The Ability of Face Viewpoint Transformation Remains Immature at Age of 12: Evidence from Recognition of Faces with Different Familiarity in Children

Children are immature in face recognition, particularly in face configural decoding. This study examines the developmental difference of face recognition in another mechanism: viewpoint transformation processing. Adults and sixth‐grade children were instructed to match a series of one‐tone black face silhouettes to their corresponding front‐view faces. This task involves sophisticated calculation in pictorial information, precise viewpoint transformation, and most probably a 3‐D face representation. The results showed that although the performances were well above chance level in the recognition of familiar faces, for children, they were at chance level in the recognition of unfamiliar faces. The results indicate that children, at least to the age of about 12 years, are still immature in the processing of face viewpoint transformation compared to adults.     

Effects of a Danish Student‐Centered Prosocial Intervention Program Among Japanese Children

Japan and Denmark represent two different educational cultures. Where Danish students in general report high scores on self‐esteem, Japanese children report low. A student‐centered and interaction‐based prosocial intervention program that was designed according to Danish educational culture was administered to children aged 11–12 years in Japan. Questionnaires measuring the children's quality of life (QoL) and metacognitive awareness were applied. Overall, the results showed that the student‐centered intervention improved the emotional well‐being aspect of QoL among Japanese boys. In contrast, Japanese boys’ scores on the declarative knowledge of metacognitive regulation declined. The teachers’ attitudes towards the intervention program were analyzed by use of interviews. The effect of the student‐centered intervention program is discussed with respect to the educational cultures in Japan.     

“In‐Group Love” and “Out‐Group Hate” in Repeated Interaction Between Groups

Costly individual participation in intergroup conflict can be motivated by “in‐group love”—a cooperative motivation to help the in‐group, by “out‐group hate”—an aggressive or competitive motivation to hurt the out‐group, or both. This study employed a recently developed game paradigm (Halevy, Bornstein, & Sagiv, 2008) designed specifically to distinguish between these two motives. The game was played repeatedly between two groups with three players in each group. In addition, we manipulated the payoff structure of the interaction that preceded the game such that half of the groups experienced peaceful coexistence and the other half experienced heightened conflict prior to the game. Enabling group members to express in‐group love independently of out‐group hate significantly reduced intergroup conflict. Group members strongly preferred to cooperate within their group, rather than to compete against the out‐group for relative standing, even in the condition in which the repeated game was preceded by conflict. Although both “in‐group love” and “out‐group hate” somewhat diminished as the game continued (as players became more selfish), choices indicative of the former motivation were significantly more frequent than choices indicative of the latter throughout the interaction. We discuss the implications of these findings for conflict resolution. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The Role of Atomic Repertoires in Complex Behavior

Evolution and reinforcement shape adaptive forms and adaptive behavior through many cycles of blind variation and selection, and therein lie their parsimony and power. Human behavior is distinctive in that this shaping process is commonly "short circuited": Critical variations are induced in a single trial. The processes by which this economy is accomplished have a common feature: They all exploit one or more atomic repertoires, elementary units of behavior each under control of a distinctive stimulus. By appropriate arrangements of these discriminative stimuli, an indefinite number of permutations of atomic units can be evoked. When such a permutation satisfies a second contingency, it can come under control of the relevant context, and the explicit arrangement of discriminative stimuli will no longer be required. Consequently, innovations in adaptive behavior can spread rapidly through the population. A consideration of atomic repertoires informs our interpretation of generalized operants and other phenomena that are otherwise difficult to explain. Observational learning is discussed as a case in point.     

从中国的外交政策看中国对阿拉伯国家的软实力优势

中国与阿拉伯国家之间有着传统的友好合作关系,究其原因,中国的外交政策发挥了不可或缺的重要作用。自20世纪50年代中阿开启外交关系以来,中国始终将自身利益与阿拉伯国家的利益结合起来,政治上大力支持其正义事业,经济上给予其无私援助,文化上主张文明对话、反对文明对抗。中国的外交政策已经成为中国一项重要的软实力优势,不仅得到了阿拉伯国家的广泛认可,更成为推动中阿关系不断发展的动力。     

The nature and consequences of topic avoidance in Chinese and Taiwanese close relationships

Two studies examined topic avoidance in Chinese and Taiwanese opposite‐sex friendships and romantic relationships. Five areas of topic avoidance emerged through analytic induction and cluster analysis: negative appraisal, relational issues, sexual issues, politics, and personal experience. Partner protection, negative relational impact, and self inefficacy emerged as the most common reasons for avoidance. Results revealed that friends, relative to romantic partners, engaged in higher levels of topic avoidance. Taiwanese participants, moreover, avoided discussing politics to a greater extent than did mainland Chinese participants. Lacking closeness was the main reason behind avoidance of political discussion. Topic avoidance was also linked to relationship quality, as relational satisfaction negatively predicted relational issue avoidance and topic avoidance breadth (i.e. the number of topics regularly avoided in the relationship). The authors explain these and other findings based on Chinese cultural codes and historically‐embedded concepts that shape interpersonal interaction.     

Belief in a just world and wellbeing in Indian schools

This study investigates the meaning of belief in just world (BJW) for students' subjective justice experiences with their parents and teachers and for students' subjective well-being. The hypotheses tested were that the more strongly students endorse BJW, the less the distress at school and depressive symptoms they experience. Two dimensions of BJW were assessed: personal BJW, reflecting the belief that events in one's own life are generally just, and general BJW, reflecting the belief that the world is basically a just place. The participants were 278 Indian students attending ten 10th grade classes at two private English-medium schools. The results showed that only the personal BJW, not the general BJW, was important in explaining justice experiences and wellbeing. The more the students endorsed the belief in personal just world, the more they felt treated justly by their teachers and their parents alike, and the less distress at school and depressive symptoms they experienced. In addition, teacher justice, but not parent justice, explained distress at school. Finally, the effect of personal BJW on depressive symptoms was partly mediated by both teacher and parent justice. This pattern of results persisted when class effects were controlled. Overall, this pattern of results emphasizes the importance of the individual and subjective experience of justice of the teacher behavior for adolescent wellbeing. Implications for further studies on BJW and wellbeing at school are discussed.     

Is It Lonely at the Top? An Empirical Study of Managers’ and Nonmanagers’ Loneliness in Organizations

Loneliness is often assumed to be an occupational hazard for senior-ranked members of an organization. However, most of what researchers hear about being "lonely at the top" is anecdote. This article provides empirical evidence from three separate studies assessing loneliness in managers and nonmanagers. Across all three studies, loneliness did not differ by managerial status. Managers were no more or less lonely than their nonmanager counterparts. This suggests that factors beyond seniority may be contributing to loneliness in organizational settings. Ideas for future research are discussed.     

Perceptions of personal sex discrimination: the role of belief in a just world and situational ambiguity

The roles of belief in a just world (BJW) and discrimination against ones' group in perceptions of personal discrimination were examined. Female participants (n = 63) were personally discriminated against in a laboratory setting. We manipulated whether the experimenter appeared to discriminate against other participants, which presumably made the presence of personal discrimination less ambiguous, or did not appear to discriminate against others, which presumably made personal discrimination more ambiguous. In the no group discrimination condition, but not in the group discrimination condition, participants' perceptions of being personally discriminated against depended on individual differences in BJW: Women with a strong BJW perceived less personal discrimination than those with a weak BJW. Also, strong BJW women in the group discrimination condition perceived less personal discrimination than strong BJW women in the no group discrimination condition.