Small wonders of the Indian market

Heavy competition in India in almost all product categories, due to diversification by large and medium companies and increased entry of multinationals, has restricted the growth of domestic companies. Previously, large companies enjoyed high profit margins by targeting premium priced products in the upper strata of Indian society. High levels of competition from equally reputed brands have not only decreased the companies' market share but also created price wars, reducing profit margins and limiting market growth. This has motivated companies to consider the lower classes and the rural segments, which they had previously ignored. By targeting these segments with products in small packs at lower price points, companies have experienced great success. At the same time, small packs also pose some challenges for the companies. This paper explains the importance of small packs for market expansion in various product categories within the Indian market, drawing on several examples to support the views of the authors. Copyright © 2004 Henry Stewart Publications.     

心理健康素质测评系统·中国成年人生活信念量表的编制

本研究的目的是编制适合中国社会文化特点的生活信念量表。通过搜集整理已有相关文献,并考虑《心理健康素质测评系统》的整体结构,确定了该量表的合理性和可控性两维度的理论构想。通过参考国外同类量表项目以及在心理学专家中征集项目的方式形成初始量表,并通过预测筛选确定量表的最终项目。测试结果表明,生活信念量表具有较高的重测信度、内部一致性信度和较高的结构效度、内容效度、聚合效度以及同时效度。结论：生活信念量表具备令人满意的心理测量学特征,可以被用来评估中国成年人的生活信念。     

The mediating and moderating effects of differentiation of self on body mass index and depressive symptomatology among an American college sample

Differentiation of self – a core construct of Bowen's (Bowen, M. (1978). Family therapy in clinical practice. New York: Jason Aronson) family systems theory – was examined as a possible predictor of psychological health and physical health and as a mediator and moderator of the relation between overall functioning and psychological health and physical health. A total of 818 American college students participated (mean age?=?23.72, SD?=?4.79) in this study. Differentiation of self was correlated and was predictive of psychological health, as measured by the Beck depression inventory, and physical health, as measured by body mass index (BMI). A multivariate multiple regression model revealed that differentiation of self partially mediated the effects of overall functioning on depressive symptomatology and on BMI. Results from a hierarchical regression model showed that differentiation of self moderated the relation between overall functioning and depressive symptomatology but did not moderate the relation between overall functioning and BMI. Taken together, these preliminary findings provide initial evidence of the importance of the associations between family systemic factors (differentiation of self) and psychological and physical health factors among American college populations.     

Processing spatial relations with different apertures of attention

Neuropsychological studies suggest the existence of lateralized networks that represent categorical and coordinate types of spatial information. In addition, studies with neural networks have shown that they encode more effectively categorical spatial judgments or coordinate spatial judgments, if their input is based, respectively, on units with relatively small, nonoverlapping receptive fields, as opposed to units with relatively large, overlapping receptive fields. These findings leave open the question of whether interactive processes between spatial detectors and types of spatial relations can be modulated by spatial attention. We hypothesized that spreading the attention window to encompass an area that includes two objects promotes coordinate spatial relations, based on coarse coding by large, overlapping, receptive fields. In contrast, narrowing attention to encompass an area that includes only one of the objects benefits categorical spatial relations, by effectively parsing space. By use of a cueing procedure, the spatial attention window was manipulated to select regions of differing areas. As predicted, when the attention window was large, coordinate spatial transformations were noticed faster than categorical transformations; in contrast, when the attention window was relatively smaller, categorical spatial transformations were noticed faster than coordinate transformations. Another novel finding was that coordinate changes were noticed faster when cueing an area that included both objects as well as the empty space between them than when simultaneously cueing both areas including the objects while leaving the gap between them uncued.     

儿童区分自我—他人时的自我参照效应

研究基于不同任务的自我参照效应对探讨儿童自我—他人的区分有重要意义。本研究使用三个实验探讨了4～9岁儿童出现自我参照效应的时间。研究操纵了由自我所有权和自我参照评价引发的两种自我意识:以物体为基础的自我意识和以概念为基础的自我意识。实验1用所属物的类别任务、实验2和实验3使用特质评价任务进行测量。结果表明:(1)5岁儿童记自己的物品比别人更多,表明儿童能以物体为基础区分自我与他人;(2)7岁儿童出现对自己人格特质形容词的记忆优势,表明儿童能以概念为基础区分自我与他人。研究结果证明了在儿童区分自我与他人的过程中,自我所有权为基础和自我参照评价为基础的自我意识存在明显的分离。     

肿瘤干细胞起源与鉴定方法研究现状

CSC理论使人们对恶性肿瘤有了一个全新的认识,为临床治疗提供了一个全新视角。该理论改变目前以全部癌细胞为目标的药物治疗策略,将使治愈肿瘤成为可能。分离和鉴定CSC是CSC靶向治疗的第一步。本文就CSC的起源和鉴定方法做一简要综述。     

Distinguishing three levels in explicit self-awareness

This paper focuses on the development of explicit self-awareness in children. Mirror self-recognition has been the most popular paradigm used to assess this ability in children. Nevertheless, according to Rochat (2003), there are, at least, three different levels of explicit self-awareness. We therefore designed three different self-recognition tasks, each corresponding to one of these levels (a mirror self-recognition task, a picture self-recognition task and a masked self-recognition task). We observed a decrease in performance across the three tasks. This supports a developmental scale in self-awareness. Besides, the masked self-recognition performance makes it possible to assess the final and the most sophisticated level of self-awareness, i.e. the external self. To our best knowledge, this task is the first attempt to evaluate the external self in preverbal children. Our results indicate that 22-month old children show awareness of their external self or, at least, that this ability is in the process of being acquired.     

Impact of Jin‐Shang teachings on Chinese people's trust

Three studies are reported that explore the impact of Jin‐Shang teachings (a specialized Confucius teaching of trust on business practices) on mainland Chinese people's trust. In Study 1 , we primed Confucius and Jin‐Shang teachings on trust, and compared their effects on trusting tendency to a control prime. We found that these teachings made mainland Chinese participants score higher on three different trusting scales. In Study 2 , we found that the Jin‐Shang prime made mainland Chinese participants invest more money in a trust game than those in the control prime. In Study 3 , we compared the Jin‐Shang prime to Protestant teachings and contemporary writings on reciprocity, and found that only the Jin‐Shang prime induced a significantly higher trusting tendency from Chinese participants than the control condition.     

Cross‐cultural validation of factor structure in the Japanese Counselor Burnout Inventory

This article describes the cross‐cultural validation of the Counselor Burnout Inventory (CBI; Lee, Baker, Cho, Heckathorn, Holland, Newgent, Ogle, Powell, Quinn, Wallace & Yu, 2007 ) on a sample of professional counselors and psychotherapists in Japan. Confirmatory factor analysis was performed to examine the validity of the CBI with three models: a one‐factor model, a five‐factor model, and a second‐order model. The results showed that the five‐factor model was a better fit and more parsimonious than both the one‐factor model and the second‐order factor model. Additionally, the internal consistency reliability for the CBI subscale scores proved equivalent to that found for other populations (e.g. American and Korean). The results suggest that counselor burnout is not a unidimensional construct but a multidimensional construct. Implications and recommendations for future research are provided.     

Self-Efficacy in Service-Learning Community Action Research: Theory, Research, and Practice

The purpose of this article is threefold: In the first section, an overview of research and theory on the self-efficacy construct is provided, and the central role of self-efficacy in service-learning community action research is demonstrated. The second section reviews over 10 years of research validating the Community Service Self-Efficacy Scale (CSSES), which measures the individual’s confidence in his or her own ability to make clinically (meaningfully) significant contributions to the community through service. Within the context of this review, recent (previously unpublished) validation research is also reviewed. Alternate versions of the CSSES, each of which was developed for a specific purpose, are presented. The third section provides recommendations for further research focused on (a) validating the CSSES and (b) examining self-efficacy as an outcome, moderator, and mediating variable in service-learning community action research.