When the ordinary seems unexpected: evidence for incremental physical knowledge in young infants

According to a recent account of infants' acquisition of their physical knowledge, the incremental-knowledge account, infants form distinct event categories, such as occlusion, containment, support, and collision events. In each category, infants identify one or more vectors which correspond to distinct problems that must be solved. For each vector, infants acquire a sequence of variables that enables them to predict outcomes within the vector more and more accurately over time. This account predicts that infants who have acquired only a few of the variables in a sequence should err in two ways in violation-of-expectation tasks: (1) they should view impossible events consistent with their incomplete knowledge as expected (errors of omission), and (2) they should view possible events inconsistent with their incomplete knowledge as unexpected (errors of commission). Many reports have shown that infants who have not yet identified a variable in an event category produce errors of omission: they fail to view impossible events involving the variable as unexpected. However, there has been no report revealing errors of commission in infants' responses to possible events. The present research examined whether 3- and 2.5-month-old infants, whose knowledge of occlusion events is very limited, would produce errors of commission as well as errors of omission when responding to these events. At 3 months of age, infants viewed as unexpected a possible event in which a tall cylinder became visible when passing behind a tall screen with a very large opening extending from its upper edge. At 2.5 months, infants viewed as unexpected a possible event in which a tall cylinder became visible when passing behind a tall screen with a very large opening extending from its lower edge. These findings provide a new kind of evidence for the incremental-knowledge account, and more generally for the notion that infants, like older children and adults, engage in rule-based reasoning about physical events.     

Selecting the number of classes under latent class regression: a factor analytic analogue

Recently, the regression extension of latent class analysis (RLCA) model has received much attention in the field of medical research. The basic RLCA model summarizes shared features of measured multiple indicators as an underlying categorical variable and incorporates the covariate information in modeling both latent class membership and multiple indicators themselves. To reduce complexity and enhance interpretability, one usually fixes the number of classes in a given RLCA. Often, goodness of fit methods comparing various estimated models are used as a criterion to select the number of classes. In this paper, we propose a new method that is based on an analogous method used in factor analysis and does not require repeated fitting. Two ideas with application to many settings other than ours are synthesized in deriving the method: a connection between latent class models and factor analysis, and techniques of covariate marginalization and elimination. A Monte Carlo simulation study is presented to evaluate the behavior of the selection procedure and compare to alternative approaches. Data from a study of how measured visual impairments affect older persons’ functioning are used for illustration.This work was supported by National Institute on Aging (NIA) Program Project P01-AG-10184-03. The author wishes to thank Dr. Karen Bandeen-Roche for her stimulating comments and helpful discussions, and Drs. Gary Rubin and Sheila West for kindly making the Salisbury Eye Evaluation data available.     

中国古代和谐思想的现代诠释

中国古代思想家关于“天人合一”、“以和为贵”、“和而不同”、“欲而不贪”、“协和万邦”等和谐思想,在构建社会主义和谐社会的今天又彰显出其璀璨的现代价值,它为我们揭示了一幅现代和谐社会的画面：人与自然和谐共生,人与人和衷共济,人与社会多样统一,身与心平和恬淡,国与国和平共处。     

《易纬·稽览图》"一爻直一日"卦气术考

<易纬·稽览图>卷下载有一种"一爻直一日"的卦气占术,还少见学者讨论.本文对这一占术作了梳理,并对其特点、流传作了初步考察.与<稽览图>卷下"六日七分"卦气术不同,<稽览图>"一爻直一日"的卦气术,与焦赣"焦林直日"卦气说有密切的关系,二者可能同属于<连山><归藏>系统.此术至唐一直在流传.     

The institutional impact of research challenges and constraints on psychology and other social and behavioral sciences

Psychology and other social and behavioral disciplines are severely limited by the extraordinary complexity of the phenomena of study and numerous legal, ethical, and logistical constraints. In this article, we examine the impact of these research challenges on the institutional standing of and support for our disciplines. The immense challenges of human research have contributed to unfavorable stereotypes of the capabilities of social and behavioral scientists and fostered self-censure of our fields. Low consensus for research questions, frameworks, and approaches, and frustration with the limitations of studies have fragmented disciplines such as sociology and anthropology. The numerous obstacles and impediments have led to the subordination of social and behavioral science which has been maintained through policies, practices, ideologies, and stereotypes favoring the natural sciences. Psychologists and other social and behavioral scientists need to recognize the limitations of their research enterprise imposed by the complexity of the study phenomena and stop disparaging their work. Moreover, they need to recognize the potential for conflict and division because of the low consensus in our fields and act collectively to promote social and behavioral science.     

Evaluating parent-implemented behavioral skills training for teaching firearm safety skills

Research shows that behavioral skills training (BST) and in situ training (IST) are effective interventions for teaching safety skills to children. In addition, the efficiency of these interventions can be increased when parents, teachers, or peers are taught to implement them. The purpose of this study was to replicate Novotny et al. (2020) and evaluate a web-based program for teaching parents to conduct BST to teach safety skills to prevent gunplay. We randomly assigned 18 children to the parent-conducted BST group or a control group and evaluated the intervention in a posttest only control group design. Children in the control group or treatment group who did not score a three in the in situ assessment (do not touch, get away, and tell an adult) received IST from their parents and were assessed again. Results showed that safety skill scores were statistically significantly higher in the treatment group than in the control group. Furthermore, there was a statistically significant increase in safety skills scores following IST for children who received it.     

The Cost of Being Christian: The Association between Christian Affiliation and Discrimination Experiences among Asians in the United States

Whether religion contributes to or mitigates social inequality is ongoing. This study provides new evidence by examining the association between Christian affiliation and Asian citizens’ discrimination experiences. Using data from the National Asian American Survey and employing the Inverse Probability Treatment Weighting approach, this study finds that having a Christian affiliation is significantly associated with more interpersonal discrimination experienced by Asians in the United States. Strengthened ethnic identity and intraracial contact largely explain the association. Results from several robustness tests confirm this finding. There is a cost of being Christian for Asians in the United States.     

Chasing the Numinous: Hungry Ghosts in the Shadow of the Psychedelic Renaissance

In recent years a renewed scientific, public and commercial interest in psychedelic medicines can be observed across the globe. As research findings have been generally promising, there is hope for new treatment possibilities for a number of difficult-to-treat mental health concerns. While honouring positive developments and therapeutic promise in relation to the medical use of psychedelics, this paper aims to shine a light on some underlying psycho-cultural shadow dynamics in the unfolding psychedelic renaissance. This paper explores whether and how the multi-layered collective fascination with psychedelics may yet be another symptom pointing towards a deeper psychological and spiritual malaise in the modern Western psyche as diagnosed by C. G. Jung. The question is posed whether the West’s feverish pursuit of psychedelic medicines—from individual consumption to entheogenic tourism, from capitalist commodification of medicines and treatments to the increasing number of ethical scandals and abuse through clinicians and self-proclaimed shamans—is related to a Western cultural complex. As part of the discussion, the archetypal image of the Hungry Ghost, known across Asian cultural and religious traditions, is explored to better understand the aforementioned shadow phenomena and point towards mitigating possibilities.     

Philosophy,writing, and liberation

In responding to the three creative interpretive discussions in the symposium on my book Philosophy and the Art of Writing, this paper explores the different styles of philosophical discourse and their role in the practice of philosophy as a way of life that extends beyond the discursive and that combines self-cultivation with care for others in the ethical-aesthetic pursuit of living beauty. In advocating this aesthetic model of philosophical life over a purely therapeutic model, I suggest how the former can incorporate the latter's concerns for spiritual health and liberation. In developing my response to the symposiasts while elaborating on the themes of my book, I consider issues of ineffability, creative performance, embodiment, truth, heroism, vulnerability, possession, art, spirituality, love, and liberation.     

Thanking in the times of the plague: The role of holistic thinking in meaning-making and gratitude

Two studies examined the role of holistic thinking in meaning-making and gratitude during the COVID-19 pandemic. Correlational and mediational evidence showed that participants with high holistic thinking tended to construct more meaning from the pandemic and feel grateful, compared to participants with low holistic thinking (Study 1). Experimental manipulation of holistic thinking elicited behavioral choice for books on life meaning, which predicted gratitude (Study 2). These results cannot be explained by individual differences in the perception of threat (Study 1) or distress (Studies 1–2) associated with the pandemic. They cannot be explained by demographic factors such as age or gender, or cultural constructs such as ethnicity, educational level, or religiosity (Studies 1–2). These findings push understanding forward. They strengthen interdisciplinary links, fusing positive psychology with the social cognition of thinking styles. We discuss promising directions for future research with cross-cultural implications.