Contribution of past and future self-defining event networks to personal identity

Personal identity is nourished by memories of significant past experiences and by the imagination of meaningful events that one anticipates to happen in the future. The organisation of such self-defining memories and prospective thoughts in the cognitive system has received little empirical attention, however. In the present study, our aims were to investigate to what extent self-defining memories and future projections are organised in networks of related events, and to determine the nature of the connections linking these events. Our results reveal the existence of self-defining event networks, composed of both memories and future events of similar centrality for identity and characterised by similar identity motives. These self-defining networks expressed a strong internal coherence and frequently organised events in meaningful themes and sequences (i.e., event clusters). Finally, we found that the satisfaction of identity motives in represented events and the presence of clustering across events both contributed to increase in the perceived centrality of events for the sense of identity. Overall, these findings suggest that personal identity is not only nourished by representations of significant past and future events, but also depends on the formation of coherent networks of related events that provide an overarching meaning to specific life experiences.     

A model of career success: A longitudinal study of emergency physicians

Objective and subjective career success were hypothesized to mediate the relationships between sociodemographic variables, human capital indices, individual difference variables, and organizational sponsorship as inputs and a retirement decision and intentions to leave either the specialty of emergency medicine (EM) or medicine as output variables. Objective career success operationalized as the number of leadership positions held did not mediate the relationship, but income change and career satisfaction mediated the relationship between the hours worked and years employed in emergency medicine. Work centrality was significantly related to subjective career success more so for men than women and perceptions of success or self-efficacy were positively related to subjective career success for women, but not for men. The expected pattern of women indicating more difficulties with personal time and family time did not emerge; but women did indicate less perceived support from the organization, fewer EM leadership positions, less perceived control over their work situation and less organizational support than did men.     

情绪效价对趋避反应的作用

刺激的情绪信息通常可帮助人类快速地做出相应的趋近或回避反应。实验室情境下研究者对趋避的操作性定义不尽相同, 但以往绝大部分研究证实了趋利避害的相容效应：正性情绪引起趋近反应, 负性情绪引起回避反应。动机定向理论认为, 这种促进作用是自动的, 而事件编码理论认为, 这种促进作用依赖于外显的效价判断。未来研究应进一步明确界定趋近和回避的操作性定义, 采用更敏感的实验范式解决两种理论的纷争, 以深入阐释相容效应的心理机制。     

认知加工中时间与非时间信息的相互关系

在认知心理学领域，关于时间信息和非时间信息在认知加工中关系的争论有：相互独立、相互竞争、相互促进三大观点。本文对支持这三种观点的实验分别进行了分析、整理，并在此基础上概括出特定条件下时间信息与非时间信息的相互关系：事件结构一致条件下，两类信息在认知加工中表现为相互促进；如果事件结构不一致，而心理负荷(即两类信息所需注意资源之和)超过了注意总资源，两类信息表现为相互竞争；若心理负荷没有超过注意总资源，两类信息则表现为相互独立。     

睡眠过程中信息加工的ERP研究进展

本文综述了事件相关电位(ERP)外源性成分———N1、MMN、N550和内源性成分———P3、N300、N400在睡眠过程中的特点,以及论述了各成分在睡眠信息加工中的作用。     

生活事件对民族院校大学生心理的影响——以某高校搬迁校区为例

通过访谈法和问卷法调查了生活事件对民族院校大学生心理的影响。研究结论如下:(1)生活事件(校区搬迁)对民族院校大学生一般焦虑心理的产生有重要的影响。(2)民族院校大学生的现实性焦虑和轻度焦虑之间差异显著;焦虑心理得分在性别、年级、专业之间呈现显著差异,而在民族、家庭所在地之间差异不显著。(3)民族院校大学生在心理适应性方面普遍在中等水平以上,而且差异不显著;心理适应性得分在性别、年级、民族、家庭所在地和专业之间差异是不显著的。(4)民族院校大学生焦虑心理和心理适应性具有负相关,且这一相关极为显著。     

Trait BIS predicts alpha asymmetry and P300 in a Go/No‐Go task

Inspired by the revised Behavioural Inhibition System (BIS) theory the present study probed the association between individual differences in Trait BIS and electroencephalogram indicators of conflict processing/inhibition. Sixty‐nine male participants either high or low in Trait BIS completed a Go/No‐Go task while the electroencephalogram was recorded. As expected, Trait BIS was associated with the No‐Go‐anteriorisation of the P300 event‐related potential (i.e. an index of response inhibition presumably generated in the dorsal anterior cingulate—an area implicated in conflict processing) and with No‐ Go‐related changes towards left frontal alpha activity (i.e. presumably more activity in right prefrontal cortex—an area implicated in response inhibition). These findings support the role of conflict processing attributed to BIS functioning in the revised theory. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Examining the consequences of exposure to racism for the executive functioning of Black students

Recent research has demonstrated that interracial interactions, reminders of stigmatized identities, and exposure to ambiguous racism can deplete the self-control resources of minority group members. In the current study we examined whether hearing blatant racism expressed in an interracial context would deplete the self-control of Black participants and whether this depletion would be moderated by participants’ level of racial centrality. After listening to a Black or a White confederate express either support for racial profiling (racist condition) or increased campus parking fees (neutral condition), Black participants completed a Stroop color-naming task to assess self-control depletion. Participants experienced self-control depletion following interracial encounters, regardless of whether the views expressed were racist. As expected, however, racial centrality moderated the depletion effect when racism was involved, with participants higher in centrality showing greater depletion following an encounter with racism from a White partner.     

Using Ordinal Data to Estimate Cardinal Values

We investigate methods developed in multiple criteria decision‐making that use ordinal information to estimate numerical values. Such methods can be used to estimate attribute weights, attribute values, or event probabilities given ranks or partial ranks. We first review related studies and then develop a generalized rank‐sum (GRS) approach in which we provide a derivation of the rank‐sum approach that had been previously proposed. The GRS approach allows for incorporating the concept of degree of importance (or, difference in likelihood with respect to probabilities and difference in value for attribute values), information that most other rank‐based formulas do not utilize. We then present simulation results comparing the GRS method with other rank‐based formulas such as the rank order centroid method and comparing the GRS methods using as many as three levels of importance (i.e., GRS‐3) with Simos' procedure (which can also incorporate degree of importance). To our surprise, our results show that the incorporation of additional information (i.e., the degree of the importance), both GRS‐3 and Simos' procedure, did not result in better performance than rank order centroid or GRS. Further research is needed to investigate the modelling of such extra information. We also explore the scenario when a decision‐maker has indifference judgments and cannot provide a complete rank order. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.