Cross-lagged relationships between career aspirations and goal orientation in early adolescents

We surveyed 217 students (145 girls; average age = 14.6 years) on two occasions, twelve months apart, on measures of career aspirations (job aspirations, job expectations, educational aspirations) and goal orientation (learning, performance-prove, performance-avoid), and tested the causal relationship between goal orientation and aspirations. We assessed five plausible cross-lagged models (a baseline model testing stability and synchronous effects only, a standard causal model with added cross-lagged paths from goal orientation at T1 to the outcome variables at T2, a reverse-causation model, a reciprocal-causation model, and a model of best fit). We found significant, synchronous associations at T1 and T2 between goal orientation and career aspiration, significant stability coefficients for all variables, and support for a standard causal model, with changes in performance-prove and performance-avoid orientations, but not learning orientation, associated with changes in career aspirations over time. We discuss the outcomes in relation to theory and the implications for practitioners.     

Linking calling orientations to organizational attachment via organizational instrumentality

Despite an emerging interest in callings, researchers know little about whether calling orientations matter in the workplace. We explore the under-examined relationship between a calling orientation and employees’ attachment to their organizations. Although some theory suggests that callings may be negatively related to organizational attachment, we use theories of role investment and identification convergence to predict that a calling orientation is positively associated with organizational identification and negatively associated with turnover intention. Further, drawing on goal facilitation theory, we suggest that organizational instrumentality—the perception that the organization is instrumental to goal fulfillment—mediates the relationships between a calling orientation and both forms of organizational attachment. Finally, we predict that a security-oriented organizational culture will enhance attachment among those with low levels of calling orientation. In a sample of health care professionals, we find general support for our hypotheses.     

Spatial updating according to a fixed reference direction of a briefly viewed layout

Three experiments examined the role of reference directions in spatial updating. Participants briefly viewed an array of five objects. A non-egocentric reference direction was primed by placing a stick under two objects in the array at the time of learning. After a short interval, participants detected which object had been moved at a novel view that was caused by table rotation or by their own locomotion. The stick was removed at test. The results showed that detection of position change was better when an object not on the stick was moved than when an object on the stick was moved. Furthermore change detection was better in the observer locomotion condition than in the table rotation condition only when an object on the stick was moved but not when an object not on the stick was moved. These results indicated that when the reference direction was not accurately indicated in the test scene, detection of position change was impaired but this impairment was less in the observer locomotion condition. These results suggest that people not only represent objects’ locations with respect to a fixed reference direction but also represent and update their orientation according to the same reference direction, which can be used to recover the accurate reference direction and facilitate detection of position change when no accurate reference direction is presented in the test scene.     

Near space and its relation to claustrophobic fear

It is well established that the near space immediately surrounding the body (also known as peripersonal space) is represented differently than the space farther away. When bisecting horizontal lines, for example, neurologically-healthy adults show a slight leftward bias (known as pseudoneglect) in near space; this attentional bias, however, transitions rightward in far space. Recent research has used the rate at which this shift occurs to quantify the extent (i.e., size) of near space, showing consistent individual differences that relate to arm length. Here we examined whether the size of near space relates to individual differences in claustrophobic fear, as measured by reported anxiety of enclosed spaces and physically restrictive situations. Trait feelings of claustrophobic fear predicted the size of near space, even after accounting for the relation to arm length. Specifically, people with larger near spaces reported higher rates of claustrophobic fear than people with smaller near spaces. These results are consistent with a defensive function of near space representation and suggest that an over-projection of near space may play an important role in the etiology of claustrophobia.     

未来取向研究回顾与展望

未来取向作为个体对于未来的思考和规划过程,近年来受到研究界日益广泛的关注并展开大量研究。笔者澄清了未来取向的含义,回顾了未来取向研究的沿革历程,梳理了近二十年在各研究领域取得的成果,并在此基础上提出当前该领域的未来发展趋向,即突破心理机制的瓶颈,拓展研究范围;扩展研究对象,进行纵向研究;强调社会文化的影响,进行跨文化的研究。     

中国文化价值观和未来时间取向对幸福感的影响

幸福感是个体根据自定的标准对其生活质量的整体性评估。本研究探讨了中国文化价值观对大学生幸福感的影响,并揭示了时间取向在中国文化价值观和幸福感间的中介作用。结果表明,中国文化价值观可分为刻苦上进、自然知足、重视家庭、谦逊克己、团结和谐、正义利他、服从权威和中庸守序等八个维度;自然知足、正义利他和谦逊克己与幸福感显著正相关,并通过未来取向的中介作用影响幸福感体验。     

What’s “inattentional” about inattentional blindness?

In a recent commentary, Memmert critiqued claims that attentional misdirection is directly analogous to inattentional blindness (IB) and cautioned against assuming too close a similarity between the two phenomena. One important difference highlighted in his analysis is that most lab-based inductions of IB rely on the taxing of attention through a demanding primary task, whereas attentional misdirection typically involves simply the orchestration of spatial attention. The present commentary argues that, rather than reflecting a complete dissociation between IB and attentional misdirection, this difference highlights potential grounds for delineating mechanistically distinct forms of IB: spatial inattentional blindness, which stems from the covert misallocation of spatial attention, and central inattentional blindness, which stems from disruption or preoccupation of perceptual mechanisms that interface with higher-level processes such as working memory. Recognition of such distinctions can help situate theoretical understanding of IB more firmly within the context of the broader attention literature.     

Exploring the effects of similarity on mapping spatial relations

Solving a map task requires transferring information acquired in one spatial context to another context, an ability that marks an important step in cognitive development. This study investigated how preschoolers’ mapping performance was affected by the extent of similarity between spaces. Whereas prior work examined effects of similarity in tasks involving matching individual objects, our tasks required considering spatial relations among objects. We found that the accuracy of mapping between two spaces with somewhat different perceptual features was higher than the accuracy of mapping between spaces with identical features. Yet, a further increase in differences between the two spaces had a detrimental effect on mapping. The results suggest that some degree of similarity between spaces is beneficial to children’s ability to transfer relational information. However, when the spaces have the same surface features, it may draw children’s attention to individual objects and inhibit their ability to focus on common relations across contexts.     

Risk Orientation,Risk Exposure,and Policy Opinions: The Case of Free Trade

This research offers a general framework for thinking about how individual disposition towards risk influences public policy opinions. Affinity for or aversion to risk is, in part, a stable personality characteristic that interacts with risk and reward messages in complex policy debates. We examine the implications of this for public opinions about free trade with extensions to immigration policy. We argue and find that opinions about policy depend jointly upon one's exposure to potential gains or losses and one's risk orientation. The findings have implications for crafting and framing public policies because they highlight how individual characteristics are likely to shape the public response to policy proposals. Our findings suggest that there may be limits, in the aggregate, to the degree to which elites can alter the level of support for policies through framing or through offering risk‐mitigating policy provisions.     

Asymmetric prefrontal cortex functions predict asymmetries in number space

Little is known about the neuropsychological factors that contribute to individual differences in the asymmetric orientation along the mental number line. The present study documents healthy subjects’ preference for small numbers over large numbers in a random number generation task. This preference, referred to as “small-number bias” (SNB), varied with prefrontal functional lateralization: it was larger in participants with over-proportionately better performance in design fluency compared to letter fluency than in participants with over-proportionately better performance in letter fluency when compared to design fluency. Asymmetries in learning and memory tasks (verbal vs. non-verbal) were not related to direction or size of the SNB. We conclude that hemispheric asymmetries of specifically prefrontal executive functions are predictive of an individual’s lateral orientation bias along the mental number line. Therefore, the focus on parietal contributions to spatial-numerical associations may not be justified. Random number generation may be a helpful method to further explore these associations uncontaminated by the asymmetric involvement of response effectors.