, and benevolence and universalism. Controlling for maternal education, there were no group differences in the importance attached to agency, benevolence, and family relatedness: Both groups attached highest importance to agency and benevolence, and considered family relatedness much less important. Differences were found in importance attached to intimacy, conformity, and power: Although both groups highly valued intimacy, European American mothers valued intimacy more than Taiwanese mothers; and Taiwanese mothers attached greater importance to conformity and power. All dimensions were positively correlated across groups, and only three correlations differed in their magnitude between the groups: Agency and conformity, agency and intimacy, and conformity and universalism, all of which were more strongly associated among Taiwanese than among European American mothers. Among Taiwanese mothers, maternal education was positively related to agency, intimacy, conformity, benevolence, and power. Among European American mothers, more educated mothers attached less importance to conformity than less educated mothers. This study demonstrates that Taiwanese and European American mothers' long-term goals for their children include aspects of both independence and interdependence, and extends findings of prior research focusing only on short-term goals. These findings suggest that parents' goals may differ depending on the child's age (short-term or long-term), and underscore the importance of examining social context when comparing parents' goals across cultures.     

The Prevalence of and Psychosocial Risks for Suicide Attempts in Male and Female College Students in Taiwan

The prevalence of and psychosocial risks for suicide attempts was investigated in college students in Taiwan by gender, after controlling for depressive symptoms. Self‐reported data were collected from a nationally representative sample of 2,835 college students; 11.90% of females and 8.87% of males reported they had attempted suicide in the preceding 12 months. After controlling for depression, suicidal ideations were associated with suicide attempts in females, whereas there were fewer positive expectations toward the future associated with suicide attempts in males. Several explanations for the high prevalence of suicide attempts among college students in Taiwan were discussed. In the future, further verification of the findings is necessary.     

《易传》在领导者道德素养陶铸中的价值

《易传》在加强领导者道德素养建设中具有不可或缺的特殊作用:《易传》“仁以行之”的思想有利于培养领导者的仁爱精神,从而更好地关心、爱护群众,全心全意为人民服务;“知临”思想有利于提高领导者的明智品质,从而更好地驾驭语言,勤学广智,利国利民;“卑以自牧”思想有利于造就领导者的谦敬品质,从而谦敬为怀,赢得群众。所以,提高领导者道德素养的方法之一,就是认真学习中国传统文化的经典之作——《易传》。     

釋迦牟尼及原始佛敎理解疫疾的智慧

从庚子年春节前后到现在,新冠肺炎疫情突然爆发,并在全球逐渐蔓延开来。在这次防疫、抗疫的过程中,中文媒体经常出现一个词汇,叫作"佛系抗疫"。如有些名人说新加坡的抗疫是"佛系抗疫",上海的抗疫不是"佛系抗疫";德国未"封国"前,说德国是"佛系抗疫",德国总理一下令封闭边境,便说德国已经改变"佛系抗疫"的政策了。^[1]"佛系"这个词汇近几年出现,并越来越成为一个高频词。     

香港社区礼俗与信仰共生——道教太平清醮中所见的信仰复合

本文以香港新界地区的太平清醮庆典仪式的田野调查为基础,从道教教义、仪式理论以及太平清醮仪式的宗教意义等角度分析宗教信仰在中国人生活世界中的地位和功能,进而尝试说明不同的宗教信仰为什么可以在中国人的宗教生活中共存共生。作者试图说明,由于道教已经通过其仪法结构将教义和宗教思想传递出来,以道教仪式为基本形式的社区礼俗自然就可以包容其他异质的信仰。     

《金刚般若经》讲义

<金刚>一经为般若学之根本.<般若>诸经以<大般若>之第二分(<大品般若>)为根本,此依龙树判有前后两分,皆以<善现般若>为主.<善现般若>精义<金刚经>赅摄之.又二分之判,分详般若道与方便道,对比观之,自以方便道为究竟.方便道二十一品要旨,<金刚>一经具备无遗,井然不乱,故谓<金刚>一经为般若学之根本,实亦般若学根本之根本也.     

Evoking the permission schema: The impact of explicit negation and a violation-checking context

Cheng and Holyoak (1985) proposed that realistic reasoning in deontic contexts is based on pragmatic schemas such as those for assessing compliance with or violation of permission and obligation rules, and that the evocation of these schemas can facilitate performance in Wason's (1966) selection task. The inferential rules in such schemas are intermediate in generality between the content-independent rules proposed by logicians and specific cases stored in memory. In one test of their theory, Cheng and Holyoak demonstrated that facilitation could be obtained even for an abstract permission rule that is devoid of concrete thematic content. Jackson and Griggs (1990) argued on the basis of several experiments that such facilitation is not due to evocation of a permission schema, but, rather, results from a combination of presentation factors: the presence of explicit negatives in the statement of cases and the presence of a violation-checking context. Their conclusion calls into question both the generality of content effects in reasoning and the explanation of these effects. We note that Jackson and Griggs did not test whether the same combination of presentation factors would produce facilitation for an arbitrary rule that does not involve deontic concepts, as their proposal would predict. The present study tested this prediction. Moreover, we extended Jackson and Griggs' comparisons between performance with an abstract permission rule versus an arbitrary rule, introducing clarifications in the statement of each. No facilitation was observed for an arbitrary rule even when explicit negatives and a violation-checking context were used, whereas strong facilitation was found for the abstract permission rule under the same conditions. Performance on the arbitrary rule was not improved even when the instructions indicated that the rule was conditional rather than biconditional. In contrast, a small but reliable degree of facilitation was obtained for the abstract permission rule, with violation-checking content even in the absence of explicit negatives. The theory of pragmatic reasoning schemas can account for both the present findings and those reported by Jackson and Griggs.     

Young Chinese children's beliefs about the implications of subtypes of social withdrawal: A first look at social avoidance

The goal of this study was to examine young Chinese children's beliefs about the implications of different subtypes of social withdrawal (e.g., shyness, unsociability), including for the first time, social avoidance. Participants were 133 children in kindergarten (n = 58, M_age = 70.85 months) and grade 1 (n = 75, M_age = 83.49 months). Children were presented with vignettes describing hypothetical peers displaying shy, unsociable, avoidant, and socially competent behaviours and were then asked a series of questions to assess their beliefs about the implications of these different behaviours. Young children made distinctions between social withdrawal subtypes in terms of underlying motivations and emotions. Children also appeared to hold differential beliefs about the implications of different forms of social withdrawal: Of note, they anticipated that socially avoidant peers would experience the most negative outcomes. These findings provide some of the first evidence to suggest that social avoidance represents a distinct form of social withdrawal among young Chinese children. Results are discussed in terms of the importance of distinguishing between different subtypes of social withdrawal in Chinese culture.