Delay discounting: Interactions between personality and cognitive ability

Delay discounting describes the extent to which the value of a reward decreases as the delay to obtaining that reward increases. Lower discounting rates predict better outcomes in social, academic, and health domains. The current study investigates how personality and cognitive ability interact to predict individual differences in delay discounting. Extraversion was found to predict higher discounting rates at the low end of the cognitive distribution, while emotional stability was found to predict lower discounting rates at the high end of the cognitive distribution. These findings support recent models of discounting behavior and suggest that personality and cognitive ability interact in shaping decision making.     

儿童自我控制研究述评

儿童自我控制指的是儿童对优势反应的抑制和劣势反应的唤起的能力.文章概述了近年来国外该领域研究的一些主要成果及研究动态,包括自控涵义上的争论、早期发生的认知基础及其表现、稳定性与性别差异上的表现、注意及语言与自控的关系、父母抚养方式对自控形成的影响等.最后,对该领域未来的发展趋势作了展望.     

Pre-retirement anxiety: Development and validation of a measurement instrument in a Nigerian sample

Two studies were conducted to develop and provide evidence supporting the construct validity and internal consistency of scores from the Nigerian Pre-retirement Anxiety Scale (NPAS). The measure comprises three dimensions: financial preparedness, social obligation, and social alienation. In the first study, data collected from 424 civil servants supported the proposed dimensionality of scale scores and internal consistency (Cronbach’s alpha for the full scale = 0. 83). In the second study, data collected from a total sample of 216 employees who were also civil servants from different government agencies likewise supported the internal consistency of scores from the NPAS (Cronbach alpha for the full scale = 0.73), as well as validity. Scores from the NPAS appear to have evidence for research purposes.     

The decapitation of Slovenia’s Catholic Church: social factors and consequences

This article discusses the financial collapse of Slovenia’s Catholic Church, a scandal which resulted in the deposition of the country’s archbishops, and its impact on religious belief and on the relations within the Slovenian Catholic establishment and community. Trust in the Church and religious participation have dropped markedly in Slovenia over recent years. While there are no significant changes in religious belief, other religious indicators continue to reflect an ongoing moderate trend towards secularisation that is characteristic of Slovenia in the post-socialist era. The public discourse of the Church’s leadership and lay Catholics reveals tensions on the reasons behind the fall of the Church’s financial empire and on the question of responsibility in the removal of Slovenia’s archbishops. Two general types of reactions were identified in a content analysis of texts from a five-month period after the last depositions. Views within the Slovene Catholic Church, which uphold the institution’s traditional stance, tend to explain these developments as part of a conspiracy against the Church. Others that are more open and reflective are critical towards the actions of the Church and demand change from within the institution.     

Now for Me,Later for Us? Effects of Group Context on Temporal Discounting

Delayed rewards are less valuable than immediate rewards. This well‐established finding has focused almost entirely on individual outcomes. However, are delayed rewards similarly discounted if they are shared by a group? The current article reports on three experiments exploring the effect of group context on delay discounting. Results indicate that discount rates of individual and group rewards were highly correlated, but that respondents were more willing to wait (decreased discounting) for shared outcomes than for individual outcomes. An explanatory model is proposed suggesting that decreased discount rates in group contexts may be due to the way the effects of both delay and social discounting are combined. That is, in a group context, a person values both a future reward (discounted by delay) and a present reward to another person (discounted by the social distance between them). The results are explained by a combined discount function containing a delay factor and a factor representing the social distance between the decision maker and group members. Practical implications of the fact that shared consequences can increase individual self‐control are also discussed. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

家庭经济压力与青少年抑郁:歧视知觉和亲子依恋的作用

对703名初中生(平均年龄14.30岁)进行问卷调查, 探讨了青少年歧视知觉、亲子依恋在家庭经济压力与青少年抑郁关系中的中介和调节作用。结果表明:(1)在控制了性别、年级后, 家庭经济压力对青少年抑郁具有显著的正向预测作用;(2)在家庭经济压力对抑郁的正向预测关系中, 歧视知觉起中介作用;(3)家庭经济压力通过歧视知觉对抑郁的中介作用受到亲子依恋的调节, 相对于亲子依恋水平较高的青少年, 中介效应仅在亲子依恋水平较低的青少年中显著。