Which Is in Front of Chinese People,Past or Future? The Effect of Language and Culture on Temporal Gestures and Spatial Conceptions of Time

The temporal‐focus hypothesis claims that whether people conceptualize the past or the future as in front of them depends on their cultural attitudes toward time; such conceptualizations can be independent from the space–time metaphors expressed through language. In this paper, we study how Chinese people conceptualize time on the sagittal axis to find out the respective influences of language and culture on mental space–time mappings. An examination of Mandarin speakers' co‐speech gestures shows that some Chinese spontaneously perform past‐in‐front/future‐at‐back (besides future‐in‐front/past‐at‐back) gestures, especially when gestures are accompanying past‐in‐front/future‐at‐back space–time metaphors (Exp. 1). Using a temporal performance task, the study confirms that Chinese can conceptualize the future as behind and the past as in front of them, and that such space–time mappings are affected by the different expressions of Mandarin space–time metaphors (Exp. 2). Additionally, a survey on cultural attitudes toward time shows that Chinese tend to focus slightly more on the future than on the past (Exp. 3). Within the Chinese sample, we did not find evidence for the effect of participants' cultural temporal attitudes on space–time mappings, but a cross‐cultural comparison of space–time mappings between Chinese, Moroccans, and Spaniards provides strong support for the temporal‐focus hypothesis. Furthermore, the results of Exp. 2 are replicated even after controlling for factors such as cultural temporal attitudes and age (Exp. 3), which implies that linguistic sagittal temporal metaphors can indeed influence Mandarin speakers' space–time mappings. The findings not only contribute to a better understanding of Chinese people's sagittal temporal orientation, but also have additional implications for theories on the mental space–time mappings and the relationship between language and thought.     

The Evolution of Social Ethics: Using Economic History to Understand Economic Ethics

In the development of Roman Catholic social thought from the teachings of the scholastics to the modern social encyclicals, changes in normative economics reflect the transformation of an economic terrain from its feudal roots to the modern industrial economy. The preeminence accorded by the modern market to the allocative over the distributive function of price broke the convenient convergence of commutative and distributive justice in scholastic just price theory. Furthermore, the loss of custom, law, and usage in defining the boundaries of economic behavior led to a depersonalization of economic relationships that had previously provided effective informal means of protecting individual well-being. Hence, recent economic ethics has had to look for nonprice, nonmarket mechanisms for distributive justice. This is reflected, for example, in the shift in attitude from the medieval antipathy toward unions to the contemporary defense of organized labor on moral grounds.     

论《周易》的“制器尚象”

“制器尚象”,不是如孔颖达等人理解的“依卦造器”或“观象制器”,而是借助各种发明创造事例(如井、鼎),来揭示“人法自然”思想在日常生活中的广泛运用。进而从侧面角度表达《易》道的广大和周普。     

论医学思维和法律思维的差异

医学思维和法律思维是两种不同的思维方式。在卫生法律的实施过程中,经常会遇到这两种思维方式相互冲突的现象。究其原因,在于医学思维和法律思维之间存在的差异。认清差异、分析成因、寻求处置思路和办法对于正确处理医疗纠纷、和谐医患关系具有重要意义。     

怎样看待和认识休克

哲学素质在现代医学实践中具有重要意义,它不仅是医务工作者的思维武器,更是了解医学前沿和解决医学难题的钥匙。本文就以休克这一临床上常见的危急重症为例,探讨休克发生发展过程中的哲学因素,旨在阐明自觉运用马克思主义哲学的思辨观来指导休克的诊疗过程实属必要,对医生及患者都大有益处。     

先秦国家安全思想及其当代借鉴价值

在中国历史上,关于国家安全问题的战略性思考起源于先秦时期,许多重要的指导思想和原则,如以民为本、和而不同、慎战、亲仁善邻等思想已在那时得到了明晰。这些宝贵的思想具有久远而深厚的文化基础。他们不仅为历朝历代安内攘外,维系中国作为世界上唯一不曾中断几千年文明进程的国家发挥了重要的历史作用。而且对于我们今天研究安全问题、制定国家安全战略提供了可资借鉴的价值。     

Taking care of business? Grateful processing of unpleasant memories

In this study we investigated the impact of grateful processing on bringing closure to unpleasant emotional memories. After recalling an open memory, participants were randomly assigned to one of three writing conditions. For three sessions, participants wrote about neutral topics, the unpleasant event itself, or positive consequences from the event from their open memory that they felt they could now be grateful for. Results showed a significant effect of writing condition, and the pattern of means were as predicted: those in the grateful condition showed more memory closure, less unpleasant emotional impact, and less intrusiveness of the open memory than the other writing conditions. Grateful reappraisal of unpleasant memories may help individuals emotionally process these events, thus bringing emotional closure to these incidents. This might be one reason that grateful people tend to be happy people.     

The influence of expertise and of physical complexity on visual short-term memory consolidation

This paper examines controversial claims about the merit of “unconscious thought” for making complex decisions. In four experiments, participants were presented with complex decisions and were asked to choose the best option immediately, after a period of conscious deliberation, or after a period of distraction (said to encourage “unconscious thought processes”). In all experiments the majority of participants chose the option predicted by their own subjective attribute weighting scores, regardless of the mode of thought employed. There was little evidence for the superiority of choices made “unconsciously”, but some evidence that conscious deliberation can lead to better choices. The final experiment suggested that the task is best conceptualized as one involving “online judgement” rather than one in which decisions are made after periods of deliberation or distraction. The results suggest that we should be cautious in accepting the advice to “stop thinking” about complex decisions.