Self-face advantage is modulated by social threat - Boss effect on self-face recognition

Human adults usually respond faster to self-face than to faces of others. The self-face advantage has been associated with an implicit positive association with the self. The current work investigated whether social threats modulate self-face recognition by asking graduate students to identify orientations of self-face in a high-threat context, in which self-face and a faculty advisor’s face were presented in one block of trials, or in a low-threat context, in which self-face and a face of another faculty member were presented in one block of trials. We found a self-face advantage in the low-threat context but a self-face disadvantage in the high-threat context (i.e., slower responses to self-face compared to the advisor’s face). Moreover, the self-face disadvantage positively correlated with the degree of fear of negative evaluations from advisors. Our findings suggest that self-face recognition is strongly modulated by social interactions with influential superiors within social hierarchies.     

对心理学本土化"本土性契合"问题的思考

心理学本土化是一个方兴未艾的话题,本文重点讨论了杨国枢提出的心理学本土化的“本土性契合”判准的含义,并举出两个引例对此一判准进行说明和解释,最后提出了对心理学本土化及“本土性契合”的几点思考,指出心理学本土化应该研究不断运动变化的人们的思维和行为模式,并对心理学本土化研究的具体方向和途径提出了看法。     

Cultural influences on Facebook photographs

Prior research in social psychology indicates that East Asians from collectivistic and interdependent sociocultural systems are more sensitive to contextual information than Westerners, whereas Westerners with individualistic and independent representation have a tendency to process focal and discrete attributes of the environment. Here we have demonstrated that such systematic cultural variations can also be observed in cyberspace, focusing on self‐presentation of photographs on Facebook, the most popular worldwide online social network site. We examined cultural differences in face/frame ratios for Facebook profile photographs in two studies. For Study 1, 200 digital profile face photographs of active Facebook users were randomly selected from native and immigrant Taiwanese and Americans. For Study 2, 312 Facebook profiles of undergraduate students of six public universities in East Asia (Hong Kong, Singapore, and Taiwan) and the United States (California and Texas) were randomly selected. Overall, the two studies clearly showed that East Asian Facebook users are more likely to deemphasize their faces compared to Americans. Specifically, East Asians living in Hong Kong, Singapore, and Taiwan exhibited a predilection for context inclusiveness in their profile photographs, whereas Americans tended to prioritize their focal face at the expense of the background. Moreover, East Asian Facebook users had lower intensity of facial expression than Americans on their photographs. These results demonstrate marked cultural differences in context‐inclusive styles versus object‐focused styles between East Asian and American Facebook users. Our findings extend previous findings from the real world to cyberspace, and provide a novel approach to investigate cognition and behaviors across cultures by using Facebook as a data collection platform.     

Nanocrystallization induced by quasi-static fracture of metallic glasses at room temperature

Nanoparticles on the fracture surfaces of Co- and Fe-based metallic glasses during quasi-static compression at room temperature have been observed using a high-resolution scanning electron microscope. In terms of the differential scanning calorimeter, those nanoparticles were identified to be a result of nanocrystallization induced by the rapid fracture. Finally, the nanocrystallization behavior was evaluated by taking into account the super-high crack propagation rate and high elastic energy, which contributed to the local temperature rise up to the onset of crystallization, T _x.     

Rubber hand illusion, empathy, and schizotypal experiences in terms of self-other representations

When participants observed a rubber hand being touched, their sense of touch was activated (rubber hand illusion: RHI). While this illusion might be caused by multi-modal integration, it may also be related to empathic function, which enables us to simulate the observed information. We examined individual differences in the RHI, including empathic and schizotypal personality traits, as previous research had suggested that schizophrenic patients would be more subject to the RHI. The results indicated that people who experience a stronger RHI might have stronger empathic and schizotypal personalites simultaneously. We discussed these relationships in terms of self-other representations.     

The relationship of clients’ social class to early therapeutic impressions

Using case vignettes that differed in the presentation of the client's social class, the influence of social class on therapeutic impressions was studied in the context of just-world beliefs. Results suggested that (1) participants with higher levels of belief in a just world saw poor and working-class clients as more unpleasant to work with and more dysfunctional and (2) working-class vignettes were associated with the lowest predictions of session depth and smoothness. The findings suggest that counselors may respond differently to clients based on their social class, and in a way that negatively predisposes them toward work with poor and working-class clients.     

心智游移：现象、机制及意义

心智游移是一种常见的非自主内源性意识体验, 是意识流的重要组成部分, 它的存在提示非感官意识在人类意识经验中的重要地位, 以及持续进行的无意识加工对个体生存可能具有的重要意义, 对心智游移的研究是心理学和认知神经科学领域内新兴的热点课题。本文重点回顾了关于心智游移的体验内容、与情绪的关系及其相关神经活动方面的研究成果, 在此基础上探讨了心智游移的发生机制及适应性功能。文章最后总结了目前心智游移研究中存在的定义不清、研究策略和方法过于局限以及研究内容上存在的问题, 并提出了该领域未来的研究方向以及应用价值。     

Four semantic layers of common nouns

This article proposes a four-layer semantic structure for common nouns. Each layer matches up with a semantic entity of a certain type in Montague’s intensional semantics. It is argued that a common noun denotes a sense and a concept, which are functions. For any given context, the sense of a term determines its extensions and the concept denoted by the term specifies its intensions. Intensions are treated as sets of senses. The membership relation between a sense and an intension is a soft kind and is expressed in the form of a generic sentence. Such a layered structure explains various “degrees of publicity” of a language. The result we present clarifies the confusions existing in the ordinary understanding of “sense,” “intension,” and “concept.” It also has promising applications in interpreting metaphors and revealing the relationship between generics and metaphors.     

试析基督教走向世界的原因

基督教之所以能迅速地突破民族、国家和地区的限制而走向世界,绝非偶然.这既有客观的历史原因,又有不同于其他国家宗教和民族宗教的内在宗教素质.罗马帝国的"世界性"范围,罗马帝国统治集团的大力扶持利用,基督教对犹太教的超越,基督教教义思想具有的"普世性",基督教着重个人体验的信仰途径以及简便易行的宗教礼仪,基督教组织的发展变化等多种因素使基督教很快走向世界.在基督教发展成为世界性宗教的过程中,保罗等人起了重要作用,他对早期基督教教义的改造适应了时代的需要.