Infertility-Related Stress and Life Satisfaction among Chinese Infertile Women: A Moderated Mediation Model of Marital Satisfaction and Resilience

The present study investigated the effects of infertility on Chinese women’s life satisfaction. Infertile women (n?=?466) who were seeking medical help completed a survey that included the Fertility Problem Inventory (FPI), the Dyadic Adjustment Questionnaire (DAS), the Connor-Davidson Resilience Scale (CD-RISC), the Satisfaction with Life Scale, and demographic variables. We used a moderated mediation model to test our hypotheses, with life satisfaction as the dependent variable, representations about the importance of parenthood as the independent variable, the impact of infertility on life domains as a mediator, and marital satisfaction and resilience as moderators. Results showed that representations about the importance of parenthood and the impact of infertility on life domains are two main types of infertility-related stress, which could play independent roles in predicting life satisfaction. Representations about the importance of parenthood had a negative indirect effect on life satisfaction through the impact of infertility on life domains, and the indirect effect of the impact of infertility on life domains was moderated by marital satisfaction and resilience. Specially, representations about the importance of parenthood had a weaker indirect effect (through the impact of infertility on life domains) on life satisfaction in individuals with higher marital satisfaction or resilience. Therefore, the type of infertility-related stress and both marital satisfaction and resilience should be addressed in psychological interventions for women coping with infertility in mainland China.

     

How the rich get richer: affluence cues at universities increase the social class achievement gap

Social Psychology of Education - Past research on socioeconomic status (SES) and test performance in higher education has highlighted the factors that depress performance among students from...     

Perception of objects that are translating and rotating

The motion of objects that are both translating and rotating can be decomposed into an infinite number of translational and rotational combinations. How, then, do such stimuli routinely elicit specific percepts and behavioral responses that are usually appropriate? A possible answer is that motion percepts are fully determined by the probability distributions of all the possible correspondences and differences in the stimulus sequence. To test the merits of this conceptual framework, we investigated the perceived motion elicited by a line that is both translating and rotating behind an aperture. When stimuli are presented such that a particular sequence of appearance and disappearance occurs at the aperture boundary, subjects report that the line is rotating only; furthermore, the perceived centers of rotation appear to describe a cycloidal trajectory, even when one aperture shape is replaced by another. These and other perceptual effects elicited by translating and rotating stimuli are all accurately predicted by the probability distribution of the possible sources of the physical movements, supporting the conclusion that motion perception is indeed generated by a wholly probabilistic strategy.     

Procedural justice and social regulation across group boundaries: does subgroup identity undermine relationship-based governance?

The relational model of authority suggests that people are inclined to accept the decisions of ethnic outgroup authorities when they identify with a superordinate category they share with the authority, and when the authority satisfies their relational justice concerns. Using responses from a random sample of African Americans, Latinos, and Whites about their cross-ethnic interactions with legal authorities, the findings indicated that those who are highly identified with the superordinate category of America indicate greater reliance on relational concerns and less on instrumental concerns when evaluating the authority's decision. In contrast, identification with one's ethnic subgroup did not moderate the linkage between relational concerns and acceptance. Across all ethnic groups, there were positive rather than negative correlations between measures of American and ethnic identity. Together, these findings indicate that subgroup identity does not undermine the relational basis of social regulation and that relationship-based governance is compatible with multiculturalism.     

海峡两岸大学生适应性比较研究——以华南师范大学和彰化师范大学为例

以华南师范大学及彰化师范大学的大学生为被试,抽取大一至大四共440人为预测样本及1493人为正式施测样本,通过探索性因素分析和验证性因素分析编制大学生适应性量表,并通过t检验和单因素方差分析考察两岸大学生适应性情况的差异。结果显示:(1)大学生适应性量表由目标规划、学习趋向、人际关系及环境认同4个维度组成,具有良好的信度与效度;(2)两岸大学生在总体适应性、目标规划、学习趋向及环境认同维度上差异显著;(3)不同专业的两岸大学生适应性差异显著,且校园活动对两岸大学生适应影响显著。     

Testing autocorrelation and partial autocorrelation: Asymptotic methods versus resampling techniques

Autocorrelation and partial autocorrelation, which provide a mathematical tool to understand repeating patterns in time series data, are often used to facilitate the identification of model orders of time series models (e.g., moving average and autoregressive models). Asymptotic methods for testing autocorrelation and partial autocorrelation such as the 1/T approximation method and the Bartlett's formula method may fail in finite samples and are vulnerable to non-normality. Resampling techniques such as the moving block bootstrap and the surrogate data method are competitive alternatives. In this study, we use a Monte Carlo simulation study and a real data example to compare asymptotic methods with the aforementioned resampling techniques. For each resampling technique, we consider both the percentile method and the bias-corrected and accelerated method for interval construction. Simulation results show that the surrogate data method with percentile intervals yields better performance than the other methods. An R package pautocorr is used to carry out tests evaluated in this study.     

Doubling‐down on deprivation: Using latent profile analysis to evaluate an age‐old assumption in relative deprivation theory

Theorists have long argued that two forms of relative deprivation exist: individual‐based relative deprivation (IRD) whereby a person feels deprived relative to other individuals and group‐based relative deprivation (GRD) whereby a person feels his/her ingroup is deprived relative to other groups. Combinations of IRD and GRD are therefore assumed to produce four response profiles: (i) high on IRD and GRD (i.e. ‘doubly deprived’); (ii) high on IRD, low on GRD; (iii) low on IRD, high on GRD; or (iv) low on IRD and GRD. The existence of these profiles, however, has never been assessed. We address this oversight by using latent profile analysis to identify distinct response patterns to measures of IRD and GRD. Across two studies, we found no support for this typology, nor the oft‐assumed doubly deprived profile. Rather, response patterns showed moderate levels of IRD across discrete profiles accompanied by considerable variability in GRD.     

Diagnostics of Robust Growth Curve Modeling Using Student's t Distribution

Growth curve models with different types of distributions of random effects and of intraindividual measurement errors for robust analysis are compared. After demonstrating the influence of distribution specification on parameter estimation, 3 methods for diagnosing the distributions for both random effects and intraindividual measurement errors are proposed and evaluated. The methods include (a) distribution checking based on individual growth curve analysis; (b) distribution comparison based on Deviance Information Criterion, and (c) post hoc checking of degrees of freedom estimates for t distributions. The performance of the methods is compared through simulation studies. When the sample size is reasonably large, the method of post hoc checking of degrees of freedom estimates works best. A web interface is developed to ease the use of the 3 methods. Application of the 3 methods is illustrated through growth curve analysis of mathematical ability development using data on the Peabody Individual Achievement Test Mathematics assessment from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1997 Cohort (Bureau of Labor Statistics, U.S. Department of Labor, 2005).     

Modeling Nonlinear Change via Latent Change and Latent Acceleration Frameworks: Examining Velocity and Acceleration of Growth Trajectories

A general equadion is presented, covering all arbitrary values for the true population splits, for obtaining the true population phi, given observed cell frequencies for a selected sample, and true population splits. A nongeneral solution is also offered, based on the use of the G Index. Demonstrations with hypothetical data are given.     

Hydrogen-induced cold cracking in heat-affected zone of low-carbon high-strength steel

The Y-groove cracking test by submerged arc welding was employed to study the susceptibility of a low-carbon high-strength steel to hydrogen-induced cold cracking (HICC). The morphology of hydrogen cracks was observed using an electron probe microscope. The results showed that the heat-affected zone (HAZ) has a higher susceptibility to HICC than the weld metal and that increasing heat input can improve the HICC resistance of the weldment. The intergranular microcracking is the main HICC mode at the lowest heat input condition, accompanied with some transgranular microcracks attached to complex inclusions. In combination with phase transformation behaviour in sub-zones, the effect of the phase transformation sequence is proposed to try to illustrate the fact that the fine-grained HAZ has higher probability of hydrogen cracking than the coarse-grained HAZ owing to the occurrence of hydrogen enrichment in the fine-grained HAZ after the transformation.