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Behavioral Evidences for the Biphasic Modulation Theory of Saccade Dong-Jun HE 2021, 44(3): 530-536.  Abstract ( )   PDF   Purposes: People shift their gaze between objects of interest using rapid pre-planned eye movements known as saccade. Humans make 2–8 saccadic eye movements per second. Saccades are very important for pointing the eye at targets in the scene, but these rapid scenes shifts are not perceived. The visual stimulus generated by the saccade is omitted from our subjective awareness known as saccadic omission. Saccadic omission is important for visual system: without it, the motion on the retina would prevent us from seeing anything at all. Based on evidences coming from numerous physiological studies in behaving primates, investigators propose the biphasic modulation theory to explain the neural mechanism of saccadic omission. However, no studies have reported whether the biphasic modulation theory of saccadic omission exists in the human visual system. Thus, the study examined whether the biphasic modulation theory was applicable to the human visual system (experiment 1). Moreover, the study explored stimulus selectivity of the theory (experiment 2). Procedures: So, the study included two experiments. The stimuli in both experiments were circular patches of sinusoidal gratings with a randomized phase (diameter: 2.5°; orientation: -3° or +3°, ‘-’ and ‘+’ indicate that a grating was left- or right-tilted). Spatial frequencies of gratings in experiments 1 and 2 were difference: that in experiment 1 (1.5 cycles/°) and in experiment 2 (0.1 cycles/°, 3 cycles/° and 6 cycles/°). In the experiment 1, the study measured the orientation discrimination accuracies of gratings for human subjects in three time periods of saccade: baseline period (over 700 ms before the onset of saccade), suppression period (100 ms before the onset of saccade – 25 ms after the saccade) and enhancement period (25 ms after the saccade – 150 ms after the saccade)). In the experiment 2, using three different spatial frequencies of gratings, the study measured the orientation discrimination accuracies of each grating for human subjects in three time periods of saccade, respectively. Results: In the experiment 1, the orientation discrimination accuracy of gratings in the suppression period was significantly lower than that in the baseline period. Meanwhile, the orientation discrimination accuracy of gratings in the enhancement period was significantly higher than that in the baseline period. In the experiment 2, when the low spatial frequency (0.1 cycles/°) grating as the test stimulus, the orientation discrimination accuracy of gratings in the suppression (or enhancement) period was significantly lower (or higher) than that in the baseline period; when the middle spatial frequency (3 cycles/°) grating as the test stimulus, the result is same with that using the low spatial frequency grating; However, when the high spatial frequency (6 cycles/°) grating as the test stimulus, There was no significant difference between any two of the three conditions. Conclusions: These results indicate that the human visual system also has the biphasic modulation mechanism across saccadic eye movement. Moreover, the biphasic modulation mechanism has stimulus selectivity: visual system selectively suppresses (in suppression period) or enhances (in enhancement period) the response to low spatial frequency gratings, but not high spatial frequency gratings. Related Articles | Metrics

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The Influence of Inertial Activation on Implicit Memory in Task Switching: Evidence from ERPs Wu-Ji Lin Jing-Yuan Lin 2021, 44(3): 537-544.  Abstract ( )   PDF   A wide range of studies have shown that executing the other secondary task during retrieval phase has influence on implicit memory (repetition priming). But, we still don’t know the mechanism of the interference. There are few relative studies discussed and verify the mechanism of interference effects on implicit memory during retrieval. Therefore, this study was designed to investigate the mechanism of interference with event-related brain potential (ERP) technique. The effect of interference during retrieval was assessed by comparing two divide-attention (DA) conditions, on which participants carried out an interference task (even-odd decision) and a memory task (lexical decision) successively, with a full-attention (FA) condition, on which participants performed only the memory task or interference task. We combined lexical decision task with go/no-go task for investigate mechanism of interference. In a trial, there was a digit presented at the center of screen, followed by a lexical. Participants had to judge whether the digit was odd or even and the lexical was word or pseudo-word. The upcoming task was indicated by a task cue. A digit with underline or a digit without underline indicating whether participants were required to respond to the digit (go vs. no-go). Participants were instructed to make response to corresponding items by pressing keyboard. They were asked to perform both tasks as quickly and accurately as possible. The Reaction Time (RT) and Accuracy data in retrieval phase were recorded, in order to assess priming effects, the effect of interference and interference task costs. The ERP data also were recorded and analyzed. The results showed that, priming effects were obtained in the FA condition and no-go condition but disappeared after go trials. There was non-significant difference in Accuracy. The ERP data are the same as behavior data. The N400 old-new effect was observed in FA condition and no-go condition but disappeared in the go condition. In addition, we found that the situation of P200 was the same as N400.The old word produced bigger amplitude P200 than new old in FA condition and no-go condition. But it was not observed in go condition. In conclusion, results from the current study revealed that implicit memory priming could not be regarded as an automatic form of retrieval with ease. Inertial activation of the pre task will impact implicit memory during retrieval. But when inertial activation was inhibited, the implicit memory would be recovery. So, the reason that the implicit memory is interfered during retrieval is interference task and implicit memory task competes for limited cognitive resources. It provides evidence for the view of “general cognitive resources compete”. On the other hand, the ERP data also provide evidence for implicit memory will be interfered when cognitive resources are insufficient during retrieval. In addition, we found that P200 might indicate a kind of perception priming. It also was interfered when cognitive resources are insufficient during retrieval. We believe that implicit memory may not be completely automatic processing. And, retrieval phase need more cognitive resources compared with encoding processing. Related Articles | Metrics

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The Effect of Stress Hormones on Fear Extinction and its Neural Mechanisms 2021, 44(3): 559-566.  Abstract ( )   PDF   Fear extinction, which is the mechanism of exposure therapy, is usually accomplished by repeatedly presenting a conditioned stimulus (CS) without the company of an aversive outcome (i.e., unconditioned stimulus, US). Stress hormones, including glucocorticoids (GCs) and norepinephrine (NE), widely spread in the neural circuits that involve in extinction learning (e.g., vmPFC, amygdale, and hippocampus) and they have significant influence on extinction learning process. The effect of stress hormones on fear extinction is modulated by endogenous hormone levels, manipulation time and gender. An appropriate level of NE is vital to the effect of fear extinction training after trauma. Both an overly high or an overly low level of NE are detrimental to the fear extinction training. After a trauma, the NE level sharply increases and then it decreases over time. Therefore, at different time point, the level of NE should be manipulated for the best function of the training. If the training happens soon after the trauma, its effectiveness can be enhanced by reducing NE to an ideal level; in contrast, a delayed extinction training benefits from raising up the NE level to a proper level. NE affects extinction training through influencing the interaction between amygdale and vmPFC: as the excitatory input from amygdale to vmPFC maintains fear memory, an ideal level of NE could inhibit the activity of amygdala and therefore optimize training outcome. The effect of GCs on fear extinction training depends on its manipulation time. GCs are usually manipulated at three time points: before and after the encoding of extinction memory and before the retrieval of extinction memory. At different manipulation time, GCs cause different alterations in the amygdala-hippocampal-prefrontal cortex network, which leads to the different effects on training. In particular, the pre-encoding GCs manipulation can promote the encoding of extinction memory by inhibiting amygdala activity and enhancing the functional connectivity between vmPFC and hippocampus. The pre-retrieval GCs manipulation can impair the retrieval of extinction memory by imposing an opposite effect on the same neural circuits. The post-encoding GCs manipulation has a complex effect on extinction memory and its underlying mechanisms remain unclear. The effect of stress hormones on fear extinction is influenced by gender. High-estradiol women have better extinction learning performance than low-estradiol women by reason of the promotive effect of estradiol on vmPFC-amygdala conectivity. It is also suggested that men can benifit from estradiol which is synthesized via the enzyme aromatase from circulating testosterone.The intereaction effect of stress homones and sex homones is still under investigation. There are three potential directions for the future research. First, it is suggested that GCs induced memory enhancement depends on noradrenergic activation,but the interative effect of GCs and NE on fear extinction is remain unclear. Future research should investigate how GCs interact with NE to influence extinction learning. Second, future research should validate whether stress hormones and sex hormones could be biomarkers of treatment outcomes. Finally, future research should explore the therapeutic efficacy of stress hormones in the treatment of different disorders. Related Articles | Metrics

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Effects of cognitive load and encoding modes on prospective memory and its two components You-zhen CHEN Jin-Hui HU 2021, 44(3): 545-551.  Abstract ( )   PDF   Prospective memory is an ability to successfully perform an intention, referring to the memory of a planned event in a specific situation or at a specific time in the future. Prospective memory can be divided into event-based prospective memory and time-based prospective memory. Event-based prospective memory includes prospective component and retrospective component. Prospective component is the observation and recognition of target clues, and retrospective component is the extraction of future intention. Previous studies have shown that cognitive load, encoding modes would affect the prospective memory performance of the participants. However, there are still different views about whether different encoding modes have influence on prospective memory. The influence of different encoding modes on prospective memory under different cognitive load has not been determined. Therefore, this study explores the effects of cognitive load and encoding modes with simple intention content on the prospective memory and its components through two experiments. In experiment 1, we adapted 2 (cognitive load: high, low) × 3 (encoding modes: standard encoding, implementation intentions encoding, writing encoding) mixed design. During the experiment, the participants were supposed to complete two tasks at the same time. The ongoing tasks were divided into 1-back task and 2-back task, which correspond to low and high cognitive load. The encoding mode of prospective memory tasks were divided into standard encoding, implementation intentions encoding and writing encoding. Experiment 1 results showed that under low cognitive load, prospective memory performance was better than that of high cognitive load conditions. Under the implementation intentions encoding and writing encoding, the correct rate of prospective memory were significantly higher than that of standard encoding, and there was no significant difference between the implementation intentions encoding and writing encoding. In experiment 2, we adapted 2 (cognitive load: high, low) × 3 (encoding modes: standard encoding, implementation intentions encoding, writing encoding) mixed design. At the same time, on the basis of experiment 1, we used the experimental separation method to separating the two components and tried to probe how the cognitive load and encoding mode affect the prospective component and retrospective component performance of the participants. The results of experiment 2 showed that under low cognitive load conditions, the performance of prospective components were better than that of the high cognitive load conditions. The correct rate of the prospective components under implementation intentions encoding and writing encoding was significantly higher than that of the standard encoding. And there was no significant difference between the former two encoding modes. Different cognitive load and encoding modes had no significant effect on the retrospective components. The results show that in the case of simple intention content, low cognitive load makes for the successful execution of prospective memory because of the higher successful rate of prospective components. What’s more, implementation intentions encoding and writing encoding can promote the prospective memory performance by promoting the extraction of prospective components. Related Articles | Metrics

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A Dynamic Model of the Longitudinal Relationship between Perceived progress and Effort in Complex Goal Realization Process：A Latent Change Score Approach 2021, 44(3): 522-529.  Abstract ( )   PDF   Perceived progress and effort represent two of the most important constructs in the existing literature. Despite of the accumulated knowledge, the reciprocal relationship between effort and perceived progress under the pursuit of long-term, multi-goals remains ambiguous. Thus, many scholars call for future research to unravel the complex relationship between perceived progress and effort under the pursuit of complex goals.However, other scholars hold the opposite view and found mixed or even contradictory findings. Some studies, using longitudinal correlations or cross-lagged regression, have provided initial evidence about the influence and possible direction of perceived progress and effort. However, these studies only rely on covariance rather than on mean structures. Thus, the findings of these studies cannot capture the dynamic changes in absolute levels of the constructs (i.e., the actual changes of effort when people perceived higher levels of progress). To clarify the effect of perceived progress on effort, this study uses a dynamic latent difference score model (LDS) with second data from an entrepreneur sample (PESD II) that have collected repeated measures across 5 occasions (years). We measure perceived progress with 7 objective indicators to evaluate the progress in the pursuit of one's venture goal. Analogously, effort is measured by assessing 5 key activities had been done for their new ventures. The final sample consists of 215 entrepreneurs who engaged in entrepreneurial activities across five measurement occasions (2006 to 2010). For our analyses, we conducted the LDS approach in Mplus 8.0. Figure 1 presents a path diagram of a bivariate LDS model with two factors: perceived progress and effort. In a bivariate LDS model (see Figure 1), latent intercepts and slopes (e.g., Intercept 1 and Slope 1 for effort) for two variables, as typically modeled in growth curve analyses, are constructed as the former affecting the same variable at the first occasion (e.g., Effort T1). The latent change variable (e.g., Δ Effort, T1-T2) is specified to be affected by three components: a linear systematic constant change from the slope (e.g., Slope 1), a proportional change from the same construct at a previous occasion (e.g., Effort T1), and effects from the other variable at a previous occasion (e.g., Perceived progress T1), as indicated by γ1. The findings provide support for a reciprocal model of relationships. Entrepreneurs who make more effort generally demonstrate higher perceived progress over time. Perceived progress, however, negatively predicts entrepreneurial effort. Overall, the findings of the present study have three major contributions: First, by constructing a latent difference score model, this study clarifies the intra-individual dynamic nature of effort and perceived progress. Furthermore, we also find the reciprocal relationship between perceived progress and effort. Second, give that our research setting is startups that involve the pursuit of complex goal (e.g., short-term survival or long-term profit), this study can take account for the roles of time and complex goals into the complex relationship between perceived progress and effort. Third, we use a longitudinal design with multi-source and objectively evaluated secondary data to avoid potential statistical bias. Related Articles | Metrics

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The application of eye-movement technique in researching individual differences in cognitive abilities Xingli Zhang 2021, 44(3): 552-558.  Abstract ( )   PDF   Eye-movement technique has been widely used in the study of cognitive psychology. The application of eye-movement technique in researching individual differences in cognitive ability has also attracted researchers' attention. Previous studies have successfully identified individuals with psychological disorders (such as autism spectrum disorder and schizophrenia) by using eye-movement analysis. Whether eye-movement characteristics can accurately reflect the cognitive ability of normal people is also worth exploring. In this review, we first introduced the stability of individual’s eye-movement characteristics across time and trial. These studies indicate that eye-movement characteristics have good test-retest reliability and internal consistency reliability, which lays the foundation for using eye-movement characteristics to measure cognitive abilities. Subsequently, we systematically summarized the relationship between eye-movement characteristics and cognitive abilities from three aspects: fixation and saccade related indicators, scan patterns, and pupil size. These studies provided substantial evidence that eye-movement characteristics could reflect individual’s cognitive abilities such as intelligence and working memory. To be specific, individuals with high cognitive abilities show more efficient information processing in eye-movement tasks such as visual searching and reading, reflecting in longer saccade amplitude and lower proportion of long fixation duration. In intelligence test, individuals with high cognitive abilities tend to select the more efficient strategies according to test’s rules. Take Raven's advanced progressive matrices test as an example, high intelligence individuals spend longer time on encoding the problem and demonstrate less toggling rate between problem area and response alternatives area. In addition, studies focusing on scan patterns developed powerful quantitative analysis tools in recent years, which brings new vitality to qualitative scan patterns. These studies found that indicators based on quantitative scan patterns perform better than conventional fixation or saccade indicators in predicting individual’s cognitive abilities. Moreover, pupil size, a more physiological indicator indirectly reflecting the activity of locus coeruleus norepinephrine (LC-NE) system, also has close relations with cognitive abilities. However, the correlation between cognitive abilities and tonic (baseline) pupil size remained controversial for several reasons, such as the diverging definition of baseline and different measurements for cognitive abilities. The correlation between phasic (task-related) pupil size and cognitive abilities was close to agreement according to the control hypothesis. For unfamiliar tasks that require more exploration, individuals with high cognitive abilities tend to fully utilize their cognitive resources to complete these tasks, causing their phasic pupil size to dilate more that low cognitive abilities individuals. In contrast, for familiar tasks that require exploit knowledge, they tend to utilize fewer resources to efficiently complete these tasks, causing their phasic pupil size to dilate smaller than individuals with low cognitive abilities. Studies have revealed the close relationship between various eye-movement characteristics and cognitive abilities, indicating eye-movement technique is a promising tool for measuring individual cognitive differences with good reliability and validity. Future studies need to further explore the causal relationship, internal cognitive mechanism, and underlying neurobiological basis between eye-movement characteristics and cognitive abilities. Also, the influences of possible moderating variables (e.g., age, task type, task difficulty and physical properties of stimulus materials) should be fully considered in relative studies. Furthermore, it is worth exploring to develop reliable and valid cognitive ability tests combined with artificial intelligence algorithm based on eye-movement characteristics. Related Articles | Metrics

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Characteristics in Spatial Reference of SNARC Effect under the Involvements of Visuospatial and Verbal-spatial Information 2021, 44(3): 514-521.  Abstract ( )   PDF   The Spatial-Numerical Association of Response Codes effect (a.k.a., the SNARC effect) is characterized by the case in which the responses are much faster made by the left hand for relatively small, in magnitude, numbers versus that made by the right hand, whereas the opposite pattern holds for relatively large numbers. To explain the SNARC effect, Dehaene et al. initially proposed the mental number line (MNL) theory, which posited that abstract numbers are represented in the brain via a manner of small numbers on the left while large numbers on the right, forming a left-to-right mental number line. The SNARC effect is the production of the consistent representation between the number’s position on the mental number line and the spatial position response. Series of studies confirmed the key role of spatial references, especially egocentric references of the SNARC effect, they may be flexible whose activation depend on the experimental conditions. However, the spatial coding based on the theory of MNL was limited to the visuospatial information, and it was not able to distinguish the activation conditions of the SNARC effect egocentric references. In addition to the theory of MNL, Gevers et al. (2010) offered a visuospatial and verbal-spatial double coding theory to explain the SNARC effect. In the circumstance of the visuospatial encoding of the theory of MNL, the spatial references of the SNARC effect either activated a manner of body-centered, hand-based, or finger-based. Nevertheless, in the case where both the visuospatial information and the verbal-spatial information work, which pattern of the spatial reference of the SNARC effect will be activated requires further exploration. Therefore, the current study intended to set up three response types via the left hand, right hand, or both hands. We assumed that in the case where both the visuospatial information and the verbal-spatial information work a fashion of body-centered spatial reference will be activated. As expected, neither the intensity of the SNARC effect nor the corresponding number-space mapping patterns showed difference among these response conditions, such a pattern held under the condition that the visuospatial information and verbal-spatial information worked together. These results confirmed that, when both visuospatial information and verbal-spatial information are concerned, a pattern of body-centered spatial reference was activated in the SNARC effect. These findings suggest that the involvement of verbal-spatial information helps to activate the body-centered spatial reference system in the SNARC effect. Related Articles | Metrics

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The relationship between technoference and smartphone addiction of adolescents: the roles of emotional symptoms and environmental sensitivity Liu qinxue Di Qi Zong-Kui ZHOU 2021, 44(3): 583-590.  Abstract ( )   PDF   The concept of “technoference” is defined as everyday interruptions in interpersonal interactions due to technology devices. Previous studies on technoference have focused on its impact between couples or parents, and now some scholars have begun to pay attention to its impact on adolescents in the family environment, which have found that technoference may lead to a series of internalization and externalization problems of adolescents, but few studies have explored the intrinsic mechanism. According to Problem-Behavior Theory, family is one of the most important environmental systems, which can affect the individual’s behavioral system. Therefore, smartphone addiction, as a common externalization problem related to technology, may be one of problem behaviors of adolescents induced by technoference. Hence, this study attempted to explore the relationship between technoference and adolescents’ smartphone addiction, as well as the potential mechanisms underlying this relation. From the perspective of emotional function, emotion can reflect the information in the environment and then influence people’s behavior. Accordingly, technoference occurring in the family environment is an essential environmental information, which may affect the adolescents’ smartphone addiction through influencing their emotions. Therefore, this study attempted to explore the mediating role of emotion symptoms. At the same time, human development is related to the environment, but different people may have different sensitivity to the environment, individuals with high environmental sensitivity are more sensitive to both positive and negative environments, so environmental sensitivity may play a moderating role in the relationship between technoference and smartphone addiction. To conclude, the present study constructed a moderated mediation model to examine whether emotional symptoms mediated the relationship between technoference and adolescents’ smartphone addiction, and whether environmental sensitivity moderated this mediation effect. A total of 3219 junior high school students aged 11~16 from 2 middle schools was recruited in the study to complete the self-report questionnaires. Four questionnaires were used in the study: Technology Device Interference Scale, Smartphone Addiction Scale, Emotion Symptoms Subscale of the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire and the Highly Sensitive Child Scale. For data analysis, common method biases were examined at first. Then, correlation analysis was conducted to obtain the relationship between variables among the hypothesized model. In the end, the moderated mediation effects were tested by the Mplus 7.4. The correlation analysis showed that: technoference was positively correlated with emotional symptoms, environmental sensitivity and smartphone addiction, emotional symptoms was positively correlated with environmental sensitivity and smartphone addiction, while environmental sensitivity was positively correlated with smartphone addiction. The testing for moderated mediation model indicated that: (1) technoference had a direct effect on smartphone addiction of adolescents positively, and also had an indirect effect on smartphone addiction of adolescents through emotional symptoms; (2) environmental sensitivity regulated the first half of the mediation process in which technoference affected smartphone addiction of adolescents. Specifically, high environmental sensitivity could enhance the impact of technoference on emotional symptoms of adolescents. The findings revealed the effect of technoference on smartphone addiction of adolescents and its functionary mechanism, and brought some important inspirations for prevention and intervention of smartphone addiction of adolescents. Related Articles | Metrics

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Helicopter parenting: Conceptions, influences and effects 2021, 44(3): 612-618.  Abstract ( )   PDF   Helicopter Parenting, also known as overparenting，is a type of parenting adopted by parents on emerging adults (usually between 18 and 25). This concept was first presented by Cline and Fay (1990), who described parents who excessively interfered with their children as "helicopter parents". LeMoyne and Buchanan (2011) described helicopter parenting as a parenting style that parents hover over their children and are always ready to make decisions and take responsibility for them. Since then, helicopter parenting has received much attention in academia for its negative effects on emerging adults. The present research systematically analyzed the outline of the helicopter parenting, focusing on the conceptual analysis, influencing factors and post-effects of helicopter parenting. Firstly, this research defined helicopter parenting as a kind of parenting in which parents give their children excessive support and control, without autonomy for their behaviors. Helicopter parenting has its own distinctive characteristics as well as it has a definite correlation with authoritative parenting, authoritarian parenting, harsh parenting, little emperor parenting and tiger moms parenting. Secondly, the main factors affecting helicopter education are demographic variables, parental factors and social cultural background based on the deliberate analysis of the previous studies. Existing studies have not reached consensuses on whether demographic variables (such as age, grade, gender, and socioeconomic status) significantly affect helicopter parenting. In terms of parental factors, parental attachment and anxiety characteristics, parental projection and expectations, parental regulatory focus and their life pressure would all have an influence on the helicopter parenting. Social culture also has a significant impact on helicopter parenting. Collectivism advocates the interdependence and inter-guidance among generations, while individualism usually attaches more importance to the independence and privacy of children. Helicopter parenting may be more prevalent in cultures that value interdependence more than independence. For the post-effects of the helicopter parenting, Self-Determination Theory provides a potential theoretical explanation for the relationship between helicopter parenting and child development, according to which the healthy adaptation and functioning of an individual involves three inborn human demand, namely autonomy (feeling that one has will control in making one's own decisions), competence (feeling confident in one's abilities and achievements) and relatedness (feeling that one is connected to others in real and caring relationships). And excessive parental involvement threatens the ability of emerging adults to fulfill these needs, especially for autonomy. It is found that helicopter parenting plays an important role in the mental and social adaptions of adolescents. This effect mainly reflects the following aspects: depression and anxiety, motivation and self-efficient, academic adaptation, interpersonal interaction, life satisfaction and risky behavior. Future research needs diversified participants to be extended from college students to adults, and to focus on richer research topics. Secondly, the mechanism of helicopter parenting should be discussed in detail considering more moderators and mediators. Thirdly, social cultural background was proved to be important in helicopter parenting, future research should be carried out under Chinese background, and compare the parenting style with Western cultures. Finally, It will adopt the longitude design or cross-lagged design for future study to further investigate the cause and effect between helicopter parenting and healthy development in emerging adults. Related Articles | Metrics

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Siblings empathy: Characteristics, Influencing Factors and Prospect 2021, 44(3): 605-611.  Abstract ( )   PDF   With the end of China’s over 30 years one-child policy and the implement of the two-child policy, a large number of children went through the transformation from single-child to first-born child, and siblings empathy has been the focus of researchers. Siblings empathy referred to psychological phenomena that were genetically related to each other, linked by family bonds, and had one common natural parent at least who felt each other's emotions, perceptions, and thoughts. Siblings were the first contact and closest partners of young children. To some extent, children spent more time with their siblings than their parents, and their communication and activities would promote the development of mutual empathy. In order to understand the characteristics, influencing factors and theoretical mechanism of sibling empathy, this review was arranged as follows: In the first section, the generation and development of sibling empathy was introduced. When children are 2 years old, they could understand their relationship with their siblings. It also showed that siblings empathy began to develop, age grows, the relationship between siblings, the gender combination affected the development of siblings empathy, and studies have shown that empathy involved multiple cognitive and social emotional components, and each child might have its own unique developmental trajectory In the second section, we distinguished and discussed common (reciprocity, difference, enthusiasm) and specific characteristics: (1) Reciprocity. Due to the persistence of time spent with siblings and the indivisibility of blood relationship, the development of siblings empathy showed an interactive model, which older brothers and sisters would promote empathy of the younger brothers and sisters, and vice versa. (2) Difference. Siblings’ beliefs about their relationship, attachment level to their parents and age or birth order were associated with differences in the development of sibling empathy. Within a certain range, older siblings tended to develop empathy better than younger siblings. Among the siblings, the empathy of sisters developed better than that of brothers. (3) Positivity. The interaction between siblings helped the development of compatriot empathy, which would bring many benefits to the contemporary life of siblings, e.g. directly promote children's social, emotional and cognitive development. In addition, the development of sibling empathy was often higher than that of peer empathy, showing the characteristics of specificity with ordinary peer empathy. First of all, ordinary peers could be chosen and changed independently, while siblings were natural playmates of children. Secondly, children were more likely to empathize with people who they were familiar with or similar to themselves. At the same age, the empathy ability of children with siblings developed better than that of only-child children. Finally, there were obvious differences in the mechanism of empathy between siblings and ordinary peers. In the third section, we discussed the factors involving four dimensions: individual, sibling, family. Individual factors. Perspective-taking ability, attachment relationship, self-control ability, temperament, curiosity, and motor coordination ability were associated with the empathy. Sibling factors. First, types of sibling relationship. Positive relations of siblings were more conducive to promoting the development of empathy, such as warmth and intimacy. Second, sex composition. The same-sex sibling groups were more likely to have competitive relationships and lead to anxiety and depression. However, the same-sex compatriots could understand each other better, so the development of the same-sex empathy of siblings was better. In terms of sex composition, the influence on the development of empathy was in the order of sisters, brothers, brother and sister, sister and brother. Third, age interval. Great age interval in siblings was associated with a more positive influence of older siblings on the development of empathy of younger. Fourth, birth order and frequency of interaction and moderate conflict also were associated with siblings empathy. Family factors. Mother sensitivity, parental emotional expression, and parent-child interaction were positively associated with siblings empathy. In the fourth section, we discussed several limitations of previous studies and pointed out some promising directions for future research accordingly. Related Articles | Metrics

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The Relationship between Attachment Avoidance and Preschool Children's Loneliness: The Mediating Role of Peer Rejection and Moderating Role of Teacher-Child relationship Lyann Li 2021, 44(3): 598-604.  Abstract ( )   PDF   Loneliness is the dissatisfaction of individual subjective experience with their own social relations, who often feel isolated, sad, empty and desire for the social relations. Loneliness has emerged in preschool age, and showed relative stability across the whole childhood, which is closely related to many adapting problems in the development of children. Family is one of the most important factors affecting the development of preschool children, parent-child attachment as an important part of the family environment, which has important influence on children's loneliness. According to attachment theory, early childhood unsafe parent-child attachment relationships is closely related to a lot of adaptation in later children. In addition to family factors, peer relations is also an important factor that affect children's social adaptation. The children who often suffer from peer rejection are on the edge position in the peer interaction, they also can't get enough social satisfaction and positive emotions from peers, so they are unable to establish a sense of belonging, and leading to loneliness. According to ecological theory, family and peers as the important micro ecological factors affect children’s development, unsafe parent-child attachment relationships may impact children's loneliness through peer rejection. Developmental situation theory think that, preschool teachers as an important adults of children, teacher-children relationships and parent-child relationship exist an interactive effctions on children. Positive teacher-child relationships may have a protective effect to children’s maladaptation,however, conflicted teacher-child relationships may intensify children’s maladaptation.But in the existing study of preschool children, less study focuses on the relations between the above variables are discussed. 193 preschool children(115 boys) from two public kindergartens in Shanghai joined a one-year longitudinal study. In time 1, children with an average age of 4.28±0.31 years old, and mothers completed the parent-child attachment scale, preschool teachers completed the students-teacher relationship scale, using peer nomination to test peer rejection; In time 2 , use the method of children's self-report to collect the data of loneliness. Results show that: (1) the attachment avoidance, peer rejection and loneliness has significant positive correlations; (2) peer rejection plays a mediating role between attachment avoidance and loneliness; (3) the conflicted teacher-child relationship plays a moderating role between attachment avoidance and peer rejection. Relative to the child with low levels of conflicted teacher-child relationships, the children with high levels of conflicted teacher-child relationship may have higher peer rejection and experience higher loneliness. This research adopts interval year longitudinal study design, examines the preschool children's attachment avoidance through peer rejection influence on loneliness, and explored the moderating effect of teacher-child relationships.Understanding the mechanism that the effect of attachment avoidance influence on preschool children's loneliness, helps educators pay more attention to children's intervention and guidance of loneliness from the perspectives of family and the kindergarten. Related Articles | Metrics

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The Neighborhood Effect of Semantic and Phonetic Radicals in Phonogram Recognition among Third and Fifth Grade Children 2021, 44(3): 591-597.  Abstract ( )   PDF   Although orthographic neighborhood (N) size effects have been extensively studied in phonogram recognition, little research explored the processing of the orthographic neighbors in typically developing readers. Noted that, phonograms are the most common Chinese characters that children learn during the elementary school. Phonograms are comprised of a semantic radical and a phonetic radical. The phonetic and semantic radicals usually imply the character’s pronunciation and meaning to some extent, respectively. Existing evidence has indicated that semantic and phonetic radicals each play an important role in phonogram recognition. However, most of these researchers mainly focused on phonetic radical neighbors which ignoring the effect of semantic radical neighbors. Thus, this study attempted to investigate the comprehensive effect of semantic and phonetic neighbors in Chinese phonogram recognition among the developing readers. A two (grade: third vs. fifth vs. adult) × two (semantic neighbors: high vs. low) × two (phonetic neighbors: high vs. low) triple factors mixed experimental design was adopted. Four conditions were formed by crossing semantic neighbors and phonetic neighbors: H-H(phonogram comprised of a high semantic neighbor and a high phonetic neighbor), H-L(phonogram comprised of a high semantic neighbor and a low phonetic neighbor), L-H(phonogram comprised of a low semantic neighbor and a high phonetic neighbor), L-L(phonogram comprised of a low semantic neighbor and a low phonetic neighbor). The mean character frequency, stroke number and character familiarity were balanced across these four types of words. Eprime1.1 software was used for programming. Each trial began with a fixation cross in the center of the screen for 500 ms, which was then replaced by the target word presented for 150 ms. The blank appeared immediately after the target and stayed on the screen until participants responded, or for 1500 ms when no responses were made. Subsequently, the blank was replaced by a signal(~ ~)for 1500ms. The participants were required to judge whether the targets presented on the screen were real characters by pressing the corresponding keys as quickly and accurately as possible. Firstly, significant interaction between grade and semantic neighbor were found for reaction time. Further analysis revealed significant main effect of semantic neighbor was found in grade 3, the characters with high semantic neighbors (H-H, H-L) showing the faster reaction time than the characters with low semantic neighbors (L-H, L-L), but not in grade 5. Besides, significant interaction between semantic neighbors and phonetic neighbor were also found for reaction time. Further analysis showed that when the character was high phonetic neighbors (H-H, H-L), the characters with the high semantic neighbor (H-H) showing the fast reaction time than the characters with low semantic neighbor (H-L). These results suggest that, the effect of the neighborhood size of semantic radicals is modulated by the neighborhood size of phonetic radicals in Chinese phonogram character recognition among grade 3 and grade 5 children. Besides, the grade 3 readers rely on the semantic neighbors to identity a Chinese character more than the grade 5 readers. With the development of reading skills, the effect of phonetic neighbors is strengthened. The present results provided the evidence for the lexical tuning theory, in which researchers argued the transition from broadly tuned to finely tuned lexical representation in reading development. Related Articles | Metrics

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Positive Moral Emotions and Age Influence Comforting Behavior in Preschool Children 2021, 44(3): 575-582.  Abstract ( )   PDF   Moral emotions affect children’s pro-social behaviors. However, majority of studies on this topic focused on the negative moral emotions (e.g. anger, shame, and guilt etc.), the influence of positive moral emotions (such as love, reverence, and pride etc.) on pro-social behavior was largely unknown. Using two types of priming paradigms, the present study aims to test the effect of the positive moral emotions on preschool children’s comforting behavior, which was largely understudied compared to other prosocial behaviors (such as sharing). Study 1 tested 125 preschoolers (3-5 years) from one kindergarten in Chongqing, China. They were randomly assigned to experimental (n=62) and control groups (n=63). The experimental group was treated with imaginative priming in order to activate their positive moral emotions, i.e. children were asked to imagine that they lent their crayons to a partner who was drawing with them, whereas the children in control group were taught how to make a cute caterpillar. To improve the external validity of our study, we developed actual priming paradigm for Study 2. An actual event (rather than imagination) which was happened in real life was used to prime children’s positive moral emotions, i.e. children were asked to help clean up the desk. Additional 132 preschoolers were recruited from another kindergarten. Sixty-nine were assigned to the experimental group and 63 were assigned to the control group. After priming, Both groups were tested on a comforting task, where the children should comfort an injured experimenter (Study 1) or a sad experimenter (Study 2). Video recording during the experiments were replayed to the raters for coding purposes. All the raters had been trained, but they were blind to the purpose of the study. The results showed that: (1) In both studies, experimental groups performed significantly more comforting behavior compared with control groups [Study 1: F (1,119) = 4.51, p < .05, ηp2 = .036; Study 2: F (1,126) = 7.21, p < .01, ηp2 = .05], suggesting that positive moral emotions could increase children’s comforting behaviors. (2) Significant age differences in children’s comforting behavior were also showed in both studies [Study 1: F (2,119) = 9.07, p < .001, ηp2 = .13; Study 2: F (2,126) = 10.00, p < .001, ηp2 = .15]. Post hoc comparisons revealed more comforting behavior in both 4- and 5-year-old in contrast to 3-year-old, while no significant difference was observed between 4- and 5-year-old. (3) There is no evidence of interaction between moral emotions and age [Study 1: F (2,119) = .21，p = .82; Study 2: F (2,126) = .49，p = .62]. Our studies found that positive moral emotions could increase the comforting behavior in children from 3 to 5 years old. In addition, children’s comforting behavior increases with age, which co-occurred with development of cognitive and emotional abilities. The effects of positive moral emotions on comforting behavior showed no difference at the ages of 3, 4 and 5 years. Our findings may provide scientific evidences for fostering positive moral emotions in early cultivation of children’s comforting behavior during preschooler education. Related Articles | Metrics

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The Effects of Two-Player Cooperative Video/Traditional Games on Peer Communication and the Prosocial Behavior of Young Children 2021, 44(3): 567-574.  Abstract ( )   PDF   In the digital age, video gaming has emerged as an ordinary routine for the young generation. A growing body of literature has identified the pros and cons of video games. Recent evidence has shown that brief exposure to two-player cooperative video games can enhance peer communication and the prosocial behavior of young children. It remains unknown, however, whether this finding can be generalized to traditional game playing. As gender can play a mediating role in the social development of preschoolers and because game intervention can exert different impacts on boys and girls, the aim of this study was to examine the influences of video and traditional game playing on peer communication and prosocial behavior in preschoolers as well as to explore gender differences within the scope of social development and game training. A total of 90 preschoolers (44 boys; mean age M = 6.07 years, SD = 0.33) participated in this study. Before starting the experiment, we asked the children to name all their friends inside the kindergarten. On the basis of these responses, two same-gender and non-friend peers, a partner and a non-partner, were assigned to each participant. All the children in the pre-test responded to two questions regarding their peer communication, namely partner fondness and communication desire. In the meanwhile, we also evaluated the prosocial behaviors of young children towards their partners and non-partners by using a sharing dictator game and a helping tangram test. We randomly assigned participants to one of three groups in our training sessions. One group played a two-player cooperative video game (Fingle), the second played a two-player cooperative traditional game (Little Horses Transporting Rice), and the third served as a control group and did not play a game. The children in the training groups were asked to play allocated games for five minutes per day for five consecutive days. Once games were played for the first time, we then asked players a battery of questions regarding emotional arousal and cognitive engagement. In this post-test, all participants completed the same peer communication and prosocial behavior tests as in the pre-test. Participants also nominated all their friends within the kindergarten for a second time. The results of this study show that: (1) The two types of training games were equivalent in the level of emotional arousal and cognitive engagement; (2) Video and traditional games, although not different in training effects, enhance the peer communication and prosocial behavior of preschoolers. To be specific, children in training groups liked their partners better and became more willingly to play and share from the pre- to post-test, while attitudes in the control group did not change over time. At the same time, compared to non-partners, players exhibited a higher desire to play, share, help, and make friends with their partners from pre- to post-test. (3) Girls tended to be fonder of their partners and keener to play and share with their peers than boys. Video and traditional games did not influence boys and girls differently in the intervention. Findings suggest that short periods, 25 minutes in total, of either two-player cooperative video or traditional games are beneficial for peer communication and prosocial behavior in preschoolers. Game intervention may therefore be a promising tool to facilitate the social development of young children. Related Articles | Metrics

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Emotion regulation flexibility in social anxiety adults: Considering emotion content as a contextual factor 2021, 44(3): 633-641.  Abstract ( )   PDF   Social anxiety disorder (SAD) is characterized by persistent fear and avoidance of social contexts due to fears of evaluation by others. Previous studies have found that high social anxiety individuals reported less positive emotion and more negative emotion compared to low social anxiety counterparts. Thus, mounting studies have paid more attention on the emotion regulation in social anxiety individuals. Emotion regulation refers to the process that a person uses certain strategy to modify the emotional experience and expression in order to meet particular contextual demand. With the further development of this domain, theorists have increasingly emphasized the key role of flexibility in emotion regulation. To be specific, emotion regulation flexibility is conceptualized as the ability to adjust the selection and implementation of emotion regulation strategies as the context changes, and could be divided into flexible selection and flexible implementation. So far, several studies have investigated the flexible selection and flexible implementation in healthy individuals, and found that: (1) healthy individuals tend to choose engagement emotion regulation strategies (e.g. reappraisal) in low-intensity emotions, and disengagement emotion regulation strategies (e.g. distraction) in high-intensity emotions; (2) healthy individuals can both effectively utilize engagement and disengagement emotion regulation strategies in low-intensity emotions, whereas the effectiveness of engagement emotion regulation strategies is worse than that of disengagement emotion regulation strategies in high-intensity emotions. However, although the lack of emotion regulation flexibility has been assumed as the crucial cause of social anxiety, the flexible selection and flexible implementation of social anxiety individuals still remain unexplored. Relatedly, why social anxiety individuals have difficulty in regulating their emotions? Because of their inflexible selection, inflexible implementation, or the combination of them? In order to address this concern, the present study examined flexible selection and flexible implementation of 2 emotion regulation strategies (reappraisal or avoidance) in response to 2 emotionally evocative stimuli (social or nonsocial pictures) in 2 groups (high and low social anxiety college students). Firstly, reappraisal, as a typical engagement emotion regulation strategy, involves forming neutral reinterpretations that compete with emotional appraisals at a late semantic meaning stage. In contrast, avoidance, as a representative disengagement emotion regulation strategy, refers to replace existing emotional information and prevent incoming emotional information from being further processed. Secondly, social pictures contain the content of human face, while nonsocial pictures do not. Finally, based on the scores of The Liebowitz Social Anxiety Scale-Self Report (LSAS-SR), the high social anxiety group (n = 37) with a minimum LSAS score of 40 and low social anxiety group (n = 29) with a maximum LSAS score of 37 were selected. The study found that: (1) when faced with social pictures, high social anxiety participants choose significantly less reappraisal and more avoidance compared to their low social anxiety counterparts. However, when faced with nonsocial pictures, there were no significant differences between high and low social anxiety participants whether in reappraisal or avoidance. (2) When faced with social emotion pictures, there were no significant differences between high and low social anxiety participants whether in reappraisal or avoidance. Similarly, when faced with nonsocial emotion pictures, there were no significant differences between high and low social anxiety participants whether in reappraisal or avoidance. These results suggested that, social anxiety individuals have difficulty in regulating their emotions when faced with social emotion stimuli instead of non-social emotion stimuli. More importantly, inflexible selection, rather than inflexible implementation, might be a key feature of social anxiety individuals. Related Articles | Metrics

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The technology of promoting the doctor-patient relationship from the perspective of doctors' communication ability Wang Pei 2021, 44(3): 674-681.  Abstract ( )   PDF   Doctor-patient relationship is defined as the interpersonal interaction between doctors and patients in medical practice and its consequences. In recent years, the increasing number of medical disputes all over the country has brought the increasingly tensions, and domestic and foreign scholars have put forward a series of promoting techniques to improve the disharmonious doctor-patient relationship. Summing up these promoting technologies, we found that most of them focused on training the doctors' communication skills. However, with varying perspectives of researchers, their training methods and contents are different, which mainly include offline course training and online computer-based interactive simulation training. The offline course training is currently the main promotion technology of doctors' communication ability, and the Comskil model of communication skills training and the model of doctor communication ability in the workplace provide the theoretical and practice support for doctor’s general communication ability. The Comskil model of communication skills training has proposed 26 communication skills of six categories, it helps trainees to identify their strengths in communication skills after training, what improved and what needed to be improved, and so on. But this model takes a long time in training and lacks repeated practice, and it's difficult for doctors to transform their communication skill learned in simulated workplaces to the real workplaces. The model of doctor communication ability in the workplace can solve the transformation difficulty, and help trainees to learn appropriate communication skills in the real diagnosis and treatment process according to their own characteristics. However, this training model does not have any observation of what happens in the real workplace, and the final results feedback is only self-report of the trainees, so the results of feedback may be biased. On the basis of these two theoretical models, it forms the "tell bad news" communication training courses and the prescription-talk training courses in fields of special medical situation respectively. The "tell bad news" communication training courses proposed three stages of training, and the trainees were trained in the special medical situation of "telling the bad news". It uses a teaching model that combines theory and practice and trains doctors in the special situation of "telling bad news". On the one hand, it can help doctors to understand the patients' true thoughts more deeply from the patient's perspective; On the other hand, it can effectively improve doctors' communication skills and the quality of doctor-patient communication. The prescription-talk training course is to enhance the students' communication skills through developing a prescription dialogue guidelines. This course proposed a new approach for doctor-patient communication from the perspective of prescription dialogue, which lasts five times a week and consists of three phases. This dialogue guideline is widely used in prescription dialogues for doctors, which can enhance doctors' awareness of patients' participation and persistence in treatment, and provide suggestions for the reform of medical course. These two courses provide a new way for doctors to train their communication skills and a practical reference for other undeveloped medical special situations. Due to the limitations of offline training in training time and requirements for trainers, the use of computer simulations in the training of doctors' communication skills has been promoted, Thus, online computer-based interactive simulation training is formed. This training system has the advantages of repetitive learning and instant feedback on training results, and is also very flexible in training time. The greatest difficulty is to establish an effective and comprehensive simulation dialogue script and the guarantee of ecological training environment. With the development of science and technology, future research can incorporate more new technologies into online computer-based interactive simulation training to develop more ecological promotion technologies which not only contains the real situation of offline course training, but also produces the advantage of training time and effect feedback. Related Articles | Metrics

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Increasing Social Resources Affects New Employees' Perceived Insider Status ——A Study of Experience Sample 2021, 44(3): 691-697.  Abstract ( )   PDF   As organizational environments become increasingly turbulent and complex, there is need to focus on creating high-quality employment relationship for many organizations. For years, the distinction between ‘insider’ and ‘outsider’ employees has been formally utilized throughout both the academic and practitioner literature. Perceived insider status refers to the extent to which an employee perceives him or her as an insider within a particular organization. It is a key indicator of the relationship between employees and the organization that influence their perceptions of inclusion, so many organizations can gain labor efficiency and competitive advantages. Nowadays studies have demonstrated that perceived insider status has a positive effect on organizations. Few studies, however, have explored factors of perceived insider status. The aim of this study is to investigate ‘how’ increasing social resources influences new employees’ insider status perception. Drawing on the within-person level, therefore, this study examined the effect of increasing social resources on new employees’ insider status perception and tested the multiple mediating roles of person-organization fit in this process (person-job fit, person-group fit and organization value fit). To test our proposed model, we surveyed 69 new employees in Chinese enterprises using experienced sample methods and diary study. We got 69 questionnaires and 523 pieces of within-person data. Established measures with high reliability and validity were used to capture key variables. Multilevel linear model analysis was mainly conducted for data analysis. Consistent with hypotheses, it was found that: (1) All variables, increasing social resources, person-job fit, person-group fit, value fit and perceived insider status, had short-term fluctuations. Within the sampling period, the percentage of individual variation of these variables ranged from 54.76% to 68.75%. (2)Weekly increasing social resources promoted weekly person-job fit (γ= .32, p< .000), thereby enhancing weekly perceived insider status (γ=.17, p< .01). The mediating effect of weekly person-job fit was significant (ind =.054); (3)Weekly increasing social resources promoted weekly person-group fit (γ =.35, p<.000), and then enhanced weekly perceived insider status (γ =.12, p <.01). And the mediating effect of weekly person-group fit was significant (ind =.044). (4)Weekly increasing social resources promoted weekly value fit (γ =.48, p <.000), and then improved weekly perceived insider status (γ =.15, p <.05). The mediating effect of value fit was significant (ind =.072). However, there were no significant differences among these mediating effects. Our findings contributed to current literature in three ways. First, drawn from the perspective of the individual, this study explored the dynamic change mechanism of the new employees’ insider status perception, which enriches the theoretical research results of insider status perception. (2) Focus on the new employees' behavior of increasing social resources, this study analyzed its positive role in insider status perception, and expanded the scope of research on job crafting. (3) This study incorporated the three levels of person-job fit, person-group fit and value fit into the content system of person-organization fit at the same time, and tested the multiple mediating roles of person-organization fit in the formation process of new employees' insider status perception completely, which can promote the development of the theory of person-organization fit. Related Articles | Metrics

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The Relationship between Virtuous Personality and Internet Altruistic Behavior: A Moderated Mediation Analysis 2021, 44(3): 619-625.  Abstract ( )   PDF   Our society needs "good people", who can help us when we are in trouble and stand up for us when we are in danger. "Good people" are defined as individuals with high-virtuous personality qualities in psychological research. Virtuous personality is a wonderful personality quality, which expresses the positive value orientation in personality, and is a research theme of personality psychology with Chinese cultural characteristics. In today's society, people respect the kindness. Effectively guiding people to make more friendly and altruistic behaviors has become a need of the times. Therefore, it is of great practical significance to explore the effect and the psychological mechanism of virtuous personality. A large number of studies have shown that individuals who are more altruistic in real life have higher levels of Internet altruistic behavior. This suggests that virtuous personality can positively predict Internet altruistic behavior. However, the psychological mechanism between them is still unclear. Previous research has shown that qualities of virtuous are often associated with higher self-control, which in turn promotes altruistic behavior. This suggests that self-control may play a mediating role between virtuous personality and Internet altruistic behavior. In addition, security needs are the most basic needs of human beings, people will engage in more self-interest behaviors when security is threatened, which prevents them from performing altruistic behavior. According to the interaction theory of personality and situation, situational risk, as a situational factor, may moderate the influence of virtuous personality and self-control on Internet altruistic behavior. To sum up, this study constructed a moderated mediation model to explore the psychological mechanism that underlies the relationship between virtuous personality and Internet altruistic behavior and its boundary conditions, namely, the mediating role of self-control and the moderating role of situational risk in a real network environment. In this study, 192 subjects were randomly assigned to situations with different levels of risk by experimental method, and completed the Virtuous Personality Questionnaire, Self-Control Questionnaire and Internet Altruistic Behavior Task. The results indicated that: (1) Virtuous personality positively predicted Internet altruistic behavior; (2) Self-control played a mediating role in the relationship between virtuous personality and Internet altruistic behavior; (3) The direct effect of virtuous personality on Internet altruistic behavior and the path from self-control to Internet altruistic behavior were moderated by situational risk, and these two effects were significant in the risk-free situation. This study investigated the moderated mediation model of self-control and situational risk in the relationship between virtuous personality and Internet altruistic behavior. These findings possess theoretical and practical implications in some extent. At a theoretical level, virtuous personality is a subject of personality psychology with Chinese cultural characteristics. Exploring its effect can enrich and develop the theory of local personality psychology. At a practical level, the results of this study can explain the phenomenon of “why good people sometimes don't do good deeds” in real life. The main reason for the increasing apathy in today's society may not be the fewer good people, but the worse environment. The results suggest that social harmony and stability can be better promoted by purifying social atmosphere, and creating a safe interpersonal environment. Related Articles | Metrics

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The Dark Triad on Knowledge Sharing Hostility：The Mediation of Employee’s Relationship and Interpersonal Trust 2021, 44(3): 626-632.  Abstract ( )   PDF   With the development of society and economy, the competition among enterprises has become increasingly fierce. Apart from land and fund, knowledge has become an important strategic resource, and has been valued by innovative organizations. A lot of researches and practices have been done by managers and researchers about how to promote individual knowledge sharing behavior. However, in reality, knowledge sharing hostility is a common phenomenon in enterprises including knowledge hoarding (knowledge hiding), knowledge rejecting and negative sharing failure experiences This phenomenon is largely due to individual factors. For instance, individuals tend to maintain their knowledge intentionally or unintentionally to hoard with their own competitive advantage; they tend to reject foreign knowledge and create their own in order to pursue professional pride or doubt the credibility of others' knowledge; they tend to have a negative attitude towards sharing negative knowledge and experiences because of the potential career threats posed by sharing their own failures. These phenomena hindered the healthy development of the organization seriously. Therefore, it has become the focus of researchers to understand the traits and psychological mechanism that affect this phenomenon and to implement some effective intervention measures accordingly. Dark personality is considered as a kind of social malicious personality with self-promotion, emotional indifference and aggressive behavior tendency. It is because of its dark side that its influence on counter-productive behavior is attracting researchers' attention increasingly. Individuals with dark personality will act selfishly, coldly and unethically towards the organization and their colleagues, and show more uncooperative and even counterproductive knowledge behaviors. This trait has a far greater impact on the negative production behaviors in the enterprise than the big five personalities. Motivation, emotion and social relations are the main intermediary variables while personality traits affect work behavior. Since interpersonal relationship is a kind of social interaction relationship, individuals, will produce different motivations for different interaction models. Social interactions with positive motivation produce positive results whereas social interactions with negative motivation produce negative results. Meanwhile, the interpersonal relationship will affect the level of trust of the individual to others, so the dark personality will act on interpersonal trust through the interpersonal relationship, thus affecting the knowledge sharing hostility. Based on the 'Trait-State-Behavior' model, this study examines the mediating effects of employee’s relationship and interpersonal trust on dark personality and knowledge sharing hostility, adopting the Dirty Dozen Questionnaire, the Interpersonal Trust Questionnaire, the Employee’s Relationship Questionnaire and the Knowledge Sharing Hostility Questionnaire to survey 307 enterprise employees. Amos software is used to verify this theory model, and the fitting index of the whole model was good (χ2=435.758，χ2/df=2.046, RMSEA=.058, CFI=.906, IFI=.908, GFI=.893).The results show that: (1) Dark Triad can significantly positively predict instrumental relationship and knowledge-sharing hostility (β=.76, p<.001; β=.31, p<.05), and significantly negatively predict affective relationship (β=-.24, p<.01). (2) Instrumental relationship significantly positively predicted knowledge sharing hostility (β=.35, p<.05); Affective relationship significantly positively predict interpersonal trust (β=.78, p<.001), and interpersonal trust significantly negatively predicted knowledge sharing hostility (β=-.35, p<.05). (3) Affective relationship and interpersonal trust play a chain mediator role between Dark Triad and knowledge-sharing hostility; Instrumental relationship play a partial mediator between Dark Triad and knowledge-sharing hostility. According to the results, Dark Triad can directly affect knowledge sharing hostility, indirectly affect knowledge sharing hostility through affective relationship and interpersonal trust, and indirectly affect knowledge-sharing hostility by acting on instrumental relationship. Related Articles | Metrics

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The Effect of Psychological Distance on Undergraduates' Career Decision-making Preference 真 wuzhen 2021, 44(3): 682-690.  Abstract ( )   PDF   Career decision have a great significance for undergraduates’ career development. Nowadays, Psychological distance as an important effect factors of the individual decisions, also affect undergraduates’ career decision-making preferences. Nowadays,the psychological distance is mainly characterized by the four dimensions, spatial distance, temporal distance, social distance and probability distance ?respectively, this research use spatial distance, temporal distance, social distance and probability distance as independent variable respectively,career decision-making preferences as the dependent variable. This study using 2 (psychological distance: distant and near) * 2 (gender: male and female) mixed experimental design,the undergraduates as subjects,four experiment was carried out respectively, exploring the effects of psychological distance and gender on undergraduates’ career decision-making preferences.The psychological distance use participants in design,choosing 128, 147, 100, 104 undergraduates in the spatial distance, temporal distance, social distance and probability distance scenarios respectively,in four scenarios under two different level(distant and near) ,asking participants to make career decision judgment , the experimental results is as follows: (1) In the undergraduates' career decision-making preferences, the main effect of spatial distance (F(1,126)=26.894,p<0.001,η2=0.176),temporal distance (F(1,145)=20.361，p<0.001，η2=0.123), social distance (F(1,98)=4.309,p<0.05,η2=0.042) and probability distance (F(1,102)=4.421,p<0.05,η2=0.042) is remarkable.In the psychological distance scenarios under two different level(distant and near), participants prefer to choose the career of stability, high occupational prestige under the distant spatial distance (M=3.58,SD=1.52), distant temporal distance (M=3.69,SD=1.48), distant social distance (M=3.62,SD=1.50) and low probability distance (M=3.52,SD=1.42) condition;participants prefer to choose the career of high salaries, Professional counterparts under the the near spatial distance (M=2.97,SD=1.41), near temporal distance (M=3.16,SD=1.34), near social distance (M=3.25,SD=1.31) and high probability distance (M=3.21,SD=1.37)condition. (2) In the undergraduates' career decision-making preferences,the interaction of psychological distance and gender is remarkable under two different spatial distance (F(1,126)=7.798,p <0.01,η2=0.058) and temporal distance (F(1,145)=3.967，p<0.05，η2=0.027) condition(distant and near);the main effect of gender (F(1,98)=4.147,p<0.05,η2=0.041)is remarkable under two different social distance condition(distant and near).Boys prefer to choose the career of high salaries, Professional counterparts than girls under the near spatial distance, temporal distance , social distance condition; there is no significant difference between boys and girls undergraduates' career decision-making preferences under the distant spatially distance, temporal distance , social distance condition. In this study, four consecutive experiments were conducted by manipulating psychological distance in two occupational situations.The experimental conclusion is as follows:(1)Psychological distance influences career decision preference.College students prefer to choose the career of stability, high occupational prestige under the distant psychological distance, and prefer to choose career with high salary and professional counterpart in the situation of near psychological distance.(2)Gender influences career decision preference .In the context of near spatial distance,near temporal distance and near social distance, male college students prefer choose career with higher salary and professional counterparts to female college students. The innovation of this study lies in the background of career decision-making, fully discussed the influence of psychological distance (spatial distance, time distance, social distance, probability distance) on career decision preference, and add gender variables that affect career decision-making under the background of Chinese traditional culture. To explore how psychological distance and gender influence career decision preference together. Concurrently the study using materials is a self-designed questionnaire based on previous studies and social survey, therefore, it is more suitable for research purposes. Related Articles | Metrics

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Is Outgroup Bound to Be Derogated: Evidence from Mongolian and Han Ethnic Groups Yu-Zhu ZHANG 2021, 44(3): 698-704.  Abstract ( )   PDF   There has been a great progress in the study of intergroup attitude and behavior. The dominance of outgroup derogation has been confirmed by many researches. The Robbers Cave experiment proves that opposed group interests in obtaining scarce resources causes outgroup derogation. While Minimal-Group experiment demonstrates that conflicts of interest and a history of intergroup hostility are not the necessary conditions for outgroup derogation. The mere fact that social categorization is enough to trigger derogation behavior. In addition, outgroup derogation is found in religious groups and even among children. However, intergroup attitude and behavior can also appear in interpersonal information communication and transmission, which has been rarely discussed in previous studies. The only two studies have also confirmed the dominance of outgroup derogation. Although many studies have verified the prevalence of outgroup derogation from different perspectives, these groups have specific features. For examples, two competitive groups with resource conflict in Robbers Cave experiment, Catholics and Protestants in Northern Ireland with sectarian conflicts, and even in the Minimal-Group experiment, resource allocation is still needed. The competitive and conflicting features of these groups may be the potential internal cause of outgroup derogation. So will the groups without such characteristics still show the effect of outgroup derogation? According to the viewpoint of the Minimal-Group experiment, mere perception of group classification will produce outgroup derogation. Based on this, the current study took non-conflicting and non-competitive Mongolian and Han ethnic groups in China as the study group, and used Single Reiteration Paradigm to answer the question “is outgroup bound to be derogated?”. On the one hand, the ethnic groups with equal and harmonious coexistence in China were taken as research objects to enrich the types of research groups; on the other hand, the study carried out the localization test on the view of the Minimal-Group experiment, and provided the localized findings. The current study conducted 2 experiments. The first experiment was a single-factor within subject design with information valence (positive vs. negative) as the independent variable. Participants (30 Mongolians and 30 Hans) were asked to transmit the information of the outgroup to a same-sex outgroup audience face to face. The second experiment employed 2 (intergroup attitude: positive vs. negative) × 2 (interpersonal sensitivity: high vs. low) × 2 (valence: positive vs. negative) mixed design with interpersonal sensitivity and intergroup attitude as between-subjects variables. Participants were divided into 4 groups by interpersonal sensitivity and intergroup attitude scores, and asked to transmit the outgroup information like in experiment one. The experimental results showed that: 1) Mongolian and Han ethnic groups both transmitted more positive information about each other. 2) In Han group, participants with positive attitude toward Mongolian transmitted more positive stereotype information than those with negative attitude. When participants had negative attitude towards Mongolian, those with high interpersonal sensitivity transmitted more positive stereotype information than those with low sensitivity. 3) In Mongolian group, participants with positive attitude toward Han transmitted more positive stereotype information and less negative stereotype information than those with negative attitude. These results suggested that Mongolian and Han ethnic groups displayed “outgroup favoritism” rather than “outgroup derogation”. The authenticity of outgroup favoritism between Mongolian and Han was verified by testing the impacts of interpersonal sensitivity and intergroup attitude, but this effect showed a beneficial artificial enhancement in the highly sensitive Han with negative intergroup attitude. Moreover, different patterns of information transmission were found in the interethnic communication between Mongolian and Han ethnic groups. Mongolian focus on both positive and negative information, while Han pay more attention to positive information. It can be seen that outgroup is not bound to be derogated, and the nature of the group matters. Related Articles | Metrics

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Attention Bias and Memory Bias in Food Information Processing Among Overweight Females 2021, 44(3): 651-658.  Abstract ( )   PDF   Cognitive processing of individuals on food information affects food choices and eating behaviors, and high responsiveness to food cues is often a potential cause of overeating. The cognitive-motivational model proposes that for individuals with excess weight, high-calorie food was particularly rewarding, this type of food was an important cue grabbing their attention, and could increase the activation of brain areas that relate to reward processing, such food stimuli can more easily enter the memory system, which in turn produces memory bias. Although some studies have confirmed that overweight people have attention bias and memory bias towards food information, whether the attention bias of overweight groups on food information is a single attention component or a process of dynamic changes in multiple attention bias components has not yet reached a consensus conclusion. Besides, most studies on memory bias in food information processing among overweight do not consider the issue of food energy, so whether there is a difference in memory bias on high- and low-calorie foods by overweight people, their cognitive characteristics and processing methods need to be further proven. In total, 30 overweight female college students and 30 normal-weight female college students were tested successively with the dot-probe task and learning-recognition paradigm related to food pictures. A modified visual dot-probe paradigm was adopted to measure attention bias. We used 20 high-calorie food pictures, 20 low-calorie food pictures, and 60 neutral pictures as stimuli. A learning-recognition paradigm was adopted to measure memory bias. The participants have been presented with 96 old pictures and 96 new pictures (half each of high- and low-calorie food pictures) in a pseudo-random order, and then they were requested to judge whether or not the pictures had appeared in phase one. The results showed the following: (1) In the dot-probe task, the attention?vigilance index of overweight group on high-calorie food pictures was remarkably higher than that of the control group (F(1,58) = 7.718, p < .01, η2 = .117). However, there was no significant difference between overweight group and control group in the attention?vigilance index of low-calorie food pictures (F(1,58) = 1.179, p > .05). In the later stage of attention processing, the index of difficulty in attention disengagement of overweight group on high-calorie food pictures was tremendously higher than that in the control group (F(1,58) = 11.268, p = .001, η2 = .163). The index of difficulty in distracting attention from low-calorie food pictures in overweight group was notably lower than that of the control group, and it was presented as avoidance of attention (F(1,58) = 10.68, p < .01, η2 = .156). (2) The results of learning-recognition paradigm showed that the accuracy of recognition of high-calorie food pictures among overweight females was significantly higher than that of the control group (F(1,58) = 11.955, p = .001, η2 = .171), while the accuracy rate of recognition of low-calorie food pictures had no significant group difference (F(1,58) = .852, p > .05). This conclusion validated the cognitive motivation model, that was, overweight females were more sensitive and responsive to high-calorie food information with reward value and tended to invest more in acquiring motivation and cognitive resources. The results of this study help to uncover the inherent causes of overweight or weight gain, and provide practical solutions for designing food cognitive bias training programs for overweight groups as well. Related Articles | Metrics

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Consumer purchase decisions and asymmetry in prefrontal brain activity -- evidence from the EEG 2021, 44(3): 659-666.  Abstract ( )   PDF   Abstract: At present, the marketing science community still lacks an accurate understanding of the neural operation mechanism of consumers' purchase decision stage. This study explored whether the asymmetry of prefrontal cortex is related to consumers' purchase decision. Using the method of field experiment, the subjects were 21 volunteers (11 male and 10 female), with an average age of 20, who came from different departments of a university. 21 subjects made real purchase decisions on 5 items in their shopping cart during the real online shopping. During this process, their EEG electroencephalogram was fully recorded. There were 104 purchase decisions were observed. Neural responses were recorded using a wireless 14 channel headset (Emotiv EPOC+.) with a sampling rate of 256 Hz (bandwidth = 0.2–43Hz, digital notch filters at 50 and 60Hz, and with built-in digital 5th order Sinc filter) and electrodes positioned at AF3, F7, F3, FC5, T7, P7, O1, O2, P8, T8, FC6,F4, F8, AF4. The headset was connected to a PC running Windows 10 and transmitted data wirelessly to a USB receiver module. Stimulus presentation and data collection for behavioral responses and neuroimaging data was performed using the Emotiv-Pro software. Offline data processing was carried out using the EEGLAB toolbox in MATLAB. The results showed that during the viewing of the product page, the subjects' prefrontal lobe asymmetry in the gamma band was significantly correlated with the subsequent actual purchase behavior. Prefrontal asymmetry index (PAI), according to the results of the gamma band prefrontal asymmetry index Δ PAIγ, is not only significant for buying decision and the main effect of unusually strong (B = 10.766, SE = 4.379, Wald's chi - square (df = 1) = 6.043, p < 0.05), while the other two frequency alpha and beta results are not significant. It is interesting to note that in this study, we found the gamma frequency asymmetry can significantly predict consumer buying decisions. Δ PAIγ is positive and significant main effect, suggests a relatively large left frontal lobe activation, indicates the participants more likely to make the purchase decision. The results also found that the "price of goods" had a strong adjustment effect on both beta and gamma asymmetry index, and the adjustment effect was just the opposite. (B =. 058, SE =. 025, Wald's chi - square = 5.326, p < 0.05; B = -. 057, SE =. 0164, Wald's chi - square = 12.231,P < 0.01). This study proposed an independent neuropsychological mechanism for consumers in the purchase decision process and found that a specific measurement -- the gamma wave asymmetry index PAIγ in the prefrontal lobe -- was most strongly correlated with positive purchase intention and actual purchase behavior. Compared with European and American previous studies, this study is based on EEG data in the real online shopping environment of consumers, so the practical significance of this study is greater than similar studies. The prediction standards and methods of this study can be effectively applied to the production of advertising and shopping pages and product display in the future. It is of great value to marketing practice to help enterprises create the best product pages and brand advertisements that can attract consumers to make actual purchase decisions. Related Articles | Metrics

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The Influence of Awe on Conspicuous Consumption: The Mediating Role of Small Self 2021, 44(3): 642-650.  Abstract ( )   PDF   Now, the most prevalent perspective sees conspicuous consumption as a compensatory strategy to protect self-esteem, thus suggesting individuals to reduce conspicuous consumption by pursuing high levels of self-esteem. However, this perspective neglects that self-esteem pursuing has its cost of mental and physical health. The present research attempted to explore another strategy to reduce conspicuous consumption casting off the self-esteem compensation perspective. Noticing that conspicuous consumption is incurred by self-enhancement values (e.g. status, power, and face) emphasizing one’s superiority over the others and that awe has the self-transcendent function, we hypothesized that awe can decrease the values of pro-self goals, which means improving the level of the small self, thus reducing conspicuous consumption. Study 1a measured 151 participants’ levels of trait awe (Shiota et al., 2007) and their conspicuous consumption intentions (Marcoux, Filiatrault, and Chéron, 2007). The results showed that the levels of trait awe were negatively correlated with conspicuous consumption intentions, people with higher levels of awe were less likely to consume with show-off motivations. The levels of trait awe predicted conspicuous consumption intention even when participants’ age and gender were controlled. Study 1b manipulated participants’ awe to verified the causal relation between awe and conspicuous consumption intention. 82 participants were randomly assigned to the awe-manipulating group or the control group. Participants in the awe-manipulating group write an essay about their experiencing of awe while participants in the control group write an essay about their daily life (Rudd et al., 2012). Then participants in both groups rated their immediate feelings of awe, angry, happy, and sad. After that participants imagined that they received a voucher valued at 2000 yuan. They can use it to buy eight kinds of products (four conspicuous products like luxury wallet, four inconspicuous products like durable household goods). The amounts individuals pay for conspicuous products were used as the measurement of their conspicuous consumption intentions (Griskevicius et al., 2007；Zheng & Peng, 2014). Finally, the participants reported demographic information. The results showed that the writing task significantly changed participants’ feelings of awe, participants in the awe-manipulating group felt a higher level of awe, the writing task did not change participants' feelings of three other kinds of emotion (angry, happy, and sad). Importantly, participants in the awe-manipulating group payed less for conspicuous products than their counterparts in the control group. To sum up, the results of Study 1a and Study 1b affirmed the hypothesis that awe can reduce conspicuous consumption intention. In Study 2, 491 college students were randomly assigned to an awe-manipulating group or the control group and completed the writing tasks as in Study 1b. For conspicuous consumption intention, participants in the awe-manipulating group show weaker intention than their counterparts in the control group；for non-conspicuous consumption intention, there is no difference between participants in the awe-manipulating group and their counterparts in the control group. In Study 3, 80 participants were randomly assigned to the awe-manipulating group or the control group. Participants in the awe-manipulating group watched a video about mountains and seas while participants in the control group watched a video about eye exercises (Piff et al., 2015). Then, participants rated their immediate feelings, completed the measurement of conspicuous consumption as in Study 1b, and completed a measurement of small self (Shiota et al., 2011). Again, the manipulating task only changed the feeling of awe. Participants in the awe-manipulating group felt a higher level of awe, a higher level of the small self, and paid less for conspicuous products. Importantly, the small self was a mediator in the relationship between awe and conspicuous consumption. Thus, the second hypothesis was verified. The current research offers a new approach to reduce conspicuous consumption and expands awe’s effect on the domain of consumer behavior. Related Articles | Metrics

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Asymmetry between gains and losses: On self–other discrepancies in intertemporal choices 2021, 44(3): 667-673.  Abstract ( )   PDF   Most previous studies on self–other discrepancies in decision making have mainly focused on risky decisions in finance, romantic relationships and medicine, paying less attention to intertemporal choices. Although several studies have recently begun to investigate self–other differences in intertemporal choices, the findings of these studies have been inconsistent. Some studies have reported that people prefer more sooner and smaller rewards when deciding for the self than for others, whereas others found that people prefer more later and larger rewards when deciding for the self than for others. Moreover, previous studies on self–other differences in intertemporal choices have mainly focused on decisions of gains. Given that people show different choice preferences for gains and losses, the present study aims to investigate self–other discrepancies in intertemporal choices in both gain and loss situations. A power analysis conducted in G*power (version 3.1.9.2) indicated that a minimum of the required total sample size was N = 37 to achieve a sufficient power (1-β = 0.80) with a medium effect size of f = 0.25. Forty-five undergraduate students were recruited to participate in the study. Two participants were excluded from the analyses because they doubted that the decisions for the other person were real on the post-experiment self-report questionnaire. Thus, the remaining 43 participants (25 females, Mage = 19.63 years, SDage = 1.33) were included in the analyses. A 2 (decision target: self or other) × 2 (decision situation: gain or loss) within-subjects design was conducted in this study. We adopted the intertemporal choice task developed by Huang et al. (2017), in which participants were asked to choose between an immediate and a delayed option for themselves or others. The immediate option was 10 RMB, and this amount was fixed in all choices. The delayed option was designed to combine different outcome magnitude and delay times. The outcome magnitude varied from 10.5 to 30 RMB in 12 steps, and the delay time was 7, 14 or 30 days. The formal experiment consisted of four blocks. Within each block, 72 trials were presented in a pseudo-random order. Each participant performed 288 total trials. At the beginning of each block, an instruction indicating decision target was presented for 5000 ms. Each trial began with a fixation cross varying randomly from 600 to 800 ms. Subsequently, an immediate option and a delayed option were presented simultaneously on the screen. Participants were required to press the key “F” when they choose the option displayed on the left side of the screen, or to press the key “J” when they choose the option displayed on the right side of the screen. The alternatives remained on the screen until the participants made a choice. Following their responses, each trial ended with a blank screen with presentation durations varying from 800 to 1000 ms. The results revealed that the main effect of decision target was significant, and the proportion of times that the participants chose the immediate option was significantly higher when making decisions for the self than for others. A significant main effect of decision situation was also observed, with participants choosing more immediate options in loss situations than in gain situations. The interaction between decision target and decision situation was also significant. Follow-up simple effect analysis revealed that the difference in proportion that the participants chose the immediate option between decisions for the self and those for others was nonsignificant in gain situations. However, participants chose more immediate options for themselves than for others in loss situations. To sum up, the present study provides the first evidence that gain–loss situation modulates self–other discrepancies in intertemporal choices. Our findings not only contribute to clarify the controversial results in the existing research, but also to intensify the understanding of the interactions between human economic decision-making and advanced social decision-making, and thus providing the scientific evidence for optimizing individual judgment and decision making. Related Articles | Metrics

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The Effect of Commuting Time on Mental Health: The Perspective of Better Life Jun-Xiu WANG 2021, 44(3): 713-719.  Abstract ( )   PDF   As the city expanding, commuting time is getting longer. According to the "2018 China Urban Commuting Research Report", the commuting time in major cities such as Beijing and Shanghai have exceeded one hour. As a limited resource, the shortage of time inevitably makes people feel pressure, which adversely affect the psychosocial adaptation. The effect of commuting time on mental health has become a growing focus for researchers. However, the underlying mechanism has not been studied systematically. In recent years, the Party and the government have paid more and more attention to the better life of people. Better life is closely related to people's mental health. The current assessment of better life is, on the one hand, better life experience of the current living conditions, and on the other hand, the needs for better life in people's ideals. As a daily activity that connects family and work, Changes in commuting time are often accompanied by changes in leisure time, which are closely related to the better life experience and needs of the people. Therefore, this study intended to explore the internal effect of commuting time on mental health from the perspective of better life. This study not only helped to understand the better life of people, but also provided a reference for the government to formulate plans and policies to safeguard the physical and mental health of the people. The purpose of this study was to explore the influence mechanism of commuting time on mental health. Totally 4,199 people (2923men, mean age=30.24 years, SD=7.40) were surveyed using the questionnaire survey APP “Survey Baby”. Participants anonymously completed Commuting Time Scale, Depression, Anxiety and Stress Scales(DASS-21; 21items,three factors: Depression, Anxiety and Stress; α=.96), Better Life Experience Scale(BLES; 28items, three factors: National society, Personal material and Family relations; α=.96) and Better Life Needs Scale(BLNS; 28items, three factors: National society, Personal material and Family relations; α=.98). All the measures showed good reliability and validity in the present study. The results indicated that: (1) Commuting time, mental health, better life experience and better life needs were significantly correlated with each other; (2) Better life experience played a mediating role between commuting time and mental health; (3) Better life needs could not only significantly moderate the relationship between commuting time and better life experience, but also significantly moderate the relationship between better life experience and mental health. These findings revealed the relationship between commuting time and mental health from the perspective of better life. In addition, the research findings could provide some available suggestions for improving people's better life experience and mental health. Firstly, it is beneficial to reduce commuting time. The government and transportation departments should take effective measures to solve the traffic problems. Secondly, it is important to help people improve the level of better life needs. The hope of better life in the future will provide individuals with strong motivation to adopt more healthy behaviors to maintain their physical and mental health. Related Articles | Metrics

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The Influence of Job autonomy on Primary and Secondary School Teachers' Well-Being: The Chain Mediating Effect of Job Crafting and Work Family Balance 2021, 44(3): 705-712.  Abstract ( )   PDF   The rapid development of technology and the occupational characteristics have led towards the challenge of primary and secondary school teachers' well-being. A great number of previous studies verified that work autonomy may have a transformative impact on different domains of life, since many teachers may be doing work during non-work time. More autonomy at work for them may be seen as a fair trade relatively. There is literature documenting that work autonomy has an important influence on teachers' well-being in primary and secondary schools, but little is known about mediating processes underlying this relation and focused on the role that job crafting and work family balance plays in this research framework, which are also important and meaningful for Chinese context. So, it is completely necessary to explore the potential mechanisms of primary and secondary school teachers' well-being so as to design effective improvement programs. Job crafting and work family balance were introduced as two variables to study the relationship between work autonomy and teachers' well-being as well as the possible mechanism underlying the relationship between work autonomy and teachers' well-being. In relative literatures, job crafting and work family balance are conducive to the promotion of primary and secondary school teachers' well-being. Job crafting and work family balance are the reliable and powerful predictors of the well-being of primary and secondary school teachers. So, we aim to examine whether job crafting and work family balance served as mediators of the relationship between work autonomy and teachers' well-being. The purpose of this study is to test the chain mediation effect of job crafting and work family balance in the relationship between work autonomy and well-being. Responses were obtained from 997 teachers who work in primary and secondary schools of China and complete self-report questionnaires. Work autonomy was measured with the Self Determination Scale which consisted of 3 items. The respondents rated the extent to which they agreed with each statement on a 5-point Likert scale. Job Crafting was measured with the Job Crafting Scale which consisted of 21 items. The respondents rated the extent to which they agreed with each statement on a 5-point Likert scale. Work family balance was measured with the Work Family Balance Questionnaire which consisted of 9 items. The respondents rated the extent to which they agreed with each statement on a 5-point Likert scale. Well-being was measured with the Job Satisfaction Questionnaire and Life Satisfaction Questionnaire which consisted of 3 items and 5 items respectively. The respondents rated the extent to which they agreed with each statement on a 5-point and 7-point Likert scale respectively. And SPSS24.0 and Mplus8.0 were used to test the proposed hypotheses of the three paths mediation model. The results implicated that: (1) Work autonomy have a total positive effect on primary and secondary school teachers' well-being (β=.56, p<.001). (2) Job crafting mediate the relationship between work autonomy and well-being (.07 Related Articles | Metrics

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New Item Selection Methods for Polytomous Cognitive Diagnosis Computerized Adaptive Testing 2021, 44(3): 728-736.  Abstract ( )   PDF   The cognitive diagnostic computer adaptive test (CD-CAT) combines the advantages of both cognitive diagnosis and CAT to make adaptive diagnosis of different individuals, providing examinees with a more detailed evaluation of the advantages and disadvantages. Until recently, most research and applications of CD-CAT focused on dichotomous items, and only a few studies investigated CD-CAT with polytomous items, as well as more specific polytomous item selection methods. There are large polytomous item/data in the practical application of education and psychological tests. Both dichotomous and polytomous items are used in many standardized tests. More importantly, polytomous item has more advantages over dichotomous items in some aspects. For example, polytomous items can provide more information about examinee and fewer polytomous items can achieve the same precision compared with dichotomous items, and some features are easier to measure with a rating scale (such as attitude, interest and so on). One of the crucial elements of CD-CAT is the item selection method. By choosing more efficient item selection method, examinees’ ability or cognitive patterns can be better estimated. The main purpose of this study is to develop two new item selection methods for polytomous CD-CAT (PCD-AT), namely maximum expected posterior weighted KL method (MEPWKL), and maximum expected hybrid KL method (MEHKL). Two simulation studies were carried out to compare the MEPWKL and MEHKL item selection algorithm with the current three item selection methods. The pattern correct classification rate (PCCR), attribute correct classification rate (ACCR), and a few descriptive statistics (i.e., minimum, maximum, mean, and variance), of the test lengths were calculated based on the termination rules to compare the efficiency of the item selection methods. The first simulation study used a fixed test length termination rule, taking into account three factors, namely test length (L =5, 10 and 15), item selection methods (KL, PS-PWKL, HKL, MEPWKL and MEHKL), and attribute pattern distribution (uniform vs. higher-order). The results of Study 1 showed that the two new selection methods MEPWKL and MEHKL had similar the pattern correct classification rate (PCCR). However, when the test length was shorter, the PCCR rate of MEHKL was slightly higher than that of MEPWKL. Under the same conditions, the PCCR rates of the two new item selection methods were substantially higher than those of KL, PS-PWKL and PS-HKL. Study 2 seeks to investigate the efficiency of the two proposed algorithms against the existing item selection methods in a variable-length test. In Study 2, the variable length test stopped when the probability of the cognitive pattern with the highest probability reached predetermined values (such as 0.6, 0.7, 0.8, and 0.9). The results of Study 2 showed that, under all conditions, the average test length of the two proposed methods was shorter than that of other item selection methods, that is, the test efficiency of the two new methods was the highest. However, the average test length of MEHKL test was shorter than that of MEPWKL, especially when the attribute profiles were generated from a higher-order distribution. In conclusion, this study proposed two new item selection methods for polytomous CD-CAT. Simulation results showed that the new item selection methods were obviously superior to other traditional methods in terms of classification accuracy and test length. Related Articles | Metrics

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Quantitative Analysis of Order Constraints in Multinomial Processing Tree Models and Its Application 2021, 44(3): 720-727.  Abstract ( )   PDF   Multinomial processing tree (MPT) models, a family of substantive models for categorical data, are used to measure latent cognitive capacities underlying human behavior and test relevant psychological assumptions (Batchelder, 2017). MPT models assume that certain latent cognitive processes are serial in nature and represent these processes in terms of branching trees, with the parameters being the conditional link probabilities from one stage to another. Thus, MPT models can measure latent cognitive process by calculating the value of latent parameters. They verify the difference of cognitive process through hypothesis testing of potential parameters, and overcome the defect of confusing cognitive process with traditional cognitive measurement. The MPT modeling method has recently been applied in many fields such as cognitive psychology, cognitive neuroscience, game theory, and social psychology (Batchelder, 2017). From a structural viewpoint, MPT models can be divided into binary MPT (BMPT) models and multi-link MPT (MMPT) models (Batchelder, 2017). The class of BMPT models is characterized by binary links at nonterminal nodes, in which each link is associated with a parameter. However, the class of MMPT models contains at least a multi-link nonterminal node, which is associated with a multi-dimensional parameter vector. Thus, MMPT models have more complex parametric constraints than BMPT models. The hypothesis testing of the MPT model is realized through its latent parametric constraints. The main type of parametric constraints of MPT models are constant constraints, equality constraints and order constraints. The order constraints of MPT models refer to the inequality relationship between latent parameters. Knapp and Batchelder (2004) researched the reparameterization method of the order constraints of BMPT models. This paper generalizes the reparameterization method of order constraints of BMPT models to that of MMPT model and further proposes the quantitative analysis method of the MPT model with order constraints between two parameters. In order to analyze the order constraint within the framework of MPT model, the MPT model with order constraints is statistically equivalent to an MPT model without parametric constraints. Batchelder (2017) explained that both MPT models are statistical equivalent when their parameter spaces satisfy the definition of the bijection. In the paper, two different theorems of statistical equivalence of MPT models are obtained under order constraints between two parameter vectors and within a parameter vector. In order to deal with the quantitative analysis of the order constraints of the MPT model, we firstly split the constraint parameters from the parameter vectors containing the constraint parameters by implementing the split transformation. Then, by reconstructing bijective functions, the MPT model with order constraints is statistically equivalent to the resulting MPT model with no constraints. By analyzing the resulting model, we can get the estimate and confidence interval of the quantitative index of order constraints. Finally, we applied the quantitative analysis method to the published data of the source monitoring with three sources by Batchelder et al. (1994). The results show that the quantitative method of order constraints can not only test the order relationship of latent cognitive parameters of MPT models, but also obtain the quantitative index of order constraints. In a word, the analysis method in the study not only ensures that the order constraints of MPT models can be implemented within the framework of the MPT model, but also obtains the estimate and confidence interval of the quantitative index of order constraints of MPT models. Therefore, this method provides a more meaningful explanation for the potential cognitive measurement, extends the mathematical analysis of MPT model class, and expands the equivalent transformation theory of order constraint of MPT model. In addition, quantitative analysis of multi-parameter order constraints of MPT models are also a direction of our future research. Related Articles | Metrics

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The Influence of Input Modes on Discourse Comprehension of Deaf Students：Moderating Effect of Text and Test Type Feng Lu 2021, 44(3): 737-744.  Abstract ( )   PDF   The ability of language understanding plays an important role in today's highly technical society, the language comprehension ability of hearing-impaired students is so poor that people should pay attention to the study of language comprehension of them, in order to improve their social adaptability. Discourse comprehension is an important part of language comprehension, and from the perspective of improving social adaptability, discourse comprehension is a topic with more ecological validity. Deaf students receive information in the form of oral, sign and written language. Which way is the most efficient? To address the above question, we performed two experiments in this study, in which within-subject design were used. Participants in this study were students from the seventh, eighth, and ninth grades of the school for the deaf. They were all prelingual deafness students and had hearing loss of more than 90 dB. The study presented narrative and descriptive texts through videoes in three input modes of oral language, sign language and written language. Participants were required to complete micro and macro test questions after watching the video. The researchers examined the impact of information input modes, text types, and test types on deaf students' discourse comprehension. The results of the F-test for the data from Experiment 1 showed that the input mode had a significant main effect, the main effect of the text type was not significant, and the interaction between them was significant. That was to say, text type was a moderator. The main effect analysis of input mode showed that the participants had highest score and fastest speed when the texts were shown in written language. The score and speed were in middle when texts were presented in sign language. The score was lowest and the speed was slowest when texts were shown in oral language. The F-test for the data from Experiment 2 showed that test type regulated the interaction between input mode and text type. Deaf students had the highest comprehension efficiency of the text presented in written language, but the lowest of spoken language. For the narrative text , written language is the most efficient way for them to receive discourse information. They got the highest micro understanding score for the descriptive texts under oral language condition, while got the highest macro understanding score under sign language condition. To help the deaf students improve the efficiency of descriptive discourse comprehension, the combination of speaking and sign language is a good choice. Spoken language helps students to understand and remember the details, while sign language helps students to grasp the overall information of the discourse. When evaluating deaf students' discourse comprehension, input mode is the main influencing factor. At the same time, the influence of text type and test type should be considered. The evaluation index should include score and speed. Related Articles | Metrics

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Trait Positive Empathy: A High Altruistic Personality Tong Yue An-Guo FU 2021, 44(3): 754-760.  Abstract ( )   PDF   Trait positive empathy is a new field in the study of empathy. Based on the current measurement and definition, most researchers regard trait positive empathy as the ability to subjectively feel and share the positive emotional information of others. However, it has been found that the connotation of trait positive empathy is more abundant than the current definition. A comparison of the relationship between trait positive empathy and appreciative joy showed that high trait positive empathy leads to more positive emotions with strong arousal, which is consistent with the object of empathy. When comparing the relationship between trait positive and trait negative empathy, researchers found that there was no significant relationship between trait positive empathy and trait empathic distress; however, there was a significant correlation between trait positive empathy and trait compassion. Therefore, it is necessary to expand the definition of trait positive empathy for the existing measurement tools; it should not only include the aspects of positive emotion resonance and sharing that point to the empathy subject itself (i.e. requires the production of the same emotional experience), but also the positive concern component that points to the object of empathy (i.e. does not require the production of the same positive emotion). The development of functional magnetic resonance imaging in personality research has allowed researchers to investigate the neurobiological basis of trait positive empathy. However, recent evidence from cognitive neuroscience suggests that trait positive empathy may be broader than the current definition. Firstly, the level of trait positive empathy has been found to be related to people's internal sensitivity to emotional information. Secondly, trait positive empathy is related to people's ability to process and experience positive emotional information. Finally, trait positive empathy may also involve the ability to pay attention to and care for others' psychological feelings. Taken together, trait positive empathy can be defined as the ability to understand and feel the positive emotions of others and to be happy for the positive events that happen to others. It should include at least three basic components: the ability to feel and process other people's emotional information; the ability to process and experience positive emotions; and the positive attention component that points to others, which requires individuals to be able to infect the positive emotions of others and transform the self-other perspective to benefit the success of others with good intentions. Previous studies have shown that individuals with high levels of positive empathy have high-quality interpersonal relationships and stronger prosocial behavior. Because the trait of positive empathy is always accompanied by positive social function, many researchers believe that it should be promoted and cultivated as a desirable personality quality. It is worth noting that although trait positive and trait negative empathy promote social function in a similar manner, there may be significant differences in the internal mechanisms. Researchers have offered viewpoints and hypotheses to explain these differences; however, they have yet to be systematically tested and thus have not reached a theoretical level of understanding. In future research, these issues require further exploration by focusing on the following aspects: development of more effective measurement tools that better define the connotations of positive empathy; expanding the research on the neurobiological basis of trait positive empathy; and ways to scientifically cultivate positive empathy in education and social practice, which can have far-reaching implications. Related Articles | Metrics

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Autism spectrum disorder as a disorder of Initiative Control in social cognition 2021, 44(3): 745-753.  Abstract ( )   PDF   Autism spectrum disorders (ASD) is characterized by early onset qualitative impairments in reciprocal social development (DSM-V; APA 2013). High functioning children and adults with autism often have difficulty making decisions about appropriate social behaviors. Cognitive control which is taken as a part of the individual executive function is an advanced cognitive ability and the executive function defects including cognitive control are considered to be one of the main causes of children with autistic spectrum disorders. This study investigated the traits of cognitive control in children with ASD. On the basis of dual cognitive control model, this study compared the differences in cognitive control ability between children with autistic spectrum disorders (ASD) (N=15) and normal development children (TD) (N=20) through the tasks in both non-social and social fields. We used the AX continuous performance test (AX-CPT)) to collect the reaction times and the number of correct response. In this task, participants was required to respond to the subsequently presented target stimulus (X/Y) based on the first presented cue stimulus (A/B). The target stimulus is defined as A-X pairing (i.e., only if the cue stimulus is A and the target stimulus is X, the response to the target stimulus needs to be made). A non-target response was designed to other pairing (A-Y、B-X、B-Y). The proportion of trial times of target pairing (A-X pairing) was 70%, and that of other pairing (A-Y、B-X、B-Y) was 10% respectively. We took the reaction times in AY trails as the parameter of proactive control, and the reaction times in BX trails as the parameter of reactive control. And we furtherly calculated the proactive control level basing on the reaction times in trail AY and BX. To more accurately reflected the difference in the degree of active processing between the two groups of children, the researchers further calculated the active control rate(i.e., PR=[(AY?BX)/(AY)]). The stronger the initiative control, the longer the response time to the AY trial. The results showed that :1) children with ASD did not show defects in cognitive control in non-social field, on the contrary, they only showed defects in proactive cognitive in social field and their cognitive control was intact in reactive control in both social field and non-social field.2)Children with ASD did not show proactive initiative preference in social filed when compared with TD children;３) proactive control and reactive control in the social field can be used to predict the severity of autistic symptoms significantly in both negative and positive directions. According to this study, we concluded that: ASD can be regarded as a case of initiative social cognitive control defect. Children with ASD did not showed the phenomenon of differentiation between social field and non-social field as TD Children which implied a delayed development in initiative social cognitive control. Cognitive control index in social field can provide important reference of diagnosis and training for children with for ASD. Related Articles | Metrics

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Psychobiography as a Branch of Discipline: Current Dilemmas and Coping 2021, 44(3): 761-767.  Abstract ( )   PDF   After a hundred years of development, the social organization of psychobiography as a branch discipline has gradually matured. However, in the process of obtaining social recognition, the development of the discipline of psychobiography is still facing some difficulties. Ethical considerations are an important aspect for the discipline to gain wider social recognition, and it is also a key point for the further development of disciplines. However, the non-anonymity of the research objects of psychobiography and the difficulty of achieving the "informed consent principle" have caused psychological research to encounter an unprecedented dilemma in ethics. How to avoid real-name research from causing social and psychological harm to the research objects requires corresponding ethical norms and guidance. The ethical principles of traditional qualitative research cannot provide such guidance. Although predecessors proposed "time influence model" and "moral decision model" in order to reduce the risks brought to the research objects or their relatives and friends, the ethical guidance of psychobiography is still relatively weak, and it is urgent for psychobiography to form ethical guidelines suitable for this field. As psychobiography enters the field of vision of Chinese scholars, the "pan-moralization" of Chinese people's psychological problems has also brought challenges to the ethical issues of psychobiography. Therefore, when studying Chinese historical celebrities, the ethical issues involved require not only ethical considerations in the Western sense, but also " emotional " considerations suitable for Chinese culture. The solution of this problem will help the development of the localization of psychobiography research. At the same time, a "emotional decision-making model " suitable for character research in my country needs to be proposed. In addition, a mature paradigm must have a common knowledge system, which must not only exist in papers, works, and textbooks, but also in higher talent training systems and courses, so that the academic community can achieve intergenerational expansion. Although psychobiography has made some progress in journal papers, postgraduate papers, books and research institutions, there is still a long way to go before it can be incorporated into the training system of higher education. If psychobiography cannot occupy an appropriate position in the talent training of universities and cannot achieve efficient intergenerational transmission, then the field lacks hematopoietic ability, which is a very dangerous thing. Since the development of psychological biography, more and more schools have begun to realize the significance of psychological biography courses, and affirmed the value of psychological biography talent training. Based on the unique value of psychobiography in the training of psychology professionals, it has become an inevitable trend for the future development of psychobiography to incorporate psychobiography into professional training. Single course mode, integrated course mode and interest group are helpful to improve the position of this field in higher education talent training system. Entering the talent training system of colleges and universities, the discipline community corresponding to psychobiography can realize the extension of generations, and the social organization of the discipline can be continuously developed. In addition, from the perspective of academic prosperity, the guidance of postgraduate tutors in the topic selection of the dissertation may be a more important influencing factor, because it will determine the academic interest and diverse research horizons of the new generation of psychologists. Related Articles | Metrics