Comparing Chinese youth with American youth on adjustment: An illustration of measurement issues in cross-cultural research

In this article, we used results from two studies to show the need to go beyond linguistic equivalence to establish construct validity and measurement invariance in cross-cultural research. Study 1 examined Rosenberg Self-Esteem (RSE; 10 items) data from 156 Mainland Chinese youth (M = 13.8 years, SD = .53) and 213 Chinese-American youth (M = 13.6 years, SD = 2.1) from high socioeconomic status (SES) families. The Chinese translation of the RSE has been widely used. Study 2 included 1060 Mainland Chinese youth (M = 15.6 years, SD = 2.3) and 412 racially diverse American youth (M = 16.0, SD = 2.9) from all SES backgrounds. Data were collected with the third and newest edition of the Behavioural Assessment System for Children-Self Report of Personality (BASC-3-SRP; 189 items). We translated and back-translated the BASC-3-SRP between English and Chinese to establish linguistic equivalence. All participants were females. Study 1 showed that the RSE had acceptable internal consistency but lacked construct validity. Study 2 showed that the original and the translated BASC-3-SRP had good internal consistency and construct validity, but nine of its 16 subscales lacked measurement invariance. These results highlight measurement issues facing international and cross-cultural research.     

Things fall apart. The cultural complex in contemporary times1

These extraordinary months due to COVID-19 and the Black Lives Matter protests, set as they are against a backdrop of the increasingly worrying climate emergency, have brought fear, anxiety and discord across the globe. But we have also experienced a deepening of our understanding of our connectedness, protests against injustice, expressions of social concern and a demand for change. The concept of the cultural complex as developed by Singer & Kimbles (2004) offers a helpful means of connecting the psychology of the individual psyche and the political phenomena of power relations. Using a small example to illustrate how it might operate at a local level, I suggest that a fundamental shift is taking place raising profound levels of anxiety as we move from the known to the unknown. The bipolar nature of these complexes means the extremes are surfacing bringing fears of the very real possibility of more entrenched attacks on democracy from the far right and the hunkering down behind armed borders. But there is also hope that different ways of living together may be developing from the ground up, ways that are rooted in our sense of interdependence – with each other and our planetary home.     

自我-朋友冲突情境下智慧推理的文化差异及其机制

相对于面对自己的人际冲突, 以独立自我为主的西方人在面对朋友的人际冲突时表现更智慧(所罗门悖论)。在以互依自我为主的中国人身上所罗门悖论是否会有不同特点?研究1通过在线平台招募中美两国被试, 随机分配到自我与朋友冲突组考察其智慧推理水平, 并考察自我类型的影响。对齐法与方差分析的结果均显示美国文化下朋友组智慧推理显著高于自我组, 而中国文化下两组差异不显著, 进一步分析发现中国文化下独立自我与冲突类型的交互项显著预测智慧推理。在此基础上, 研究2~4在中国文化背景下, 通过启动不同自我类型, 考察个体在自我或朋友冲突组中的智慧推理差异, 结果显示启动独立自我的朋友组显著高于自我组, 而启动互依自我的两组差异不显著。研究表明所罗门悖论可能只存在独立自我高的人身上, 并不具有普适性。可见心理学研究除了关注样本多样性问题外, 更需关注使用单一样本却默认结论具有文化普适性的研究者。     

Functional communication training: From efficacy to effectiveness

Functional communication training (FCT; Carr & Durand, 1985) is a common function‐based treatment in which an alternative form of communication is taught to reduce problem behavior. FCT has been shown to result in substantial reductions of a variety of topographically and functionally different types of problem behavior in children and adults (efficacy). The extent to which these reductions maintain in relevant contexts and result in meaningful changes in the lives of those impacted (effectiveness) is the focus of this paper. This review evaluates the degree to which FCT has been established as an evidence‐based practice in psychology (EBPP) according to the definition set out by the American Psychological Association's 2005 Presidential Task Force on Evidence‐Based Practice. Our review finds overwhelming evidence in support of FCT as an efficacious treatment but highlights significant limitations in support of its effectiveness. In order to also be recognized as an EBPP, future research on FCT will need to focus more closely on issues related to home, school, and community application, feasibility, consumer satisfaction, and more general and global changes for the individual.     

听觉线索与个体差异对音乐紧张感加工的影响

音乐无他, 张弛而已。音乐紧张感架起了客观音响与主观体验之间的桥梁, 是音乐情绪产生的前提和基础。音乐紧张感加工的影响因素主要来自客体与主体两方面。研究发现, 声学要素与调性结构是影响音乐紧张感诱发的声音线索, 而文化背景与音乐能力是影响听者对紧张感加工的个体因素。未来需要对时间结构与长时程调性结构诱发的紧张感及其机制进行深入探究, 这将有助于深化我们对音乐紧张感与情绪加工的认识。     

从个体到集体：心理学视角下的集体记忆

基于拓展思维的社会互动主义视角, 采用流行病学研究思路, 记忆的形成与维护构成了集体记忆心理学研究的核心问题。相关研究一方面以“对话”为研究语境, 系统阐释了集体记忆形成中的社会传染、检索诱发遗忘、共享现实和网络聚合等心理机制; 另一方面, 聚焦于既存的记忆, 阐释了集体记忆有效性的心理原则, 同时, 记忆的身份关联性得到了确证。集体记忆心理学研究仍需拓展视野, 加强对文化记忆的有效性研究, 密切关注媒介技术变革引发的记忆变化, 积极推进本土化研究。     

The Croatian version of the Emotion Regulation Questionnaire: Links with higher- and lower-level personality traits and mood

The Emotion Regulation Questionnaire (ERQ) measures habitual use of two emotion regulation strategies, cognitive reappraisal and expressive suppression. The present study tested the psychometric properties and validity of a newly developed Croatian adaptation of the ERQ. In a sample of 347 participants, we first sought to confirm the ERQ's original factor structure. Next, we tested its convergent, divergent and incremental validity. In the first subsample (N = 140), we linked the ERQ with a measure of the Five-Factor Model dimensions and their facets (Revised NEO Personality Inventory). In the second subsample (N = 207), we tested its ability to predict personality dimensions assessed by a different measure (Big Five Inventory) as well as the traits of positive and negative affect, including its incremental validity in predicting the latter. The results corroborated earlier findings, showing that the Croatian ERQ has equivalent psychometrics and predictive validity as ERQs in other languages. Crucially, the observed links between the ERQ and the facets of the Five-Factor Model dimensions enrich our understanding of the personality mechanisms behind the employment of these emotion regulation strategies.     

Displacement trauma: complex states of personal,collective and intergenerational fragmentation and their intergenerational transmission

Originally presented at the Journal’s one day conference entitled ‘Displacement: Contemporary Traumatic Experience’ held in London in November 2019, this paper expands on the author’s theory of the implicit psychological organizing gestalt, an associated pattern of psychic functions which operate in an integrated way to simultaneously structure and organize our experience of self-cohesion and self-continuity. The gestalt, which implicitly links the formation of psychic skin, body image, cultural skin and both personal and cultural identity with place, functions as an emergent non-conscious permanent presence or background ‘constant’. It develops over time and emerges out of embodied emotional experiencing with the total environment – both human and non-human. The author argues that it is the rupture of this gestalt and the disorganizing consequences of its loss which underlies the experience of displacement trauma. If disruptions in the formation of the gestalt and/or its later rupture remain unrecognized and unrepresented then the absence creates a void which can be intergenerationally transmitted. Case material is presented which describes this and which highlights the ways in which the gestalt can contribute to our understanding of collective displacement anxiety, cultural trauma and cultural complexes.     

Archetypal images emerging in the therapy of Lithuanian cancer patients

The goal of this paper is to show through clinical examples how archetypal images connected with nature emerged in Lithuanian cancer patients, to analyze how these images helped them to get in touch with their emotions and meaningful personal experiences, and to discuss how these archetypal images are related to the Lithuanian cultural unconscious, and may also assist the psychological treatment of cancer. The analyzed examples permit the preliminary conclusion that when ill with cancer, a person's psyche generates universal archetypal images that constitute an important part of the process of coping psychologically with the disease.