Turning Fantasies About Positive and Negative Futures into Self-Improvement Goals

Contrasting fantasies about the future with reflections on reality that impedes fantasy realization creates a tight link between expectations of success and forming commitments to self-improvement goals. This effect applies to both fantasies about a positive future contrasted with impeding negative reality as well as fantasies about a negative future contrasted with impeding positive reality. In Study 1, with 63 student participants, contrasting positive fantasies about benefiting from a vocational training with negative reflections on reality impeding such benefits led to expectancy-dependent willingness to invest in the training, more so than indulging in the positive future and than dwelling on the negative reality. In Study 2, with 158 high school students from former East Berlin, contrasting negative, xenophobic fantasies about suffering from the influx of immigrants with positive reflections on reality impeding such suffering led to expectancy-dependent tolerance and willingness to integrate the immigrants. Findings are discussed in terms of how mental contrasting facilitates self-improvement and personal development by making people form expectancy-dependent goal commitments to approach positively-perceived as well as negatively-perceived futures.     

The cultural specificity of parent-infant interaction: Perspectives of urban middle-class and rural indigenous families in Costa Rica

Caregiver-infant interactions in Western middle class often take place in dyadic play settings, engaged in infant-initiated object stimulation, and surrounded by a positive emotional tone, reflecting a distal parenting style. With this study we aim to investigate whether the same conception of caregiver-infant interaction is embodied in the proximal parenting style. For this purpose, we compare the context and pattern of caregiver-infant interactions in two cultural groups in Costa Rica: Urban middle-class families in San José and rural indigenous Bribri families. Naturalistic observations and caregiver interviews revealed significant differences between the groups, with San José families resembling the Western middle-class interaction pattern. Among the Bribris, adult-child play is uncommon so that children interact with adults in primary care settings and with older siblings in play settings. Bribri interactions are further characterized by emotional neutrality. The groups did not differ in terms of body contact. Also, caregivers in both samples took the lead in interactions more often than infants. The results are discussed in the context of an autonomous-relational style as combining psychological autonomy and hierarchical relatedness. We argue that early childhood theories and intervention programs need to abandon the assumption that Western middle-class strategies are universal and recognize locally relevant patterns of caregiver-infant interaction.     

Exploring goal taxonomies using the goal-based outcome tool in children and young people's mental health settings

Formulating goals in therapy may facilitate young people and parents/carers' engagement in mental health support settings. A number of goal taxonomies have been developed, which involve organising goals set at the outset of therapy into themes. Goal taxonomies are considered useful for service planning and outcome purposes. In order to build on the knowledge about what young people choose as goals, and to best support good practice, it is important to explore the links and differences between the existing goal taxonomies. A systematic review was conducted to identify goal taxonomies based on goals set using the goal-based outcome (GBO) tool. Framework analysis was conducted to investigate the extracted goal taxonomies. Overall, four core concepts were identified: “Goals targeting specific issues, symptoms, emotions, and behaviours,” “Return and engage in activities,” “Personal growth goals” and “Interpersonal goals.” Goals regarding specific issues, personal growth and interpersonal relationships were present in most studies. Using these overarching core concepts could be useful for practitioner-level, or service-level organisation of goal data, for activities such as service planning and delivery.     

Children coping with uncontrollable stressors

Many of the negative events in children's lives cannot be controlled by them. Three strategies that children can be taught for coping adaptively with many uncontrollable events are presented: (a) reconstruing the event in more positive ways, (b) using positive imagery to dampen fear and frustration, and (c) developing reasonable proximal goals. How these strategies may be used in working with children living in poverty is discussed.     

The Eye of the Beholder: Romantic Goals and Impression Biases

Four experiments investigated the effects of romantic goals on task and social impression formation. The clouded judgment hypothesis holds that romantic goals encourage positive biases on less relationship-relevant dimensions (e.g., task competence). The default positivity hypothesis holds that romantic goals encourage positivity biases on relationship-relevant dimensions in the absence of relevant information. The selective accuracy hypothesis posits that romantic goals encourage accuracy regarding relationship-relevant attributes (e.g., social competence) when relevant information is available. In four studies, male and female perceivers evaluated opposite-sex targets whom they expected to date (romantic goals) or to meet for nonromantic interaction (baseline). Videotaped targets displayed competence or incompetence on task (Experiments 1 and 2) or social (Experiments 3 and 4) dimensions. All three hypotheses were supported.     

Perception in action: multiple roles of sensory information in action control

Perceptual processes play a central role in the planning and control of human voluntary action. Indeed, planning an action is a sensorimotor process operating on sensorimotor units, a process that is based on anticipations of perceptual action effects. I discuss how the underlying sensorimotor units emerge, and how they can be employed to tailor action plans to the goals at hand. I also discuss how even a single action can induce sensorimotor binding, how intentionally implemented short-term associations between stimuli and responses become autonomous, how feature overlap between stimulus events and actions makes them compatible, and why action plans are necessarily incomplete.

20世纪全球卫生发展的回顾与展望

20世纪人类的健康状况发生了革命性的转变,同时也面临着前所未有的挑战。疾病谱的改变及人口寿命的延长以及医疗费用的上涨仍然是困扰各国决策者的难题,卫生发展与改革任重道远。完善健康保障体系最理想的选择方案是政府为居民“购买”基本卫生服务,由国家财政和居民共同承担保险基金,普及初级卫生保健,鼓励多种形式办医,WHO确定的卫生工作目标是各成员国卫生系统改革与发展的指导方针。     

中学生成就动机的发展特点研究

本研究用量表法对652名中学生的成就动机从四个角度进行研究,结果表明,随着年级的上升,成就归因、自主性动机、自我效能、成就目标基本保持平稳的发展趋势,但在不同的维度上,其发展变化趋势和水平各有不同,所起的作用也不同,自我效能与掌握目标是中学生的主要学习动力。     

父母养育目标的文化差异

父母养育目标存在着普遍的文化差异。在理论上,对养育目标文化差异的解释呈现出从群体水平到个体水平、从单维到双维的发展趋势。在研究上,除了对文化差异理论的检验之外,养育目标对于各文化群体的养育方式、养育策略,以及子代发展的影响也是研究关注的重点问题。结构化问卷法和开放式列举法是养育目标文化差异研究最常用的两种测量方法,各有其优缺点和适用范围。现有研究存在着过度概括、忽略子女一方的角色和作用等问题,需要将来的研究加以改进和解决     

目标内容效应及其心理机制

以自我决定论为基础的目标内容理论认为,内部目标是指反映个体的内在成长趋向的目标,如自我接受、亲密关系、健康等;外部目标是指如何获得外部奖赏或社会赞许,通过获得外部的价值给别人留下深刻的印象等目标,如财富、权力、地位等。大量的研究表明内、外部目标有着不同的效应,而基本心理需要（关系、胜任、自主）是被证实的能解释内、外部目标内容效应的心理机制。在未来的研究中除了更深入地去探讨其心理机制之外,还要积极进行本土化的实证研究