Guidance in a New Ancient Land

The Republic of China is developing its guidance programs energetically and rapidly. The Chinese Guidance Association, a young but vigorous professional association, is devoted to research and development of China's student and industrial personnel programs. This APGA sister association has taken long strides ahead in the past eight years through organization of experimental school and college guidance programs, counselor education, development of tests, and distribution of vocational information materials. It has an ambitious and promising “five-year development plan” blocked out for the period 1966–71.     

PERCEPTUAL PROCESS AND THE EBBINGHAUS ILLUSION

Perception is shown in a block diagram which includes the instrumental errors in the sensing device, the transmission distortion in the nerves and the perceptual misjudgment in the high center. The perceptual misjudgment originates from the variation of comparison standards and the method of comparison, and would correspond to the mis-programming of the computer. A general mathematical formula for perception under the influence of various background stimuli is presented. The mechanism and equation for predicting the Ebbinghaus illusion are also presented.     

Religion and Health: Anxiety,Religiosity, Meaning of Life and Mental Health

We examined the association among anxiety, religiosity, meaning of life and mental health in a nonclinical sample from a Chinese society. Four hundred fifty-one Taiwanese adults (150 males and 300 females) ranging in age from 17 to 73 years (M = 28.9, SD = 11.53) completed measures of Beck Anxiety Inventory, Medical Outcomes Study Health Survey, Perceived Stress Scale, Social Support Scale, and Personal Religiosity Scale (measuring religiosity and meaning of life). Meaning of life has a significant negative correlation with anxiety and a significant positive correlation with mental health and religiosity; however, religiosity does not correlate significantly anxiety and mental health after controlling for demographic measures, social support and physical health. Anxiety explains unique variance in mental health above meaning of life. Meaning of life was found to partially mediate the relationship between anxiety and mental health. These findings suggest that benefits of meaning of life for mental health can be at least partially accounted for by the effects of underlying anxiety.     

Testing the factor structure of the beliefs about language learning inventory

This preliminary study examined the factor structure of the Beliefs About Language Learning Inventory in two samples of about 750 college students of English as a foreign language in Taiwan. Results of confirmatory factor analysis lend partial support to Horwitz's theoretical five-factor belief model. Subsequent exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses of data show that a four-factor model represented by only 12 items performed better than other models both theoretically and empirically. This model consists of two dimensions already theorized in the inventory: Difficulty of Language Learning and Foreign Language Aptitude, and two newly interpreted dimensions, Importance of Spoken Language and Analytical Approaches to Language Learning. Although this four-factor model could be replicated in an independent sample, the factors are not reliable, suggesting the need to search for a more representative set of beliefs to tap specific aspects of language learning.     

A new theory to explain geometrical illusions produced by crossing lines

Due to the diffraction of light and other optical distortions of the eye, the image of an object is not exactly the same as the object. When two objects are close enough, their two images overlap so as to form one image, located at a position somewhere between the two original images. This fact is used to explain illusions produced by the crossing of lines, including Poggendorffs, Zollner’s, Hering’s, Wundt’s, the Müller-Lyer and other illusions of this class.     

Religion and Subjective Well-Being: Western and Eastern Religious Groups Achieved Subjective Well-Being in Different Ways

Culture can moderate which variables most influence subjective well-being (SWB). Because religion can be conceptualized as culture, religious differences can be considered cultural differences. However, there have been few studies comparing how different religious groups evaluate SWB at any given time. This study is among the first to investigate this issue. The present study compared Buddhists, Taoists, Christians, and atheists. In addition to demographic items, 451 Chinese adults completed Chinese version of the Socially Oriented Cultural Conception of SWB Scale. Religious belief was distributed as follows: 10 % Christian, 20 % Buddhist, 25 % Taoist, and 43 % atheists. As predicted, the socially oriented cultural conception of SWB was found to be highest among Buddhists, followed in order by Taoists, atheists, and Christians. It was concluded that the various religious groups achieved SWB in different ways.     

“You Just Know It’s the Only Thing You Can Think”: A Conversation with Chodorow

ABSTRACT

Nancy Julia Chodorow (1944–) is a pioneer feminist theorist who brought together academic fields of sociology, anthropology, and psychoanalysis in her work related to feminist theories and psychoanalysis. Her first book, The Reproduction of Mothering: Psychoanalysis and the Sociology of Gender (1978 Chodorow, N. J. (1978; second ed. 1999). The reproduction of mothering: Psychoanalysis and the sociology of gender. Berkeley: University of California Press. [Google Scholar]), gave primacy to a more generalized account of the developmental and familial origins of prevalent psychological differences between femininity and masculinity from a psychoanalytic sociological viewpoint. Her later books, Femininities, Masculinities, Sexualities: Freud and Beyond (1994 Chodorow, N. J. (1994). Femininities, masculinities, sexualities: Freud and beyond. Lexington, KY: University Press of Kentucky. [Google Scholar]), The Power of Feelings: Personal Meaning in Psychoanalysis, Gender, and Culture (1999 Chodorow, N. J. (1999). The power of feelings: Personal meaning in psychoanalysis, gender, and culture. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. [Google Scholar]), and Individualizing Gender and Sexuality: Theory and Practice (2012 Chodorow, N. J. (2012). Individualizing gender and sexuality: Theory and practice. New York and London: Routledge.[Crossref] , [Google Scholar]), bring in a rich interplay among socio-structural influences (i.e., culture) as well as intra- and inter-psychic dynamic processes, emphasizing more the importance of individuality and subjectivity. Based on an interview I had with Chodorow on the development of her thought, this paper gives Chodorow’s account of her personal history and academic background, current manifestations in feminist social science research and feminist psychoanalysis based on her contribution and legacy, and reflective narratives on the unfolding of feminist and psychoanalytic theories from the 1970s onward. Chodorow’s note to the next generation of feminist psychotherapists is also included.     

Icon flickering, flicker rate, and color combinations of an icon's symbol/background in visual search performance

The effects of color combinations of an icon's symbol/background and components of flicker and flicker rate on visual search performance on a liquid crystal display screen were investigated with 39 subjects who searched for a target icon in a circular stimulus array (diameter = 20 cm) including one target and 19 distractors. Analysis showed that the icon's symbol/background color significantly affected search time. The search times for icons with black/red and white/blue were significantly shorter than for white/yellow, black/yellow, and black/blue. Flickering of different components of the icon significantly affected the search time. Search time for an icon's border flickering was shorter than for an icon symbol flickering; search for flicker rates of 3 and 5 Hz was shorter than that for 1 Hz. For icon's symbol/background color combinations, search error rate for black/blue was greater than for black/red and white/blue combinations, and the error rate for an icon's border flickering was lower than for an icon's symbol flickering. Interactions affected search time and error rate. Results are applicable to design of graphic user interfaces.