Personal change and the continuity of the self

Five studies explore how anticipating different types of personal change affects people’s perceptions of their own self-continuity. The studies find that improvements are seen as less disruptive to personal continuity than worsening or unspecified change, although this difference varies in magnitude based on the type of feature being considered. Also, people’s expectations and desires matter. For example, a negative change is highly disruptive to perceived continuity when people expect improvement and less disruptive when people expect to worsen. The finding that some types of change are consistent with perceptions of self-continuity suggests that the self-concept may include beliefs about personal development.     

Research about the university teaching performance evaluation under the data envelopment method

How to take active and effective measures to evaluate the university scientifically and rationally has been an eternal topic that the educational circles are constantly exploring. Based on the principle of index construction, the current educational performance evaluation index system is improved and a more reasonable evaluation index system is formed. On this basis, taking the sample data in 2017 as an example, the principal component analysis method is used to reduce the dimension of input and output indicators and eliminate the correlation between indicators, and three principal components of input and three principal components of output are obtained. Secondly, data envelopment analysis model is established, and the data processed are analyzed with the help of MATLAB and DEAP2.1 operation software. The efficiency of these 24 colleges and universities is compared to understand the efficiency and differences of each college. Moreover, projection analysis of non-DEA effective DMU is completed and the direction of improvement and the specific adjustment value are pointed out.     

Modeling the effects of within-person characteristic and goal-level attributes on personal project pursuit over time

The current study aims to overcome methodological constraints of previous goal pursuit research by exploring how people simultaneously rely upon person-level characteristic adaptations and unique goal-level attributes to pursue their personal projects. Undergraduate participants identified 10 projects they would pursue over an academic quarter and rated project meaningfulness, effort exerted, patience employed, and progress satisfaction at five time points. Multilevel structural equation models revealed the relative influence of person-level and project-level attributes on project appraisals. Person-level adaptations accounted for a large portion of variance in project pursuit appraisals, though significant project-specific trends were found over time as well, including mutual positive cross-lag influences between meaning, patience, and effort, and a negative predictive effect of progress satisfaction on meaning.     

Formalization of Reliability Block Diagrams in Higher-order Logic

Reliability Block Diagrams (RBDs) allow us to model the failure relationships of complex systems and their sub-components and are extensively used for system reliability, availability and maintainability analyses. Traditionally, these RBD-based analyses are done using paper-and-pencil proofs or computer simulations, which cannot ascertain absolute correctness due to their inaccuracy limitations. As a complementary approach, we propose to use the higher-order logic theorem prover HOL to conduct RBD-based analysis. For this purpose, we present a higher-order logic formalization of commonly used RBD configurations, such as series, parallel, parallel-series and series-parallel, and the formal verification of their equivalent mathematical expressions. A distinguishing feature of the proposed RBD formalization is the ability to model nested RBD configurations, which are RBDs having blocks that also represent RBD configurations. This generality allows us to formally analyze the reliability of many real-world systems. For illustration purposes, we formally analyze the reliability of a generic Virtual Data Center (VDC) in a cloud computing infrastructure exhibiting the nested series-parallel RBD configuration.     

How did I do it then? How will I do it later? A theoretical review of the impact of mental time travel on decision-making processes

Mentally traveling to one's personal past and future connects the current self with self at different points in time. When making decisions in the present, individuals benefit from their past and potential future decisions with the help of mental time travel. This review documents the theoretical and empirical studies concerning mental time travel to past and future decisions and their influence on current decision-making processes. Particularly, certain characteristics of past and future decisions directly or indirectly influence present life decisions. Synthesizing the existing literature, we developed a theoretical model suggests that temporally close decisions tend to include different type of details and diverge from distant decisions in terms of personal meaningfulness. Further, past and future decisions that are elaborated and meaningful, have a great impact on present decisions. Future empirical work testing this model has the potential to generate findings that will inform intervention strategies towards improved decision-making.     

Empirical Bayes Derivative Estimates

Abstract

A dynamic system is a set of interacting elements characterized by changes occurring over time. The estimation of derivatives is a mainstay for exploring dynamics of constructs, particularly when the dynamics are complicated or unknown. The presence of measurement error in many social science constructs frequently results in poor estimates of derivatives, as even modest proportions of measurement error can compound when estimating derivatives. Given the overlap in the specification of latent differential equation models and latent growth curve models, and the equivalence of latent growth curve models and mixed models under some conditions, derivatives could be estimated from estimates of random effects. This article proposes a new method for estimating derivatives based on calculating the Empirical Bayes estimates of derivatives from a mixed model. Two simulations compare four derivative estimation methods: Generalized Local Linear Approximation, Generalized Orthogonal Derivative Estimates, Functional Data Analysis, and the proposed Empirical Bayes Derivative Estimates. The simulations consider two data collection scenarios: short time series (≤10 observations) from many individuals or occasions, and long individual time series (25–500 observations). A substantive example visualizing the dynamics of intraindividual positive affect time series is also presented.     

Unrealistic representations of “the self”: A cognitive neuroscience assessment of anosognosia for memory deficit

Three cognitive components may play a crucial role in both memory awareness and in anosognosia for memory deficit (AMD): (1) a personal data base (PDB), i.e., a memory store that contains “semantic” representations about the self, (2) monitoring processes (MPs) and (3) an explicit evaluation system (EES), or comparator, that assesses and binds the representations stored in the PDB with information obtained from the environment.We compared both the behavior and the functional connectivity (as assessed by resting-state fMRI) of AMD patients with aware patients and healthy controls. We found that AMD is associated with an impoverished PDB, while MPs are necessary to successfully update the PDB.AMD was associated with reduced functional connectivity within both the default-mode network and in a network that includes the left lateral temporal cortex, the hippocampus and the insula. The reduced connectivity between the hippocampus and the insular cortex was correlated with AMD severity.     

The values of only-children: Power and benevolence in the spotlight

The stereotype that only-children are more self-centered than others has gained little support from studies on personality traits but had not been previously tested with respect to personal values, which are also an important part of personality. Data from 3085 Australian adults revealed that only-children give more importance to power values and less importance to benevolence values than individuals with siblings. These differences, which are consistent with the stereotype, were strongest in young people but diminished gradually with age and disappeared in those over 62 years old. The results challenge the view that personality is largely unaffected by shared life-experiences associated with family structure, at least regarding the values aspect of personality.