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    20 January 2017, Volume 40 Issue 1 Previous Issue    Next Issue

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    The Impairment Effects on Conditioned Fear Response: Induced by Instructed and Habitual Emotion Regulation
    2017, 40(1): 2-8. 
    Abstract ( )   PDF (771KB) ( )  
    Stressful events are frequent antecedents. Emotion regulation (ER) was usually used to control emotional responses in stressful circumstances. The present study explored the effects of habitual ER (HER) and instructed ER (IER) manipulation on fear conditioning. It has been proved that IER is effective in decreasing subjective emotional ratings, skin conductance responses (SCR) and amygdala activation to negative emotional stimuli. But the relationships between different HER strategies and emotional responses are dissimilar. Previous researches have demonstrated that habitual reappraisal was positively related with positive emotions and negatively related with negative emotions, but the relationships of habitual suppression with positive and negative emotions are reversed. Nevertheless, suppression is not necessarily harmful in regulating emotions. People always automatically choose HER strategies in an emotion-specific manner. It was proved that suppression was the first choice and was more effective in inhibiting unconditioned fear response. However, for conditioned fear, although a few experiments found the inhibition effects of IER, there are very few studies concerning the effects of HER and it’s interaction with IER. A sample of 81 college students were involved. On day1, the participants first completed the Emotion Regulation Questionnaire (ERQ) to test their habitual reappraisal and suppression levels and then underwent training using a partial reinforcement fear conditioning paradigm. Before the fear conditioning, all participants were randomly divided into two groups: instructed regulation and attend group. The instructed regulation participants were taught to regulate their fear responses to the aversive stimulus. Fear conditioning followed IER training 5 min later, in which the participants learned that one colored square (e.g., blue, conditioned stimulus [CS+]) predicted a loud white noise (unconditioned stimulus [US]) and another colored square (e.g., yellow, [CS–]) was presented alone. In the fear conditioning train, the participants in the instructed regulation group had to use the newly acquired regulation skills and the participants in the attend group were asked to view the stimulus and attend to their natural feelings when the CS was presented. On day2, fear expression was tested by presenting the CS without the US. SCRs were acquired in experiment. According to the medians of the reappraisal (R) and suppression (S) scores in questionnaire test, participants were asigned into low R- low S (LR-LS), high R- low S (HR or LS), low R- high S (LR-HS) and high R- high S (HR-HS) groups. The results showed that IER can successfully inhibit the levels of conditioned fear both in fear conditioning train and test stages. For HER, the levels of habitual suppression but not reappraisal are significantly negative related with conditioned fear. Moreover, compared with LS groups, HS participants present significant lower SCR levels in both fear condtioning stages. The SCR levels of LR and HR groups are comparable. These results suggest that both IER and HER could effectively inhibit conditioned fear. It can be speculated that the influences of stress events may be limited for most sufferers. Both IER and HER can weaken fear response and protect individuals from mental injuries in stressful situations.
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    Cognitive Inhibition: A New perspective on Problem Solving
    FU XINCHEN Li Xiaodong
    2017, 40(1): 58-63. 
    Abstract ( )   PDF (344KB) ( )  
    Abstract Piaget proposed that there were four independent stages of cognitive development from infancy to adolescence. Young children not only look like “stupid”, they actually think in a different way. However, many studies have demonstrated that infants have amazing capacities such as they can understand simple mathematics and reasoning. At the meanwhile, adolescents and adults often fail in logic-reasoning tasks. Inhibitory control model suggests that children or adults’ failure in problem solving are due to fail in inhibitory control instead of lack of relevant knowledge and concepts. According to dual-process theory, there are two methods in problem solving at any ages and at any point of time. One is heuristics (also called system 1) which is based on intuition and is defined as a rapid, effortless, often global or holistic strategy and it constitutes the most adaptive response in most situations, but also maybe mislead; the other is logicomathematical algorithms (i.e. system 2) that is slow, analytical and cognitive costly, but it will always lead to a correct answer no matter what the situation is. Generally, children and adults prefer to use heuristics automatically. When heuristics and algorithms have a conflict in brain, inhibitory control is needed. Inhibition is a domain-general process allowing children and adults to resist habits or automatisms, temptations, distractions, or interference, and to adapt to conflicting situations (Diamond, 2013). Researchers adopting Negative priming paradigm and brain imaging method demonstrated that even adolescents and adults need inhibit misleading strategies on solving some problems, such as Piaget-like conservation task and class-inclusion task, simple words comparing problems, rectangle and polygon task, physical and biological related task, etc. Information processing is not only to activate of a proper reaction to a goal, but also need to inhibit an illogical reaction as well. We have no intention to deny the important role of knowledge and concept acquisition on problem solving and learning. In fact, we advocate that students should increase proficiency of some knowledge and skills and turn them into heuristics strategies. Thus, students can process more complicate information with limited working memory resources. According to dual-process theory, people make judgments based on heuristic system instead of analytic system in the majority situation. However, heuristic will lead to bias when we need analytic system in problem solving. Inhibitory control plays a great role of overcoming heuristic bias, such as “ long equals more”, “the more area, the more perimeter ”, “more is addition, less is subtraction”, etc. Although it is very important to inhibit interference, we have to acknowledge that inhibitory control is necessity but not sufficiency to problem solving. Self-regulated learning theory emphasizes the role of meta-cognition in learning. What is the relationship between meta-cognition and cognitive inhibition? What is the reason of the failure to solve a conflict problem? Is it should be attributed to the failure of conflict detection or the failure of inhibition? Future study should pay more attention to combination between cognitive inhibition and meta-cognition to explore their comparative importance on problem solving and development trajectory of inhibitory control. At the meantime, it is worthy to emphasize on intervention projects that is focused on cognitive inhibition training.
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    Absolute Pitch: Music Perception and Its Neural Mechanisms
    Tang HAI
    2017, 40(1): 51-57. 
    Abstract ( )   PDF (280KB) ( )  
    The evolutionary origins of music has become a controversial topic, given that music has no survival value. Unlike nonadaptationist theories, adaptationist theories argue that the human ability of music was the target of natural selection (e.g., sexual selection). An important evidence for this hypothesis is that absolute pitch (AP), an ability to name pitch letter of an isolated musical notes in the absence of a reference note, is associated with a specific genetic basis. In the domain of music education, AP has long been viewed as an important indicator of human musical talent. This view is based on the fact that several world-class composers and performers are known to possess AP. This is circular. Indeed, little is known about whether AP facilitates music processing. The aims of the current study was to review the existing literature on AP and investigate music perception and its neural mechanisms in AP. It has been shown that AP possessors have superior perception of music: AP possessors exhibited better scores in identifying melodic intervals, detecting differences in melodies, as compared with non-AP possessors. Moreover, they also demonstrated higher performance than non-AP possessors on the tasks of musical syntax perception and music memory. However, a few studies suggest that AP possessors perform worse than non-AP possessors in identifying pitch interval between two tones in non-C major contexts (e. g., mistune Eb and F# majors), when informed of tonic, or tonic with a tonal cadence. They also showed poorer recognition for transposed melodies from standard melodies (played in C major) than non-AP possessors, or poorer performance when making a same /different discrimination of pitch interval between auditorily presented melody and a visual notated melodies. The inconsistent results between above-mentioned studies may be due to the fact that the latter studies use mistune tones, and tasks require the strategy of relative pitch, which relies on a reference note in judgment of pitch interval. AP is associated with structural and functional brain changes. Compared with non-AP possessors, AP possessors exhibited earlier ERP latency and smaller P300 response in music perception, reflecting higher sensitivity and easier processing for music. Furthermore, the brain particularity for the AP possessors reflected in larger size and increased use of brain regions, such as left planum temporale, bilateral superior temporal sulcus, left inferior frontal gyrus and right marginal gyrus, which have been proved to be closely related to different aspects of music processing. Moreover, The neuronal connections among these regions were also found stronger in AP possessors. Taken together, AP possessors showed the enhanced music perception and memory. Given that the influences of gene and linguistic environment found in previous studies could also be explained by the factor of musical training, it seems that the acquisition of AP and its advantage in music processing should be due to music training and its interactions with other factors. However, some studies have not controlled for the factor of music training. The current study suggests that the enhanced music performance may be attributed to longer music training for AP possessors than for non-AP possessors. Future studies need to investigate the impact of music training on music processing and further examine whether there is the advantage of music processing in AP when years of music training is completely controlled.
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    The Prediction of Working Memory Capacity to Creative Thinking
    Zhan Xu Jiang Qiu
    2017, 40(1): 64-69. 
    Abstract ( )   PDF (291KB) ( )  
    Working memory capacity (WMC) is an important indicator that reflects the individual cognitive function of storage and control. There are different measurements for WMC. Automated reading span task and operation span task are usually applied for verbal WMC. Change detection task is widely applied for visual WMC. A great deal of research has clearly demonstrated that higher WMC is advantageous to a wide variety of complex cognitive and academic activities, such as reasoning, comprehension, and problem-solving. Meanwhile, creative thinking is an important part of high-level cognition of human beings. Remote associates test, Unusual Use Test, Insight Problem-solving and Task-unrelated Thoughts are usually applied for the test of creativity. So far, there are some arguments on whether WMC could predict creative thinking. To understand whether and how WMC predicts creativity thinking, the latest studies were summarized. Due to different experimental paradigms and measurements, the previous research provided inconsistent results. It undoubtedly agreed that higher WMC leads to better cognitive control in a cognitive process but conflicted that WMC could predict creative performance. Higher WMC individuals showed better creative performance in many studies which implied a positive prediction (De Dreu, Nijstad, & Baas, 2011; De Dreu, Nijstad, Baas, Wolsink, & Roskes, 2012; De Dreu, Dussel, & Ten Velden, 2015). However, higher WMC individuals also showed worse creative performance in other studies which implied a negative prediction or unclear prediction (Ash & Wiley, 2006; Furley & Memmert, 2015; DeCaro, Rotar, Kendra, & Beilock, 2010). Higher WMC was considered to hinder creativity because it may lead individuals to employ complex and less-optimal strategies or miss insight solution. To explain the relationship between WMC and creativity, two theoretical models were compared, including the Dual Pathway to Creativity Model (DPCM) and the Amusement Park Model (APT). DPCM described two factors working in creative process: cognitive flexibility and cognitive persistence. It emphasized that they could work alone or work together for creativity. APT originally distinguished domain-generality and domain-specificity for creativity. It was most hypothesized and could roughly explain inconsistent prediction of WMC to creative thinking too. Generally, creative performance was attributed to different levels of cognitive control between higher and lower WMC individuals. Based on the discussion of the relationship between WMC and creative thinking, those potential issues in the previous researches were presented. They included at least five aspects as following: mismatches of WMC tasks and creative thinking measurements, low ecological validity in the experimental situation, ignoring the covariance of intelligence, ignoring the impact from personality and motivation, and lacking multiple evaluations of creative thinking linked to long term memory. Finally the corresponding suggestions of the future studies were discussed. Researchers need to not only considering verbal or visual WMC measurements but also matching corresponding creative tasks. It is important to explore the prediction of WMC to creativity in real life and pay more attention to normal people and patients. Addition, integrated research methods for individual differences are also necessary.
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    The Influence of Regulatory Focus on Deadline’s Effect
    2017, 40(1): 9-15. 
    Abstract ( )   PDF (727KB) ( )  
    Deadline has its influences on people’s life in every aspect while these influences vary a lot. Previous researches revealed that self-regulatory and time-perspective are related. The interplay between these two variables can influence people’s regret, time orientation, planning fallacy and the like. The present study attempted to examine the combined effects of regulatory focus and deadline’s length, outcome framing, and overall valence on deadline’s effect. In the experiment 1, 61 college students were required to finish the Regulatory Focus Questionnaire and an immediate negotiation task, together with a prediction and a post-evaluation. In the experiment 2, 276 college students were divided into promotion or prevention focus through the use of a maze task, and then, they were required to finish a series of cognition tasks during which the length of deadline is controlled by a countdown counter, finally, the participants were required to complete the questionnaire about deadline’s effect. In the experiment 3, firstly, 259 participants were also divided into promotion or prevention focus through the use of a maze task, and then they were required to read the instructions which involved different outcome framing and overall valence, after that, they were asked to finish a series of cognition tasks, finally, they completed the questionnaire about deadline’s effect. The t-tests and ANOVAs revealed that: (1) Deadline has obstructive effect on tasks regardless of the prediction before the task or the post-evaluation after the task. For prevention-focused participants, the effect of deadlines is stronger than for promotion-focused participants; (2) Regulatory focus has moderating effect between the length of deadline and the deadline’s effect. To be exact, in shorter deadline, prevention-focused participants believe that deadline has stronger obstructive effect than promotion-focused participants, while in longer deadline, promotion-focused participants believe that deadline has stronger obstructive effect than prevention-focused participants; (3) Regulatory focus has moderating effect between outcome framing, overall valence and deadline. To be specific, on the task performances, promotion-focused participants believe that the negative effect of deadline is stronger than prevention-focused participants in the benefit framework; on the task strategy, promotion-focused participants believe the deadline has stronger negative effect in the benefit framework than in the loss framework when they are in the condition of positive value; however, the outcome is opposite when they are in the condition of negative value. Based on the aforementioned results, it can be concluded that the regulatory focus has both main effect and interaction effect on deadline’s effect. Both the theoretical and practical implications of the present study were discussed in the paper. One of the contributions of this research is making a supplement to the existing literature. More importantly, this study discusses the influence of regulatory focus on deadline’s effect the very first time. The results help us deepen the understanding of the deadline and deadline’s effect. This study also provides enlightenment about how to reduce the obstructive effect of deadline in real life.
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    the Adaptive Bubble Cursor—Pointing Augmented Technique Based on Users’ Operation
    2017, 40(1): 16-21. 
    Abstract ( )   PDF (522KB) ( )  
    Mouse pointing is a basic operation in the graphical user interface. In order to improve the users’ pointing performance, the current study developed two kinds of adaptive cursors based on the bubble cursor (Grossman & Balakrishnan, 2005, April), which is the current fastest known general pointing technique. Moreover, we carried out an empirical experiment to verify the effect of these two adaptive cursors (compared to the bubble cursor). The current study consists of two parts. The first one describes the development of the two adaptive cursors. The effective width of the new cursors could be changed dynamically according to the different adaptive algorithm, as shown in Fig. 2. This study adopted two typical adaptive algorithms: one chooses the most used item as the adaptive item, and the other the most recently used item. Based on these two adaptive algorithms, we respectively named the new cursors the frequency adaptive bubble cursor and the time adaptive bubble cursor. The second part is an empirical experiment. The experiment testbed was developed in C++. All sessions were run on a 1680×1050 22-inch widescreen monitor connected to the Sony laptop. The mouse used during the experiment was a Lenovo MOL9UL mouse connected over USB, and the parameters were all set to the default. The experiment was a single factor between-subjects design with 3 levels (cursor type: bubble cursor, frequency adaptive bubble cursor and time adaptive bubble cursor). The dependent variables were accuracy, operation time, and user’s satisfaction evaluation. The satisfaction questionnaire was based on a study (Laukkanen et al.,2008, April). There were five aspects of evaluation: speed, operation difficulty, appearance fitness, learnability and overall preference. Sixty right-handed adults participated in the current study (33 females and 27 males), and randomly assigned to 3 levels of cursor type. For each group, participants were asked to finish 82 times of pointing tasks with a mouse as accurately as possible, which the accuracy and the time were recorded. After the pointing tasks, participants’ subjective evaluation was performed. All data were processed by SPSS 17.0. The mean and standard deviation of three cursor types’ performance and satisfaction evaluation were shown in Table 1. The ANOVA results showed: 1) Participants pointing with two adaptive cursors were faster than with the bubble cursor (ps < .05). 2) There were no significant difference between the two adaptive cursors both on the performance and subjective evaluation (ps >.05). 3) Participants felt more comfortable with the frequency adaptive cursor than the bubble cursor: speed, operation difficulty (ps <. 05). And on the overall preference, these two adaptive cursors were better than the bubble cursor (ps <. 05). The results taken together indicated that the two adaptive cursors are better than the bubble cursor. However, there is no significant difference between the two adaptive cursors. According to the real-life experience, we can infer that, different adaptive cursors can be used in different scenarios. This suggests that our study will help to improve the pointing performance for different people and different environments. In summary, these findings provide empirical evidences for the development and optimization of the pointing augmented technique.
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    Is There the Positivity Effect in Automatic Emotion Regulation:Evidence from a Facial Go/Nogo Task
    2017, 40(1): 22-28. 
    Abstract ( )   PDF (559KB) ( )  
    In order to investigate whether there is automatic emotion regulation (AER) in a cued Go/Nogo task and whether there is the positive effect in AER, the present study used event-related potentials (ERPs) technique to study the aging effect of AER during the judgment of the gender of emotional faces in an emotional cued Go/Nogo task. There were 12 right-handed older adults (6 females) recruited from an elderly home and 12 right-handed younger adults (6 females) recruited from a university that participated in this study. Participants were asked to discriminate the gender of a happy, neutral, or sad face presented at the center of the computer screen. These emotional faces were selected from IAPS (International Affective Picture System, IAPS). The older and the younger groups’ automatic processing of happy, neutral and sad faces were recorded. Based on previous studies, the N2 and P3 components at subset of sites including frontal (F3, FZ, F4), frontal-central (FC3, FCZ, FC4) and central (C3, CZ, C4) electrode sites were assessed. The peak amplitudes and latencies were measured automatically between 250ms and 350ms and between 350ms and 700ms for the N2 and P3, respectively. For each stimulus type, i.e., Go and Nogo trials, using repeated ANOVA to analyzed these measures, with Group (younger and older adults) as a between-subjects variable and Emotional type (happy, neutral and sad faces) as a within-subjects variable. Behavioral results showed that the interaction of emotional type and group did not reach significant level in both Go and Nogo trials (accuracy: p > 0.05; reaction time: p > 0.05), which indicated that when participants respectively responded to happy, neutral and sad faces, there were no differences in terms of accuracy and reaction time. Thus, accuracy and reaction time were not effective indices that could be used to discern age differences in AER. The ERPs results showed: 1) Go-N2 amplitudes and latencies following happy and sad faces decreased more than those following neutral faces (amplitudes: p < 0.001; amplitudes: p < 0.001). Moreover, happy and sad faces prompted higher Nogo-P3 amplitudes and shorter Nogo-P3 latencies than neutral faces (amplitudes: p < 0.001; amplitudes: p < 0.001). These results indicated that emotional faces attract more attention than neutral faces. AER can modulate early ERPs components, and both Go-N2 and Nogo-P3 can be used as electrophysiological indices of AER. Go-N2 reflects top-down attention and Nogo-P3 overlaps with the automatic response inhibition of emotions. These results were consistent with previous studies. 2) In reaction to happy faces, the older group had higher Go/Nogo-P3 amplitudes than the younger group (p < 0.001); however, age differences in Go/Nogo-P3 latencies did not significant (p > 0.05). Conversely, the older group had higher Go/Nogo-P3 amplitudes and longer latencies than the younger group in reaction to sad faces (amplitudes: p < 0.001; latencies: p < 0.05), which showed that it was easier for the older to inhibit the automatic response to negative stimuli. In sum, these results suggested that there is AER in the emotional cued Go/Nogo task and there is the positive effect in older adults to some extent when they regulated emotions automatically. The ERPs has an advantage in studying AER. The present study provides an evident support to the positive effect in AER from the perspective of ERPs. Future research can increase the amounts of participants and explore theoretical basis to further investigate the aging effect of AER and its mechanism.
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    An ERPs Study on the Mental Simulation of Implied Object Color Information during Chinese Sentence Comprehension
    2017, 40(1): 29-36. 
    Abstract ( )   PDF (897KB) ( )  
    Embodied cognition theory assumes that while sentence comprehension, readers would activate the perceptual mental representation of what they read, such as object shape, orientation etc. Some of previous studies that including implicit object color information in language comprehension support the hypothesis of embodied cognition theory, however others do not. The current research intended to investigate mental simulation of implied object color during sentence reading, which the prototypicality of object color is considered. The current experiment is 2×2 two factors within-subjects design. One of the independent variables is the object color implied in the sentence (typical color or atypical color of the object); the other is sentence-picture matching condition (match or mismatch). The dependent variables are the reaction times and the brain electrical activities (N400 as index) when participants judge pictures after reading sentences. During the experiment, participants first read sentences implying a typical or atypical color of one object and then watched the pictures. They were asked to judge whether the object in the picture was mentioned in previous sentences. All of subjects’ reaction times were analyzed using 2×2 repeated measures ANOVAs. The result showed that reaction times of the pictures after sentences implying typical color of objects were faster than those after sentences implying atypical color. Reaction times of pictures in matched condition were faster than those in mismatched condition. After all, the interaction effect between two factors was not significant. Besides behavioral results, subjects’ ERPs data were analyzed using 2×5×5 repeated measures ANOVAs separately in both cases of typical color sentence and atypical color sentence. Analyzing factors were sentence-picture matching condition (match or mismatch), brain posteriority (frontal, fronto-central, central, centro-parietal, parietal), and hemisphere laterality (left temporal, left, midline, right, right temporal). The results showed that, after reading sentences implying typical color, the peaks of N400 elicited in the mismatch condition were more negative compared to the match condition. On the contrary, after reading sentences implying atypical color, the peaks of N400 elicited between the match condition and mismatch condition were similar. Both behavioral results and ERP findings together suggested that, readers do activate perceptual mental representation of objects and their properties during sentence comprehension, even characters of objects were not directly mentioned. More importantly, the prototypicality of object color implied in the sentence has influence on the specific activation of the object color representation. When reading sentences implying objects’ atypical colors, mental representation of both typical and atypical color were activated, therefore had different impacts on the sentence comprehension and other related cognitive processing. The current experiment is 2×2 two factors within-subjects design. One of the independent variables is the object color implied in the sentence (typical color or atypical color of the object); the other is sentence-picture matching condition (match or mismatch). The dependent variables are the reaction times and the brain electrical activities (N400 as index) when participants judge pictures after reading sentences. During the experiment, participants first read sentences implying a typical or atypical color of one object and then watched the pictures. They were asked to judge whether the object in the picture was mentioned in the previous sentences. All of subjects’ reaction times were analyzed using 2×2 repeated measures ANOVAs, with the object color implied in the sentence (typical color or atypical color) and sentence-picture matching condition (match or mismatch) as factors. The result showed the main effect of sentence version was significant, reaction times of the pictures after sentences implying typical color of objects were faster than those after sentences implying atypical color; the main effect of sentence-picture matching condition was significant, reaction times of pictures in matched condition were faster than those in mismatched condition; after all, the interaction effect between two factors was not significant. Besides behavioral results, All of subjects’ ERPs data were analyzed using 2×5×5 repeated measures ANOVAs separately in both cases of typical color sentence and atypical color sentence. Analyzing factors were sentence-picture matching condition (match or mismatch), brain posteriority (frontal, fronto-central, central, centro-parietal, parietal), and hemisphere laterality (left temporal, left, midline, right, right temporal). The results showed that after reading sentences implying typical color the main effect of sentence-picture matching condition was significant at the 300-500ms interval. The peaks of N400 elicited in the mismatch condition were more negative compared to the match condition. On the contrary, after reading sentences implying atypical color the main effect of sentence-picture matching condition was not significant at the 300-500ms interval. The peaks of N400 elicited between the match condition and mismatch condition were similar. Both behavioral results and ERP findings together suggested that readers do activate perceptual mental representation of objects and their properties during sentence comprehension, even characters of objects were not directly mentioned. More importantly, the prototypicality of object color implied in the sentence has influence on the specific activation of the object color representation. When reading sentences implying objects’ typical colors, only mental representation of typical color of the objects were activated, however when reading sentences implying objects’ atypical colors, mental representation of both typical color and atypical color of the objects were activated, therefore had different impact on the sentence comprehension and other related cognitive processing.
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    The Effect of Visuo-spatial Working Memory on Category Learning Based in Embedded Paradigm
    2017, 40(1): 44-50. 
    Abstract ( )   PDF (847KB) ( )  
    Perceptual categorization refers to organize different perceptual objects into groups. Perceptual category structure is adopted by category learning, which refers to repeatedly appear in the experiment, simple sensory stimulation (such as the length and Angle changes on line, frequency and direction of grating). Rule-based category structure (RB) and Information Integration category structure (II) are two kind of perceptual categories. RB structures define category membership by the values on salient stimulus dimensions. The verbal system is able to learn to categorize such structures by identifying the relevant dimensions and discovering the appropriate rule. In contrast, II structures define category membership by the conjoint rules which are not easily verbalizable on two or more dimensions. Consequently, such structures could not be learned by the verbal system. According to the COVIS model, which assumes that there are multiple systems in category learning. Explicit category learning generate and test simple verbalizable hypotheses, and rules depends on working memory.Thus visuo-spatial working memory will affect the Rule-based category structure (RB), but not Information Integration category structure (II). There have been some studies have showed that working memory has different effects on implicit category learning and explicit category learning. But how the visuo-spatial working memory affect rule-based category learning? The mechanism of cognitive processing is still not yet clear, which is discussed in two experiments. Using a concurrent task methodology on Study 1, the working memory task was embedded in the classification task. A 2 (visuo-spatial working memory group vs. control group)×4(block) were designed.The results showed that the rule-based category structure (RB) learning was affected by visuo-spatial working memory. Study 2 also used the embedded paradigm, but the category learning task was embedded in the visuo-spatial working memory task. The results showed that the effect of visual-spatial working memory on rule-based category learning disappeared. That is,visual-spatial working memory didn’t affect the rule-based category structure. According to cognitive processing stage assumption that rule-based category learning includes at least representation of category and standard of category stage. Firstly, perception of categorical stimulus is needed, the formation of category representation; secondly, it is necessary to use working memory to find the rules and feedback processing inspection rules, and ultimately form the categorical standards.Combined with the results of Studies 1 and 2, showed that for the rule-based category learning, there are cognitive processing stage. Effect of visuo-spatial working memory on the specific cognitive processing stage,in which rule discovery and hypothesis testing, and does not affect the class representation stage of visual representation. Taken together, these results confirm the importance of visuo-spatial working memory for the verbal system and provide new evidence for the exit of cognitive processing stage for the rule-based category. The visuo-spatial working memory plays an important role on specific processing stage of category learning, which influence category code but not the category representation. These results help to understand the verbal system and have implications for multiple systems theories of category learning. Using a concurrent task methodology on Study 1, the working memory task was embedded in the classification task. A 2 (visuo-spatial working memory group vs. control group)×4(block) were designed.The results showed that the rule-based category structure (RB) learning was affected by visuo-spatial working memory. Study 2 also used the embedded paradigm, but the category learning task was embedded in the visuo-spatial working memory task. The results showed that the effect of visual-spatial working memory on rule-based category learning disappeared. That is,visual-spatial working memory didn’t affect the rule-based category structure. According to cognitive processing stage assumption that rule-based category learning includes at least representation of category and standard of category stage. Firstly, perception of categorical stimulus is needed, the formation of category representation; secondly, it is necessary to use working memory to find the rules and feedback processing inspection rules, and ultimately form the categorical standards.Combined with the results of Studies 1 and 2, showed that for the rule-based category learning, there are cognitive processing stage. Effect of visuo-spatial working memory on the specific cognitive processing stage,in which rule discovery and hypothesis testing, and does not affect the class representation stage of visual representation. Taken together, these results confirm the importance of visuo-spatial working memory for the verbal system and provide new evidence for the exit of cognitive processing stage for the rule-based category. The visuo-spatial working memory plays an important role on specific processing stage of category learning, which influence category code but not the category representation. These results help to understand the verbal system and have implications for multiple systems theories of category learning. According to the COVIS model, which assumes multiple systems in category learning, explicit category learning to generating and testing simple verbalizable hypotheses, or rules depends on working memory.Thus visuo-spatial working memory will affect the Rule-based category structure (RB), but not Information Integration category structure (II). There have been some studies that working memory has different effects on implicit category learning and explicit category learning. But how the visuo-spatial working memory affect rule-based category learning? The mechanism of cognitive processing is still not yet clear, which is discussed in two experiments. Using a concurrent task methodology on study 1, the working memory task was embedded in the classification task. A 2 (visuo-spatial working memory group vs. control group)×4(block) were designed.The results show that the rule-based category structure (RB) learning is affected by visuo-spatial working memory. Study 2 also uses the embedded paradigm, but the category learning task was embedded in the visuo-spatial working memory task. the results show that the effect of visual-spatial working memory on rule-based category learning disappeared. That is,visual-spatial working memory does not affect the rule-based category structure. According to cognitive processing stage assumption that rule-based category learning includes at least representation of category and standard of category stage. Firstly, perception of categorical stimulus is needed, the formation of category representation; secondly, it is necessary to use working memory to find the rules and feedback processing inspection rules, and ultimately the formation of categorical standards.Combined with the result of study 1 and study 2, showed that for the rule-based category learning, there are cognitive processing stage. Effect of visuo-spatial working memory on the specific cognitive processing stage,in which rule discovery and hypothesis testing, and does not affect the class representation stage of visual representation. Taken together, these results confirm the importance of visuo-spatial working memory for the verbal system and provide new evidence for the exit of cognitive processing stage for the rule-based category. The visuo-spatial working memory plays an important role on specific processing stage of category learning, which influence category code, does not affect the category representation. These results help to clarify understanding of the verbal system and have implications for multiple systems theories of category learning.
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    Making choices Deplete Self-control resource: Trade-off Effect or Information Processing Difficulty Effect?
    2017, 40(1): 37-43. 
    Abstract ( )   PDF (472KB) ( )  
    Making choice is self-control act and all acts of self-control are effortful and draw on a limited resource, resulting in a state that refers to as ego-depletion. The strength model of self-control provided a new perspective for discussing people’s choices. Studies have found that making choices would deplete self-control resource and lead to ego depletion. But we also poorly understood the reason why making choice have depletion effect. In this study we explored the reason of the choice depletion by setting and manipulating the variable of trade-off conflict difficulty and processing difficulty. Because trait self-control has robust influence on self-control behavior, we exercised strict control over subjects' trait self-control before first stage task. Trade-off conflict resolving should require self-control resources because which is most closely linked to executive function. Difficulty in information processing can make a choice seem difficult, but such difficulty may not draw much on executive resources. At the same time, ego depletion occurs mainly in series complex cognitive activity such as logical reasoning and problem solving which need executive control to transform information from a given state into other states. Reading choosing task and processing of option should not need information state transitions, so this two kinds of information processing difficulty should not induce ego depletion. Our hypothesis, therefore, is that the cause of depletion effect is trade-off conflict difficulty but not information processing difficulty. Self-control resources depletion was manipulated by Stroop task, which had been consistently proved to be effectively, distinguish high and low self-control resources. In experiment 1, participants were asked to finish trait self-control scale at first, then they were assigned to conditions in a 2 (trade-off conflict difficulty: high or low) × 2 (reading difficulty of select task: difficult or easy) between-participants design, afterwards, all participants fulfilled Stroop task. In experiment 2, before fulfilling Stroop task, participants were assigned to conditions in a 2 (trade-off conflict difficulty: choose for self or choose for other) × 2 (option information processing difficulty: 4 options or 3 options) between-participants design according to their scores of trait self-control. In both experiments, between the first and the second phase task, participants' moods were measured. The results showed that subjects' performance of Stroop task after making high trade-off conflict was significant lower than the subjects who made low trade-off conflict, reading difficulty of select task had no influence on Stroop task performance (experiment 1); Subjects' performance of Stroop task after making choices for themselves option information was significant lower than the subjects who made choices for others, number of options had no influence on Stroop task performance (experiment 2). In two experiments, the differences of Stroop task which various groups showed were not due to subjects' moods. Our findings also showed that resolution of trade-off conflict is a primary source of depletion but not information processing difficulty of choice. Future research need to reveal the function of other choice difficulties and further confirm the reason of the choice depletion.
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    The Effect of Sense of Cultural Alienation on Well-being among Minority College Students in Han District Colleges: The Mediating Role of Coping Style and the Moderating Role of Cultural Intelligence
    2017, 40(1): 76-82. 
    Abstract ( )   PDF (611KB) ( )  
    More and more excellent minority college students pursue advanced studies in Han district colleges. To pursuit well-being is the ultimate goal of the common pursuit of human activity(Chen & Li, 2014; Liu, Tian, Huebner, Zheng, & Li, 2014; Wang, Huang, & Bi, 2014). Previous researchers found that well-being among minority college students in Han district colleges was lower than well-being among common college students (Chen, 2012; Yang & Ye, 2014; Ye &Yang, 2014). It is very necessary to study factors and the potential mechanisms that influence well-being among minority college students in Han district colleges in order to improve well-being among minority college students in Han district colleges. The present study aimed to explore the moderated mediation among sense of cultural alienation, coping style, cultural intelligence and well-being among minority college students in Han district colleges. A sample of 670 minority college students in Han district colleges of 6 college (342boys and 328 girls, Mage=20.16±.86) was recruited in the study to complete self-report questionnaires. The self-report questionnaires used in this study included sense of cultural alienation questionnaire, coping style scale, cultural intelligence questionnaire and well-being questionnaire. The results indicated that: (1) coping style mediated the effect of sense of cultural alienation on well-being among minority college students in Han district colleges. Cultural alienation not only directly influence well-being among minority college students in Han district colleges, but also through influence coping style, ultimately influence well-being among minority college students in Han district colleges. (2) cultural intelligence moderated this mediation effect of coping style. Cultural intelligence not only moderated the relationship between cultural alienation and coping style, but also moderated the relationship between cultural alienation and well-being among minority college students in Han district colleges. For minority college students in Han district colleges with high levels of cultural intelligence, with the increase of sense of cultural alienation, minority college students’ positive coping style, negative coping style and well-being had no obviously ascending trend (β= –.07, t = –1.35, p >.05; β= –.02, t = –.37, p > .05; β= –.04, t = –.51, p > .05).For minority college students in Han district colleges with low levels of cultural intelligence, with the increase of sense of cultural alienation, minority college students’ positive coping style and well-being had obviously descending trend (β= –.29, t = –5.24, p < .001;β= –.46, t =–5.72, p < .001), and minority college students’ negative coping style had ascending trend (β= .18, t = –3.19, p < .01). To sum up, the effect of sense of cultural alienation on well-being among minority college students in Han district colleges was moderating mediating effect. The moderating mediating model deeply revealed the effect mechanism of the effect of sense of cultural alienation on well-being among minority college students in Han district colleges. These findings supported our model that the link between sense of cultural alienation and well-being among minority college students in Han district colleges was complex and dependent on other factors. The theoretical and practical implications of the results was further discussed.
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    The Relationship between Internet Altruistic Behavior and Subjective Well-being among Adolescents: A Mediated Moderation Model
    2017, 40(1): 70-75. 
    Abstract ( )   PDF (653KB) ( )  
    Existing research showed that altruistic behavior was conducive to the improvement of subjective well-being. Internet altruistic behavior refers to an act performed voluntarily on line to help someone else when there is no expectation of receiving a reward of any form. However, few explored the relationship between internet altruistic behavior and subjective well-being, which was beneficial to academic development, the improvement of life quality and physical and mental health among adolescents. Thus, the first aim of the study was to examine the relationship between internet altruistic behavior and subjective well-being. Moreover, the formation of subjective well-being was influenced by many factors. As a relatively stable personality, self-esteem was one of the most reliable and the most powerful predictors of subjective well-being. According to the theory of sociometer, self-esteem could adjust the process of individual evaluating. Therefore, we speculated that self-esteem could prompt individual to form a higher self-assessment after making internet altruistic behavior, so we tested whether self-esteem served as a moderator of the relationship between internet altruistic behavior and subjective well-being. Considering that people with high self-esteem had higher self-efficacy compared to that with low self-esteem when it comes to success or failures, we also tested the moderating effect of self-esteem may be completely or partially mediated by self-efficacy. A sample of 1376 adolescents (656 males, 720 females) with mean age 14.83±1.69 years, mean online time a week 5.48±3.21 hours was randomly recruited for the study. Participants were tested with Internet Altruistic Behavior Scale, General Self-Efficacy Scale, Self-Esteem Scale and Subjective Well-Being Scale. The present study examined the associations between internet altruistic behavior, general self-efficacy, self-esteem and subjective well-being. Meanwhile, hierarchical regression analyses were applied to detect the effects of internet altruistic behavior on subjective well-being as well as the moderating role of self-esteem and the mediating role of self-efficacy. Our findings are as follows: (1) Significant common method bias were not exist in the study; (2) There were significant positive correlation between internet altruistic behavior and subjective well-being, which ensured that the supposed variables could be analyzed as mediators; (3) Regression analysis showed that self-esteem acted as a moderator between the relationship of internet altruistic behavior and subjective well-being. That is, subjects with high self-esteem showed significantly higher subjective well-being levels relative to subjects with low self-esteem, and the ability of internet altruistic behavior to predict subjective well-being was weakened for subjects with low self-esteem. Additionally, the moderating effect of self-esteem was completely mediated by self-efficacy. In summary, this study contributes to the literature in several ways. On one hand, the integration of the mediating and moderating models provides a more comprehensive and elaborative interpretation to understand how and when internet altruistic behavior impacts subjective well-being. On the other hand, our findings provide a theoretical and empirical basis for others to study the complicated relationship between internet altruistic behavior and subjective well-being. Last but not the least, this study is helpful for future work on measures to improve adolescents’ subjective well-being. More attentions should be paid to the low internet altruistic behavior individuals and the low self-esteem individuals.
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    The Impact of Core Self-evaluation and Life Satisfaction on Macau Secondary Students’ Academic Burnout
    2017, 40(1): 83-88. 
    Abstract ( )   PDF (567KB) ( )  
    Academic burnout is a sort of continuous, negative and learning-related psychological state happened on students, behaves as physical and mental exhaustion, negative attitude, and reduced accomplishment on study. Influenced by Chinese and Western culture and colonial culture interactively, and combined with the negative impact of lottery on education and the increasing perceived stress , there exists learning problems widely in Macau Secondary Students. Academic burnout as one of most important issues has gained more and more public attention. A review of the literature on academic burnout, its’ influencing factors include external environment factors (e.g., social support, life stress) and internal individual factors (e.g., personality, coping style, self-esteem). Core self-evaluation which is widely studied in the field of organizational behavior, recently its relation with learning behaviors begins to draw researchers’ attention. According to conservation of resource theory, the core self-evaluation as an important personality resource has negative impact on academic burnout, and it is probably an important protective factor of academic burnout. Our study also intended to explore the influencing mechanism between core self-evaluation and study burnout. Life satisfaction which relates to negative emotion and behaviors may have reciprocal effect on academic burnout along with core self-evaluation. Thus we hypothesized that core self-evaluation negatively influenced Macau secondary students’ academic burnout, and life satisfaction moderated the relationship between core self-evaluation and academic burnout. This research aims to explore the relations among Macau secondary students’ academic burnout, core self-evaluation and life satisfaction. A survey was conducted with 336 Macau secondary students. Students’ academic Burnout, core self-evaluation and life satisfaction were rated by participants’ self-report. SPSS 22.0 and LISREL8.8 were applied to analyze the survey data. After controlling demographic variables, such as gender, grade and parents’ education level and income level, the results revealed that:(1) Core self-evaluation and life satisfaction were negatively related to Macau secondary students’ academic burnout, they were the protective factors of academic burnout(b=-1.314,p<0.001;b=-0.334,p<0.01);(2) Life satisfaction played moderation effect between core self-evaluation and Macau secondary students’ academic burnout(b=-2.234,p<0.1),the size of moderation effect ΔR2 was 0.032.Further simple slope test was applied to explain the effect. That is, for the students with high life satisfaction, the higher core self-evaluation, the lower academic burnout they had; for the students with low life satisfaction, academic burnout didn’t change significantly or changed slightly with the variation of core self-evaluation. The results suggest that both core self-evaluation and life satisfaction are key element for the prevention or alleviation of Macau secondary students’ academic burnout. Our findings provide effective theoretical support and important practical value for academic burnout issue. The study also enriches the existing researches on study burnout. On the one hand, different from the previous researches in which subjects are mainly undergraduates, we pay attention to the special population, thereby widen the research perspective of relevant areas. On the other hand, life satisfaction is introduced to explain the condition and theoretical boundary of the influence of core self-evaluation on academic burnout, which makes research more meticulous. In practice, it suggests that in order to avoid or reduce the producing of study burnout and support health growth of Macau secondary students, local educators and parents should pay attention to the cultivation of both right self-evaluation and positive life.
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    The Impact of Peer Attachment on Problematic Mobile Phone Use among Adolescents: Moderated Mediation Effect of Loneliness and Self-Construal
    2017, 40(1): 89-95. 
    Abstract ( )   PDF (605KB) ( )  
    More and more researchers are interested in problematic mobile phone use and its detrimental impacts on adolescents’ adjustment. Most studies explore the influence of individual factors on problematic mobile phone use, such as gender, age and self-esteem. However, environmental factors are gaining increasingly attention in this field. For adolescents, peer attachment is becoming more and more important. In this study, we explored the effect of peer attachment on problematic mobile phone use and examined whether loneliness plays a mediation role on it. As people perceive themselves by different ways, the need of interpersonal relationship varies among each individual. Interdependent self-construal individuals know themselves from relationships, so they tend to care more about building up intimate relationships with others. Thus, they may maintain relationship with others by mobile phone when they feel lonely. But the independent self-construal individuals are totally different. In view of this, the present study also aimed to explore whether self-construal play a moderating role in the mediation of loneliness between peer attachment and problematic mobile phone use. In the current study, self-reported data were collected from 624 adolescents. Peer attachment was measured by the peer attachment subscale extracted from the Inventory of Parent and Peer Attachment (IPPA). Problematic mobile phone use was assessed by the short version of Mobile Phone Use Scale. Loneliness was measured by Illinois Loneliness Questionnaire developed by Asher. The Self-Construal Scale was used to assess self-construal. All the measures attained good reliability and validity. All the data was transferred to computer and analyzed by SPSS 19.0 and M-plus 7.0. Multiple regression analysis showed that: (1) after controlling gender and age, peer attachment had a significant negative effect on adolescent problematic mobile phone use. (2) Loneliness was a fully mediator between peer attachment and problematic mobile phone use. (3) Self-construal moderated the relationship between loneliness and problematic mobile phone use. Results revealed that when adolescents feel lonely, interdependent self-construal people tent to use mobile phone much more to seek for “compensation” than adolescents with independent self-construal. These findings contribute to deepen our understanding of how and when peer attachment influences adolescents’ problematic mobile phone use. On the one hand, the result that peer attachment had a significant effect on problematic mobile phone use through loneliness indicated that teachers could carry out more activities to improve intimacy among adolescents. That would be helpful to ease their loneliness and reduce the time they spend on mobile phones seeking for “compensation”. On the other hand, more attention should be paid to interdependent self-construal adolescents. Some measures could be taken to guide them being aware of their independence and uniqueness.
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    Analogous Temporal Shift Features of Temporal Reference Processing in Discourse Reading
    2017, 40(1): 117-123. 
    Abstract ( )   PDF (639KB) ( )  
    According to the research of Gennari (2004), the temporal reference which was included in the sub clause, was a composite time expression form, marked by the temporal reference adverbs. she found that the processing time of the key word(month) which was nearer time referenced to main clause in clause was faster than the key word(week) which was farther time referenced to main clause. She believed that readers preferred near temporal reference, the near time referenced event and the event included in main clause had stronger causal dependency. It was not clear how the temporal reference feature processed in the discourse. In this study, we investigated the processing of temporal reference in discourse and assumed it had some temporal shift processing characteristics. The reason was primarily that the temporal relations between the temporal reference event and the main event were temporal intervals, which was similar to the temporal shift. The experiment was a single factor within-subject design. We used eye movement technique to divide temporal reference processing(near reference, far reference)into the early stage study of time adverbs area and the late period study of critical event area, and compared temporal reference processing with temporal shift processing. EyelinkⅡeyetracker recorded eye movement indexes during the real-time reading of the entire text. The results showed the basic trend in time adverbs area processing: The eye movement indexes of far reference word processing and short temporal shift approached. The indexes of near reference word processing and long temporal shift approached. Critical event area showed the opposite basic trend: The indexes of far reference events processing and long temporal shift approached. The indexes of near reference events processing and short temporal shift approached. According to these results, we concluded that this complex processing characteristic of the temporal reference represented a new time-indexing representation: time-range representation. Time-range representation was closely related to the causal chain in discourse reading. In time adverbs area, the surface form of the shallow words(such as the semantic meaning and syntax of input words ) was explained by readers(Kintsch & van Dijk, 1978). Far temporal reference had a big temporal range to cover a small temporal range “today”. Far temporal reference maintained the continuity of the words, so it was similar to the indexes of short temporal shift, which was in accord with coherent expression. But near temporal reference and long temporal shift could not cover “today” and failed to maintain the continuity of the words, so their eye movement indexes approached. In critical event area, readers represented the described situation deeply. As far reference and long temporal shift were beyond today's scene, the degree of causal chains was weakened, more cognitive resource was needed. The situation caused by near temporal reference and short temporal shift was close to the situation of “today”; a more closely causal chain was formed, so the indexes of near reference word processing and short temporal shift approached. In conclusion, we initially thought the temporal reference processing had some temporal shift characteristics, and different temporal reference processing characteristics depended on the causal dependency relationship between the surface structure and deep structure.
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    Graphemes–Phonemes Binding Processing Deficits and Its Brain Mechanism in Children with Developmental Dyslexia
    Li Dai
    2017, 40(1): 124-128. 
    Abstract ( )   PDF (287KB) ( )  
    Reading is not only an essential approach to get information, but also a important way to obtain new knowledge for children. The developmental dyslexia is a kind of specific learning disabilities. What is the underlying cause? A lot of researchers have dedicated to this issue. In western alphabetic language system, phonological awareness is recognized as the core deficit and the best predictor of reading. However, in recent years, a number of studies further explore the cognitive mechanism of the developmental dyslexia from the new perspective of working memory. The graphemes – phonemes binding deficits processing has been the focus of developmental dyslexia research during the last decades. Feature binding is an encoded way to store working memory in cognitive psychology, that is to say, people regard the various and complex features as a whole to stimulate memory. Based on the above theory, the basic process of reading is a coding processing that making grapheme – phoneme binding as a unit. Previous study tested the predicted role of visual acuity, phonological awareness and grapheme – sound binding in reading level ability of 8-year-old child who come from China (Hong Kong and Taiwan) and the United Kingdom. The results show that grapheme – phoneme binding is the strongest predictor of Chinese reading. To further explore how grapheme - phoneme binding deficit paradigm may affect children’s developmental dyslexia, cross-channel integration processing is a new trend to explore the fundamental cognitive processing of developmental dyslexia in China. Therefore, there are three kind of methods were used to examine the graphemes – phonemes binding deficit in different language system. The first one is paired- association learning (PAL), were widely used to distinguish developmental dyslexia children and the normal children. And then the second one is change detection task (CDT), which is different from PAL and is more effective to improve the grapheme - phoneme binding deficit from the perspective of feature binding in working memory. Last but not least, a cued recall task (CRT) was usually combine with change detection task, and provide the new clue to make up with grapheme - phoneme binding deficit. In this review, it has also been revealed that the nature of graphemes – phonemes binding processing of developmental dyslexia between non-dyslexia group and dyslexia group by the difference in brain neural mechanism. In alphabetic language system, a lot of functional magnetic resonance imaging studies shown that, the superior temporal sulcus (STS) and the superior temporal gyrus (STG) is the key brain neural mechanism for graphemes – phonemes binding deficit adults group. However, the graphemes – phonemes binding research in Chinese developmental dyslexia still remain in cognitive behavioral level, and disagreements in selecting criteria of subjects and in experimental paradigms. Further research in this area should address the specificity of Chinese dyslexia, and expect to investigate the cognitive and neural mechanism of the graphemes – phonemes binding processing by the empirical research.
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    The Relationship of Adolescents’ Future Time Perspective and Academic Achievement:The Mediation Effect of Time Management Disposition
    Hou-Chao LV
    2017, 40(1): 96-102. 
    Abstract ( )   PDF (748KB) ( )  
    Future time perspective (FTP) as a stable personality trait includes the future cognitive, affect experience and behavior disposition, and plays an important role for guiding the individuals’ present behaviors. Time management disposition is a way of psychological and behavioral characteristics of individual in treating time function, value and using time. However, little research addresses the relationship between FTP and academic achievement in China, especially whether time management disposition can be a mediator variable between FTP and academic achievement. We hypothesize that adolescents with future orientation can make a reasonable plan for the future, prepare well for the future in advance, tend to delay of gratification, and enhance behavior controllability, to boost the value sense of time, thus have more adherences on academic performance. The Sample in this study consisted of 1,002 middle school students, aged from 11 to 19 years-old. Instruments were the Scale of Time Management Disposition (time value, time monitor, and time efficacy), a FTP questionnaire (future negative, future positive, future confusion, future clarity, future persistence, future plan), and a survey on adolescent’s academic achievement. Mplus Bootstrap program was employed to test the mediation effect of time management disposition. The results showed that: (1) the levels of academic achievement (high or low group) have significant differences on each dimension of FTP and time management disposition (p<.05). (2) Future positive, future persistence, future clarity and future plans have significant positive correlations with time management disposition and academic achievement (p<.05); future negative and future confusion were significantly negatively correlated with time management disposition and academic achievement (p<.05). (3) Future negative has a significant direct effect on academic achievement(?=-.101); future confusion(?=-.072), future clarity(?=.175), future persistence(?=.114) and future plan(?=.109) have a significant indirect effect on academic achievement through time management disposition(?=.272);future confusion(?=-.109), future clarity(?=.137), future persistence(?=.144) and future plan(?=.180) have a significant indirect effect on academic achievement through time monitor(?=.206); future negative(?=-.069),future confusion(?=-.078), future clarity(?=.162), future persistence(?=.168) and future plan(?=.065) have a significant indirect effect on academic achievement through time efficacy(?=.271). Thus, although the future is full of uncertainty and ambiguity, individuals with a clear understanding of the future, are willing to pay more efforts to targeted value and good at arranging time. They also own a good sense of self-efficacy, use more meta-cognitive strategies and resources management policies, and have a good time integration capabilities, thus get a better academic performance. Results are discussed considering the importance of time management disposition in the impact of FTP on students’ academic achievement. Practical significance of this study is that teachers need to act as a "guider" in the daily teaching activities and actively guide the future of the adolescent, and promote their future thinking and improve students' time management.
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    The Reciprocal Relationship between Chinese Grade One Children’s Morphological Awareness and Vocabulary: Evidence from a Longitudinal Study
    Ya-Hua CHENG Hong LI Qiong DONG
    2017, 40(1): 103-109. 
    Abstract ( )   PDF (706KB) ( )  
    Vocabulary knowledge has been found to be an important indicator of language development and to play a critical role in reading comprehension. Children’s morphological awareness, which refers to the ability to re?ect on and manipulate morphemes and to employ word formation rules to understand morphologically complex words, may be the underlying skill that is particularly associated with vocabulary growth. Although a relationship between morphological awareness and vocabulary knowledge has been widely observed, questions remain about the direction of that relationship. The structure of morphological awareness includes homophone awareness, homograph awareness, and compounding awareness in Chinese. The aim of this longitudinal study was to investigate the temporal relationship between morphological awareness (including homophone awareness, homograph awareness, and compounding awareness) and vocabulary knowledge among Chinese grade one children. In total, 145 Chinese grade one children (77 boys, 68 girls) participated at two time points: fall (Time 1) and spring (Time 2) of the first grade. The interval was six months. We measured morphological awareness and vocabulary in both times, in addition to their phonological awareness and nonverbal reasoning at Time 1 as control measures. Hierarchical regression analyses were conducted to investigate the relationship between children’s morphological awareness and vocabulary after controlling for intelligence, phonological awareness and the auto-regression effects. The results showed that (1) with the age, IQ, phonological awareness and auto-regression effects of vocabulary controlled, homophone awareness at Time 1 accounted for a further small but significant amount of variance (2%) in vocabulary at Time 2. Compounding awareness at Time 1 predicted a unique amount of variance (1%) in vocabulary at Time 2 beyond the auto-regression and the effects of reading-related skills. However, homograph awareness at Time 1 did not predict variance in vocabulary at Time 2; (2) with the age, IQ, phonological awareness and auto-regression effects controlled, vocabulary knowledge at Time 1 predicted unique variance in homophone awareness (5%), homograph awareness (11%), and compounding awareness (4%) at Time 2, respectively. The results suggest a reciprocal relationship between children’s morphological awareness and vocabulary among Chinese children. Children’s ability of morphological analysis makes them decompose complex words to infer the meaning of morphologically complex words from the morphemes and compound structure. In addition, children’s ability of discriminating homophones and homographs makes them be sensitive to the phonological, graphic and semantic connection in vocabulary development. In the other hand, vocabulary size facilitates meaning extraction that allows children to infer the meaning of critical morphemes to avoid confusing many homophones and homographs better. The findings in the present study adds to our understanding of the relationship between these two developing skills.
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    The Visual Perception Development of 1-4 grade students
    2017, 40(1): 110-116. 
    Abstract ( )   PDF (659KB) ( )  
    General visual perception has long been understood, in a broad sense, as referring to the abilities of understanding, organizing and interpreting visual sensory stimuli. Visual perception is recognized as playing an important role in our ability to successfully negotiate with our environment, perform self-care tasks, work and function in daily lives. Difficulties in visual perception can have a negative impact on occupational performance of adults and academic skill for children, including reading, spelling, cursive and manuscript writing, visual-motor integration, math, and so on. The study about development of visual perception can provide some suggestion for improving several occupational performances and skills. According to Hammill et al.(1993), the visual perception consist of two components, Visual-Motor Perception and Motor-Reduced Visual Perception. However, there have been no consistent results about the relationship between these two components. There have been researches claimed advanced visual-motor integration in Chinese children. They suggest that might due to the writing experience with Chinese characters. However, they chosed pre-school children as subject, who was actually lack of enough writing experience. And the previous study on visual perception development mostly focused on development of visual-motor integration. So the present study investigated development of visual perception with the 1st-4th grade of primary school students, from both of the motor-reduced visual perception and visual-motor perception dimensions. Also, the study compared the development trends of these two dimensions. The study adapted a cross-sectional design to explore the development of visual perception in 1st-4th graders. There were 1132 1st-4th graders from the cities of the eastern, central and western of China participated in this research. The Development Test of Visual Perception-2 (DTVP-2) were administered to the subjects. The DTVP-2 is a revision of Marianne Frostig’s popular Developmental Test of Visual Perception (DTVP). The DTVP-2’s norms are based on a large sample. The test provides scores for both pure visual perception (no motor response) and visual-motor integration ability. It has been proven to be unbiased relative to race, gender, and handedness. The DTVP-2 subtests include Eye-Hand Coordination (EH), Copying (CO), Spatial Relations (SR), Position in Space (PS), Figure-Ground (FG), Visual Closure (VC), Visual-Motor Speed (VMS) and Form Constancy (FC). The first four subtests make up the Visual-Motor Perception test, and the later four as Motor-Reduced Visual Perception. The Coefficient alphas for this sample were .82 (PS), .75 (FG), .88 (VC), .90 (FC), .59 (EH), .83 (CO), .95 (SR). The test is reliable and valid (χ2 / df = 3.83, RMSEA = .05, SRMR = .04, CFI=.96) for testing Chinese 1st-4th graders. In the study, the SPSS Statistics 22 and the LISREL 8.80 were used to proceed the data. The results showed that: (1) From grade 1 to grade 4, visual perception ability of the children showed a consistent linear increasing developmentally. The repeated measurement ANOVA analysis show that the two dimensions of visual perception ability showed the similar developmental trend. There was no significant difference between 1st graders and 2nd graders on Motor-Reduced Visual Perception and Visual-Motor Perception. There were significant differences from grade 2 to grade 4 on pupils’ Motor-Reduced Visual Perception and Visual-Motor Perception. (2) By linear regression analysis, we revealed that the development rate of Motor-Reduced Visual Perception and Visual-Motor Perception were different. The former was faster than the latter. We assumed that, visual perception developed from concrete processing to abstract, from the action related processing to the symbolic related processing, and gradually walking away from the law of the self-centered.
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    The role of self-efficacy and cognitive style in the stereotype activation effect
    2017, 40(1): 136-144. 
    Abstract ( )   PDF (746KB) ( )  
    Previous research has shown that activating a stereotype can influence subsequent behavior in a stereotype-consistent way. However, the mechanism of stereotype activation to behavior is not clear. Some researches agreed with ideomotor theory. They provided that priming effects result from a direct link between perception and behavior. Some other researches argued that the process between prime to behavior is more complex. Recently, a rapidly burgeoning body of research has developed that suggests the self can play an important role in affecting both the magnitude and direction of prime-to-behavior effects. In this paper, we propose that the activation of a stereotype may elicit higher performance via higher self-efficacy beliefs. In Experiment 1, At first, we let the participants (not enter the formal experiments) wrote down what kind of profession need the high IQ ,and what kind of profession doesn’t need the high IQ, 50 participants were randomly selected and assigned to the two experiment conditions. Participants in the experimental group were asked to describe typical behaviors and characteristics of professors. Participants in the control group were asked to describe typical behaviors and characteristics of cleaners. After the priming manipulation, participants were asked to answer the general knowledge test. Additionally, for each item, they had to indicate how confident they felt with their answer on a scale ranging from 1 (No unconfident) to 5 (very confident). We conducted a 2 (stereotype activation: athlete vs. loafer) X 2 (cognitive style: independence vs. dependence) between-subject design in experiment2. Cognitive style as a new variable came into our experiment. The depend variable was the Grip strength test scores and participants specific self-efficacy that was related to athletic persistence and self-control. The results of Experiment 1 showed that participants who had been primed with professors (experiment group) scored higher on the knowledge test than participants primed with cleaners (control experiment). After the mediation analysis, we got that self-efficacy reliably mediated the relationship between stereotype activation and performance in a general knowledge test. In the experiment 2, the main effect of stereotype activation was significant and the interaction effect between prime and cognitive style was obvious. Through the simple effect analysis, we got that the subjects who were field dependence are more likely to suffer the effect of stereotype activation, and the field independence subjects are less susceptible to this kind of situation. In the same way, the self-efficacy of one’s persistence also mediated the relationship between stereotype activation and performance in Grip strength test. Through the two experiments, we discussed the internal mechanism between the stereotype activation and the changed behavior. When activated the positive stereotype traits to participants, the positive stereotype traits would be include into individual’s self-concept, altered self-representations, and eventually changed the behavior.
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    Opportunities for Development, Optimism and Work engagement: the Moderating Role of Task-contingent conscientiousness
    2017, 40(1): 160-167. 
    Abstract ( )   PDF (795KB) ( )  
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    A Critical Review of Spillover Effect of Brand Negative Publicity and Its Influencing Factors
    2017, 40(1): 193-199. 
    Abstract ( )   PDF (715KB) ( )  
    Nowadays, brand negative publicity tends to happen more frequently and more severely. It causes detrimental effect on brand equity and brand evaluation not only of the affected brand but also of other related brands. Recently, there has been growing interest in the concept of "spillover effect," which refers to the phenomenon in which information influences beliefs that are not directly addressed in a communication. Spillover effect of brand negative publicity refers that negative publicity can transfer consumers’ negative perceptions and attitudes to its brand portfolios or alliance, its competitors or categories and even its original country. Since spillover of brand negative publicity is of great importance to brand crisis management, it has been studied for a long time and attracted much attention in field of consumer psychology. In current study, we attempt to depict a holistic view on the theoretical background of brand negative publicity spillover effect and specifically concentrate on its underlying mechanisms, its influencing factors, and strategies for brands and government to diminish its detrimental effect. Given this, first, we classify spillover effect of brand negative publicity into three categories, which should be originally proposed in this research. They are spillover effect (1) within brand portfolios or brand alliance, (2) on competing brand and the industry, and (3) on its original country and other brands/products in this country. According to this classification, we fully analyze the influencing factors of brand-level, event-level, individual-level or country-level with regard to each category. More significantly, we investigated recent studies on how brand negative publicity spills over to its original country image and other related brands in this country for the first time. Second, we review the extant literatures related to the spillover effect and explain its underlying mechanism by introducing Accessibility-Diagnosticity Framework, Categorization Theory, Associative Network Theory and Assimilation-Contrast Effect. By conducting the integration and comparison analysis of these mechanisms, we also discuss the similarities and differentiations of these mechanisms in explanatory power. Furthermore, we examine the literature on response strategies of both company and government which is a critical factor affecting consumer’s attitude towards the brand implicated by spillover effect. It is proposed that the effectiveness of some strategies is equivocal to reduce spillover effect, since some scholars argue that they will result in boomerang effects. However, when consumers are primed to think about differentiation among brands, the brand scandal will be isolated. Therefore, the adverse consequences of brand negative publicity are unlikely to spill over to its competitors. Base on the critical review of prior research, we not only clarify the theoretical development of spillover effect but also make practical recommendations on brand crisis management. Additionally, we propose some future research directions for researchers and managers. First, future research could further explore theoretical mechanism of spillover effect. Second, future research could explore the impact of individual difference in spillover effects from brand portfolio or alliance and country-of-origin image. Third, future research could examine the spillover effect on other stakeholders, such as suppliers in upstream and downstream of the supply chain.
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    Selective attention processing bias towards pain-related cues in abstinent heroin addicts
    2017, 40(1): 145-152. 
    Abstract ( )   PDF (816KB) ( )  
    This research examined selective attention processing bias toward pain-related words within a dot-probe paradigm in an abstinent heroin addict sample treated with methadone. Abstinent heroin addicts suffered frequent pain problems as patients with chronic pain. Based on the findings that chronic pain patients had attention avoidance to specific pain words, we hypothesized that abstinent heroin addicts had more general attention biases to pain cues. In the current study, 17 abstinent heroin addicts treated with methadone and 19 healthy control participants were recruited from a methadone section for outpatients. Firstly, they completed demographical information, fear of pain questionnaire-Chinese version, and depression, anxiety and stress scale. Then participants finished a dot-probe task that featured sensory pain-neutral, affective-neutral, health catastrophe-neutral and neutral-neutral word pairs. These word pairs were all matched in word frequency and character strokes. In the dot-probe task, a fixation cross “+” was presented for 1200ms, which was then replaced by a blank screen presented for 300ms. Subsequently, a word pair was presented for 1250ms. Participants were told that after each word pair disappeared, a dot “●” would appear in the location of one of the words. Their task was to judge its location as soon and accurately as possible, by pressing A and L keys when the dot appeared on the left and right side of the computer screen respectively. Each probe appeared until a response was made or for a maximum of 5 seconds. Before the formal study, brief training (5 trials) was undertaken to increase familiarity with task procedure; training procedures were the same as the formal study except that different words were used. Primary data analysis indicated that the abstinent heroin addict group and control group were not significantly differed in age, gender, education years in school, fear of pain level, depression, anxiety and stress level. Then three kinds of attention bias indexes, i.e., reaction time for attention bias scores, reaction time for congruent and incongruent conditions, attention disengagement indexes, were calculated for the abstinent heroin addict group and control group respectively. Consisted with our hypothesis, we found that abstinent heroin addicts treated with methadone had attention avoidance to all pain-related words. Specifically, the main data analysis found that (1) attention bias scores to all pain-related words in abstinent heroin addicts were significantly lower than control group and also significantly lower than zero, which indicated that abstinent heroin addicts were more likely to shift attention away from all pain-related words in comparison with healthy controls; (2) for abstinent heroin addicts treated with methadone, reaction times for congruent condition (i.e., the probe position is the same with the pain-related word position.) were significantly higher than reaction times for incongruent condition (i.e., the probe position is opposite to the pain cues position.), which showed that abstinent heroin addicts treated with methadone had attention avoidance to all pain-related words. Furthermore, abstinent heroin addicts treated with methadone showed more attention avoidance to health catastrophe words than to sensory pain words while the control group showed more attention avoidance to sensory pain words than to health catastrophe words; (3) attention disengagement indexes to sensory and affective pain words in abstinent heroin addicts treated with methadone were marginal significantly lower than control group but not significantly lower than zero, which illustrated that abstinent heroin addicts had the tendency to show attention disengagement facilitation to sensory and affective pain words. In sum, this research found that abstinent heroin addicts treated with methadone had attention avoidance to all pain cues (sensory pain, affective pain and health catastrophe words), especially to health catastrophe words, and also leaned to show attention disengagement facilitation to sensory and affective pain words.
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    Experiential Purchase, Material Purchase and Well-being: The Mediational Role of Relatedness Need Satisfaction
    2017, 40(1): 168-173. 
    Abstract ( )   PDF (463KB) ( )  
    Experiential purchase and material purchase, two different purchases, have been focused since their emergence in consumer psychology area a dozen years ago. Their relationships with consumer happiness have been supported by previous studies. Namely, experiential purchase leads to more happiness, compared with material purchase. However, happiness referring to hedonic well-being was largely concerned in this topic while eudaimonic well-being, emphasizing different aspects from hedonic well-being, was rarely examined. The present study examined if the positive effect of experiential purchase exists in the relationship of purchase type and eudaimonic well-being, besides hedonic well-being. And the study further explored the mechanism beneath it. Based on Self-Determination Theory, we hypothesized that experiential type improves hedonic well-being as well as eudaimonic well-being, more than material purchase. Relatedness need satisfaction plays a mediational role in these two relationships. The study consisted of a sample of 294 people from colleges and online surveys. Participants were induced to recall experience of experiential purchase or material purchase. Sequentially, they were asked to report levels of relatedness need satisfaction, purchase-related hedonic well-being, and eudaimonic well-being on two questionnaires. The results showed that: (1) Hedonic well-being gained from recall of experiential purchases (M experiential = 5.42, SD experiential = 1.13) was significantly higher than that that gained from recall of material purchases (M material = 4.69, SD material =1.34; t (292) = 5.09, p < .01, Cohen’s d = .59). The same pattern appeared in eudaimonic well-being (M experiential = 5.09, SD experiential = 1.10; M material = 4.49, SD material = 1.18; t (292) = 4.46, p < .01, Cohen’s d = .53). (2)Purchase type was positively associated with two types of well-being (hedonic well-being: β = .27, t = 5.22, p < .01; eudaimonic well-being: β = .23, t = 4.57, p < .01), and relatedness need satisfaction (β = .42, t = 8.78, p < .01). Relatedness need satisfaction was also positively associated with well-being (hedonic well-being: β = .46, t = 8.21, p < .01; eudaimonic well-being: β = .57, t = 11.00, p < .01) after controlling for purchase type. Moreover, the indirect effects of purchase type on hedonic well-being (Boot indirect effect = .25, Boot SE = .04, 95% bootstrap confidence interval: .16 to .38) and eudaimonic well-being (Boot indirect effect = .28, Boot SE = .05, 95% bootstrap confidence interval: .19 to .40) through relatedness need satisfaction were statistically significant. The results supported our hypothesis that (1) experiential purchases lead to higher levels of eudaimonic well-being and hedonic well-being; (2) relatedness need satisfaction mediates the relationships of purchase type with hedonic well-being and eudaimonic well-being. The current study expanded the topic of purchase type and well-being by exploring another crucial type of well-being, and revealing the mechanism of purchase type on individual well-being. The joyful and meaningful effect of experiential purchase could be a reference for consumers to make the most of discretionary money.
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    Body image disturbance: concept and influential factors
    LIANG RUI
    2017, 40(1): 187-192. 
    Abstract ( )   PDF (296KB) ( )  
    Body image dissatisfaction, as quantified by the distance between the ideal and real body image, contribute largely to the body image disturbance. Individuals with body image disturbance suffer from high level of depression and anxiety, as well as low self esteem. Body image disturbance is often associated with mental disorders such as eating disorders and body dysmorphic disorder, and has been considered as core symptom of these two disorders. As a result, a large proportion of study on body image disturbance focuses on diagnosed patients. However, recent studies suggested that many people among common population also suffer from body image disturbance. Thus, this issue should not be neglected due to widespread influence. Very limited studies have been carried out in mainland China. The purpose of current study is to review related findings systematically. Several interesting findings have been presented. These findings may contribute to our understanding of body image disturbance among common population and among those with related diagnosed mental disorders. First, females are more susceptible to body image disturbance than males. Several studies consistently found that only a few females are satisfied with their body image. Regretfully, most females who are not satisfied with their real body image are eager to own a slimmer shape. This trend has been observed in some males, but a substantial proportion of males also want to be stronger. This gender differences may be related to larger gender difference among subtypes of eating disorders such as anorexia nervosa and bulimia nervosa. Additionally, Lesbian women reported lower body dissatisfaction than did heterosexual women, and gay men reported higher body dissatisfaction than did heterosexual men. Thus, researches from homosexual groups exhibited that the gender difference in body image disturbance lies in social gender but not biological sex. It seems that those who internalization the female gender suffer more than those who internalization the male gender. The influence of sociocultural environment on body image disturbance need further investigated. Second, body image disturbance occurs increasingly earlier. Traditionally it has been accepted that body image issues first appear when individuals reaching puberty. However, recent studies suggest about one fifth of first-grade pupils are not satisfied with their body image. More surprisingly, ten percent of five-years-old kindergarteners are concerning with their body images. This trend is companied by the fact that more and more young children learned the social meaning of thinness and the potential benefit of being thin. Their mothers are suspected to be the one who bypass the knowledge on body image to children by means of their own body image concerning. This finding is consistent with the fact that more and more young children are diagnosed with eating disorders such as bulimia nervosa. Third, acceptance of western culture may be a risk factor for the presence of body image disturbance. “Thin as ideal” is a key feature of western culture to define beauty. Non-western culture may play a protective role for women’s body image. For example, unlike the western women who are generally dissatisfied by their own “fat” body, Canadian aboriginal women are found to be pride of their plump body. Among Asian women, the more westernized individuals are more likely to experience the body image disturbance, while those who hold traditional culture are reported to experience less body image disturbance. Nowadays, pursuit of thinness is widespread in differential cultures. However, the prevalence of body image disturbance can to some extent be predicted by culture. Fourth, body image disturbance is influenced by family members, peers and media. A general finding is that girls are more influenced by their mother, while boys are more influenced by their father. Positive peer relationship is protective for body image satisfaction, while negative peer relationship is associated with body image dissatisfaction. Siblings play a very similar role as peers. Researches on media’s influence on body image bring us bad news. Mass media favors models with very thin body, which may leas to internalization of ideal thin body of audiences. Those who explored more on either mass media or social media also tend to experience more body image disturbance. To summarize, body image disturbance can be observed not only among those diagnosed with mental disorders but also in common populations. Females are more susceptible to body image disturbance than males. Children with younger and younger age acquired the social meaning of thinness and fatness. Western culture is a risk factor for body image satisfaction. Due to the close relationship between body image satisfaction and subjective well-being, in future studies efficient intervention is needed to be developed to cope with widespread body image dissatisfaction. Additionally, the cognitive and brain mechanism also need to be addressed in future studies.
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    Effect of Guanxi Beneficiary’s Performance on Guanxi Exerciser’s Resource Allocation
    2017, 40(1): 129-135. 
    Abstract ( )   PDF (300KB) ( )  
    Guanxi-based resource allocation is a prevalent phenomenon in China. Previous research on guanxi-based resource allocation has at least two limitations. First, guanxi exercisers and guanxi beneficiaries are two main actors in a guanxi-based resource allocation decision. However, past research mainly focused on effects of "guanxi" factors between guanxi exercisers and beneficiaries on resource allocation results, and most of them neglected effects of "non-guanxi" factors (e.g., performance of guanxi beneficiary). Second, few research examined when decision-makers adopted guanxi-based resource allocation decisions and when they neglected guanxi factors to allocate resources. Based on the above concerns, this study examined effect of guanxi beneficiary's performance on guanxi exerciser's resource allocation and explored the processes of guanxi-based resource allocation under Chinese cultural background. Based on existing theories, the present study proposed that guanxi beneficiary's performance was negatively related to over-allocated resources that guanxi exerciser gave to guanxi beneficiary, and that guanxi beneficiary's performance was negatively related to inequity of guanxi exerciser's resource allocation. In order to examine the above hypotheses, the present study designed four within-group situation-based experiments. In these experiments, participants were asked to play as a resource allocation decision-maker. They needed to allocate resource to guanxi beneficiary and another partner based on their performance. They were supposed to have strong guanxi (experiment 1, 3 and 4) or moderate guanxi (experiment 2) with the guanxi beneficiary, but have moderate guanxi (experiment 3) or weak guanxi (experiment 1, 2 and 4) with another partner. Guanxi beneficiary’s performance was manipulated at three levels, which were low performance (i.e. guanxi beneficiary’s performance was much lower than another partner’s performance), equal performance (i.e. guanxi beneficiary’s performance was equal to another partner’s performance) and high performance (i.e. guanxi beneficiary’s performance was much higher than another partner’s performance), respectively. Results of four experiments repeatedly verified our hypotheses. When guanxi beneficiary’s performance was significantly lower than another partner’s performance, guanxi exerciser would consider guanxi factor with guanxi beneficiary and allocate more inequitably extra resources to guanxi beneficiary, which significantly exceeded the resource that they deserved. When guanxi beneficiary’s performance was significantly lower than another partner’s performance, however, guanxi exerciser would not consider the guanxi factor with guanxi beneficiary and equitably allocate resource to guanxi beneficiary and another partner. These findings suggested that only when people were in an obviously disadvantageous situation, guanxi would play a compensatory role in resource allocation processes. Our findings have some implications for guanxi-based resource allocation theory and management practices. First, our findings explore the boundary conditions of guanxi-based resource allocation theory and suggest that guanxi does not always have effects on resource allocation in Chinese context. Second, our findings suggest that managers not only need to encourage employees to maintain good guanxi with them, but also need to encourage these employees to improve their performance, which could decrease the pressure to make guanxi-based decision. Moreover, our findings also suggest that managers could recruit employees with good guanxi and high performance, but they need to avoid recruiting employees with good guanxi but low performance.
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    Self- Affirming Forms Reduce Negative Emotion after High Self Threat
    Ying-He CHEN
    2017, 40(1): 174-180. 
    Abstract ( )   PDF (623KB) ( )  
    Previous studies suggest affirming intrinsic aspects of the self, such as core personal traits, one’s own interests and goals can reduce self defensiveness and improve functions. On the other side, affirming extrinsic aspects of the self, such as achievements and finishing socially imposed goals, can bring the opposite outcomes. The present study aimed at extending the outcome variables in Chinese culture background. Two studies tested the effect of intrinsic and extrinsic self-affirmation using experimental method. First, we explored the participants’ choice between intrinsic and extrinsic self-affirmation in threat and no threat condition. Second, we tested the effect of intrinsic and extrinsic self-affirmation on negative emotion after self threat. Study 1 tested participants’ choice on intrinsic and extrinsic self-affirming essays after threat or no threat condition. Participants were randomly asked to write an intense failure (self-esteem threat condition)or write an impressive thing happened to them (no threat condition). Then participants were asked to choose an essay topic to write. The topics were about affirming intrinsic and extrinsic selves. Intrinsic self-affirming task asked participants to write three qualities they love themselves best, such as personal characteristics, cherished values and interests. Extrinsic self-affirming tasks asked participants to write three achievement or success they experience, such as outstanding achievements, awards and praise from others. The results indicated participants exhibited significantly higher percentage choosing intrinsic self-affirming essay in both conditions. In no threat condition, 28 of 32 participants chose intrinsic self-affirming essay, ?2(1,N = 32) = 18.00,p < .001. In threat condition, 21 of 31 participants chose intrinsic self-affirming essay, ?2(1,N = 31) = 3.90,p = .05. Study 2 explored the effects of affirming intrinsic and extrinsic self on reducing negative emotion after self threat. Participants (college students in grade one)were asked to think about their first calculus exam in college. Participants were asked to evaluate their preparation and their satisfaction on the exam, and evaluated their own calculus ability. The answers of the above items were calculated as their perception of exam threat. Then participants were randomly asked to finish intrinsic self-affirmation task, extrinsic self-affirmation task or no self-affirmation task. Finally participants finished scales about negative self-relevant emotion (proud, pleased with self, ashamed, and humiliated)and negative general emotion (happy, glad, sad, and depressed). The results of regression analysis indicated that the interaction between self-affirmation (intrinsic self-affirmation vs. no self-affirmation) and perception of self threat predicted negative self-relevant emotion (p = .07) and negative general emotion (p = .06). Further regression test indicated although threat perception can significantly predict negative self-relevant emotion in both intrinsic self-affirmation and no self-affirmation situations, but the regression coefficients of the two equations differ marginal significantly. Regression coefficient in no self-affirmation condition was marginal significantly higher than in intrinsic self-affirmation, indicating intrinsic self-affirmation could reduce negative self-relevant emotion for participants with high threat perception. The results about intrinsic self-affirmation on negative general emotion exhibited the similar effect. However, regression analysis indicated there were no relationship between extrinsic self-affirmation, threat perception and negative emotion. The results of two studies indicated individuals could get benefit from affirming intrinsic core traits of self. Especially, intrinsic self-affirmation can reduce negative emotion after high self threat. It can be influenced individuals can get more benefits from intrinsic self-affirmation than extrinsic self-affirmation in Chinese culture background. Thinking of unconditionally accepted self is beneficial activities after threat. Results of Study 2 also indicated extrinsic self-affirmation did not increase negative emotion of participants with high threat perception. The results also indicated extrinsic self-affirmation is not harmful in Chinese background.
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    Relationship between Boundary Segmentation Preference and Work-nonwork Conflict: The Role of Boundary Management
    2017, 40(1): 153-159. 
    Abstract ( )   PDF (688KB) ( )  
    With the development of information and communication technologies (ICTs) and the wide use of intelligent instruments, web 2.0 has entered people’s daily life. On one hand, the wide use of ICTs help people make their role transitions between work and nonwork life more frequent and easier; on the other hand, frequent transitions between work and nonwork domains will come at a cost of work-nonwork conflict at the same time. Nowadays, due to the frequent use of communication tools and the special job characteristics of counselors (i.e., expanding work boundary, heavy workload, increasing role ambiguity), college counselor’s work-nonwork conflict is intensifying. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to explore ways to reduce college counselors’ work-nonwork conflict. In this study, we examined: (1) The effect of boundary segmentation preference on the work-nonwork conflict, under the proper control of some key confounding variables, (2) The moderation effects of the organization segmentation supplies and boundary?segmentation strategy on the relationship between boundary segmentation preference and work-nonwork conflict, based on the Boundary Theory. Participants were 312 college counselors (M age = 30.94, 155 males) from different colleges in China. They were requested to complete the boundary segmentation preference scale, the work-nonwork conflict scale, the organization segmentation supplies scale and the boundary?segmentation strategy scale on the spot. Cronbach’s alpha coefficients for the above measures were from 0.71 to 0.82, showing acceptable measurement reliabilities. The data was analyzed with the software SPSS 21.0 and Amos 21.0, and the main statistics methods were correlation analysis and multiple linear regression analysis. Having controlled some key confounding variables (i.e., age, marital status, spouses’ work status, tenure, whether the participant has children under the age of 18 and whether the participant is asked to keep their cellphone 24/7 available), the result showed: (1) Boundary segmentation preferences was positively related to work-nonwork conflict (r=.335, p<0.001). (2) Organization segmentation supplies moderated the relationship between boundary segmentation preference and work-nonwork conflict. Specifically, the relationship between boundary segmentation preference and work-nonwork conflict became weaker with the increasing of segmentation supplies. Meanwhile, boundary?segmentation strategy moderated the relationship between boundary segmentation preference and work-nonwork conflict. The relationship between boundary segmentation preference and work-nonwork conflict became weaker with more boundary?segmentation strategies. Our findings provide strong theory support and specific guidance to reduce counselor’s work-nonwork conflict from the both aspects of organization and individual. On one hand, colleges should provide a split support policy to help counselors to maintain their work-nonwork boundary. On the other hand, counselors can use some boundary?management strategies (such as trying to complete the task before getting off work) to keep their work and life separated to a certain degree, so that they can better balance work-nonwork responsibilities.
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    The Influences of Incompetent Expert on Group Interaction Patterns: Group Member Compensation Effect
    2017, 40(1): 181-186. 
    Abstract ( )   PDF (371KB) ( )  
    During group decision-making, experts play important roles because they are expected to have the necessary related expertise to facilitate the process. However, in most of the past researches group experts have been set to be competent, few has concerned the role of incompetent expert. This study aimed to explore the influence of incompetent expert on group interaction processes from the power dynamic perspective. Three-member decision-making groups were formed with a leader, an expert, and a team member. Groups were randomly assigned to one of the two conditions (competent-expert condition vs. incompetent-expert condition). The competence level of the expert was manipulated by information distribution. In the competent-expert condition, the expert received all of necessary information to make the correct decision. However, in the incompetent-expert condition, the information that the expert received was no more than other team members, and the initial preference of the expert was incorrect based on the information he had. The final valid data were 40 teams (120 individuals), with 20 teams in each condition. All teams engaged in a fire rescue decision-making task using hidden profile paradigm, in which teams could only discover the optimal alternative if their members exchanged and integrated their unshared information. The results demonstrated that compared with the competent-expert condition, there emerge a team member compensation effect. That is, during the decision-making process, the average low-status team member significantly increased his dominant behavior (including total speaking time and turn taking) and leadership functional behavior, containing both task-related functional behaviors and socioemotion-related functional behaviors. Moreover, the average low-status team member became more influential in a team when its expert is incompetent compared with teams with competent experts. Further analysis suggested that the openness of the leader moderate the relationship between expert manipulation and low-status member influence. Specifically, only when leader is high on openness could the low-status member increase his influence level significantly. The present study contributes to the literature and practice in the following ways. First, it explores the effect of incompetent expert on group interaction patterns. Results have demonstrated the group adaptation under the incompetent-expert condition. It also revealed the effects of compensation from low-status members. What is more, result also suggested that not all team are equally adaptive, only when their leaders are open enough, could the potential values of low-status members be released. There are some limitations future research could take into consideration. First, the participants in this study are all male, future research could use mixed gender team to extend the generalizability of the results. Secondly, to eliminate the impact of time pressure on team decision making. This study did not require team complete their discussion within a certain time. Thus, time duration among different team varied a lot. However, time, pace and rhythm are regarded important by more and more team researchers. Exploration of the interaction pattern changes with time dimension in future research is quite promising.
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    Melodic Intonation Therapy and Its Clinical Application in Aphasia
    2017, 40(1): 231-237. 
    Abstract ( )   PDF (330KB) ( )  
    Speech disorders have become serious health problems in modern society. As a treatment program combining of speech and music, melodic intonation therapy has been used in rehabilitation to stimulate brain functions involved in speech. This is based on two hypotheses: one is that music and language share neurocognitive mechanisms on functional and neural architecture, and the other is that the right cerebral hemisphere of music processing potentially compensates the damaged left hemisphere of language regions. Since Albert, Sparks and Helm (1973) proposed melodic intonation therapy, many adapted versions have appeared based on this version of melodic intonation therapy, and the latter has been named as a traditional version. Since then, both of the traditional and adapted versions were usually used in clinical application. Generally speaking, melodic intonation therapies produce language with an exaggerated prosody, whether the traditional or the adapted versions. For the traditional melodic intonation therapy, the goal of the intervention was to improve patients’ production of propositional language, which required an assemblage of structures according to a set of phonological, morphological, and grammatical rules. The melody always consisted of tones in two different pitches, which were set in a pitch interval of third or fourth. Clinicians ask patients to produce phrases or sentences in a singing-like manner that exaggerates the prosody, meanwhile tapping on each syllable with the left hand. Furthermore, traditional melodic intonation therapy emphasized rigid enforcement procedure and the application scope of patients. Unlike the traditional melodic intonation therapy, the adapted versions aimed to improve the speech production of patients in a manner of melodic intonation by melodic intonation technique. To this aim, the melodies were composed according to speech prosody but not limited in the few tones in two pitches. In addition, the adapted versions were not restrict to a fixed procedure or a certain application scope of patients. The adapted versions could be flexible according to patients’ speech disorders. Although melodic intonation therapy has been applied in different types of speech disorder, such as autism and apraxia, it has been widely applied to the therapy of aphasia, especially for Broca’s aphasia, which was characterized by both linguistic and motor speech impairments. The findings showed that both the traditional and adapted melodic intonation therapies could improve aphasics’ spontaneous speech production, repetition and naming abilities. This suggests the efficacy of melodic intonation therapy in the recovery of aphasia. Brain-imaging evidence showed that the melodic intonation therapies influenced both the structures and functions of human brain. Treatment-associated neural structure changes in patients indicate that the unique engagement of right-hemispheric structures (e.g., the superior temporal lobe, primary sensorimotor, premotor and inferior frontal gyrus regions) and the connections across these brain regions might be responsible for its therapeutic effect. However, with regard of neural functional changes, there existed discrepancy between different results. More specifically, whether recovery from aphasia happen through the recruitment of perilesional brain regions in the left hemisphere, or through the recruitment of homologous language and speech-motor regions in the right hemisphere remained uncertain. This discrepancy may be due to deficiency of experimental control, different task during measurement, inconsistency of patients’ lesion size and different form of melodic intonation therapy. In conclusion, the findings revealed that the melodic intonation therapies improved speech production in aphasia. Future research should pay attention to the underlying mechanisms of the treatment of the melodic intonation therapy. In addition, whether melodic intonation therapy can be effectively applied to mandarin aphasia remains to be further explored.
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    applied in assessing amotivation in schizophrenia
    Shu LI
    2017, 40(1): 224-230. 
    Abstract ( )   PDF (713KB) ( )  
    Negative symptoms are treatment-refractory characteristics of schizophrenia that have long been associated with poor functional outcome. Because negative symptoms, including motivational deficits, are a critical unmet need in schizophrenia, there are many ongoing efforts to develop new pharmacological and psychosocial interventions for these impairments. Currently, previous research on negative symptoms in schizophrenia, is usually used in clinical assessment questionnaires and interviews, and objective behavioral assessment method is very lack. In recent years, it is gradually forming a trend about observing negative symptoms, researchers begin to use effort-based decision making paradigms to assess negative symptoms in schizophrenia for clinical trials, especially the amotivation. According to these objective methods, combined with questionnaires and interviews, it must come true to objectively assess amotivation in schizophrenia. Starting from effort-based decision making, we introduce several effort-based paradigms, including the Effort Expenditure for Rewards, Balloon Effort, Grip Strength Effort, Deck Choice Effort, and so on. These tasks covered 2 types of effort: physical and cognitive, These tasks assess how much effort a person is willing to exert for a given level of reward. This area has been well-studied with animal models of effort and motivation, and effort-based decision-making tasks have been adapted for use in humans. There are many challenges in applying in assessing negative symptoms: (1)practice effect. It will have an effect on results. (2)When it’s contradictory between clinical interview-based outcome measures and effort-based decision making measures, how we choose? (3) External validity. Precious studies are in experiments, so it will be questioned to apply the effort-based decision making in clinical trials. (4) The criterions of dependent variables. What’s the standard to meet, if we can think this treatment is effective, is not clear. (5) In most studies, researchers propose the problem that antipsychotic drugs or the dose of them may have an effect on results, but nearly all researchers don’t choose to control them, the most important reason is that it’s too hard to control and they don’t find an effective method. (6) The application of the method to the animal body is applied to the humans, it’s a big problem in fact. Besides, we want to look for neurobiological mechanism of negative symptom:(1) the deficits in processing the rewards and motivation. The patients may have problems in learning rewards and the representative values of rewards are different with each other because of economical status. (2)the deficits in computing the expenditure of efforts. Dopamine system plays a crucial role in containing the expenditure of efforts. (3) Frontal lobe ,including anterior cingulate cortex, posterior cingulate and prefrontal cortex ,also has influenced the willing to expend efforts. In conclusion, the review shows the latest studies , then we try to look for the cognitive and neural mechanism about the amotivation, and point out the challenges and prospects in adapting them for clinical trials in schizophrenia.
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    Using Testlet Response Models to Relieve the Perniciousness of Local Item Dependence in Multistage Testing
    2017, 40(1): 216-223. 
    Abstract ( )   PDF (807KB) ( )  
    Multistage testing (MST) are those which sets of items are administered adaptively and are scored as a unit. MST has most of the advantages of adaptive testing, with more efficient and precise measurement across the proficiency scale as well as time savings, without many of the disadvantages of an item-level adaptive testing (i.e., computerized adaptive testing, CAT). For instance, CAT is not easily applicable for use with certain item formats (e.g., essays); CAT requires complex item selection algorithms to satisfy content specifications and control item exposure rates; and CAT do not typically allow the possibility of item review for test takers. Recently, MST has become increasingly popular and has been adopted by several important large-scale testing programs. Because the modules used in an MST can be designed and assembled before the test administration and are presented to the test taker as a unit, they allow the knowledge and skill of test developers to play a role in the process of test development, thus the content balance, quality of the test structure, and administration of the test can be greater controlled. In addition, MST also allows test takers to review their item responses within each module. The local independence is a basic assumption of most psychometric models. Unfortunately, such assumption can be easily violated in educational tests. Yen (1984, 1993) lists a number of factors leading to local item dependence (LID): test speededness, fatigue or practice, item or response format, passage dependence, and scoring rubrics or raters. Because modules in MST can be treated as a series of mini tests, the assumption of local independence may also be violated by factors mentioned above or others. A lot of studies on traditional linear tests (e.g., pencil & paper test) have shown that when standard IRT models (e.g., Rasch model, 2PL model and 3PL model) are used to fit the data, LID results in the overestimation of the precision of the test as a whole, spuriously high reliability coefficients, and biased parameter estimates (e.g., Wainer, Bradlow, & Wang, 2007; Wang & Wilson, 2005b). Typically, MST use the standard IRT models to estimates test takers’ abilities. Thus we can deduce that the LID may affects the results of MST. Two simulation studies were carried out to explore the perniciousness of LID in MST. For simplify, In study 1, we use the Rasch testlet model (Wang & Wilson, 2005b) to generate response data, and directly use the standard Rasch model (Rasch, 1980) to fit the data as usual. The results indicated that LID can deceases the precision, but without bias, of estimated ability parameters in MST, observably. By contrast, we use the Rasch testlet model to fit the data in study 2, try to reduce the influences by LID. The results shown that the Rasch testlet model can be used to reduced a part of perniciousness by LID. It’s effect is not as good as it in traditional linear test.
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    From Disembodied to the Embodied: the Possibility of Embodied Management
    Lu-jia GE
    2017, 40(1): 238-243. 
    Abstract ( )   PDF (290KB) ( )  
    Traditional theory of management is disembodied, influenced by disembodied western philosophy. At the level of philosophical background, "disembodied" philosophy idea, such as dualism, rationalism and positivism and so on, constitute the disembodied management theoretical basis. At the level of historical development of management, both theoretical hypothesis and practice exclude the factors such as "embodiment", "situation" and "generative", at each stage. In such contexts, management remains at an abstract disembodied level, which makes the body become an unknown “black box” of the organization. The embodied theory provides a new key for opening the “black box”, which means a new research direction for management research. Based on the embodied theory, the concept of embodied management is proposed. Embodied management means "body" factors, as variables, are put into the research category of organizational management, and the organizational behavior and management is explained in the embodied theoretical framework. First, embodied theory provides theoretical hypothesis for the embodied management. Second, organizational cognitive neuroscience and organizational neuroscience provide evidence for embodied management at the level of physiology. Moreover, some researches, such as embodiment leadership, embodiment organization, embodiment decision-making, indicate that embodied management has gotten initial development. Based on the above three points, the possibility of embodied management is demonstrated preliminary. In the "embodied management" perspective, “embodied information” is regarded as one of the key factors, which affect organization management. What is called “embodied information”? It includes four aspects, body-biological information (such as hormone levels), body-physical information (such as body movement), and body symbol-metaphor information (such as "at the foot of the mountain", "foot" is used to indicate bottom), and scene experience-empirical information (such as "home" experience). Those four kinds of “embodied information” can directly or indirectly act on the management of the organization, and then forming the four possibility clues to explore the embodied management. First, physical-body-clue, based on mainly physical properties of the body, which can be subdivided into: body-movement/posture clues, body-state clues, body-sign/metaphorical clues, according to the different effects of physical morphology on the organization management. Second, metaphor-clue, mainly about the linguistic attributes of the body, which can be subdivided into two aspects, one is based on the individual experience and the other is based on the organizational experience. Third, social-action-clue, mainly about the social attributes of the body, which can be used to study the effect of physical movement or spatial distance on the management, in some special social context. Fourth, physiological-body-clue, mainly about the biological properties of the body, can be further subdivided into hormone level clues, metabolic cues, and brain-neural clues, etc. Each clue represents one or more aspects, influenced economic decision-making and other organizational management. And so, in the view of embodied theory, the management scholar or manager can coordinate organization and management dependent on the four clues, within the context of management. This research findings that embodied management is possible on the level of theoretical hypothesis and realistic condition, but, it can’t replace disembodied management or be the main stream, in the short term. In the further research, “embodied information” should be considered and took into the more empirical study as new variable.
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    "Ladies' argument" and "gentlemen's agreement": Retrospection of the "Freud-Klein Controversies" within the British Psychoanalytic Society
    2017, 40(1): 244-250. 
    Abstract ( )   PDF (346KB) ( )  
    In the 1940s, a horrifying war was sweeping the whole Europe. At the same time, particularly due to Freud’s death in 1939, another “war” broke out within the British Psychoanalytic Society, which had great influence on the development of psychoanalysis in British and all over the world. This war, known as the “Freud- Klein Controversies”, lasted almost four years from 1941 to 1945. It happened between two important pioneers of child psychoanalysis--Anna Freud and Melanie Klein--and their followers and loyal supporters, including Susan Isaacs, Paula Heinmann. During 1943 to 1944, a series of scientific meetings were held to solve the conflicts of the British Psychoanalytic Society, expecially between Anna and Klein. Due to their new psychoanalytic ideas different with Freud, Klein and her associates were asked to present papers to make their works clear. The four papers were “The nature and function of phantasy” (Isaacs, 1943), “Some aspects of the role of introjection and projection in early development” (Heinmann, 1943), “Regression” (Heimann & Isaaces, 1943) and “The emotional life and ego-development of the infant with special reference to the depressive position” (Klein, 1944). Then, the two psychoanalytic groups which were headed by Anna and Klein debated intensely on a serious of topics, such as unconscious phantasy, instinct and libido, and the training and education of the psychoanalyst candidates. As a result of the “Controversial Discussions”, a “Gentlemen’s Agreement” was signed and mediated by Sylvia Payne, and an agreement on the training of the psychoanalyst candidates was also made by the British Psychoanalytic Society and the Training Committee. That is, each candidate should first trained by A/B group that they belonged to, and then be supervised by another member from the Independent group which was not the same with A/B. What’s more, “Controversial Discussions” also directly led to the triangle situation of the British psychoanalysis, which constituted of Kleinian group, Vienna group and Independent group. The “Controversial Discussions” was labelled as “struggle without mercy”, “bitter combat” and “incredible”, but it is also “the most important period of the history of psychoanalysis in Great Britain” and “the successful attempt to contain in a creative and tolerant way enormous tensions and dissensions of all sorts by means of a sort of hermeneutic dialogue and comparison of different views”. In conclusion, this debate promoted the separation of psychoanalytic schools between object-relation and ego psychology, proceeded the paradigm shift of psychoanalysis from drive model to relational model, and established the pattern of the following development of psychoanalysis. As Steiner said, some of the problems discussed and the resolutions proposed by the Training Committee of the British Society during the years of the Controversies......are still a source of food for thought today, in spite of the fact that they belong to a specific past. Learning from this historical event of “Controversial Discussions”, we think that emphasizing the interaction and integration of various ideas rather than disagreements and disputes is the only way that psychoanalysis can go further in the competing environment. We can assert that psychoanalysis will encounter a lot of difficulties in the future, meanwhile it is sure to develop constantly.
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