Interaction between Prenatal Maternal Stress and Autonomic Arousal in Predicting Conduct Problems and Psychopathic Traits in Children

Evidence has suggested that neurobiological deficits combine with psychosocial risk factors to impact on the development of antisocial behavior. The current study concentrated on the interplay of prenatal maternal stress and autonomic arousal in predicting antisocial behavior and psychopathic traits. Prenatal maternal stress was assessed by caregiver’s retrospective report, and resting heart rate and respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA) were measured in 295 8- to 10-year-old children. Child and caregiver also reported on child’s antisocial behavior and psychopathic traits. Higher prenatal maternal stress was associated with higher caregiver-reported antisocial and psychopathy scores, even after the concurrent measure of social adversity was controlled for. As expected, low heart rate and high RSA were associated with high antisocial and psychopathic traits. More importantly, significant interaction effects were found; prenatal stress was positively associated with multiple dimensions of psychopathic traits only on the conditions of low arousal (e.g., low heart rate or high RSA). Findings provide further support for a biosocial perspective of antisocial and psychopathic traits, and illustrate the importance of integrating biological with psychosocial measures to fully understand the etiology of behavioral problems.     

The Mediating Roles of Work–Family Conflict and Facilitation in the Relations Between Leisure Experience and Job/Life Satisfaction Among Employees in Shanghai Banking Industry

In this study, we explore whether the relationship between leisure experience and job/life satisfaction is mediated by work–family conflict and facilitation, and how these effect coefficients varied among different demographic groups of gender, marital status as well as parental status. With the survey data from 1706 employees in the Shanghai banking industry, we found work–family conflict and facilitation acted as mediators between leisure experience and job/life satisfaction. In all demographic groups, work–family conflict was negatively related with leisure experience and job/life satisfaction. Conversely, work–family facilitation was positively related with leisure experience and job/life satisfaction. Moreover, we found (1) compared with the case for males, the negative effect coefficient of work–family conflict on job satisfaction was significantly higher in female samples. (2) The positive effect coefficients of leisure experience on work–family facilitation was higher for married couples than for unmarried employees. (3) For employees who had children, the negative effect coefficient of leisure experience on work–family conflict as well as the positive effect coefficient of leisure experience on work–family facilitation were significantly higher than for employees who had no children. The results of this study suggest that employees in the banking industry would experience a lower level of work–family conflict and better maintain work–family facilitation by engaging in leisure pursuits with their family. The limitations of this study were discussed as well.     

Contrastive analysis of hedges in a sample of Chinese and English molecular biology papers

Hedge is defined as the expression of provisionalness and possibility that makes scientific messages tentative, vague, and imprecise, thereby reducing the force of claims scientists make. Linguistic study of hedges began in the early 1970s in generative semantics. Since then, the focus has shifted from seeking linguistic properties in spoken discourse to analyzing its pragmatic functions in written contextual communication. The purpose of this paper was to analyze hedges in Chinese and English scientific articles from the perspective of contrastive pragmatics. Based on a contextual analysis of 5 Chinese and 5 English scientific articles, selected randomly, from two journals in molecular biology--Science in China and Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, there were significant differences between Chinese and English scientific articles in use of hedges.     

基于反应时范式的内隐社会认知研究方法

三种新的内隐社会认知研究方法－－IAT、GNAT和EAST,这些方法采用反应竞争任务,考察概念间的联结强度。IAT通过对个体在不同任务上的操作,考察不同目标与属性间的联系、GNAT考察某一特定对象和评价间的联系;EAST考察被试在一个任务上的操作来推断个体对目标的评价。     

推理方向与规则维度对儿童因果推理的影响

采用Frye和Zelazo等（1996）所设计的“二进二出”装置（斜面滚球装置）,设置了不同的推理方向、规则维度的因果推理任务,采用个别实验法,研究了60名3.5～4.5岁儿童因果推理能力的发展。结果发现：（1）儿童在不同方向的因果推理任务上成绩差异显著,因→果推理成绩要好于果→因推理;（2）不同维度下儿童的推理成绩有极显著的差异性,一维的因果推理更容易,三维合取规则的因果推理任务更难;（3）3.5～4岁左右是儿童因果推理能力发展的快速期。     

支那内学院佛学史料三种

2009年11月,在北京法源寺中国佛教图书文物馆发现一部油印本文献,题作“《中论》等七种”,民国时期南京支那内学院编印。经仔细检读后,发现这部油印本由七种文献合订而成,包括《缘论会译》、《律学参考》、《支那内学院树因研究室办法》和《西藏佛学研究用品目录》等内学院佛学史料。其中《缘论会译》中从藏文译汉的《观所缘释论》,还是吕激当年译文初稿,与正式发表的定稿在文字上颇为不同。现将此《西藏译（观所缘释论）汉译初稿》（题目是整理者所拟）和《西藏佛学研究用品目录》整理刊出,并附吕激1961年7月2日所撰关于影印百衲本汉文大藏经意见书一封,供研究支那内学院历史和吕激佛学思想发展的学者参考。     

Similarities and differences in the perceptual structure of facial expressions of children and adults

We explored the perceptual structure of facial expressions of six basic emotions, varying systematically in intensity, in adults and children aged 7 and 14 years. Multidimensional scaling suggested that three- or four-dimensional structures were optimal for all groups. Two groups of adults demonstrated nearly identical structure, which had dimensions representing pleasure, potency, arousal, and intensity, despite the fact that one group was tested with a child-friendly “odd-man-out” paradigm and the other group was tested with a conventional similarity-rating paradigm. When tested with the odd-man-out paradigm, the 7-year-olds showed systematic structure, which differed from that of adults in both the meaning of some dimensions and the proximities among some of the expression categories. When tested with similarity judgments, the 14-year-olds showed an adult-like pattern on all measures except that their similarity judgments were more influenced by physical differences than were those of adults. We conclude that an adult-like representation of facial expressions develops slowly during childhood.     

Body Surveillance Predicts Men’s and Women’s Perceived Loneliness: A Serial Mediation Model

Previous research on self-objectification mainly focuses on its influences on intrapersonal psychological distress whereas our study examined whether self-objectification would influence interpersonal distress (i.e., loneliness) and its corresponding mechanisms in a sample of American women and men recruited with MTurk. Participants’ self-objectification was indexed by their level of body surveillance, and we proposed that body surveillance would increase women’s and men’s tendency to experience shame about their body and decrease their general self-esteem, which would in turn predict their level of loneliness. A total of 373 Americans (235 women; Mdn_age?=?33 years-old, range?=?18–77) participated in the present study, and the results provided support for the proposed theoretical model. Specifically, we found that body surveillance positively predicted people’s body shame, and body shame negatively predicted self-esteem, which in turn predicted people’s loneliness. Moreover, this mediational model was not different between men and women. These results expand the scope of investigation by incorporating male samples, and they suggest that in addition to intrapersonal consequences, self-objectification can also influence people’s interpersonal well-being. Implications were discussed.