The function of wisdom dimensions in ego‐identity development among Chinese university students

This study investigates the relationship between wisdom and ego‐identity among university students in China. Using Marcia's ego‐identity statuses and Ardelt's wisdom dimensions as the theoretical and conceptual framework, the study investigates 356 university students in China. After exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses, four factors from wisdom and five factors from ego‐identity were retrieved. A structural equation model was then conducted to analyse the relationships. The findings were: (1) among wisdom dimensions, cognitive, and reflective wisdom, especially perspective‐taking best predicted achievement, (2) all three dimensions of wisdom predicted moratorium, but reflective wisdom was the most pronounced predictor, (3) all three dimensions of wisdom predicted diffusion, but resentment items from reflective wisdom were the most pronounced predictors, and (4) gender was a significant predictor of ego‐identity achievement and diffusion. These findings suggest that efforts to build reflective wisdom might contribute to healthier ego‐identity formation.     

Revisiting Chinese‐speaking children's understanding of argument structure

A causative verb is likely to appear in a sentence with two noun arguments, whereas a noncausative verb tends to appear in a sentence with a single argument. The present research investigates from what point children learning Chinese begin to show this knowledge of argument structure. Two‐, 3‐, 4‐, and 5‐year‐old children were tested using a forced‐choice pointing task. The results showed that Chinese‐speaking children aged 2 years could associate a transitive construction with a causative event, whereas they were not able to map an intransitive construction to a noncausative event even after reaching 5 years of age. The reason why Chinese children have such difficulty in learning knowledge of intransitive construction is discussed, focusing on (a) the semantic properties of certain intransitive verbs, which have been found not only in Chinese but also in other languages, and (b) the ellipsis of arguments, which is characteristic of Chinese.     

Professional Counseling in Hong Kong

The authors provide an overview of recent developments in professional counseling as related to schools, career counseling, and community services in Hong Kong. The strategic position of counseling professionals, counseling associations, and counselor certification is discussed. The future development of counseling in Hong Kong is also considered.     

Observed Variability and Values Matter: Toward a Better Understanding of Information Search and Decisions from Experience

The search for different options before making a consequential choice is a central aspect of many important decisions, such as mate selection or purchasing a house. Despite its importance, surprisingly little is known about how search and choice are affected by the observed and objective properties of the decision problem. Here, we analyze the effects of two key properties in a binary choice task: the options' observed and objective values, and the variability of payoffs. First, in a large public data set of a binary choice task, we investigate how the observed value and variability relate to decision‐makers' efforts and preferences during search. Furthermore, we test how these properties influence the chance of correctly identifying the objectively maximizing option, and how they affect choice. Second, we designed a novel experiment to systematically analyze the role of the objective difference between the options. We find that a larger objective difference between options increases the chance for correctly identifying the maximizing option, but it does not affect behavior during search and choice. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

脉理的阴阳和谐观研究--以《濒湖脉学》“缓脉”为中心论证

在《濒湖脉学》的脉理中,把无病的缓脉认为是有神、有胃气的平脉,无病的缓脉是脾胃这一人体后天之本正常运化的脉象。脾脉为缓脉,其余四脏脉以及四季脉也要兼有缓脉,才是阴阳和谐的脉象,脾脉拥有阴阳和谐的缓脉能为其余各脏腑提供精气,从而保证各脏腑的正常运化,只有各脏腑的正常运化才能维护人身体的阴阳和谐。当人身体的阴阳失去和谐出现病变的时候,脉象就会表现为太过或不及或各脏脉俱缓,少有或失去了缓和的脉象以及各脏脉均失去个性的病缓脉。     

An internet survey of emotional health,treatment seeking and barriers to accessing mental health treatment among Chinese-speaking international students in Australia

The present internet survey examined the demographic characteristics of Chinese-speaking international students in Australia, psychological distress levels as measured by the Kessler-10 (K-10) Item scale, help-seeking history and preferences, as well as treatment barriers. Of the 144 respondents, 54% reported high psychological distress (mean K-10 score?=?23.96; SD?=?9.03). However, only 9% of those who were highly distressed reported they had sought mental health services in the past year. While the majority preferred help from informal social networks, they tended to favour mental health services over traditional culture-specific forms of help. Common barriers to accessing mental health services reported by respondents with high psychological distress included costs or transportation concerns, limited knowledge of available services, time constraints, the perception that symptoms were not severe enough to warrant treatment, language difficulties and lack of knowledge of symptoms of psychological distress. Although the majority preferred face-to-face treatments over internet treatments, a considerable percentage of respondents were willing to try either treatment modality. Chinese-speaking international students are a high risk group for developing psychological distress, yet they tend to underuse mental health services. Education about the effectiveness of face-to-face and online treatments may increase treatment seeking by this population.     

Client as expert: A Delphi poll of clients’ subjective experience of therapeutic alliance formation variables

This study extends prior research that identified client-derived variables believed to contribute to therapeutic alliance development. Forty-two clients participated in a three-round-modified Delphi poll in which the subjective importance of 74 client-derived, common alliance formation variables was rated using a six-point scale. Participants consensually identified 23 variables as highly important, five as moderately important and three as low in importance to the formation of a strong alliance. Variables related to validation and asking about parts of the client’s life other than the presenting concern were considered as most important by at least one-third of the sample. Limitations of the study are presented and implications for theory, measurement, practice and future research are briefly discussed.     

Extreme Outcomes Sway Risky Decisions from Experience

Whether buying stocks or playing the slots, people making real‐world risky decisions often rely on their experiences with the risks and rewards. These decisions, however, do not occur in isolation but are embedded in a rich context of other decisions, outcomes, and experiences. In this paper, we systematically evaluate how the local context of other rewarding outcomes alters risk preferences. Through a series of four experiments on decisions from experience, we provide evidence for an extreme‐outcome rule, whereby people overweight the most extreme outcomes (highest and lowest) in a given context. As a result, people should be more risk seeking for gains than losses, even with equally likely outcomes. Across the experiments, the decision context was varied so that the same outcomes served as the high extreme, low extreme, or neither. As predicted, people were more risk seeking for relative gains, but only when the risky option potentially led to the high‐extreme outcome. Similarly, people were more risk averse for relative losses, but only when the risky option potentially led to the low‐extreme outcome. We conclude that in risky decisions from experience, the biggest wins and the biggest losses seem to matter more than they should. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

On the Decision to Explore New Alternatives: The Coexistence of Under‐ and Over‐exploration

The decision whether to explore new alternatives or to choose from familiar ones is implicit in many of our daily activities. How is this decision made? When will deviation from optimal exploration be observed? The current paper examines exploration decisions in the context of a multi‐alternative “decisions from experience” task. In each trial, participants could choose a familiar option (the status quo) or a new alternative (risky exploration). The observed exploration rates were more sensitive to the frequent outcome from choosing new alternatives than to the average outcome. That is, the implicit decision whether to explore a new alternative reflects underweighting of rare events: Over‐exploration was documented in “Rare Disasters” environments, and insufficient exploration was evident in “Rare Treasures” environments. In addition, the results reveal a decrease in exploration of new alternatives over time even when it is always optimal and some exploration even when it is never reinforcing. These results can be captured with models that share a distinction between “data collection” and “outcome‐driven” decision modes. Under the data collection mode, the decision maker collects information about the environment, to be used in future choices. Under the outcome‐driven mode, the decision maker relies on small samples of previous experiences with familiar versus unfamiliar alternatives, before the selection of a specific alternative. The predictive value of a two‐parameter “explorative sampler” quantification of these assumptions is demonstrated. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

迎接心理学发展的第三波

心理学自冯特始便存在两种类型,自然科学的心理学和人文的心理学.本土心理学依据“一种心智,多种心态”的原则,建构了儒家关系主义理论和自我曼陀罗模型,这种含摄文化的理论解决了冯特以科学方法研究文化的难题.批判实在论和多重哲学典范的结合,奠定了华人本土心理学科学哲学基础,在此基础上,华人本土心理学将迎来心理学发展的第三波.