情绪加工中杏仁核的效价特异性

杏仁核是情绪信息加工的关键脑区。近年来心理学和神经科学领域发现了杏仁核情绪加工的效价特异性现象,并且整体存在左侧杏仁核对正性情绪、右侧杏仁核对负性情绪以及双侧杏仁核负性偏好的特异性趋势,且受到材料突出特征、个体差异、任务条件的调节。未来可进一步探索注意对杏仁核情绪效价特异性的调节作用,探究动态情绪刺激加工时杏仁核的活动特点,考察心理障碍患者加工负性情绪时的杏仁核激活模式,并确定杏仁核的效价特异性在思维、计划、决策等高级认知过程中的表现。     

特质自我控制个体在多源干扰任务下的认知神经机制

本研究采用事件相关电位技术(ERPs)结合多源干扰任务(MSIT)范式来探讨特质自我控制个体的认知神经机制。考察了高、低自我控制者各26名在MSIT任务上的差异。结果：高自我控制者的反应时显著长于低自我控制者。在MSIT冲突条件下,高自我控制者的N2和P3(LPC)波幅比无冲突条件更大。结论：高自我控制者较低自我控制者处理冲突干扰更慢,需要的注意资源较多,激活前额叶中部脑区。     

Assessing Representations of Close Relationships Among Chinese and Japanese Adolescents and Young Adults: Commonalities and Differences in the Two Confucian Cultures

This article proposed an affective relationships model with its assessment instrument and examined how Chinese and Japanese adolescents and young adults construct mental representations of their close relationships, and the influence of Confucian cultural beliefs on these representations. The participants were 1,565 students aged 14 to 24 years living in China or Japan. The students were asked about their relationships with four figures: mother, father, closest friend, and romantic partner. We found that: (a) adolescents and young adults in both cultures constructed constellations of relationships containing multiple figures, and they articulated reasons for each figure's significance; and (b) there were between-group differences in the relationships with the father and the romantic partner for Chinese versus Japanese adolescents and young adults. These differences were partly explained by the influence of Confucianism on the Chinese participants’ cultural beliefs that retained the patriarchal values.     

Crafting Mosaics: Person-Centered Religious Influence and Selection in Adolescent Friendships

This research addresses the intersection of two key domains of adolescents’ lives: religion and peer networks. Religion scholars argue that religion is multi-faceted and better understood by focusing on combinations of indicators (i.e., mosaics), versus a variable-centered approach. We adopt this framework and investigate the interplay between religion and peer networks, both in how religious mosaics are shaped by friends and how religious profiles affect friend selection dynamics. With data from two schools in the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health, we estimate religious mosaics using latent class analysis (LCA) to identify profiles consisting of combinations of commonly available survey-based measures of religious attitudes, behaviors, and identities. Finding evidence of theoretically expected profiles, we then use stochastic actor–based models (SABMs) to investigate network dynamics for these LCA-based religious profiles. We demonstrate how the profile data can be integrated within the SABM framework to evaluate processes of friend selection and influence. Results show evidence of adolescents influencing one another's religious mosaics, but not selecting friends on that basis.     

Predatory aggression in the mink (Mustela vison): Roles of serotonin and food satiation

5-Hydroxytrypotophan at a dose of 50 mg/kg intraperitoneally (i.p.) sharply increased neural serotonin (5-HT) levels in mink and considerably inhibited that animal's predatory attack on rats. Intraperitoneal injection of 5-HT (10 and 20 mg/kg) did not influence such rat-killing. Neural levels of 5-HT or 5-hydroxyindoleacetic acid (5-HIAA) and subsequent aggression by the predator did not change to any great degree after ingestion of a single meal. Abundance of natural mink food for 3 days was associated with an increased level of 5-HIAA in the lateral hypothalamus and the amygdala as well as with an increased latency to attack and to kill rats. 5-HT seems to represent an endogenous factor that inhibits predatory attack by the mink; this effect appears to function through increased metabolism of 5-HT in some brain regions, which is evident after abundant intake of tryptophan with the natural diet.     

Does Partisan Bias Modulate Neural Processing of Political Information? An Analysis of the Neural Correlates of Corruption and Positive Messages

Daily worldwide newspapers print articles exposing government corruption. Yet these messages do not lead to a loss of votes for the corrupt parties. Sympathizers’ partisan bias, which respectively minimizes and maximizes corruption and positive messages of their own parties respectively, is widely considered the main cause of the loss of effectiveness of political communications. Despite the well-established existence of such bias when processing political information, little is known as to its psychological origin. Through the use of neuroscience (fMRI), this study explores the underlying brain mechanisms of negative (corruption) and positive political messages related to a conservative and a socialist Spanish political party, as well as the differences between their sympathizers. The findings reveal that negative (vs. positive) political messages exert the greatest neuroimaging impact on the electorate, as shown in aversive, risk, and disappointment-related brain regions. Interestingly, we show that there exists a main partisan bias against opposite parties (and not a positive bias toward one’s own party) that stems from a higher risk, ambiguity, and disbelief provoked by both positive and negative information about rival parties. Furthermore, this bias was more pronounced among conservative supporters. The current findings provide valuable insights for political parties to improve their communication campaigns.     

Just banter? Friendship,teasing and experimental aggression in adolescent peer networks

Aggressive behaviour serves many useful social functions, yet can also have damaging consequences. In line with evidence showing adolescent development in social cognitive abilities, we hypothesized that the use of aggression would become more sophisticated with age. We investigated adolescent aggression towards peers using an experimental, hypothetical aggression paradigm, the hot sauce paradigm, in a school‐based social network setting. Participants (N = 162 aged 11–17, 98 male) indicated which strength of imaginary hot sauce they would allocate to each of their classmates. A Social Network Questionnaire quantified participants’ perceived dyadic social tie strength with each classmate, and the incidence of mutual or unilateral dyadic real‐world aggression (e.g. teasing). Participants allocated weaker hot sauce to peers with whom they reported strong, positive social ties and an absence of self‐reported unilateral real‐world aggression. With increasing cross‐sectional age, there was a decrease in the impact of social tie strength and an increase in the extent to which hot sauce allocation was predicted by self‐reported mutual real‐world aggression. This pattern of findings is consistent with young (vs. late) adolescent use of experimental, hypothetical Hot Sauce aggression to reflect real‐world animosity, while late adolescents’ behaviour is more subtle. These findings extend our understanding of the dyadic social context of adolescent aggressive behaviour using a novel experimental aggression paradigm.