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A Longitudinal Analysis of the Developmental Process of Job Burnout 2015, 38(4): 911-915.  Abstract ( )   PDF (508KB) ( )   Job burnout is a three-dimensional syndrome in response to chronic work-related stressors, including emotional exhaustion, depersonalization and reduced personal accomplishment. It is clear that a good understanding of the developmental process of burnout could facilitate its early recognition and intervention. Several models have been proposed for the development of burnout, among which the Leiter’s model (1988), Golembiewski’s model (1996), Lee’s model (1993), van Dierendonck’s model (2001), and Taris’ model (2005) are most influential. However, there is a conceptual reason for not accepting these models, as it is remarkable that none of the these models so far explicitly treats depersonalization as a coping strategy. We argue that depersonalization is a dysfunctional coping strategy, thereby leading to an increased emotional exhaustion and decreased personal accomplishment. Thus it seems that the developmental models for the causal effects among the three burnout dimensions should be extended to include the effects of depersonalization on the emotional exhaustion and reduced personal accomplishment. Based on the theoretical and empirical evidence, we propose a new developmental model of burnout that explicitly includes the path from depersonalization to emotional exhaustion and reduced personal accomplishment. 　　The primary purpose of this study is to compare the six developmental models of burnout, including the Leiter’s model, Golembiewski’s model, Lee’s model, van Dierendonck’s model and Taris’ model and the model proposed in this study. In this study, we conducted a full panel design with three waves in 263 participants, and burnout was measured by means of the Chinese version of the Maslach Burnout Inventory (MBI). The final sample consists of 263 participants with an average age of 34.67 years, including 44% males and 56% females. The preliminary analysis shows that the attrition of participants is at random, thus it will not affect the validity of the results. Structural equation modeling analysis shows that T1 emotional exhaustion affects T2 depersonalization (=0.12); T2 depersonalization affects T3 emotional exhaustion (=0.11); depersonalization affects reduced personal accomplishment at both T2 (=0.17) and T3 (=0.20). The present longitudinal study confirms that depersonalization plays an important role in the development of burnout. To our knowledge, the present research is the first to provide reliable longitudinal evidence for the conceptualization of burnout as a developmental process in Chinese participants. It has been suggested that the psychological withdrawal in the form of depersonalization is a dysfunctional coping strategy. This study extends and enhances current knowledge about the development of burnout in several respects, and we also believe that the findings have important implications for the preventive interventions with regard to burnout. Related Articles | Metrics

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Antecedent Variables and Consequent Variables of Workplace Loneliness Zhong-Lin WEN 2015, 38(4): 979-986.  Abstract ( )   PDF (1663KB) ( )   Loneliness is actually a state of mind, a state of solitude or being alone. Everyone could more or less experience it in daily life. Most studies about loneliness focused on personality traits. Over the past twenty years, workplace loneliness has become a research topic of western psychologists due to the universality of its existence. Career occupies most of the time and energy in one’s life, so it is very important to research the loneliness of individuals in workplace. Studying workplace loneliness and figuring out the influencing mechanism of workplace loneliness can help to control and interfere in employees’ mental health. In China, however, workplace loneliness has little been noticed academically. Workplace loneliness is defined as loneliness of individual experienced at the workplace, including emotional and social dimensions. The popular scale for measuring workplace loneliness developed by Wright (2005) consists of the subscale of emotional deprivation and social companionship. The emotional deprivation factor is associated with the qualitative aspects of colleague relationships, and includes words such as 'feel', 'isolated, 'alienated', and 'disconnected' and other phrases. The items loading on this factor reflect Weiss' (1973) concept of emotional loneliness, reflecting the perception of the quality of personal relationships at work. This factor could thus be defined as the perception of the emotional quality of one’s relationships at work. The social companionship factor measures the quantitative aspects of colleague relationships, and includes keywords such as 'share', 'time with', 'part of a group'. The items loading on this factor represent Weiss' (1973) concept of social loneliness, representing items on social networks and the quantity of social opportunities. This factor could therefore be defined as the perception of the social aspects of one's relationships at work. We summarize the antecedent and consequent variables of workplace loneliness according to previous researches. Workplace loneliness has been conceptualized as a phenomenon that can be influenced both by individual differences and by colonial factors. At the group level, antecedent variables of workplace loneliness include the size, status and the atmosphere of the organization; Consequent variables incorporate team performance, leader-member exchange and team-member exchange. At the individual level, antecedent variables of workplace loneliness include personality traits, workplace ostracism, job burnout, work overload, economic status and education level, etc. Consequent variables incorporate job performance, job stress, job satisfaction, turnover intention and organizational commitment, etc. Future researches of workplace loneliness are discussed. As existing theoretical studies of workplace loneliness were mainly based on the study of loneliness, it would need more specific theoretical and empirical researches of workplace loneliness, due to the increasingly concerns of staff’s mental health. Since most of the previous studies focused on the individual level, it would need more researches at the group level in order to provide better suggestions for organization constructions. Besides, previous researches of workplace loneliness mostly base on western culture, which emphasizes the individualism. So more researches should be conducted under the background of oriental culture that emphasize the collectivism. Related Articles | Metrics

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Belief and outcome modulated moral and legal responsibility judgment 2015, 38(4): 916-922.  Abstract ( )   PDF (808KB) ( )   Moral responsibility judgement and legal responsibility judgement are the two major contents of the social informative learning. Recently, social psychologist and neuroscientists have become greatly interested in exploring the cognitive process and neural basis of moral and legal judgment. Plenty of studies have showed that the belief attribution and outcome of moral events played key role in moral judgment. The traditional moral judgment theorist believed that the moral attribution develops with the growing of age: people made moral judgment based on outcome of event at the beginning of their life and then transferred to focus on the belief of agent. However, recent researchers challenged this statement and suggested a dual process model to interpret the moral judgment of actions. Some studies showed that the judgments of the wrongness or permissibility of action were relied mainly on the mental states of an agent, while judgments of blame and punishment were relied jointly on mental states and the causal connection of an agent to a harmful consequence. Although many theories existed to account for moral judgment, few studies have focused on the different cognitive mechanism of moral responsibility and legal responsibility. In addition, previous researchers have neglected the difference whether the agent was an actor of harmful action or an observer in moral (legal) stories. Therefore, in this study, we intended to investigate how belief and outcome valence influence moral and legal responsibility judgment in these two conditions. In the current study, two scenarios were differentiated by whether the agent was an actor of harmful action or an observer, which labeled as “conductor” scenario and “bystander” scenario. The belief of agent and causal responsibility were manipulated within each scenario, yielding four different conditions separately: neutral belief and neutral results, negative belief and neutral results, neutral belief and negative results, negative belief and negative results. The participants were asked to make moral and legal judgment for the action of agent in these different conditions. Results demonstrated that the differences of moral and legal responsibility judgments in the two scenarios were threefold. Firstly, the belief of agent is more important than outcome when participants made moral responsibility judgment, while they are more sensitive to the outcome of events when they judged legal responsibility. These data demonstrated that the role of belief and outcome were different when different kinds of responsibility judgment were asked to make. Secondly, the moral and legal responsibility scores are significant higher in the “conductor” scenario than that in the “bystander” scenario, especially the legal responsibility scores. The different scenarios yield different responsibility judgment might due to the different sense of agency and self-involvement influenced social normative judgments. Thirdly, a significant interaction between belief and result was only observed in the Exp. One. And further test showed that the difference between neutral belief and negative belief was larger when the result was neutral and the difference between neutral result and negative result was larger when the belief was neutral. Together with prior studies, these results might suggest the psychological states and causal attribution work in a dual model of principle judgment. The findings in our study help to understand social normative judgments in complex situations. Related Articles | Metrics

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Sense of Virtual Community and Intension of Sharing Knowledge: Mechanisms of Virtual Community Organization Citizenship Behavior and Self-efficacy Chang-jiang XU 2015, 38(4): 923-927.  Abstract ( )   PDF (529KB) ( )   Virtual community provides people increased opportunities to interact and form bonds with others. From the company perspective, it can broaden the scope and reach of customer relationships. Hence, scholars have been interested in people’s interactions in virtual community and their related outcomes. Knowledge sharing, a positive helping behavior, is commonly regarded as essential for both virtual community and their participants. And it has become evident that it is the basis of virtual community. As a result, increasing research interests have been raised by western scholars in this area. Knowledge sharing has been studied from various perspectives, the most promising one of which is sense of virtual community (SOVC). Addressing numerous calls for future research on understanding the theoretical mechanisms that explain the relationship between sense of virtual community (SOVC, including SOVCM, SOVCIN and SOVCIM ) and intention of sharing knowledge, this study focused on how an member’s virtual community organizational citizenship behavior (VC-OCB) mediate the relationship his/her sense of virtual community and his/her intention of sharing knowledge. It also looked at how self-efficacy might moderate this mediated relationship. To avoid the common method bias, a paired survey for virtual community participants and their friends was used. Questionnaire A included scales of sense of virtual community, self-efficacy, intention of sharing knowledge and virtual community organizational citizenship behavior was appraised on Questionnaire B. The survey was distributed via applied psychology students. Hierarchical Regression Modeling (HRM) and Total Effect Moderation Model with bootstrap methods were used to test the hypotheses. The results of an empirical study involving 445 virtual community members indicated that SOVCM had significantly positive impact on the intention of sharing knowledge. In addition, the results of mediating test showed that, virtual community organizational citizenship behavior acted as a mediator between the relationship of SOVCM and intention of sharing knowledge. Finally, results of total effect moderation model analysis suggested that self-efficacy didn’t significantly moderate any paths of this mediated relationship. Our findings contribute to the literature in several ways. First, this research offers a new perspective to study the mediating mechanisms underlie the relationship between SOVCM and intention of sharing knowledge in virtual community. Second, our research divided SOVC into three parts and suggested that every part had different impact on the intention of sharing knowledge. More importantly, the integration of the mediating and moderating models provide a more comprehensive and elaborative interpretation of the linkage between SOVC and intention of sharing knowledge. Related Articles | Metrics

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The Influence of Calculation Difficulty and Knowledge Base on Consumers’ Base Value Neglect Yue Zhang 2015, 38(4): 973-978.  Abstract ( )   PDF (381KB) ( )   BVN is a computational error in the processing of percentages. The influencing factors of BVN can be divided into three types: individual factors, stimulus factors and condition factors. In the research of individual factors, previous literature focused on the influence of individual mathematical ability but neglected the influence of knowledge base, such as mastery of the mathematical principle of promotion. About stimulus factors, researchers focused on the influence of difficulty of calculating caused by percentages changing, but neglected the difficulty of price expression. Base on the above review, this study examined the influence of knowledge base and difficulty of calculating which was manipulated by price. 150 undergraduate students participated in this study. The study used a 2 ×3 mixed design, in which the difficulty of calculating (low and high) was a within-subjects variable and knowledge base (BVN phenomenon, mathematical principle, control) was a between-subjects variable. We used the prices of products to manipulate the difficulty of calculating, the price which was 3.89 yuan/50g was set as the price of high difficulty and the price which was 5 yuan/50g was set as the price of low difficulty. In this experiment, participants were randomly assigned to three groups. All groups read the materials firstly. Material of BVN group was introducing the phenomenon of base value neglect; material of math group demonstrated how to calculate preferential benefits of the bonus back and the price discount; material of control group was irrelevant with BVN or promotion. After reading the materials, participants finished the questionnaires. The questionnaires had two situations, and in each situation, there were two brands of the same product but adopting different promotion ways. In one situation, the price of product was 5yuan/50g, whereas in the other situation, the price of product was 3.89yuan/50g. In each situation, participants were asked to rate their evaluation of the two types of the economically equivalent promotion (50% bonus back and 33% price discount) on -5 (the bonus back has more preferential benefits) to 0 (the preferential benefits of the bonus back are same to the preferential benefits of the price discount) to 5 (the price discount has more preferential benefits) scales. If the score of the participants’ evaluation is significantly less than 0, the participants neglect the base values and have the BVN mistakes. After finishing the questionnaires, participants were asked to rate the difficulty of calculating preferential benefits of the two types of promotion under the two prices of products on a 1(very easy) to 7 (very difficult) scale, so as to check the manipulation of calculation difficulty. It was showed that: (1) when consumers only learned about the phenomenon of BVN, the errors appeared regardless of high or low difficulty of calculating; (2) when consumers only learned about the mathematical principle of promotion, the errors appeared only in the condition of high difficulty, but in the condition of low difficulty, the errors was not found; (3) learning about the mathematical principle of promotion could reduce the tendency of base value neglect. Related Articles | Metrics

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Perceived Insider Status and Employee Innovative Behavior：The Mediating Role of Creative Self-Efficacy and the Moderating Role of Respect for Authority 2015, 38(4): 954-959.  Abstract ( )   PDF (447KB) ( )   Given the severe environment with intense competition and unpredictable technology changes, increasing number of organizations realize that employees should be encouraged and cultivated to innovate. To address this question, we built a moderated mediation model on employees’ innovative behavior based on the analysis of social cognition theory. Specifically, our study examined the partial mediation effect of creative self-efficacy on the relationship between perceived insider status and employees’ innovative behavior. We also focused on the respect for authority and predicted that it moderated the mediation effect of creative self-efficacy. We collected data from an eastern province of People’s Republic of China. 370 survey questionnaires were distributed to the 15 companies located in Zhejiang Provinces, covering manufacturing, high technology, trade, etc. In the end, 353 employees returned the questionnaires (response rate was 95.41%). After screening out the problematic cases, the final sample consists of 325 employees. 47.08% were male, 52.92% were female; the most had the diploma of junior college (40.62%). To examine the distinctiveness of the study variables, we conducted a confirmatory factor analysis by using AMOS 17.0. We also employed multiple regression analysis to test the mediating effect and employed total effect moderation model to examine the mediated moderation model by using SPSS 19.0. Based on the social cognition theory, this study proposed and tested a moderated mediation model in which perceived insider status influences innovative behavior, with creative self-efficacy as a mediator and respect for authority as a moderator. The results showed that 1)perceived insider status was positively related to innovative behavior; 2)creative self-efficacy partially mediated the relationship between perceived insider status and employees’ innovative behavior; 3)the respect for authority moderated the relationship between creative self-efficacy and employees’ innovative behavior, that is the higher respect for authority, the weaker the relationship; 4)the respect for authority moderated the mediated relationship through creative self-efficacy, that is, the higher respect for authority, the weaker the mediated relationship. Our findings contribute to employees’ innovative behavior literature. The research model explains the comprehensive mechanism between perceived insider status and innovative behavior from the perspective of creative self-efficacy firstly, which broadens the boundary of researches on employees’ innovative behavior and provides a new theoretical support for the future study. By drawing on social cognition theory, our study revealed the mediating role of creative self-efficacy in the relationship between perceived insider status and employees’ innovative behavior. In addition, our study examined the mechanism by using total effect moderation model that can examine the role of integrated process of mediation and moderation more comprehensively and systematically. In terms of practical implications, organizations should make efforts to promote perceived insider status by giving employees more job autonomy, sharing critical information with employees and encouraging employees to take part in decision-making. Secondly, organizations should create a positive and harmonious working environment for employees and provide some skills training in order to improve employees’ creative self-efficacy. Finally, organization must identify the level of respect for authority. For the employees with high level of respect for authority, organization shouldn’t emphasize personal authority and in their interactions with them to decrease their concern about innovating. Related Articles | Metrics

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Effects of Affirming Two Fundamental Dimensions on Self-Evaluation under Intergroup Threat Ge ZHENG 2015, 38(4): 928-932.  Abstract ( )   PDF (873KB) ( )   People perceive intergroup threat when their out-group occupies more resources. Such threat can cause negative cognition and behavior to both out-group and individual. An example of the negative results is a bad performance in a math test under stereotype threat. One valid strategy to buffer the negative effect is self-affirmation. Research on self-affirmation has found that the negative impact of threat can be reduced by affirming a specific value or personality, for self-affirmation is a good way to integrate self. Based on the stress and coping theory, people need to appraise their own resource to cope with stress. As two basic dimensions in self-judgment and self-evaluation, agency and communion are two important aspects of self resources related to capacity and social relationship, which are important resources to cope with the stress from intergroup threat. In light of these considerations, we wish to explore whether affirming self by agency and communion resources will enhance self-evaluation under intergroup threat in two studies. A total number of 67 undergraduates and graduates took part in Study 1. They were assigned to 3 groups(threat with self-affirmation; threat without self-affirmation; control). Participants were first asked to read a web-page and then to fill a manipulation check by an emotion scale. The web-page in threat condition was about 985 schools occupied more resources and the web-page in no threat condition was about the April Fool's Day. After that, subjects in self-affirmation condition answered a 3-item self-affirmation questionnaire while those in control group filled 3 items about diet situation in 24 hours. Finally, all subjects completed the Personal Evaluation Inventory to measure their self-evaluation. Study 2 included 70 undergraduates and graduates as subjects, which employed the same method and materials with Study 1 except for the self-affirmation questionnaire. The two studies leaded to the same results. When there were no self-affirmation, an independent sample t test comparing self-evaluation of threat and no threat condition has significant difference, the self-evaluation of the former was lower than the latter, t(39) study1=-2.86, t(41)study2=-2.87, p<.05. Under threat, independent sample t test in two studies both had a significant difference. Self-evaluation of agency and communion self-affirmation conditions were higher than no self-affirmation condition, t(43)study1=2.84, t(48)study2=2.17, p<.05. The self-evaluation in the threat with self-affirmation condition had no difference with no threat or self-affirmation condition. The results in both studies show that intergroup threat can impair self-evaluation, and both agency and communion affirmation are valid to buffer the impairment on self. To sum up, these findings extend the intergroup theory. At the level of group interaction, intergroup threat can have negative impact on out-group cognition; nevertheless, self-cognition can be impaired on the level of individual process. The results support that the two fundamental dimensions can be the resources to cope with threat, and affirming communion and agency traits can enhance the self-evaluation. However, how self-affirmation works on the relationship between intergroup threat and self-evaluation remains to be explored in future. Related Articles | Metrics

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Temporal Distance Enhance Ethical Judgment 2015, 38(4): 905-910.  Abstract ( )   PDF (490KB) ( )   Business ethics has given rise to much public attention in recent years. Previous research into behavioral ethics has demonstrated that individuals’ ethical decisions will be a combined result of dispositional factors, social influences and situational interactions. From the perspective of social cognition, construal level theory claims that people are likely to make different behavioral choices if they represent the ethical scenarios at different construal levels. Specifically, when people represent the scenarios at high construal level, they probably take the primary, global and superordinate features into consideration. In contrast, when they represent the scenarios at low construal level, they are more likely to consider the secondary, local and subordinate features. The far temporal distance of scenarios is connected to high construal levels. , Ethical judgment, which is defined as awareness of vice and virtue in a scenario, is linked to a representation of high construal level. Given the theoretical logic above, we hypothesized that a far temporal distance of a moral complex will enhance the ethical judgment of a decision-maker. In the current work, two experiments were conducted to test our hypothesis. In Study 1, we embedded the temporal distance in three ethical judgment scenarios by the temporal conditions of “two days ago” versus “two years ago”, with 139 college students being involved in the experiment. The results of repeated-measure ANOVA have shown that the effects of temporal distance were significant; F(1, 127)=5.69, p=0.02, η2=0.04. The subjects perceived the unethical behaviors in a far temporal distance as more unacceptable. In Study 2, apart from the manipulation of temporal distance, we introduced the dispositional variable, namely, consideration of future consequences. 92 MBA students participated in the experiment, filling in the CFC scale before the judgments of four ethical scenarios were made. The repeated measure ANOVA results have shown that the effect of the temporal distance was significant, F(1, 88)= 8.65, p=0.00, η2= 0.09; the effects of the CFC feature was also significant, F(1, 88)=7.33, p=0.01, η2= 0.08; and further the interaction term has shown a significant influence, F(1, 88)=4.44, p=0.038, η2= 0.048. Our hypothesis was confirmed by the results of these two experiments. Our empirical evidences have shown that temporal distance would exert an influence on the decision makers by increasing their moral awareness. A far temporal distance would help individuals to represent an ethical complexity at a high construal level and then make more rigorous decisions. The dispositional feature of far-sight would also serve as a moderator in relation to the prediction. Our research contributed to ethical decision-making literature from the perspective of construal level theory. We firstly introduced dispositional variables besides social cognitive factors in moral decision representations, which suggested that dispositional differences could serve as another factor influencing ethical complex cognition. We also offer suggestion that other dimensions of psychological distance might serve as preconditions of construal levels, which could be explored and discovered in future research. Two experiments were conducted to test our hypothesis. In Study 1, we embedded the temporal distance in 3 ethical judgment scenarios by the temporal condition of “two days ago” versus “two years ago”. 139 college students joined the experiment. The results of repeated-measure ANOVA showed that the effects of temporal distance were significant; F(1, 127)=5.69, p=0.02, η2=0.04. The subjects considered the unethical behaviors in a far temporal distance as more unacceptable. In Study 2, we introduced the dispositional variable of consideration of future consequences besides the manipulation of temporal distance. 92 MBA students participated in the experiment. The subjects filled in the CFC scale before the judgments of 4 ethical scenarios were made. The repeated measure ANOVA results showed that the effect of the temporal distance was significant, F(1, 88)= 8.65, p=0.00, η2= 0.09; the effects of the CFC feature was also significant, F(1, 88)=7.33, p=0.01, η2= 0.08; and the interaction term also showed a significant influence, F(1, 88)=4.44, p=0.038, η2= 0.048. The results of the two experiments confirmed our hypothesis. Our results showed that temporal distance would enhance the decision makers by increasing their moral awareness. A far temporal distance would help people to represent an ethical complexity from a high level construal, and then make more rigorous decisions. The dispositional feature of far-sight would also serve as a moderator in relation to the prediction. Our research contributed to ethical decision-making literature from the perspective of construal level theory. We firstly introduced dispositional variables besides social cognitive factors in moral decision representations. It suggested that dispositional differences could serve as another factor influencing ethical complex cognition. We also suggested that other dimensions of psychological distance might serve as preconditions of construal levels which could be discovered in future research. Two experiments were conducted to test our hypothesis. In Study 1, we embedded the temporal distance in 3 ethical judgment scenarios by the temporal condition of “two days ago” versus “two years ago”. 139 college students joined the experiment. The results of repeated-measure ANOVA showed that the effects of temporal distance were significant; F(1, 127)=5.690, p=0.019, η2=0.043. The subjects considered the unethical behaviors in a far temporal distance as more unacceptable. In Study 2, we introduced the dispositional variable of consideration of future consequences besides the manipulation of temporal distance. 92 MBA students participated in the experiment. The subjects filled in the CFC scale before the judgments of 4 ethical scenarios were made. The repeated measure ANOVA results showed that the effect of the temporal distance was significant, F(1, 88)= 8.650, p=0.004, η2= 0.089; the effects of the CFC feature was also significant, F(1, 88)=7.329, p=0.008, η2= 0.077; and the interaction term also showed a significant influence, F(1, 88)=4.444, p=0.038, η2= 0.048. The results of the two experiments confirmed our hypothesis. Our results showed that temporal distance would enhance the decision makers by increasing their moral awareness. A far temporal distance would help people to represent an ethical complexity from a high level construal], and then make more rigorous decisions. The dispositional feature of far-sight would also serve as a moderator in relation to the prediction. Our research contributed to ethical decision-making literature from the perspective of construal level theory. We firstly introduced dispositional variables besides social cognitive factors in moral decision representations. It suggested that dispositional differences could serve as another factor influencing ethical complex cognition. We also suggested that other dimensions of psychological distance might serve as preconditions of construal levels which could be discovered in future research. Related Articles | Metrics

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The unpacking effect in decision making and judgment 2015, 38(4): 933-938.  Abstract ( )   PDF (480KB) ( )   In our daily life, both layman and experts are often called to evaluate the probability of uncertain events and the time duration of some tasks or projects, such as who is the winner in the World Cup and how long it will take to finish this new project. Such assessments and judgments play an very substantial role in decision making. Psychologists, economists and researchers in other fields have taken deep exploration in human subjective judgment. One effect that has been studied in great detail across a variety of domains is the unpacking effect, which refers to the phenomenon that the total value assigned to a hypothesis is often greater if the hypothesis is decomposed into individual parts which are then evaluated separately. The summation of these individual parts yields a higher valuation than if the hypothesis had been evaluated as a whole. In the present paper, we comprehensively summarized research on the unpacking effect over 20 years. First we introduced the origin of the unpacking effect. Tversky and Koehler put up with the unpacking effect in the Support Theory for the first time in 1994 and they regarded it as the subadditivity in probability judgment. For example, the sum of subjective probabilities for a person dying from “heart disease, cancer, or other natural causes” tends to be judged greater than the subjective probability for the same person dying simply from ‘‘natural causes”. A lot of research demonstrated that the unpacking effect is not only happened in evaluation of lay people but also founded in experts’ judgments. Although Rottenstreich and Tversky (1997) highlighted that probability judgments are generally subadditive rather than superadditive and examples of superadditivity represent the exception rather than the rule of probability judgment, other researchers revealed that superadditivity is also widespread in probability judgment. Next we summarized the unpacking effect in probability judgment. Researchers showed that the unpacking effect is robust, not culturally influenced, in a wide range of field such as economy, medical treatment and trial. A lot of moderating variables also are explored. Research indicated that when using frequency rather than probability to represent results, the unpacking effect will be alleviated. Other important moderating variables include the nature of partition, temporal distance and the number of partition. Besides, the controversy of subadditivity and superadditivity is still no final conclusion. Considering the similarity between probability and time in human decision-making, it can be speculated that such an unpacking effect could be detected in time judgments. A large amount of research confirmed this conjecture. Researchers found that the unpacking effect can weaken plan fallacy and the difficulty of task is a moderating variable. The unpacking effect in time judgment also exists in many situations such as consumption and travel planning. Some factors like construal level and typicality of events could moderate the unpacking effect in time judgment. Although the original research concerning the unpacking effect dealt exclusively with probability judgments, there is reason to believe that the unpacking effect is not unique to judgments of probability. Just as time judgment, researchers revealed this effect in a lot of other social judgment. The unpacking effect plays an important role in contribution judgment in a team and it can reduce people’ egocentrism. Unpacking life into different domains can also improve human whole life satisfaction. And the unpacking effect is also detected in the field of public policy, negotiation, political and emotion predict. Such results indicate that the unpacking effect reflects a general characteristic of human judgment. At last, based on previous research, we put forward some future directions for research of the unpacking effect in decision making and judgment. Future researchers need to clarify the question that unpacking leads to subadditivity or superadditivity. More studies are needed to move a step forward to understand the impact of some moderating variables on the unpacking effect. In addition, to improve our understanding of the cognitive mechanism underlying the unpacking effect, researchers should pay more attention on the processes of the unpacking effect during decision making and judgment. Related Articles | Metrics

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The Effect of Self-presentation in Online Social Network Sites on Self-seteem: The Mediating Role of Social Support 2015, 38(4): 939-945.  Abstract ( )   PDF (685KB) ( )   According to the 34th statistical report of CNNIC, the number of online social network sites’ users has reached 257, which makes up 40.7% of the internet users. The number of people using social network sites also has maked up 67% of the global Internet users wordwidely; with the rapid rise and popularity of social network sites, the social impact of social network sites’ ues has become a focus of attention of relevant research scholars. Social network sites, which aimes at encouraging people to build and maintain a network of friends, provides a necessarily supplementary way to interact with others, which has an important effect on individuals’ psychological and social adaption. Researches has confirmed that: the use of social networking sites could increases social capital and promotes individual’s social adaptation and happiness. Researchers also explored the effect of social networking sites’ use on individual’s psychological and social adaptation: it could affect individual’s psychological and social adaptation through social capital, the building of intimate relationship and support from the friends in social network sites. Self-presentation, which was also called mpression management or impression regulation, refers to that one controls the content of the information and the way it was presented, in order to affect the formation and change of their impressions on others. It is a common phenomenon in interpersonal interactions, and with the popularity of internet, self-preeentation extends to the interent. Internet provides individuals with a relatively safe environment, and the non-real-time of online commuciation also provides a maximum control over self-presentation and expression. People could engage in self-presentation through profile construc-tion, status updates, photo album management, message-posting, and so on, so social network sites has become an ideal platform for self-presentation. As in real life, individual would presente themsleives with different strategies, and the common self-presentation strategies were positive self-presentation and honest self-presentation. Different self-presentation strategies have different effects on individuals.; relevant researches has confirmed that this two strategies has different effect on individuals’ social adaption with different mechanism. On this basis, the aim of this study was to investigate the effects of different strategies of self-presentation on individual’s self-esteem, and fuether explored the effect of social support between them. And a survey had been conducted to examine the relationship among positive and honest self-presentation in social network sites, social support and self-esteem of college students. The participants were 485 college students; and four questionnaires were used in this study: Positive Self-presentation Questionnaire, Honest Self-presentation Questionnaire, Perceived Social Support Scale and Self-Esteem Scale. The results indicated that: (1) The positive and honest self-presentation were both positively correlated with social support and self-esteem, but the honest self-presentation was higher correlated with social support and self-esteem. (2) the mediating effect of social support was not significant in positive self-presentation’s effect on self-esteem, positive self-presentation only had a direct effect on self-esteem; while not only could honest self-presentation signifiantly predicted self-esteem, but it could also affect self-esteem through the mediating role of social support. This indicated that the positive self-presentation reflect people’s tendency to hold positive beliefs about themselves, from which the psychological benefits of self-enhancement are derive; while friends are more likely to provide support when they know that the user is in need for support through honest self-presentation, and this could be beneficial to their self-esteem. Related Articles | Metrics

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The Effect of Social Exclusion on Social Decision Making Under Different Fair Conditions and Game Types Ling TAN 2015, 38(4): 946-953.  Abstract ( )   PDF (480KB) ( )   Decision making is always involved in cooperation, reciprocity and fairness. Cooperation, reciprocity and fairness are not only the goals which our human beings is pursuing all the times, but also play a significant role in all kinds of subjects, such as psychology, social work and economics. Cooperation, reciprocity and fairness are the foundations of human existence and the pre-requisition for the economic and social development. They are so essential and crucial to us, we barely can survive without them. Decision making was affected by many factors such as emotion, intelligence. People make decision in social contexts. However, so far there are few studies attempting to investigate the effects of social exclusion on decision making. Social exclusion has drawn more and more attention as a pervasive and negative social experience in recent years in psychological area. The concept of social exclusion refers to the phenomenon that people’s need of belongingness and social relationships is thwarted because the one is excluded by a group or other people. Economic games are novel tools for us to study cooperation, reciprocity and fairness behaviors. In this study, we aim at investigating the effect of social exclusion on the behavioral responses of respondents in ultimatum games and dictator games. Meanwhile we also explore the factors that might modulate the effects of social exclusion on social decision making, such as fairness consideration and economic game types. In experiment 1, social inclusion and exclusion were manipulated using Cyberball (a virtual ball game). Participants were randomly assigned to excluded group or included group. Right after the Cyberball game there is a questionnaire contained several manipulation checks for inclusion/ostracism as well as their levels of four needs that they felt during the game. Cyberball was immediately followed by an ultimatum game. Firstly, participants were informed of the rules of UG, in which participants would play as a recipient and the allocator would be a novel player. Secondly, 51 participants played the ultimatum game with 6 different players, in which the recipients can either accept or reject the offer proposed by the allocator. The roles in the UG were determined by the computer. All the participants acted as recipient. In experiment 2, all the procedures were mostly the same as experiment 1. The only difference was the rules of the dictator game, in which the recipients can only accept the offer proposed by the allocator. All these 2 experiments investigated whether fairness consideration and economic game type would mediate the effect of social exclusion on social decision making. The whole study indicated：(1) Social exclusion had negative effects on social decision making. Specifically, social exclusion decreased cooperative behaviors in economic games. The excluded group was more likely to reject and felt less satisfied with the amount of money offered by the allocator compared to the controlled group. (2) The fairness consideration mediated the link between social exclusion and social decision making. With the severity of unfairness being enhanced, the excluded group was more likely to reject and felt less satisfied with the amount of money offered by the allocator. And they made more irrational decisions. (3) The economic game type had significant effect on social decision making of social excluded group. The excluded group in the dictator game was less satisfied with the amount of money offered by the allocator compared to the excluded group in the ultimatum games. These findings enhanced the ecological validity of research in social decision making as well as predictive validity of traditional decision making models, and shed light on the factors involved in social decision making. Related Articles | Metrics

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Moderating Effect of the Power between Social Exclusion and Self-focused Attention 2015, 38(4): 960-965.  Abstract ( )   PDF (890KB) ( )   Abstract Social exclusion is generally defined as the need of people’s belongingness and social relationships, which is thwarted owing to being excluded by a group or other people. Relevant researches suggest that social exclusion may affect the cognition, emotion and behavior. During a social event, people are often disturbed by the environment. So self-focused attention may be affected by the negative social exclusion. There are two types of explicit and implicit self-focused attention. It is anticipated that social exclusion affects the different types of self-focused attention. And that, power refers to the notion that is as asymmetric control over valuable resources and outcomes within a specific situation and set of social relations. Based on these we expect that power has an influence on the relationship between social exclusion and self-focused attention as the moderating variable. Chinese college students were selected as participants. In Experiment 1, the aim was to explore the effect of social exclusion on self-focused attention. The experiment was adopted 2(exclusion situation: the recall vs. the real)?2(exclusion type: the ignored vs. the rejected) between-group design.80 students were selected and grouped into four types of experiment condition randomly. The number of the subjects was 20 in each group. In the recall-ignored and recall-rejected condition, the subjects must write the experience of being excluded. While in the real- ignored and real-rejected condition, the subjects were informed that they were joining in an activity to set up the real situation. After that, all the subjects evaluated the sense of exclusion by themselves. Then they would write the scale of self-focused attention and finished Stroop Test for the implicit measurement. The results showed that both the recall and the real social exclusion had a significant influence on the explicit and implicit self-focused attention. The ignored had higher self-focused attention in contrast to the rejected. The findings provided support for the hypothesis that social exclusion affected the self-focused attention. Experiment 2 further explored the role of power in the relationship between social exclusion and self-focused attention. This experiment used word-search test priming power, which was a common kind paradigm of power’s priming. 180 college students were randomly assigned to any one of the experimental groups. It was a 2(exclusion type: the ignored vs. the rejected) x 3(power type: the high vs. the low vs. the medium) x 2(exclusion situation: the recall vs. the real) between-group design experiment.The subjects operated test of power’s priming after social exclusion task.The results showed that, for the explicit self-focused attention, the main effect of social exclusion and power was significant and the interaction was also significant. Under the ignored condition, high power individuals’ self-focused attention was lower than medium and low power individuals. For the implicit self-focused attention, the main effect of social exclusion and power was significant, and the ignored had higher self-focused attention than who were rejected; high power had lower self-focused attention than who had medium and low power, but there was no the interaction. We conclude that power mediates the relationship between ignored social exclusion and explicit self-focused attention. Related Articles | Metrics

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The Big Two Model in Social Cognition 2015, 38(4): 1019-1023.  Abstract ( )   PDF (171KB) ( )   There are two fundamental content dimensions in social cognition, warmth and competence, which are also called “Big Two”. The first dimension is related to the goal of communion which emphasises the processing of social information relevant to warmth or social traits(e.g., helpful, honest), the other dimension concerns the goal of agency which emphasises the processing of information relevant to competence or intellectual traits(e.g., clever, creative). Why do we think these two dimensions basic? The two dimensions, from an ontological viewpoint, are an adequate reflection of social reality. On the other hand, they are also functional to social perceivers. From the point of evolutionary psychology, people encounting others must judge the intentions of the other person or group, and their ability to act on those intentions. The concept of “Big Two” has been put forward for nearly a decade and has been widely accepted. However, it`s still in the stage of constructing, testing and further refining, so the researh mainly revolves around a few crucial questions. Firstly, is it generalizable for different cultures? The names of two dimensions are still not unified, what’s more, researchers recently argued that moral may be a more important dimension than warmth. Secondly, what’s the relationship between the two fundamental dimensions? They may be orthogonal, positive or negative related and each of them was supported by different evidences. Thirdly, which is the bigger one of “Big Two”? Warmth generally is the more important and primary one in “Big Two”, but it can be moderated by the perceivers` perspective and situations. Altogether, the research of “Big Two” still have a long way to go. Firstly, the study on “Big Two” in China should base on the local culture and use an more reasonable name, because Chinese emphasized that talents should combine ability with political integrity, but not warmth. Secondly, further researches be done on the three focus issues of “Big Two”. Thirdly, we should base future research about embodied cognition based on the two dimesions, because both of them are embodied abstractions in social cognitive processes. Related Articles | Metrics

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School Climate and Adolescent Problem Behaviors: The Mediating Role of Peer Victimization Dong-Ping LI Wu CHEN Zhen-Zhou BAO 2015, 38(4): 896-910.  Abstract ( )   PDF (757KB) ( )   A large body of research has documented the positive association between school climate and adolescents’ problem behaviors. However, the measurement and analysis of school climate remains to be improved. Many studies have aggregated students’ personal experiences items (e.g., “our teachers care about me”) with items referring to school characteristics (e.g., “In this school, teachers help students solve problems”). This confusion makes it hard to disentangle the effects of students’ experiences from the effects of schools’ characteristics or climate. To solve this problem, we deleted the items which referring to the students’ personal experiences. Besides, some single-level analyses erroneously conflate individual- and school-level effects, this approach make it hard to disentangle the effects of students’ experiences from the effects of schools’ climate. In order to disentangle them, we used the method of group-mean-centered technology as suggested by Morin et al. (2013). In addition, little is known about the mediating mechanisms underlying this relation. The present study examined the mediating role of peer victimization between school climate and problem behaviors (i.e., depression, delinquency). A total of 2,758 junior high school students (mean age = 13.56 years) from 10 schools of Guangdong province were invited to take part in this study. Participants anonymously completed Socioeconomic Status Questionnaire, Family Assessment Device, Perception of School Climate Questionnaire, Adolescents’ Peer Victimization Questionnaire, Children’s Depression Inventory, and Adolescents’ Delinquency Index Questionnaire. Structural equation modeling showed that: (1) After controlling for gender, age, socioeconomic status and family functioning, school climate significantly predicted adolescents’ delinquency and depression; and (2) Peer victimization mediated the relationship between school climate and adolescents’ problem behaviors. In conclusion, this study has documented the importance of school climate in adolescent problem behaviors, as well as the mediating role of peer victimization between school climate and problem behaviors. The results suggest that the school administrators and educators should pay attention to the important role of school climate in adolescent problem behaviors, because positive school climate can reduce peer victimization experiences, which in turn reduce adolescent problem behaviors. Related Articles | Metrics

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Gratitude and Sense of Coherence among High School Students:Mediating Roles of Positive Affect and Positive Coping Style 2015, 38(4): 846-852.  Abstract ( )   PDF (314KB) ( )   This study had two main purposes: (1) whether gratitude could predict the sense of coherence (SOC) via positive affect and positive coping style; (2) whether gender could moderate the mediating effect of positive affect and positive coping style. We hypothesized that gratitude could directly predict SOC (H1); gratitude could also enhance SOC through increasing positive affect (H2) and positive coping style (H3) ; Furthermore, positive affect and positive coping style played a chain mediating effect between gratitude and SOC (H4) ; gender could moderate the mediation model (H5). 449 participants were recruited from two ordinary high schools in Hohhot, 51.6% of which were male and 48.1% female (Mage= 17.58, SD= 1.06). The questionnaires were Adolescent Gratitude Scale, Adolescents’ School Positive and Negative Affect Scale, Trait Coping Style Questionnaire and SOC Scale (13 items). Furthermore, a confirmatory analysis was used to test common method variance. Results indicated that four-factor model was better than single-factor model(Δχ2/Δdf = 72.45, p < .001), making sure the study is accurate enough in terms of common method variance. In order to validate our hypotheses, a structural equation model (SEM) was built. Overall, the results of goodness-of-fit indices revealed that the SEM fitted the data well (χ2/df = 3.21, p < .001，RMSEA = .07, CFI = .94, NNFI = .91, GFI = .95). The Bias-corrected Nonparametric Percentile Bootstrap test showed that both the direct and indirect effect were significant. Specifically, gratitude could directly predict SOC (the effect size was 46%),?and more importantly, it could also enhance SOC through increasing positive affect (the effect size was 24%) and positive coping style (the effect size was 10%). Also, positive affect and positive coping style indeed played a chain mediating effect between gratitude and SOC (the effect size was 20%). Therefore, our hypotheses 1- 4 were verified. A multi-group analysis found that the CRD (Critical Ratios for Differences between Parameters) of path coefficient from gratitude to positive coping style was only significantly different between males and females (CRD = |-2.06| > 1.96, p < .05), so our hypothesis 5 failed to be fully validated. We concluded from this study that gratitude could not only predict SOC directly, but also indirectly influence SOC via positive affect and positive coping style, and males with high gratitude scores were more likely to use positive coping style than females. The main innovative point of this study had three aspects: (1) exploring the ways to enhance SOC, which filled a gap in the field of domestic SOC study, (2) helping to explain the relationship between gratitude and mental health, and (3) providing new evidence for the influence of gender on the function of gratitude. In addition, our findings also had practical implications for both gratitude intervention and gender role education. At last, we discussed the unaddressed field and pointed out the possible direction for future research. Related Articles | Metrics

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The Relationship between Online Game Experience and Online Game Addiction among Adolescents: A Cross-Lagged Regression Analysis Guo-Hua ZHANG 2015, 38(4): 883-888.  Abstract ( )   PDF (310KB) ( )   In recent years, online games entered a high-speed development period, the number of users increased significantly. Youth group became one of the most important group using online games. Access to online games more and longer time, online games had more and more influence on teenagers. At present, online game addiction among adolescents has become a serious global problem. With the increase of teenagers’ internet age, explore the development of adolescents’ online game addiction and its long-term impacts has very important practical significance. Currently, few studies have explored online game addiction from the perspective of user experience. Existing researches mostly employed the related research design, makes it difficult to clarify the causality between the two variables. This study adopted longitudinal design to investigate the development of teenagers’ online game addiction, and used cross-lagged design to examine the causal relationship between online game experience and online game addiction and its mechanism. There were 247 middle school students in Beijing participated the four-month follow-up study. Two questionnaires were used in this research: the Adolescent Online Game Experience Scale includes 40 items using a 5-point Likert scoring, and the Online Game Addiction Scale includes 11 items using a 5-point Likert scoring. Repetitive measure analysis of variance and the cross-lagged regression analysis were used to investigate the change of adolescents’ online game addiction, and the causal relationship between online gaming experience (the scores of whole scale and six sub-scales) and online game addiction. The results showed that: (1) adolescents’ online game addiction tended to be stable during the four months of follow-up study. (2) There were significant relationships among pre-test and post-test online game experience and online game addiction, which meant that the higher online game experience, the higher tendency of online game addiction. (3) Cross-lagged regression analysis indicated that online game experience caused adolescents’ online game addiction. Further regression analysis showed that the prediction of online game experience on online game addiction are simultaneous, flow experience had the most significant prediction effect on online game addiction. The results of this research had some implies on balancing the online game experience design and the prevention and intervention of teenagers’ online game addiction. In the process of online game design, increase the features of online games which generate entertainment and achievement experience, as well as role play and social experience, decrease the features of online games which generate flow and control experience. Thus we can control from the source of online game experience which were easy to cause adolescents' online game addiction, so as to reduce the occurrence of online game addiction. This study also has certain limitations. In this study, the pretest and post-test time not matched very well. In the future, the track time interval and frequency should shortened or extended according to the research design. Related Articles | Metrics

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Relations between Shyness and Psychological Adjustment among Grades 3-8 Students: Examining a Mediated Moderation Model Yoko Zhou 2015, 38(4): 861-869.  Abstract ( )   PDF (952KB) ( )   Abstract: Shyness is a temperamental trait characterized by fear and anxiety in the face of novel social situations and self-consciousness in situations of perceived social evaluation. Empirical findings in Western societies indicated that shy children were prone to peer relationship problems, including peer victimization and rejection, as well as psychological maladjustment, including loneliness, low self-esteem and symptoms of depression. However, studies of Chinese children have yielded inconsistent findings. For instance, Chen and his colleagues found that shyness was associated with peer acceptance and positive school adjustment in Chinese children. In contrast, Schwartz and his colleagues found that shy Chinese children were disliked and victimized at school. The inconsistence among these results can be explained by the difference in the periods that these studies were conducted. More and more evidences have proved that shyness was associated with psychological maladjustment in the current urban area of China. Gender plays an important role in the prevalence and the implications of shyness. Drawing upon developmental theory of the importance of peer relationships in childhood and gender role stereotype theory casting males as traditionally more dominant/assertive and females as more passive/submissive, we proposed a mediated moderation model that may explain differences in the potential implications of shyness for boys and girls, which assumed that the relations between shyness and psychological adjustment were moderated by gender and the effects of gender were transmitted through peer relationship problems. Participants were N=1485 children (751 boys, 734 girls, Mage=11.25, SD=22 months) recruited from grade 3-8 classrooms in four randomly selected public schools in Shanghai. Assessments of shyness, peer victimization, peer rejection and psychological adjustment were obtained from multiple sources, including self-reports and peer nominations. Results indicated that: (1) there were significant gender difference on shyness, peer relationship problems and psychological adjustment. Girls had higher scores on shyness and self-esteem, but lower scores on peer relationship problems, loneliness and depression than did boys; (2) shyness was positively associated with peer relationship problems, loneliness and depression, but negatively associated with self-esteem; (3) the relations between shyness and psychological adjustment were moderated by gender. Shyness was more strongly associated with psychological maladjustment among boys as compared to girls; (4) the moderating effects of gender on shyness and psychological adjustment were mediated by peer relationship problems, the indirect effects made up 25% to 47% of the total effects. These results suggest that shy boys and girls are treated and responded to differently by peers, which leads to the gender differences in the outcomes of shyness. Gender plays an important role in the prevalence and the implications of shyness. Drawing upon developmental theory of the importance of peer relationships in childhood and gender role stereotype theory casting males as traditionally more dominant/assertive and females as more passive/submissive, we proposed a mediated moderation model that may explain differences in the potential implications of shyness for boys and girls, which assumed that the relations between shyness and psychological adjustment were moderated by gender and the effects of gender were transmitted through peer difficulties. Participants were N=1485 children (751 boys, 734 girls, Mage=11.25, SD=22 months) recruited from grade 3-8 classrooms in four randomly selected public schools in Shanghai. Assessments of shyness, peer victimization, peer rejection and psychological adjustment were obtained from multiple sources, including self-reports and peer nominations. Results indicated that: (1) there were significant gender difference on shyness, peer difficulties and psychological adjustment. Girls had higher scores on shyness and self-esteem, but lower scores on peer difficulties, loneliness and depression than did boys; (2) shyness was positively associated with peer difficulties, loneliness and depression, but negatively associated with self-esteem; (3) the relations between shyness and psychological adjustment were moderated by gender. Shyness was more strongly associated with psychological maladjustment among boys as compared to girls; (4) the moderating effects of gender on shyness and psychological adjustment were mediated by peer difficulties, the indirect effects made up 25% to 47% of the total effects. These results suggest that shy boys and girls are treated and responded to differently by peers, which leads to the gender differences in the outcomes of shyness. Related Articles | Metrics

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The Impact of Mindfulness on Subjective Well-being of College Students：the Mediating Effects of Emotion Regulation and Resilience 2015, 38(4): 889-895.  Abstract ( )   PDF (557KB) ( )   The application of Mindfulness training has become increasingly popular in the last few years. Mindfulness training proved to be effective in a wide range of physical and psychological symptoms and mental Health for various disease groups as well as non-clinical populations. There is a general agreement among researchers that mindfulness training promotes subjective well-being. Studies on mindfulness and subjective well-being relationship seem to converge on the fact that mindfulness is positively associated with subjective well-being. The mindfulness and subjective well-being relationship has been well documented in the literature. However，the mediating mechanisms that can effectively explain the mindfulness and subjective well-being relationship are not well understood so far. The present study aimed to investigate the impact of Mindfulness on the subjective well-being of college students，and mainly focused on the confirmation of the concurrent mediating effects of emotion regulation and psychological resilience for the relationship between mindfulness and subjective well-being in order to identify the probable mediating processes and mechanisms that may potentially explain the mindfulness and subjective well-being relationship. This study hypothesized that：(1) Mindfulness will directly influence subjective well-being. (2)Mindfulness enhances subjective well-being through two potential mediators：emotion regulation and psychological resilience. A total of 448 college students from five Chinese universities with an age range of 17–27 years accomplished Five Facet Mindfulness Questionnaire (FFMQ)，Emotion Regulation Scale (ERS)，Connor-Davidson Resilience Scale (CD - RISC)，and Index of Well-Being (IWB). The data was analyzed with SPSS 20.0 and AMOS 20.0. The results showed that：(1)The difference of the indices of NFI，GFI，CFI and RMSEA between the original model and control model after controlling for the effects of a single unmeasured latent method factor was less than 0.02，showing no serious common method bias. (2)There were significantly positive correlations between mindfulness，reappraisal，resilience and subjective well–being. (3)Structural equation modeling (SEM) indicated that when we put reappraisal and resilience in the relationship of Mindfulness and subjective well–being respectively，reappraisal and resilience played a partial mediating role. Multiple mediation analysis indicated that reappraisal and resilience partially mediated the relationship between mindfulness and subjective well–being besides direct influence. There were two mediating paths in the model：1)the significant path from mindfulness through resilience to subjective well–being；2)and the significant path from mindfulness through reappraisal and resilience to subjective well–being. In other words，reappraisal could partially mediate the relationship between mindfulness and resilience，and resilience could completely mediate the relationship between reappraisal and subjective well–being. On the basis of these findings，we concluded that mindfulness had an important positive influence on subjective well-being. On the one hand，mindfulness acted as a protective factor of resilience by increasing the ability of an individual to recover from frustrations and adversities，such ability had a beneficial effect on subjective well-being. On the other hand，mindfulness promoted the use of reappraisal strategy which promoted psychological resilience and resulted in the enhancement of subjective well-being. Compared with reappraisal，psychological resilience was a more important mediator in the relationship of mindfulness and subjective well-being. The present study extended prior reports and highlighted a previously unidentified mechanism to explain how mindfulness promoted subjective well-being. Related Articles | Metrics

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Effects of different witnesses on children’s moral emotion judgment and attribution 2015, 38(4): 876-882.  Abstract ( )   PDF (310KB) ( )   Previous studies have focused on the impact of teacher as an important authority in children’s life witnessing different kinds of behavior on children’s moral emotion judgment and attribution. And the results indicated that this kind of witness could lead some changes for children’s moral emotion judgment and attribution to different actors, though also some inconformity existed in these results. However, some limitations still exist. For one thing, some researchers have proved that even preschool children could accept the status of their peers as authorities. But whether this kind of authority could have impact on children’s moral emotion judgment and attribution, we have no ideas. For another thing, although some studies have found that when a teacher witnessed an actor’s（such as victimizer’s) behavior, children’s moral emotion judgment to this kind of actor could have some alteration in contrast to the condition no people witnessed. Whether this effect was due to the authority status of the teacher or the interruption of an unexpected person, this question should also be considered. In this study, we chose teacher as adult authority and monitor in class as peer authority, and also chose an ordinary student in class as non-authority, adopting a 3(types of behavior contexts)×3 (types of witnesses) between subject design, with 90 7～8 aged children as participants, aiming at inspecting children’s moral emotion judgment and attribution to different behavior contexts in different authority witnesses condition. As the result showed, the main effect of behavior contexts was significant. Comparing to the victimizing context and the context of failing to act prosocially, children tended to judge the actor’s emotion would be happier in prosocial context. Besides, there was also a significant interaction between types of behavior contexts and the types of witnesses. Subjects tended to judge the actor would feel unhappier when adult-authority( vs. peer-authority & non-authority) witnessed actor’s behavior in victimizing context, while they tended to judge the actor would feel happier when adult-authority( vs. peer-authority & non-authority) witnessed actor’s behavior in prosocial context. In adult-authority witness condition, children’s score of moral emotion judgment displayed significant difference. The score was highest in prosocial context, but was lowest in victimizing context. However, in peer-authority and non-authority witness condition, there was no significant difference in children’s score of moral emotion judgment to different contexts. Children’s attribution of moral emotion was different in different authority witnesses condition. Children tended to adopt reward/punishment-orientation more in adult-authority witness condition than in other two authority witnesses conditions. While there were no significant differences among three authority witnesses conditions for other orientations. The results illustrated that teacher played an important role in children’s development of moral emotion and moral motivation. Monitor, as a peer authority, witnessing actors’ behavior hardly had impact on children’ moral emotion judgment. Although 7~8 years old children regarded the monitor as one kind of authority, but the impact of this kind of authority was not so great as teacher, who made and carried out the rule from kindergarten stage on. The outcome also made further examination to previous studies, demonstrating that teacher onlooker’s influences on children’s moral emotion judgment and attribution should be due to the authority status of teacher, but not the interruption of an unexpected person. Related Articles | Metrics

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The Implications of the Spatial-Temporal Shifting Patterns of Late Positive Potential (LPP) in the Study of Emotion Regulation Development 2015, 38(4): 853-860.  Abstract ( )   PDF (735KB) ( )   In the recent twenty years, increasing researchers had used cognitive neuroscience approach to investigate emotion regulation. Although imaging studies have a very big advantage in spatial resolution, which can analyze the activation of emotional processing involved in various brain regions, the processing of emotion regulation is a dynamic process, which changes in a millisecond time window. Nowadays more and more research explores the individual brain responses to emotional processing by measuring event-related potentials (Event-Related Potentials, ERPs). Late Positive Potential (LPP) is a typical EEG component in the study of emotion regulation. It is a positive component, which appears evidence about 300-400ms after stimulus presentation at occipital to central recording sites. The dual role of reactivity and regulation effect during emotion regulation could be indexed by the modulation of LPP. The increased modulation LPP in response to emotional stimuli reflects individuals’ facilitated attention to emotional information during emotion regulation processing. Such increased modulation LPP is called the reactivity effect of emotion regulation. In addition, LPP is reduced following the use of different emotion regulation strategies. The decreased modulations of LPP index downstream processes deriving from increased activation of the frontal regions in later time window of emotion regulation and it is called the regulation effect of emotion regulation. Previous studies have pointed out that the decreased modulation of LPP appears evidence at posterior/superior recording sites with peak in the early time window (from 400 to 1000ms). With a spatial shifting over time, the topography of maximal LPP may shift from the posterior cortical activation, which is associated with the perceptual reactivity of the emotional stimuli to the prefrontal cortical region which is associated with the cognitive control. Recruitment of prefrontal cortical resources is associated with effective regulation and may result in the modulation of LPP. The spatial-temporal shifting patterns of LPP during the processing of emotion regulation have been proved in many developmental studies to explain the individual differences during development. For example, previous work has shown that toddlers exhibit enhanced modulations of LPP to negative emotional stimuli than neutral stimuli. This enhanced modulation has even been found in very young children. Researchers also examined the developmental changes of the spatial-temporal shifting patterns of LPP in different age range and try to figure out whether the development of specific brain regions (e.g., prefrontal cortex) are associated with the consequences of different regulatory strategies. For example, as the late LPP was the indicator of the involvement of cognitive resources and effective cognitive regulation, the age-related differences in the late LPP between children, adolescents and adults might be the possible reason why younger participants were less capable than adults in regulating emotions. To extent previous studies, future researchers should pay more attention to the examination of LPP patterns in the field of abnormal child development, the impact of brain development and hormones changes to the LPP patterns, and how individual differences associate with LPP modulations when regulating emotion. As a critical developmental window for the acquisition of mature regulatory processes, more research is needed to investigate to potential mechanism of emotion regulation development. Related Articles | Metrics

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The effects and mechanism of dispositional empathy and victim identifiability on college students’ pro-social behavior 2015, 38(4): 870-875.  Abstract ( )   PDF (455KB) ( )   Pro-social behaviors are the important contents for college students to cultivate and practice the socialist core values. Previous studies have found that identified victims will increase people’s pro-social behaviors，researchers named this phenomenon as the identifiable victim effect. In other words，the identifiability of victim is an important factor affecting people’s pro-social behaviors，while previous research on the effects of the victims on pro-social behaviors were taken mainly in the western individualistic culture background，but in our more collectivist and interdependent cultural background，the existence of this phenomenon has not confirmed through the empirical research. Based upon，this study explored whether there’re still exists identifiable victim effect and potential psychological mechanism in China，which donations behaviors of college students was the indicators of pro-social behavior. Our study randomly chosen 83 college students from 2 universities in Beijing，adopting Dispositional Empathy Scale and Empathy Response Adjective Scale to measure subject’s dispositional empathy and empathy response，and also using audio and picture materials to operate the level of identifiability of victim，to investigate the interactive effects of the college student’s dispositional empathy and victim’s identifiability on their willingness of donation and the potential psychological mechanism. Specific research procedures included：firstly，a professionally trained graduate student of psychology instructed participants completed Dispositional Empathy Scale. Secondly，after the completion of Dispositional Empathy Scale，the college students would be randomly divided into two groups，and then respectively listened to and read the materials of the identifiable and unidentifiable victim conditions. Once again，after listening to and reading the materials，the college students were asked to evaluate their emotional reactions. Finally， the experimenter let the participants to assess their willingness of donation on a 7-point score. The results shows that：(1)the identifiability of victims affected pro-social behaviors of college students，that is，under our collectivist cultural backgrounds，identifiable victim effect still existed；(2) for the students with low level of empathic tendency，the victim’s identifiability could not influence their willingness of donation，while for those students with high level of empathic tendency，the willingness of donation under the identifiable victim conditions was significantly higher than that under the unidentifiable victim conditions. (3) Mediating effect analysis showed that the identifiability of victim can increase the level of sympathy the college students with high level of empathic tendency，which could predict their willingness of donation. The innovation of our study had mainly two points. Firstly，culture is an important factor affecting the social behaviors of individuals，previous research on identifiable victim effect mainly concentrated in the western cultural context，but in our more collectivist and interdependent cultural background，few studies have examined this issue. Secondly，previous studies investigated the effect of victim’s identifiability on individual empathic response，but have not directly investigated its mediating effects，this study directly discussed the empathic response as the mediating process between dispositional empathy and pro-social behaviors. Related Articles | Metrics

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The Essence of Testing Structural Equation Models Using Popular Fit Indexes Han WEN Yun-Si LIANG 2015, 38(4): 987-994.  Abstract ( )   PDF (353KB) ( )   Structural equation modeling is an important method for analyzing multivariate data in the studies of psychology, behavior, management, marketing, etc. The usual regression models are simple cases of structural equation models. Compared with regression models from the view of covariance structural analysis, structural equation models are easier to be understood why they need model-fit testing by using goodness of fit indexes. We introduce the source of fit indexes, methods of model-fit testing and criteria of fit indexes in structural equation models. Our main purpose is to reveal the essence of model-fit testing using some popular fit-indices, including NNFI (Non-normed Fit Index), CFI (Comparative Fit Index), Mc (Measure of Centrality), and RMSEA (Root Mean Square Error of Approximation). It is shown that the criterion of an absolute fit index based on chi-square (e.g., RMSEA, Mc) is to set significance levels (might be much lower than traditional level of 0.05) for chi-square test. According to these comparable significance levels we could know which criterion is harsher to accept the theoretical model. When the degree of freedom is not larger than 32, the theoretical model will be accepted under the criteria of Mc > 0.9 if the model is accepted under the criteria of RMSEA < 0.08. When the degree of freedom is not less than 33, conversely, the theoretical model will be accepted under the criteria of RMSEA < 0.08 if the model is accepted under the criteria of Mc > 0.9. Thus RMSEA < 0.08 and Mc > 0.9 are compensatory criteria for model-fit testing in structural equation modeling. It is also shown that the criterion of a relative fit index is to set a proportion of reduced mean square (the ratio of chi-square to its degree of freedom) from the null model to the theoretical model. The null model is the worst model-fit because all indicators in the null model are set to be uncorrelated each other. Thus, the null model has the largest chi-square and the largest degree of freedom. For any given cutoff value, if the theoretical model is accepted under the criterion of NNFI, the model will be accepted definitively under the criterion of CFI. In other words, CFI is always not less than NNFI. Therefore, the criterion of CFI is covered by the criterion of NNFI. It is recommended that applied researchers should report and test at least one absolute fit index and one relative fit index. For absolute fit index, both Mc (cutoff value 0.9) and RMSEA Mc (cutoff value 0.08) are recommended. For relative fit index, however, only NNFI (cutoff value 0.9) is recommended. In addition, SRMR (Standardized Root Mean square Residual, cutoff value 0.08) is deserved of reference because it is only one that is not defined based on chi-square in the popular fit indexes. Related Articles | Metrics

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Depression brain dysfunction: Evidence from a local functional connectivity methods 2015, 38(4): 1004-1011.  Abstract ( )   PDF (382KB) ( )   Resting -state functional magnetic resonance imaging is the spontaneous neural activity in the absence of external information input and output conditions of the brain, the local functional connectivity based on resting state of depression for the study of the characteristics of spontaneous neural activity and brain function changes of great significance. This paper reviews a number of studies, and found the change including local consistency (ReHo) and low frequency amplitude (ALFF) functional differentiation, and includes functional connection density (FCD), whole brain symmetry voxel homeomorphism connectivity (VMHC), Complex networks (Complex Network) and integration of functions of ROI function connection. Based on simple local connection method can provide an important basis for the early detection and treatment of clinical depression of brain function. Future connections and functions connected by a comprehensive understanding of the anatomical basis of the organizational structure will be resting brain research and its functional connection status signal characteristics and prediction, diagnosis and treatment of diseases combined to achieve its clinical value. In addition, early clinical diagnosis based on the patient's medical history and clinical symptoms were highly subjective, it not only cannot achieve early diagnosis and early treatment, but also makes an objective evaluation of drug efficacy to be a problem. To seek early diagnosis and evaluation of drug efficacy objective quantitative brain disease bio-markers, we use multi-modality medical imaging technology, combined with machine learning methods and pattern recognition technology, in many ways to understand the structure and function of the brain changes in the brain caused by brain disease and these findings apply to early diagnosis of brain diseases. The birth of a human brain imaging technology for the first time in the history of science can be directly and noninvasive way to see neural activity in the brain. Meanwhile, brain imaging has become indispensable in today's various neurological disease diagnosis tool. Clinically, brain imaging for the diagnosis and treatment of brain disorders has important significance. Therefore, through the use of a variety of functions for local function and brain image recognition technology index, more comprehensive and more accurate phenomenon of abnormal activity in patients with specific brain regions can be reflected. As a result, this can provide standard for early identification of depression. Above all, we want to more in-depth analysis and research method of resting state functional connectivity, and pay attention to it and the comprehensive utilization of a variety of emerging technologies, realize the value of its clinical application. Related Articles | Metrics

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A New Diagnostic Category：Premenstrual Dysphoric Disorder 2015, 38(4): 995-1003.  Abstract ( )   PDF (1231KB) ( )   Premenstrual dysphoric disorder (PMDD) is a group of premenstrual psychological, physical, and behavioral symptoms which seriously affect women at work, school, and home. PMDD was formally termed by the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders 4th Edition (DSM-IV) in 1994, and was finally approved as a distinct diagnostic category in the ?fth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5) by the American Psychiatric Association (APA) board of trustees in the early December of 2012. It was a milestone for the studies on PMDD, which very well progressed in both fields of phenomenology and pathology in the last two decades, and it predicted that future studies of PMDD will become hot topics. However, the exact pathogenesis of PMDD is not clear. The reason may be that the screening and diagnosis criteria of PMDD were inconsistent accorss different studies, or that PMDD had both physiological and psychological pathological basis and manifestation. Therefore, only by comprehending both physiological and psychological evidence and screening out the real PMDD women can we gain insight into the pathogenesis of PMDD and, further, carry out specific treatments. Firstly, this paper introduces the phenomenology of PMDD. Sceondly, the paper sums up the main screening and diagnosis criteria of PMDD in recent years. Thirdly, this article summaried the previous studies of the pathogenesis of PMDD. Specifically, the common diagnostic tool of PMDD was the diagnostic criteria in DSM-IV, while DSM-5 made a improvement focusing on the time, type, and specificity of the symptoms. Base on the definition and diagostic criteria of PMDD, the most distinctive feature of PMDD was that its symptoms were related to menstrual cycle. Therefore, researcher explored the pathogenesis of PMDD from two perspectives: the neuroendocine perspective, and the brain mechanism one. The results of hypothalamic-pituitary-gonadal (HPG) and neurotransmitter revealed that PMDD females had been more sensitive to normal sex hormones fluctuations, especially progesterone, which may due to the dysfunction of neurotransmitter (mainly serotonin). On the contrary, there is still no consistent conclusions on the brain mechanism of PMDD. Yet, based on previous studies we speculated that the brain structure and function changed among PMDD females, which especially manifested on the brain region related to emotional. Besides physiology symtoms, PMDD females also had significant mental symptoms. The added psychological factors can explain the individual differences of females’ premenstrual negative affect under the same biological basis. Research showed that the history of major depressive disorder (MDD) and maltreat both affect the stress reaction of PMDD females. Based on previous studies we can preliminarily speculate that a history of MDD mainly influenced the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis (HPA) activity of PMDD females’ stress reaction, while a history of maltreat mainly influenced the autonomic nervous system response of PMDD females’ stress reaction, though the sepeculation still need further research to confirm it. In summary, future research will focus on using the unified standard for PMDD diagnosis, examining the possible physiological and psychological pathomechanism of PMDD, thereby accomplishing a pertinence therapy for clinical subcategory PMDD women. Related Articles | Metrics

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Testing Mediator of A School-based Positive Psychology Intervention Program 2015, 38(4): 1012-1018.  Abstract ( )   PDF (717KB) ( )   Depression preventions has become a rising issue in recent years, giving the increasing prevalence of depression among children and adolescence in China. Previous studies pointed out that valued and pleasant ac-tions can improve activity level and reduce depression; moreover, Seligman et al. (2005) found that results of their positive psychology interventions （PPI） program was fully mediated by self-sustained activities. It is reasonable to assume that PPIs increase valued actions and is therefore effective, in other words, change of strength use mediates the effect of PPIs. In the current study, we designed a positive psychology group counseling (PPGC) program for pupils and conducted a longitudinal design to explore :(a) the intervention effect of this program on depressive symptoms in primary school pupils ; (b) whether the change of strength use is a mediator, and thus, a specific therapeutic factor of this program. This study recruited 414 pupils as intervention group and 171 pupils as waiting list control group, and eva-luated their depressive symptoms (using Children Depression Inventory) and level of strength use (using Children Strength Use Inventory) for 3 times (pretest, posttest, and a test after 3 months). The final sample contained 563 pupils and then the data was analyzed by WHLM 6.08 using the hierarchical linear model. The results were: 1. The PPGC significantly suppressed the increasing trend of pupils’ depressive symptoms across the time (β = -3.33，p < .001); 2. The relationship of PPGC and depressive affects was partially mediated by change of strength use, which significantly suppressed the growth trend of depressive affects across the time (β = -.56，p<.001) and was significantly enhanced by PPI program across the time (β = 1.27，p < .01), indicating that change of strength use was one of the specific therapeutic factors for PPGC program. By confirming the effects of our PPGC program for reducing depressive symptoms and enhancing level of strength use, the main findings of present study not only kept in line with previous studies of positive psychology interventions, but also further pointed out that it was an important therapeutic mechanism of PPIs to increase strength use for intervening depressive symptoms. We concluded that by encouraging children and adolescents to use their strengths in daily life, they might felt “authentic and energizing”, and thus exhibited less depressive symptoms. Our study supported the positive psychological view of mental health by empirical data, and also con-tributed to the research methodology of the application of positive psychology by introducing a technique of mediation analysis in hierarchical linear model, which had been used in evidence-based therapies such as CBT. Related Articles | Metrics

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The Specificity of Modulation of Subjective Time Speed on Emotional Valence Shu-Han LIN 2015, 38(4): 834-838.  Abstract ( )   PDF (355KB) ( )   Previous study revealed that emotion can be modulated by subjective speed of time. People evaluate experiences more favorably when they think time passed more quickly. However, the intensity of emotion was weak in the previous study. It is not clear whether the subjective speed of time could modulate extremely pleasant and unpleasant emotions, and whether this effect is specific for emotional valence. The present study focused on the effect of subjective time speed on different dimensions (valence and arousal) and levels of emotion. Thirty four right-handed undergraduates (10 male) were paid for participation in the experiment. They were asked to set aside all possible distractions, including watches and mobile phones, thus leaving no external time cues. 200 emotion pictures were randomly chosen from the native Chinese Affective Picture System (CAPS). Emotional pictures and timer were displayed on a screen of a computer running MATLAB with Psychtoolbox. The valence and arousal of emotional pictures were rated with 9-point Likert scale under time flying and time dragging conditions. The timer was 1.5 times of normal in the time flying condition, and it was 0.7 times of normal in the time dragging condition. Participants were told that the task was irrelevant with timer, and he just need to view the pictures and rate the valence or arousal according to his subjective feeling. The valence and arousal of emotional pictures were analyzed respectively. 200 pictures were divided into 10 levels based on their valence scores in the CAPS. The two-way repeated measures analysis of variance (ANOVA) was conducted on valence with subjective time speed (time flying & time dragging) and valence levels (10 levels) as within-subject factors. The repeated ANOVA revealed a significant interaction between subjective time speed and valence levels. The sample effects tests revealed that there were no significant differences between time flying and time dragging conditions in the four low levels of valence (from level 1 to level 4), whereas the scores of valence were significant higher in the timing flying than time dragging in the six high levels of valence (from level 5 to level 10). Then 200 pictures were divided into 10 levels based on their arousal scores in the CAPS. The repeated ANOVA on arousal did not reveal any significant main effect and interaction. The present study confirmed previous finding that emotion can be modulated by subjective speed of time. Furthermore, our results showed that the valence evaluation of neutral and positive pictures was more positive under time flying compared with time dragging, whereas the subjective speed of time did not modulate the valence evaluation of negative pictures as well as the arousal evaluation of all pictures. The results suggest that the "You’re having fun, When time flies" effect is valence-specific. Related Articles | Metrics

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Positive mood Enhance Attentional Bias to Positive Stimuli:Engagement Bias versus Disengagement Bias Han-Yue LIU 2015, 38(4): 839-845.  Abstract ( )   PDF (327KB) ( )   Results of several studies were interpreted as demonstrating that compared with neutral mood,positive mood does enhance attentional engagement bias to positive stimuli.However,due to the application of dot-probe and emotional stroop paradigm which can’t disassociate engagement bias and disengagement bias,it is possible that these results indicating the benifical effect of positive mood on disengagement bias rather than engagement bias.In other words,intead of making positive stimuli more capable of capture and draw attention relative to neutral stimuli,postive mood may result in less disengagement from the positive stimuli compared to neutral stimul.The current study aims to examine whether postive mood enhance engagement bias or disengagement bias. 50 participates (30 female) participated this study. They were randomly assigned to the two mood-induced conditions:positive mood condition(N=25) vs neutral mood condition(N=25).A positive or neutral mood manipulation was followed by the modified dot probe task.In the modified dot probe task, two words are presented simultaneously for a short time at the top and bottom locations.After the offset of the two words,a dot emerge at the location of one of the two words.Participants are instructed to detect the location of the dot.The task consists of three kinds of trials:(1) the congruent trial ,in which a positive word and a neutral word are presented,followed by a dot emerging at the location of the positive word; (2) the incongruent trial,in which a positive word and a neutral word are presented,followed by a dot emerging at the location of the neutral word; (3)the neutral-neutral trial,in which two neutral words are presented,followed by a dot emerging at the location of the one of the neutral word. The 2(incongruent/congruent)×2(mood condition:positive /neutral) mixed-design ANOVA,with the mood condition being the between-subject variable,reveals that the interaction between the two variables is significant.To further illustrate the interaction effect,the attentional bias score is calculated by subtracting the mean reaction time of the congruent trial from the mean reaction time of the incongruent trial.The independent-sample t-test reveals that the attentional bias score of the the positive mood group is significantly larger than that of the neutral mood group,thus replicating the results of previous studies. The2(neutral-neutral/congruent)×2(mood condition:positive /neutral) mixed-design ANOVA,with the mood condition being the between-subject variable,reveals that the interaction between the two variables and the main effects of the two variables are all not significant,indicating that both neutral mood group and positive mood group show no engagement bias,thus there is no beneficial effect of postive mood on engagement bias. The 2(incongruent/neutral-neural)×2(mood condition:positive /neutral) mixed-design ANOVA, with the mood condition being the between-subject variable,reveals that the interaction between the two variables is significant.To further illustrate the interaction effect,the disengagement bias score is calculated by subtracting the mean reaction time of the neutral-neutral trial from the mean reaction time of the incongruent trial.The independent-sample t-test reveals reveals that the disengagement bias score of the the positive mood group is significantly larger than that of the neutral mood group,indicating that positive mood enhance disengagement bias . In summary,the results of this study suggest that positive mood enhance disengagement bias instead of engagement bias to positive stimuli. These results are further discussed in the light of hedonic contingency model. Related Articles | Metrics

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Development and Verification of The Prompt Soft Keyboards Based on Chinese Spelling Inputs 2015, 38(4): 828-833.  Abstract ( )   PDF (536KB) ( )   In order to effectively improve the performance of Chinese character typing, the current study developed two kinds of prompt soft keyboards based on Chinese spelling inputs: one highlights letters in bold and black, and the other in color. Moreover, we carried out an empirical experiment to verify the effect of these two prompt soft keyboards (compared to normal soft keyboard) on typing performance and satisfaction. The current study consists of two parts. The first one states the development of the two prompt soft keyboards. The basic character database of these keyboards is based on word frequency Kanji Dictionary (Chinese International Educational Technology Research and Development Center, 2014). And the rules underlying the character cues were referred to some researches by Canqun He Their result shows which letter are more likely to occur and its frequency of occurrence after users have input certain letters. 2-4 possible letters were chosen in our study for prompting. Based on these rules, we developed two kinds of prompt soft keyboards with different prompting: one highlights letters in bold and black, and the other highlights letters by adding a background color. The second part is an empirical experiment. The experimental device is a 17 inch colorized View Sonic touch screen computer. The experiment application was compiled by the VS2012 software, and it automatically records participants’ response. This experiment is a single factor between-subject design with 3 levels ( keyboard type : non-prompt soft keyboard, prompt soft keyboard in bold and black, prompt soft keyboard in a background color ) The dependent variables are accuracy, the duration of typing a letter, and user's satisfaction evaluation. Materials are 12 Chinese sentences, taken from the Chinese primary textbook PEP which is revised in 2012. The satisfaction questionnaire is based on a study (Jing Wang,2010).There are six aspects of evaluation: speed evaluation, fault tolerance, easiness of learning, easiness of using, likeability and total evaluation . There are three kinds of tasks, and 95 subjects were randomly assigned to three tasks. At the beginning of the experiment, subject need practice typing with soft keyboards (entering 4 Chinese sentences). The left top of the computer screen shows a Chinese sentence with an enter content below it and the soft keyboard shown in the middle of the screen , and subjects should enter Chinese with the total Chinese spelling input method. After the practice, subject should use the soft keyboard to enter 8 Chinese sentences. And then subject should finish the satisfaction questionnaire. Experimental data were processed by SPSS 13.0. The mean and standard deviation of three keyboards' performance and satisfaction evaluation was shown in Table 1. ANOVA results showed that two prompt soft keyboards are better than the non-prompted one: typing speed evaluation, easiness of use, likeability and total evaluation (ps < 0.05); the accuracy of the prompt soft keyboard in bold and black (compared to non-prompted soft keyboard) is also significantly improved (p < 0.05); there is no significant difference between two prompt soft keyboards (ps > 0.05). It suggests that the two prompted soft keyboards can improve typing performance and satisfaction effectively. In summary, the two prompt soft keyboards are better than non-prompt one. However, there is no significant difference between two prompt soft keyboards. According to real-life experience, we can infer that, different prompt ways could be used in different scenarios. It suggests that our study will help to improve input performance for different people and different environments. This finding provide support for scientific and experimental basis for the development and use of prompt Chinese spelling inputs, and make contribution to the relevant keyboard market. Related Articles | Metrics

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Maintenance of object working memory on time perception 2015, 38(4): 777-785.  Abstract ( )   PDF (273KB) ( )   The current study explored the effect of retention of working memory content on time judgment by manipulating the validity of WM content. We used irregular objects as experimental stimuli, and made the object during duration judgment match the WM content or not. In Experiment 1, using a dual task paradigm combing working memory and time judgment task, we asked participants first to memorize an object, and indicate whether a test object changed at the end of each trial. During the delay period, participants had to judge which of two successive objects was presented longer (or shorter). In Experiment 2, participants were required to ignore the first object, and only to perform time judgment task. The results revealed that in comparison with single timing task, retention of WM content prolonged the decision time of duration judgment. Furthermore, in memory-matching and perception-matching conditions, there were lower precision and longer decision time when matching stimuli had a longer duration than mismatching ones, as compared to when matching objects had a shorter duration than mismatching ones. This study suggests that maintenance of WM information did increased the difficulty of decision, WM content-based interference might be caused by attentional orientation derived from WM content. Related Articles | Metrics

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Followership Schema：Conceptualization and Model Construction Jian PENG 2015, 38(4): 822-827.  Abstract ( )   PDF (761KB) ( )   In the past 3 decade, implicit social cognitive theory was applied to the leadership research field and generate a new theory called implicit leadership theory, which pointed out most of leadership assessment might have bias result because of the influence of leadership prototype primed in the self-report survey process. Recent years, as a flow of followership studied emerge, implicit social cognitive theory was also applied to explore the leader’s assumption about followers and followership. In this context, implicit followership theories (IFTs) were proposed and aroused lots of attention. Broadly, IFTs are defined as respective views of followers. However the broad definition can’t reflect the term “implicit” because cognition contains both explicit and implicit process. Thus we proposed the term of followership schemas instead of IFTs. Followership schemas, which could specify the traits and behaviors of the followers, are stored in memory. These schemas are shaped on the basis of socialization processes and prior experiences with followers, and will be activated when individuals interact with their actual followers. Followership schemas include explicit followership schemas and implicit followership schemas. Implicit followership schemas are the core content of IFTs and refer to an unconscious conceptualization of the attributes of followership which can automatically influence individual’s reaction to a follower. According to the valence of schema, followership schema could be classified into prototype and anti-prototype. Prototype is an abstract representation of positive followership traits and behaviors, while anti-prototype represents negative followership traits and behaviors. There are three other implicit theory paralleling to implicit followership theory in leadership field. That is implicit leadership theory, implicit performance theory and XY theory. However, there is a clear distinction definition between implicit followership theory and the three theories mentioned above. According to the category theory, connectionist network model and adaptive resonance theory, the followership schema has an implicit-actual followership matching process. If this process fails, the followership prototype will be classified as other categories or redefined. If the match succeeds, the followership prototype will have a significant effect on leaders’ attitude towards follower (i.e., performance expectation, liking, relational involvement) and leader’s behavior (i.e., transformational leadership, empowering leadership, abusive supervision, mentor behavior, leader-member exchange). Then, leader’s attitude and behavior will contribute to follower’s workplace well-being (i.e., liking for leaders, trusting in leaders, relationship quality, subjective well-being, psychological safety, job satisfaction), in-role performance and extra-role behavior in the workplace. Besides, emotion, extroversion, self-concept, contextual factors, power distance and individual-collective culture can predict followership schema. Future studies can expand followership schema in the following way. Firstly, Chinese scholars should conduct native exploration on the content structure of followership schemas and develop a reliable and valid measurement in the dual perspective of leaders and followers. Secondly, we could assess the group or organizational followership schema and examine the relationship between followership schemas and group or organizational variables such as emotional climate, team cooperation and team effectiveness. Thirdly, we could use congruent measurement (i.e., different scores, polynomial regression, latent congruence modeling) to investigate the match-up effect of implicit-actual followership. Besides, the neural basis of followership schema also needs to be revealed. Related Articles | Metrics

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The word boundary information on the saccade strategy of the spatially ambiguous words Guo-Li Yan 2015, 38(4): 770-776.  Abstract ( )   PDF (462KB) ( )   For alphabetic language scripts, the decision about where to move the eyes next during reading is strongly influenced by low-level visual variables such as the spaces between words. However, written Chinese is a kind of ideographic writing system, which differs from alphabetic writing systems in many dimensions. More importantly, there are no spaces in Chinese text to separate words. Because of these differences, findings from English cannot be directly extended to Chinese reading. Zang, Liang, Bai, Yan and Liversedge (2013) added spaces to Chinese text to investigate whether the word boundacy information influenced where the eyes moved. The results showed that insertion of spaces between words partially guided the next saccadic target selection effectively. However, there are many spatially ambiguous words in Chinese system. In the present study, we wanted to investigate whether the word boundary information influenced the landing positions of the spatially ambiguous words. In current study, 60 spatially ambiguous words were used to examine whether the word boundary information influenced landing positions. Highlighting was used to create four analogous conditions: normal Chinese text, text with highlighting used to mark words, text with highlighting to mark the word formed by the second constituent character of the first word and the first constituent character of the second word, and text with highlighting to mark each character. The sentences were rated on a 5-point scale for their naturalness by 21 participants who did not take part in the eye-tracking study. The mean naturalness score was 4.48 (where a score of 5 was very natural). 56 participants were asked to read the experimental sentences, and their eye movements were monitored as they read texts. The participants’ eye movements were recorded with an SR Research EyeLink 2000 Eyetracker. They were required to read the sentences and understand them to the best of their ability. When they completed reading a sentence, they pushed a button box to terminate the display. They were instructed that occasionally a comprehension question would appear after a sentence and that they should try hard to answer the question correctly. The result showed that eye movement behaviors were different in different fixation cases. When there was only one fixation on the target spatially ambiguous words, the first fixations mostly landed on the centre of the word. Therefore, we found a preferred viewing location in single-fixation cases during Chinese reading. While there were multiple fixations on the target spatially ambiguous words, readers firstly fixated at the beginning of the target word. In those multiple fixation cases, if the first fixation landed at the beginning of the target spatially ambiguous words, the probability of refixating was the highest. Importantly, the results showed that the word boundary information did not influence the landing position of the first fixations. However, the word boundary information influenced the probability of refixation, and the probability of refixation in the single character highlighting condition. To conclude, the present study indicated that the word boundary information influenced the later stage of the spatially ambiguous words recognition processing Related Articles | Metrics

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Automatic processing and controlled processing of emotional stimuli 2015, 38(4): 801-806.  Abstract ( )   PDF (1166KB) ( )   Abstract: There are two different views about the processing of emotional stimuli, namely automatic processing and non-automated processing. Related researches embody characteristic variables of automation concept by definition and exam how these variables are affected by emotional stimuli processing to determine whether the processing of emotional stimuli is automated. This paper discusses the reason of contradiction between the two views and proposes the opinion that the processing of emotional stimuli can’t be simply classified through automated processing or non-automated processing, but a process of early automatic processing and later controlling integration. In this process, the processing of emotional stimuli is affected by emotional significance and cognitive factors due to the existence of attention effect; thus it affects the automation degree of the processing of emotional stimuli. Related Articles | Metrics

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Spatiotopic, Retinotopic and Object-centered Reference Frames of Inhibition of Return 2015, 38(4): 813-821.  Abstract ( )   PDF (637KB) ( )   Inhibition of return (IOR) refers to a performance cost associated with previously attended locations (or items). It has been suggested that this inhibitory attention mechanism evolved to maximize visual sampling (Posner & Cohen, 1984) and can facilitate visual search by decreasing the probability of attention returning to previously inspected locations (Klein & MacInnes, 1999). The reference frame of IOR is one of the hotly debated theoretical questions in the IOR literature. Previous studies have shown that IOR can be encoded in retinotopic, spatiotopic, and even object-centered representations. In Posner and Cohen's (1984) seminal paper on IOR, it was reported that IOR resided in spatiotopic representations. By improving the cueing task Posner and Cohen (1984) used to probe spatiotopic IOR, Maylor and Hockey (1985) confirmed Posner and Cohen's (1984) conclusion, showing that only spatiotopic IOR could be revealled when the spatiotopic and retinotopic coordinates were dissociated with a saccade intervening the cue and target. More recent studies, however, have shown that IOR can be coded in both spatiotopic and a retinotopic presentations (Hilchey, Klein, Satel, & Wang, 2012; Math?t & Theeuwes, 2010; Pertzov, Zohary, & Avidan, 2010; Satel, Wang, Hilchey, & Klein, 2012). With a graphical meta-analysis of the data available in the literature, we show that the spatiotopic IOR is relatively stable over time, whereas the retinotopic IOR quickly dissipates following the intervening saccade. In addition to the stability of the visual environment, there is a pressing need to keep track of objects in the dynamic world as stable, continuous entities. Tipper, Driver, and Weaver (1991) found that IOR could be tagged to a placeholder after it moved to a new spatial location, suggesting that IOR can also be coded on object-centered representations. Tipper et al.'s (1991) finding was confirmed and extended in several follow-up studies (e.g., Tas, Dodd, & Hollingworth, 2012; Tipper, Jordan, & Weaver, 1999; Tipper, Weaver, Jerreat, & Burak, 1994; Weaver, Lupiafiez, & Watson, 1998; but see Mu?ller & von Mu?hlenen, 1996). These studies have shown that a) the object-based IOR can reside not only in dynamic environment but also in static scenes, b) the object-based IOR coexists with spatitopic IOR and these two forms of IOR have additive behavioral effect, c) the activation of the oculomotor system in a cueing task will evoke both the sensory and motor components of IOR, however, only the sensory component can be coded on object-centered coordinates (Abrams & Dobkin, 1994), and d) IOR can also reside in the relative space defined by an object (Gibson & Egeth, 1994). Consistent with the findings of previous lesion studies, a recent EEG study showed that retinotopic and spatiotopic IORs were associated with a weakening of the P1 and Nd event-related potential components, respectively, at parieto-occipital electrode sites (Satel et al., 2012). The neural basis of object-centered IOR is less clear, with studies suggesting that it is likely coded in cortical regions that are more susceptible to aging (McCrae & Abrams, 2001). In addition to an overview of the experimental paradigms used to explore the reference frame of IOR and related behavioral, imaging an lesion findings, issues that should be addressed in future studies were also discussed in the end. Related Articles | Metrics

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Replicability of Psychological Experiment zhong xiaobo 2015, 38(4): 807-812.  Abstract ( )   PDF (428KB) ( )   Mainly due to dissatisfaction with the conventional NHST (null hypothesis significance testing) procedure, researchers have begun to consider alternatives. In his article, “An Alternative to Null-Hypothesis Significance Tests,” Killeen urged psychological research to abandon the routine of NHST and to quantify the signal-to-noise characteristics of experimental outcomes with replication probabilities. He described the coefficient that he invented, Prep (probability of replicability), as the probability of obtaining “an effect of the same sign as that found in an original experiment” (Killeen, 2005). Replying to the proposal, the journal Psychological Science quickly came to encourage researchers to employ Prep, rather than P value of NHST, in the reporting of their experimental results. But soon after, Killeen’s computational formula of Prep was found wrong, which resulted in that his proposal had been rejected at last (Maraun, & Gabriel, 2010). However, Killeen is been thought correct in the sense that the issue of replicability should have a central role in researchers’ assessments of the empirical results. So, the problems we need solve are then how to express the replicability of psychological experiment and how to enhance it. Acording to us, not only is Killeen’s computational formula of Prep incorrect, but his definition of replication is also inappropriate. He defined replication as obtaining “an effect of the same sign as that found in an original experiment”. However, in the constraint of same sign, the difference of the sample effects of the two experiments may very large (for example, considering that the two sample effects are 0.1 and 0.9 respectively). On the other hand, when the two sample effects have different signs, the difference of their values may rather small (for example, considering that the two sample effects are 0.1 and -0.1 respectively). The followings are our proposals about replicability and their corresponding reasons: 1. When the replicate experiment and the original experiment are homogeneous, it is not necessary to consider their difference of sample effects qualitatively, we need consider it just quantitatively. In the situation, the replicability can be appropriately expressed in terms of the width of CI (confidence interval): the smaller the width is, the nearer the two sample effects are statistically, and therefore the better the replicability is. 2. In this homogeneous situation, the factors that determine the replicability of psychological experiment are the random extraneous variables that influence the dependent variable. We should employ as many as possible these random extraneous variables as covariables in the experiment design and data analysis. That would decrease the width of CI, and therefore increase the replicability of experiment. 3. Except indicating replicability of experiment, CI is also used to make statistic inference and effect estimation of experiment. As a tool of statistic inference, it can replace the two-sided testing and divide the sample space into three parts (Harris, 1997). As a tool of effect estimation, CI can not only provide the point estimation of effect (by its median) but also provide accuracy estimation of the point estimation (by its width). Considering these merits when it implements these three functions, we argue that CI is the most appropriate one of all devices researchers have proposed to report the result of psychological experiment. 4. When the value of control variable in the replicate experiment is different from the value of the original experiment and there is interaction between independent variable and the control variable, the interaction would make the effects of the two experiments differ from each other. In this heterogeneous situation, we should deal with the difference of the sample effects between these two experiments qualitatively. 5. The fact that replicability of psychological experiment is inferior to that of other empirical science experiments, in whether homogeneous or heterogeneous situation, can be attributed to the numerousness of its extraneous variables. Inspired by Killeen’ article, the replicability of psychological experiment has become a controversy focus. Our criticisms of his proposal are aimed at not only is his computational formula of Prep but also his definition of replication. We suggest that CI be the method indicating replicability of experiment. The replicability can be enhanced by measuring the random extraneous variables and employing them as covariables in the experimental design and data analysis. Related Articles | Metrics

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Emotional Certainty’s Impact on Judgment of Learning 2015, 38(4): 786-791.  Abstract ( )   PDF (1067KB) ( )   Emotional Certainty can affect people’s way of information process. To be more specific, the certainly emotions lead to heuristic processing, and uncertainty emotions arouse analytic processing. The judgment of learning (JOL) is a hot research object in the field of meta-memory. The previous studies have found that the JOL is influenced by people’s way of information process. Then how the different emotional certainty affect JOLs? We conducted two experiments to explore this question. Experiment a and experiment b checked for the specific emotions’ effect on single-round JOL.In Experiment a, 50 participants were randomly assigned to one of two conditions in a 2 anger (negative, high certainty) vs. fear (negative, low certainty) between-subjects factorial design. Participants watched a video to induce one type of emotion before finishing the judgment of learning. Participants were required to give their judgment of learning immediately after finishing studying one pair of words. And after they learned and gave JOLs to all the words, they will take a test. In Experiment b, 50 participants were randomly assigned to one of two conditions in a 2 happy (positive, high certainty) vs. Surprise (positive, low certainty) between-subjects factorial design. Participants watched a video to induce one type of emotion before finishing the JOL; Participants were required to give their judgment of learning immediately after finishing studying one pair of words. And after they learned and gave JOLs to all the words, they will take a test. The results of Experiment a showed that the angry group’s learning time was significantly shorter than the fear group’s learning time, and the angry group’s JOLs were significantly higher than that of the fear group; The results of Experiment b showed that within the single-round JOL, the learning time of the happy group was significantly shorter than the surprise group and the happy group’s JOLs were higher than that of the surprise group, but, without reaching a significant level. According to the CM model, it is believed that learners tend to realize various clues while they’re learning, of which time is a very important one. According to the time clue, the individual will monitor the degree of the task difficulty and thus form the basic cognition of the task in mind. CM model can be used to explain the phenomena of experiment a and experiment b, that is, if the Participants,who had spent more (or less)time learning some pairs of words, would more likely to consider the project as a more (or less) difficult one consciously or unconsciously , and thus when they were doing confidence assessment, they tended to behave more(or less) confidently, that is, JOLs is higher(or lower). Dual processing theory can explain the above results, and it can further explain the significance of emotional effects on learning of judgment. Related Articles | Metrics

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Influence of Visuospatial Inhibition of Return on Simon effect in Three-dimensional Space Ai-Jun WANG 2015, 38(4): 792-800.  Abstract ( )   PDF (603KB) ( )   It has been well documented that the anatomically independent attention networks in the human brain interact functionally to achieve goal-directed behaviors. By combining spatial inhibition of return (IOR) which implicates the orienting network with some executive function tasks (e.g ., the Stroop and the flanker tasks) which implicate the executive network, researchers consistently found that the interference effects are significantly reduced at cued compared to uncued locations, indicating the functional interaction between the two attention net works. However, a unique, but consistent effect is observed when spatial IOR is combined with the Simon effect: the Simon effect is significantly larger at the cued than uncued locations. Although the functional and anatomical interaction between the orienting and the executive networks have well established in two-dimensional (2D) space, little is known about their interaction in three-dimensional (3D) space. Therefore, in present study, we investigated the effect of spatial IOR on the task related response representation (Simon effect) in 3D space. In present study, by constructing a virtual 3D environment and presenting targets either closer to or father from the participants in an adapted version of Posner spatial-cuing paradigm, we made the classical experimental paradigm rotated 90°along the depth direction in 3D space, therefore, the experimental design was a 2 (depth of target: closer vs. farther) × 2 (cue validity: cued vs. uncued) × 2 (Simon congruency: congruent vs. incongruent) within-participants design, resulting in 8 experimental conditions in total and 60 trials in each of the experimental conditions. Due to the attending to space within (near space) and beyond (far space) arm’s reach is subserved by distinct brain circuits, we expected that the interaction between IOR and Simon effect was different in closer and farther depth plane. The main results showed, when targets appeared in the father depth plane, there was a interaction between cue validity and Simon congruency, F(1,22)=5.36, p<0.05. Futher tests on simple effects suggested that, at the incongruent condition, RTs to the cued target were significantly longer than RTs the uncued target, t(22)=3.36, p=0.005, a significant IOR effect (18ms); While, at the congruent condition, there was no difference between RTs to the cued target and RTs to the uncued target, t<1. Moreover, our results showed that the size of Simon effect was significantly larger at the cued location than at the uncued location, t(22)=2.31, p<0.05. However, when targets appeared in the closer depth plane, our results showed that only the main effect of cue validity was significant, F(1,22)=40.03, p<0.001, and there was no interaction between cue validity and Simon congruency, F<1. Taken together, by combining spatial IOR with the Simon task in 3D space, we found there were IOR effects at the depth direction in 3D, and we replicated the previous observation of larger Simon effect at the cued location of spatial IOR only when the target appeared in the farther depth plane, while there was no interaction between spatial IOR and the Simon task. Related Articles | Metrics