Up or Down? How Culture and Color Affect Judgments

In the Mainland China stock market, an upmarket is represented by the color red, whereas a downmarket is represented by the color green. Elsewhere, including the Chinese Hong Kong stock market, the color representations are the opposite. Three studies were conducted to examine the red‐up–green‐down effect for Mainland Chinese as well as the green‐up–red‐down effect for Hong Kong people. Study 1 showed that Mainland Chinese tended to predict greater economic growth (study 1a) and higher growth in consumption trends (study 1b) when the experimental materials were presented in red than in green, whereas Hong Kong participants exhibited the opposite tendencies. Study 2 found that Mainland Chinese implicitly associated red and green with up and down, respectively; Hong Kong people, however, implicitly associated green and red with up and down, respectively. Study 3 further indicated that Mainland Chinese were more likely to predict good outcomes when scenarios were presented in red, whereas Hong Kong participants were more likely to predict good outcomes when scenarios were presented in green. These findings suggest that culturally specific environment cues could influence human prediction and judgment. Implications for judgment generally are discussed. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

But Is It a Basin? Science,Controversy, and Conspiracy in the Fight for Mirador,Guatemala

The ancient Maya city of Mirador, located in the northeastern corner of Guatemala's Maya Biosphere Reserve, is at the heart of a raging scientific and political controversy. On the surface, the conflict centers around the geological definition of a ‘basin’ surrounding the magnificent site. One side uses the existence of a basin—backed up by satellite images and analyses—to push for redrawing the boundaries of the reserve, arguing that the feature naturally delineates key archaeological and ecological sites and that current reserve management is failing the forests. The other side insists that there is no geological basin—a contention also backed by satellite images and analyses—and that redrawing the lines would undermine more than 20 years of conservation efforts. On both sides of the fight, rumors abound about secret agendas, manipulated data, backroom political deals, and other shady business. These conspiracy stories reveal how paranoid thought is simultaneously a powerful epistemology and a practical political strategy, both of which shape the production and interpretation of scientific facts. Rather than contrasting irrational political rumor with logical scientific fact, or considering the former as simply context for the latter, the case of Mirador demonstrates how the two are deeply entangled ways of acting on and making sense of a complex landscape.     

More Than Words: Place,Discourse and the Struggle over Public Space in Barcelona

The social construction of human-environment relations is a central concern of an emerging tradition of research on place, which extends the so-called “discursive turn” in social psychology. This research highlights the primary role of everyday linguistic practices in the production of place meanings, challenging the prevailing tendency among environmental psychologists to treat place meanings mainly as an expression of individual cognitions. By the same token, in this article we argue that research on human-environment relations also has the potential to enrich the field of discursive psychology, tempting discursive researchers to move beyond their customary focus on verbal and written texts. Specifically, we propose an analytic framework that transcends the dualism between the material and discursive dimensions of human-environment relations. In order to develop this argument, we outline the novel concept of place-assemblage and illustrate its utility by conducting an analysis of a recent conflict over a public space in Barcelona. This analysis shows how discursive constructions of the development of this public space over time were inextricably entwined with other kinds of material and embodied practices—practices through which place meanings were actively performed, reproduced and contested.     

Individual differences in visuospatial working memory: benefits from environmental support for rehearsal

ABSTRACT

Previous research has suggested that participants with low working memory spans are less likely than those with high spans to engage in rehearsal and other effective strategies during memory tasks. However, most of this research has been conducted in the verbal domain, and less is known about strategy differences in visuospatial working memory. Therefore, the present experiments investigated potential individual differences in the benefit participants receive from environmental support for visuospatial rehearsal. In Experiment 1, memory spans were significantly larger when support was present (i.e. when the array of possible locations remained on the screen) during long inter-item intervals, but importantly, the observed benefit was larger for high-span participants than low-span participants, suggesting that high spans were more likely to use support to facilitate their rehearsal. Other research has suggested that low spans may benefit more than high spans from rehearsal instructions, and so in Experiment 2, participants also were provided with such instructions. However, the rehearsal instructions did not improve memory spans significantly in either group, suggesting that low spans are not only naturally less strategic than high spans, but they may be less capable of taking advantage of effective rehearsal strategies, even when environmental support is present.     

Concepts,Constructs, Cognitive Psychology,and Personal Construct Theory

In this article, I have addressed the efforts to locate and integrate personal construct psychology with other perspectives in psychology (Neimeyer, 1985). The general domain is cognitive psychology, but with a focus on the basic building block of the cognitive perspective, the concept. Personal construct psychology is particularly interesting in this regard at this time because Kelly (1955) was adamant that his construct encompassed more than concept. Now, 36 years after his deliberations, a discussion of concepts and constructs contributes to an ongoing theoretical debate in psychology that can only serve to better reinforce the discipline.     

2-8年级儿童的责任心发展

以241名2-8年级儿童为被试,运用情境故事探索儿童责任心发展的特点。结果显示：（1）责任心的认知判断与行为倾向一致性较低;行为倾向与情感体验一致性较高;（2）责任心归因可以分为权威取向、自我取向、认可取向、成本取向、原则取向5种;（3）随着年级升高,自我和社会责任心归因中权威取向比例下降,原则取向比例上升;环境责任心归因中成本取向比例下降,原则取向比例上升;（4）责任心的成本取向似乎与现今的社会转型有关,是以往研究所没有的。     

潜逻辑运算类皮亚杰守恒任务中的负启动效应

本研究的目的是检验完成潜逻辑运算类皮亚杰守恒任务是否需要认知抑制的参与。被试为两组11岁的儿童,全部通过了标准皮亚杰重量及液体守恒任务。实验一发现儿童在解决类皮亚杰重量守恒任务时出现了负启动效应,负启动量为138.06ms。实验二发现儿童在完成类皮亚杰液体守恒任务时仍然存在负启动效应,负启动量为67.4ms。实验结果表明要成功完成潜逻辑运算领域类皮亚杰守恒任务,也需要认知抑制过程的参与。     

Human resilience in a degrading environment: A case study in China

Psychological aspects of environmental degradation were studied among 753 Chinese farmers. A good fit was found for a structural equation model postulating a relationship between various input variables (i.e. environmental degradation, socio-economic status, education, coping, and locus of control), a latent variable (called resilience), and three output variables (i.e. stress, marginalization, and depression). Higher scores on internal locus of control, problem solving, socioeconomic status, and modernity and lower scores on environmental degradation, avoidance, and support seeking were associated with more resilience.     

Keeping a Place for Metaethics: Assessing Elliot's Dismissal of the Subjectivism/Objectivism Debate in Environmental Ethics

Abstract: Robert Elliot claims that the metaethical distinction between subjectivism and objectivism is unimportant in environmental ethics. He argues that because a sufficiently sophisticated subjectivist can accommodate all the intrinsic value an objectivist can, even in apparently problematic situations where humans either do not exist or do not have the relevant values, and because metaethical commitments fail to have any normative or motivational impact on rational debate, it makes no difference whether an environmental ethicist is a subjectivist or an objectivist. Elliot's dismissal, however, is unjustified. As it turns out, objectivists argue differently from the way subjectivists do, are motivated differently from the way subjectivists are, and are able to make a greater range of intrinsic value claims than subjectivists are. If Elliot's arguments have any appeal at all, it is only because he blurs the fundamental metaethical distinction in the first place and defends a subjectivism so objectivist that it is almost unrecognizable as subjectivism.     

Sex differences in genetic and environmental effects on aggression

The aim of the present study was to investigate the genetic and environmental factors influencing teacher and parental rated aggression in boys and girls, asking whether the magnitude of these effects is similar across rater and sex. The study is part of an ongoing nationwide twin‐family study of behavioral development and health habits carried out in Finland. The sample consisted of 1651 twin pairs (264 monozygotic male, 300 monozygotic female, 292 dizygotic male, 278 dizygotic female, and 517 dizygotic opposite‐sex twin pairs), representing subsets of five 11‐ to 12‐year‐old twin cohorts (b. 1983–1987). The data were collected using the teacher and parental rating forms of the Multidimensional Peer Nomination Inventory. Structural equation models of sex‐limitation assessed sex differences in genetic and environmental influences on aggression. The results suggested significant genetic, common environmental, and specific environmental effects on aggression in both boys and girls, but the best fitting model differed depending on the informant. For both ratings, boys showed lower levels of heritability and higher levels of common environment than girls. In addition, the teacher rating data also suggested the presence of either sex‐specific common environmental effects or sex‐specific genetic effects. Support is provided also for sibling contrast effects, either at the behavioral level or as a rater bias. Aggr. Behav. 29:55–68, 2003. © 2003 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.