Ambivalence over emotional expression and symptom attribution are associated with self‐reported somatic symptoms in Singaporean school adolescents

Although somatization is common across cultures, its meanings may differ as culture shapes emotional experience. Thus, instead of treating somatization as a form of psychopathology, it is more useful to conceptualize it as an idiom of distress, and how complaints of somatic symptoms are related to social relationships, patterns of emotional expression and symptom attribution in a cultural context. This study seeks to explore whether ambivalence over emotional expression and causal attribution would shed light on the meanings of somatization among Asian adolescents. Three hundred secondary school adolescents in Singapore participated in this study. The main results show that emotional ambivalence, biomedical and Traditional Chinese Medicinal causal beliefs, and magical attribution contributed to additional variance in somatic symptoms over and above the variance explained by emotional distress. These findings are discussed from both psychological and cultural perspectives.     

Understanding of moral emotions and social exclusion in pre-schoolers and third graders

Abstract

This study examined whether children use information about moral emotions when judging peer exclusion. Japanese pre-schoolers and third graders (N = 110) listened to stories featuring characters who felt happy or sad after engaging in immoral behaviour or avoiding immoral behaviour (pushing a child off a swing and stealing another child’s doughnuts). In study 1, participants judged the extent to which characters who felt happiness, guilt, and pride would be socially excluded. In study 2, participants judged whether characters who felt guilt, no guilt, pride, and no pride would be socially excluded. Participants believed that characters would be socially excluded based on moral emotions. Characters who did not feel guilt or pride were excluded more frequently relative to those who did; however, children found it easier to judge exclusion based on guilt rather than pride, especially in the case of pre-schoolers. Moreover, pre-schoolers had difficulty explaining their reasoning.     

Are courageous actions successful actions?

When asked to describe a courageous action they have taken personally, people overwhelmingly describe an action with a successful outcome (Pury, Kowalski, & Spearman, 2007 Lopez, SJ, O’Byrne, KK and Peterson, S. 2003. “Profiling courage.”. In Positive psychological assessment: A handbook of models and measures, Edited by: Lopez, SJ and Snyder, CR. 185–197. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association. [Crossref] , [Google Scholar]). Study 1 replicated these findings in observations of other people. Fifty participants described a courageous action taken by another person and made parallel ratings to Pury et al. Participants in Study 1 also described actions with overwhelmingly successful outcomes. In Study 2, 152 participants rated otherwise identical scenarios differing in success of outcome and attribution (internal vs. external) for outcome. Successful actions were rated as more courageous than unsuccessful outcomes, although this effect was attenuated for external attributions. Thus, we suggest that successful outcome is an unarticulated part of implicit theories of courage.     

中学生同伴交往接受和拒绝的归因研究

本研究参考国外相关量表的设计,结合我国实际,编制了中学生人际归因风格问卷,考察了人际归因风格和人格特征两个维度对中学生在同辈群体中的社会测量地位的影响程度。结果表明,这两者共同影响中学生的社会测量地位,被拒绝学生对正性事件的归因与其他学生存在显著差异,对负性事件的归因不存在显著差异。这提示我们,可以通过改变被拒绝学生不适当的人际归因方式来改善其同伴关系。     

关于归因定向与行为预测的实验研究

不同的归因方式将导致人们对行为的不同预测倾向。本文正是基于这样的假设,来考察在信息匮乏的情况下,性情归因和情景归因对他人积极行为和消极行为的预测倾向的影响。结果发现,两种归因方式都导致被试对积极行为的预测多于对消极行为的预测,而情景归因下的被试对积极行为的预测又显著多于性情归因下的被试。在此基础上,在引人价值判断的因素后,发现不同的归因方式启动了不同的价值判断,进而影响到对行为的预测。     

中学生学业成就归因与学习动力的相关研究

用自编问卷对913名中学生学业成就归因和学习动力状况进行了调查,发现: (1)整体上看中学生较多使用内在原因和可控原因解释自己的学习成绩; (2)不同性别和不同年级学生有不同的归因倾向; (3)归因倾向与学习动力有明显联系,使用因子分析法得到“自挫因子”对学习动力有很大的消极影响。本文还就如何进行归因训练进行了讨论。     

Retaliatory motivation enhances attributions of hostility when people process ambiguous social stimuli

We hypothesized that provocation and readiness to aggress (Retaliatory Motivation) would increase the tendency to construe the ambiguous actions of others as reflecting hostile intent. Male undergraduates were either verbally provoked or not provoked by a male experimenter and half were led to believe that they would be allowed to retaliate anonymously against the provoker in the form of a potentially damaging written evaluation. Participants then rated the hostility and aggressive intent of the characters in brief ambiguous scenarios of interpersonal conflict. According to prediction, men who were provoked and anticipated retaliation against their provoker rated the scenarios as containing hostility and aggression to a significantly greater extent than did non‐provoked or merely provoked participants. Results are discussed within a motivation‐based affective relevance model of perception. Aggr. Behav. 29:155–172, 2003. © 2003 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.     

Cognitive Induction of Anger and Depression: The Role of Power, Attribution, and Gender

The causes of and contributors to negative emotions have been areas of interest in psychology for decades. Recent work has shown a variety of negative emotions, including anger and depression, to be related. The present study investigated the effects of power, attributional style, and gender on anger and depression using a series of narrative mood inductions presented to 120 undergraduates. Results indicated that participants in the external attribution and low power conditions demonstrated significantly higher levels of postinduction anger than those in other conditions. In addition, the influence of internal attributions on postinduction depression scores approached significance. The effectiveness of the study's mood induction methodology is discussed and suggestions are made for future research.     

10‐month‐old infants’ inference of invisible agent: Distinction in causality between object motion and human action1

Abstract: Two habituation experiments investigated 10‐month‐old infants’ interpretation of events where a stationary object began to move without any visible causes. During habituation, infants saw that an object partly hidden by an occluder began to move away from the occluder. Then, they were tested with three test events without the occluder: the ?rst event showed a hand pushing the object, the second event showed a hand failing to touch the object, and the last event had no agent. The objects were a ball in Experiment 1, and a person in Experiment 2. The test event that the infants looked at for the shortest duration in Experiment 1 was where the hand pushed the ball, whereas they looked at the three test events almost equal amounts of time in Experiment 2. These results indicate that 10‐month‐old infants responded to the events in terms of causality and could infer the presence of the agent behind the occluder only when they saw the habituation event featuring the ball.