Sanctification of life and health: insights from the landmark spirituality and health survey

The purpose of this study is to examine the relationship between sanctification of life and health. Sanctification is defined as a process through which aspects of life are perceived as having divine character and significance. A latent variable model was created to test the following hypotheses that link sanctification with health: (1) people who attend worship services more often are more likely to develop a sanctified view of life; (2) individuals who develop a sanctified view of life are likely to be more compassionate, (3) people who are more compassionate will provide more emotional support to others, (4) providing more support to others will be associated with a greater sense of meaning in life, and (5) people who have derived a deeper sense of meaning in life will enjoy better health. Data from a new cross-sectional nationwide survey (N?=?2932) provide support for each of these hypotheses.     

男性身体意象失调:大众媒体的影响及作用机制

近年来,男性身体意象失调越来越普遍,大众媒体被认为是一种重要的影响因素。大量研究证实了媒体对男性身体意象的消极影响,主要表现在对身体意象的认知、情绪情感和行为调控等方面。研究者基于社会文化理论提出三重影响模型(Thompson,Heinberg,Altabe,Tantleff-Dunn,1999),用以解释媒体影响男性身体意象的作用机制。该模型假设社会文化因素,即家庭、同伴、媒体是身体意象失调的三个最初影响源;外貌比较和"瘦理想"或"肌肉理想"内化是社会文化和身体意象失调之间的中介变量。未来研究应关注被试群体的多样化,将实验室研究和纵向研究相结合,并考虑其他变量的影响作用,对三重影响模型进行丰富和拓展,同时运用脑科学技术探究其神经机制。此外,还应从干预的角度展开研究。     

负折扣现象:跨期决策中的自我-他人决策差异

负折扣现象作为一种违背时间折扣假定的现象越来越多地引起研究者关注。本文通过两种指标考察了为自己决策和为他人决策在负折扣现象上的差异。实验1运用二择一选择范式考察人们在为自己决策和为他人决策时对于何时发生负性事件的时间偏好。结果发现,相比较于为他人决策,为自己决策时被试更倾向于选择早些发生负性事件,即更容易产生负折扣现象。实验2运用测量时间折扣率的经典范式考察了人们在为自己决策和为他人决策时的时间折扣率。结果发现,为自己决策时比为他人决策时的时间折扣率更小,更容易出现负折扣率。总体结果表明,为自己决策比为他人决策更容易出现负折扣现象。从情绪卷入的角度看,我们推测,为自己决策时由于更多的预期负性情绪卷入,从而导致更容易产生负折扣现象。     

Examining the emerging entrepreneurial mindset in adolescence: A study in Nigeria

This study investigated the relationship of family environment, network, parental socio‐economic status, self‐efficacy and proactive personality on entrepreneurial intention of secondary school adolescents and the mediating role of self‐efficacy. The participants were 250 secondary school SS2 adolescents randomly selected from six secondary schools in Ibadan Metropolis, Ibadan, Oyo State, Nigeria. Structural Equation Modelling was used to analyse the data obtained from the participants. The results showed that all the contextual and individual factors had significant relationship with entrepreneurial intention and self‐efficacy partially mediated the relationship. It was suggested that counselling psychologists should consider the contextual and individual variables while assisting students in building their entrepreneurial intention.     

Struggling to be liked: The prospective effect of trait self‐control on social desirability and the moderating role of agreeableness

Drawing from the literature on the interpersonal functions of self‐control, we examined longitudinal associations between trait self‐control and social desirability, using a survey of the general population in the Netherlands. Trait self‐control at baseline was positively associated with social desirability at a follow‐up, even when controlling for prior levels of social desirability. That is, high self‐control contributed to individuals' tendency to give socially desirable responses in self‐reports. This effect was moderated by individual differences in agreeableness. Highly agreeable individuals were more likely to “use” their self‐regulatory resources to respond in a socially desirable manner, compared to less agreeable individuals, suggesting that individuals might use self‐regulatory resources in a way consistent with the motivational bases of their personality.     

The effect of shame on anger at others: awareness of the emotion-causing events matters

Numerous studies have found that shame increases individuals’ anger at others. However, according to recent theories about the social function of shame and anger at others, it is possible that shame controls individuals’ anger at others in specific conditions. We replicated previous findings that shame increased individuals’ anger at others’ unfairness, when others were not aware of the individual’s experience of shameful events. We also found for the first time that shame controlled or even decreased individuals’ anger at others’ unfairness, when others were aware of the individual’s experience of shameful events. The results were consistent when shame was induced by either a recall paradigm or an imagination paradigm, and in either the ultimatum game or the dictator game. This suggests that shame strategically controls individuals’ anger at others to demonstrate that they are willing to benefit others, when facing the risk of social exclusion. Our findings highlight the interpersonal function of shame and deepen the understanding of the relationship between shame and anger at others.     

The gap between medical and monetary choices under risk persists in decisions for others

Decisions under risk in the medical domain have been found to systematically diverge from decisions in the monetary domain. When making choices between monetary options, people commonly rely on a decision strategy that trades off outcomes with their probabilities; when making choices between medical options, people tend to neglect probability information. In two experimental studies, we tested to what extent differences between medical and monetary decisions also emerge when the decision outcomes affect another person. Using a risky choice paradigm for medical and monetary decisions, we compared hypothetical decisions that participants made for themselves to decisions for a socially distant other (Study 1) and to recommendations as financial advisor or doctor (Study 2). In addition, we examined people's information search in a condition in which information about payoff distributions had to be learned from experiential sampling. Formal modeling and analyses of search behavior revealed a similarly pronounced gap between medical and monetary decisions in decisions for others as in decisions for oneself. Our results suggest that when making medical decisions, people try to avoid the worst outcome while neglecting its probability—even when the outcomes affect others rather than themselves.     

Intentional binding coincides with explicit sense of agency

Sense of agency, a feeling of generating actions and events by oneself, stems from action–outcome congruence. An implicit marker of sense of agency is intentional binding, which is compression of subjective temporal interval between action and outcome. We investigated relationships between intentional binding and explicit sense of agency. Participants pressed a key triggering auditory (Experiment 1) or visual outcome (Experiment 2) that occurred after variable delays. In each trial, participants rated their agency over the outcome and estimated the keypress–outcome temporal interval. Results showed that delays decreased agency ratings and intentional binding. There was inter-individual correlation between sensitivities to outcome delay (i.e., regression slope) of agency rating and intentional binding in the auditory but not visual domain. Importantly, we found intra-individual correlations between agency rating and intentional binding on a trial-by-trial basis in both outcome modalities. These results suggest that intentional binding coincides with explicit sense of agency.