虚拟场景中不同客体朝向条件对内在参照系建立的影响

通过眼动记录和部分场景再认两种方法,探讨了虚拟建筑物对称场景中物体朝向统一、凸显两种条件对内在参照系建立的影响。结果发现:(1)场景中均为有朝向建筑物且朝向统一时,被试选择物体朝向与对称轴建立内在参照系的可能性没有差异;(2)场景中只有一个有朝向建筑物,其余均为无朝向物体时,即朝向凸显条件下,被试倾向于选择对称轴来建立内在参照系。物体朝向对内在参照系建立的影响作用具有局限性和不稳定性。     

Introducing a new age-and-cognition-sensitive measurement for assessing spatial orientation using a landmark-less virtual reality navigational task

Age-related impairments during spatial navigation have been widely reported in egocentric and allocentric paradigms. However, the effect of age on more specific navigational components such as the ability to drive or update directional information has not received enough attention. In this study we investigated the effect of age on spatial updating of a visual target after a series of whole–body rotations and transitions using a novel landmark-less virtual reality (VR) environment. Moreover, a significant number of previous studies focused on measures susceptible to a general decline in motor skills such as the spent time navigating, the distance traversed. The current paper proposes a new compound spatial measure to assess navigational performance, examines its reliability and compares its power with those of the measures of duration and traversed distance in predicting participants' age and cognitive groups assessed by Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA) scores. Using data from 319 adults (20–83 years), our results confirm the reliability, the age sensitivity, and the cognitive validity of the designed spatial measure as well as its superiority to the measures of duration and traversed distance in predicting age and MoCA score. In addition, the results show the significant effect of age cognitive status on spatial updating.     

How do affected interests support global democracy?

In this paper, I critique one way of arguing for global democracy on grounds of affected interests and defend another. A famous argument for global democracy, which I call the Demos-Based Argument, attempts to justify global democracy based on the claim that affected interests vindicate individual claims to democratic participation or representation. I analyze and evaluate the Demos-Based Argument and consider different ways of interpreting and justifying its crucial premise: the Principle of Affected Interests. The result is that the argument fails. One lesson of the discussion of the Demos-Based Argument is that the most promising, though eventually unsuccessful, justification of the Principle of Affected Interests is utilitarian. Given the failure of the Demos-Based Argument, the question suggests itself if there is another way to argue for global democracy on utilitarian grounds. I will outline a promising alternative argument for global democracy, which I call the Direct Argument. Like the Demos-Based Argument, the Direct Argument is based on affected interests and ultimately on utilitarianism, but unlike the former, the Direct Argument avoids the detour over stating a criterion for individual claims to democratic participation and representation.     

Peering into the “black box” of education interventions and attitude change: Audience characteristics moderate the effectiveness…and then only toward specific targets

To probe the inconsistent link between education and attitude change toward minority social groups, we conducted a field study that focused on audience characteristics and education about lesbian, gay, and transgender (LGT) targets. Participants enrolled in a sexuality course were compared to those in a neurology course, both taught by the same professor. Multiple regression analyses predicted attitude change toward LGT targets from social dominance orientation (SDO), right-wing authoritarianism (RWA), ratings of professor’s characteristics, SDO by course interaction, and RWA by course interaction. Only the SDO by course interaction significantly predicted attitude change. Simple slopes analyses indicated that high-SDO participants in the sexuality course showed the most positive attitude change. These findings suggest that education may reduce prejudice for certain audience characteristics.     

Combining Emotion Appraisal Dimensions and Individual Differences to Understand Emotion Effects on Gift Giving

Multiple studies have revealed that emotion appraisal dimensions can predict the effects of emotions on decision making. For example, givers' intention to buy gifts depends on whether they feel positive or negative (valence) and on whether the feeling is caused by the givers themselves or by gift receivers (agency). However, there is little understanding of how the effects of such appraisal dimensions might depend on individual characteristics. The current research addresses this gap by studying the interaction effects of emotions and individual characteristics on gift giving. Study 1 demonstrates that emotion effects on gift‐giving behavior are explained by two things: the cause of those emotions (self or others, agency) and whether those emotions are positive or negative (valence). Moreover, four studies reveal that these effects depend on the givers' interpersonal orientation. For high interpersonally oriented givers, who care mostly about interpersonal relationships, emotion effects on gift giving depend on both valence and agency. In contrast, for low interpersonally oriented givers, who care mostly about their own gains, emotion effects on gift giving depend only on valence. Together, these findings suggest that although a focus on appraisal dimensions can be useful, individual characteristics should also be taken into account when trying to understand emotion effects on gift giving, in particular, and on decision making, in general. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Neural correlates of subliminally presented visual sexual stimuli

In the context of forensic psychiatry, it is crucial that diagnoses of deviant sexual interests are resistant to manipulation. In a first attempt to promote the development of such tools, the current fMRI study focusses on the examination of hemodynamic responses to preferred, in contrast to non-preferred, sexual stimuli with and without explicit sexual features in 24 healthy heterosexual subjects. The subliminal stimulus presentation of sexual stimuli could be a new approach to reduce vulnerability to manipulation. Meaningful images and scrambled images were applied as masks. Recognition performance was low, but interestingly, sexual preference and explicitness modulated stimulus visibility, suggesting interactions between networks of sexual arousal and consciousness. With scrambled masks, higher activations for sexually preferred images and for explicit images were found in areas associated with sexual arousal (Stoleru, Fonteille, Cornelis, Joyal, & Moulier, 2012). We conclude that masked sexual stimuli can evoke activations in areas associated with supraliminal induced sexual arousal.     

The effects of social desirability bias on applied measures of goal orientation

This research examined the extent to which social desirability responding influences two measures of goal orientation tailored to work (VandeWalle, 1997) and academic (Midgley et al., 1998) domains. Method bias analyses indicated a significant negative influence of social desirability on responses to learning goal items, and a significant positive influence of social desirability responding on performance-avoid goal items, with the VandeWalle scale showing larger effects than the Midgley et al. scale. Performance-approach goal items showed minimal effects of social desirability responding. Results are discussed with respect to the use of these measures in larger models of motivation and performance.     

自我理论研究及其对教育的启示

自我理论是指人们关于自我的信念体系或内隐理论。德韦克等人自20世纪60年代末开始系统研究自我理论对人的认知、情感与行为的影响及其发生发展的机制,并构建了基于自我理论的动机模型。本文试图对其研究成果做一简要介绍,并浅析自我理论研究成果对教育工作的启示。     

价值观与大学生寻求社会支持的关系研究

在大学学习阶段,各种青年期不可避免的问题和大学生所特有的紧张与压力极大地影响着大学生的健康成长。尽管家长、同学、老师和朋友都可能为他们提供有效的社会支持与帮助,然而他们在遇到困难或烦恼时却很少主动寻求帮助,造成这种现象的原因是多方面的,如个体需要帮助的原因,个人价值观、对自我的评价、对帮助者意图的分析等,本文主要研究和探讨了价值观对大学生寻求社会支持与帮助的影响,并初步揭示了它们之间的相互关系。     

The role of problem-solving appraisal in the process and outcome of career counseling

Because problem-solving appraisal has been demonstrated to be a critical variable in psychological adjustment, this study examined its potential role as both a static and dynamic client attribute influencing the process and outcome of career counseling. Participants were 151 adults who received an average of five sessions of naturally occurring career counseling; data were collected before, during, and after counseling. The results indicated that: (a) in line with a static attribute model, clients' pre-counseling problem-solving appraisal scores predicted post-counseling career and psychological outcomes as well as career decidedness even after partialling out clients' pre-decidedness scores; (b) in line with a dynamic attribute model, clients who experienced positive changes in problem-solving appraisal in counseling were more likely to have more positive career resources to use in their career transitions as well greater goal directedness; (c) participation in career counseling related to positive change in problem-solving appraisal scores at a level similar to problem-solving training workshops; and (d) clients' changes in problem-solving appraisal related to changes in the working alliance over time.