Attributional Style and Engagement/Disengagement Responses in the Chinese Workforce

Internal attribution for bad events, along with stable and global attributions, has been regarded as a component of pessimism, a precursor of negative work outcomes. Most evidence in support of this conceptualisation has come from research conducted in individualist cultures. We questioned if internal attribution has the same pessimistic implication in a collectivist culture. Findings from two studies conducted on Chinese employees supported our expectations that the stability and globality dimensions (but not the internality dimension) would predict disengagement responses (such as quitting and being neglectful at work) and lack of engagement responses (such as voicing suggestions and being loyal to the organisation). A reconceptualisation of pessimism in the workplace is therefore necessary. A dimensional, rather than a composite, scoring method is proposed for maintaining the predictive and construct validities of attributional style as an indicator of pessimism.     

The Multiple Source Effect and Synthesized Speech

Two experiments examine the effect of multiple synthetic voices in an e‐commerce context. In Study 1, participants (N= 40) heard five positive reviews about a book from five different synthetic voices or from a single synthetic voice. Consistent with the multiple source effect, results showed that participants hearing multiple synthetic voices evaluated the reviewed books more positively, predicted more favorable public reaction to the books, and felt greater social presence of virtual speakers. The effects were mediated by participants’ feelings of social presence. The second experiment (N= 40) showed that the observed effects persisted even when participants were shown the purely artificial nature of synthesized speech. These results support the idea that characteristics of synthetic voices in doubly disembodied language settings influence participants’ imagination of virtual speakers, and that technological literacy does not hinder social responses to anthropomorphic technologies such as text‐to‐speech (TTS).     

亲子依恋与儿童抑郁症状的关系：儿童对环境的生物敏感性的作用及父母差异

不良的亲子依恋是导致儿童抑郁症状的风险因素,但其对儿童的影响会因儿童对环境的生物敏感性不同而存在差异。为探究家庭中母子、父子依恋对儿童抑郁症状的影响及儿童生物敏感性(本文中采用迷走神经抑制作为指标)在其中的作用,本研究结合行为任务、问卷报告、生理测量等多种研究手段,招募150名学龄儿童(平均年龄8.64岁,63名女孩)参与研究。结果表明：(1)学龄儿童的母子依恋水平高于父子依恋水平。(2)高水平的母子依恋与父子依恋会同等程度地降低儿童的抑郁症状。(3)儿童对环境的生物敏感性对母子依恋影响儿童抑郁症状路径的调节作用显著,生理上对环境更敏感(高迷走神经抑制)的儿童更易得益于高母子依恋,表现出较低的抑郁水平;但同时,这类儿童在母子依恋较低时也更易表现出较高的抑郁水平。(4)儿童的生物敏感性对父子依恋影响儿童抑郁症状路径的调节作用不显著,高父子依恋对生物敏感性水平不同的儿童均存在有利影响。(5)在不同情境中测量的迷走神经抑制对亲子依恋影响儿童抑郁症状的调节作用模式相似,表现出跨情境一致的特点。本研究率先揭示儿童迷走神经抑制与亲子依恋对儿童抑郁症状的联合作用机制及父母角色差异。     

CULTURAL ADAPTATIONS AND DIFFUSION FOR MANAGERIAL STRATEGIES AND RESPONSES IN HONG KONG

This paper addresses the issue of cultural adaptations and diffusion for managerial strategies in host societies to which work enterprises are not indigenous in terms of their capital and management or either. With illustrations drawn from a series of case-studies of work organisations in Hong Kong managed respectively by Chinese, British and Japanese capital, there was an appearance of support for the thesis of ‘cultural’ determinism and its implications for strategical adaptations in work organisations. The implication was drawn that the Oriental nexus of altruism, trust and subtlety could be rooted in the more laudible and perhaps global influence of Confucianism. Some subsequent issues are raised. First, the problem of cultural adaptation is not specific to multinationals or foreign firms visiting from outside but also applies where the management and their ethic background are not indigenous. The other issue is the extent of cultural adaptation within work organisations, as determined by the degree of affinity with a common mother culture. The paper suggests that a common denominating mother culture can serve a strategical starting point to bring about intra-organisational and organisation-society link and harmony.     

Internal and External Ethnic Identity and Their Correlates: A Study of Chinese American Immigrants

The measurement of internal ethnic identity and external ethnic identity showed that Chinese American immigrants could be differentiated into different identity groups. Additionally, internal ethnic identity significantly predicted salience of ethnicity and loss of face. Income, ethnicity salience, external ethnic identity, and loss of face were significant predictors of acculturative stress.     

A Paradigm for Studying the Accuracy of Self-Reports of Risk Behavior Relevant to AIDS: Empirical Perspectives on Stability, Recall Bias, and Transitory Influences

Despite the importance of the issue for AIDS-related research, there is a paucity of studies that have addressed the issue of the validity of self-reports of patterns of risk behavior over time. This article frames issues of measurement in the context of cognitive psychology and presents a research paradigm that investigators can use to explore issues of accuracy, bias, and stability in self-reports. The paradigm also permits the analysis of transitory influences on risk behavior, influences which have been minimized in current AIDS research. Preliminary data are presented that support the feasibility of the method and which are suggestive of important considerations in the development of valid measures in national surveys.     

Feminist Active Commitment and Sexual Harassment Perception among Chinese Women: The Moderating Roles of Targets’ Gender Stereotypicality and Type of Harassment

In recent years, sexual harassment has become more acknowledged in many developed countries. However, in East Asian culture, it is a sensitive and controversial topic upon which few scholars have focused. The current research aimed to explore whether the relationship between feminist identity and perception of sexual harassment was affected by target’s traditional or nontraditional gender stereotypicality and types of sexual harassment (unwanted sexual attention or gender harassment) among Chinese working women. The participants were 424 heterosexual women, aged 18 to 71 years-old (mdn?=?31), who completed surveys that assessed their feminist Active Commitment and perception of sexual harassment after reading a randomly assigned sexual harassment scenario. Women with higher scores on Active Commitment were more aware of both types of sexual harassment, and participants’ perception of unwanted sexual attention was significantly stronger than their perception of gender harassment. In addition, the types of targets and types of sexual harassment moderated the relationship between Active Commitment and the perception of sexual harassment. Our findings highlight the importance of feminist identity for the perception of sexual harassment and suggest that improving gender equality and feminist education is very important for enhancing the perception of sexual harassment.

     

Effects of containment and closure policies on controlling the COVID‐19 pandemic in East Asia

Growing efforts have been made to pool coronavirus data and control measures from countries and regions to compare the effectiveness of government policies. We examine whether these strategies can explain East Asia’s effective control of the COVID‐19 pandemic based on time‐series data with cross‐correlations between the Stringency Index and number of confirmed cases during the early period of outbreaks. We suggest that multidisciplinary empirical research in healthcare and social sciences, personality, and social psychology is needed for a clear understanding of how cultural values, social norms, and individual predispositions interact with policy to affect life‐saving behavioural changes in different societies.     

A cross-cultural examination of socio-psychological resources in mathematics achievement between Korea and the US

Social Psychology of Education - This cross-cultural study examines national variations in the association of youths’ attitudinal characteristics and socio-psychological resources at school...