Journal of Psychological Science

EEG Neurofeedback for Working Memory Enhancement: A Literature Review

Zhou Wenbin, Nan Wenya, Fu Yunfa

2024, 47(3): 514-521. DOI: 10.16719/j.cnki.1671-6981.20240301

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Working memory refers to the ability to maintain and manipulate information over a period of seconds. In daily life, many complex cognitive activities such as learning and decision-making need the participation of working memory. Whether working memory performance can be improved by certain ways of training has been a hot research topic.
Neurofeedback (NF) is a type of biofeedback that uses the principle of operational conditioning to enable individuals to learn regulating their own brain activity. During electroencephalogram (EEG) NF training, the EEG signals are recorded from single or multiple electrodes attached on the scalp and relevant features are extracted and presented to the training individuals in real time by visual, auditory, or combined visual-auditory forms. Thus, participants can be aware of their brain state in real time. When their brain activity meets some predefined rewarded criteria, they will be rewarded by the feedback interface that presents real time feedback feature, such as increasing the sphere size in visual feedback, music quality in auditory feedback, etc. With NF training practice, they will learn how to adjust their brain activities that underlie a specific behavior or pathology.
A large amount of studies have shown that NF training can improve cognitive ability and behavioral performance in both clinical patients and healthy population. Regarding the NF training effectiveness for working memory enhancement, the existing research conclusions are not consistent due to the variations of the experimental design, training protocol, participants’ population, and sample size in the literature. Therefore, this study systematically reviewed previous studies on EEG NF training for working memory performance improvement. It started with the principle and mechanism of NF training and the introduction of the current research progress. Then the article reviewed the experimental results using different NF training protocols including theta enhancement NF, alpha enhancement NF, SMR enhancement NF, beta enhancement NF, gamma enhancement NF and two frequency bands NF protocols. We found that alpha, SMR and theta enhancement NF have shown the benefits on working memory enhancement in most studies. However, a few studies have reported inconsistent results, including the failure to adjust the training EEG feature (i.e. the non-learner problem) and no significant enhancement in working memory compared to the control group.
Future research can be conducted from following three aspects. First, the neural mechanism of EEG NF training effects on working memory has not been clear yet. Previous work only examined the EEG activity during NF training and resting periods. Whether and how NF training influences the brain activity in working memory task and results in working memory performance change remains unknown yet. Future work can utilize a variety of imaging methods such as EEG, functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) and positron emission tomography (PET) to examine the brain activities during NF training, during resting state and during working memory task. Second, the non-learner problem has been reported in a number of studies. Although a few studies have identified some physiological and psychological predictors for non-learners in some NF protocols, the findings cannot be generalized due to the complexity of EEG activity, the variety of participants’ population and inconsistent experimental design. Future work is suggested to utilize machine learning methods to identify the predictors of non-learners in different NF training protocols in order to understand the reason of non-learner problem, and save time and effort on non-learners. Finally, the optimization of training parameters including training schedule and feedback interface, the adoption of randomized double-blind sham-controlled experimental design, clear reporting the experimental methods and results are desired in future NF studies. This review is expected to provide reference and pave the way for future research.

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Retrospective Time Estimation of Patients with Mild Cognitive Impairment

Wang Yaqi, Fu Pengrui, Ma Wen, Wang Ping

2024, 47(3): 522-529. DOI: 10.16719/j.cnki.1671-6981.20240302

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Mild Cognitive Impairment (MCI) denotes the clinical stage between healthy aging and Alzheimer’s disease (AD). There is emerging evidence indicating that patients with AD suffer from time distortion, but it remains controversial whether MCI patients also show compromised ability in time perception. The current study aims to investigate the time perception ability of MCI patients and to examine whether time distortion can be observed at the pre-clinical stage of Alzheimer’s disease.
Using the retrospective time estimation task, the current study tested 34 MCI patients and 34 healthy controls, who are matched in age, education, and gender. Before the experiment, participants were tested with Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE) by a clinician, and the diagnoses and group allocation remained unknown to the participants until the end of the experiment. After diagnoses, participants were exposed to the target interval by engaging in a naming task. In this task, participants were first given an eye-sight check and correction. And then, following the naming task instruction and practice, they were informed to verbally report the names of 36 objects and 36 scenes in the pictures on a computer screen. There was no time limit for their responses, and their responses were recorded at the same time. While accomplishing the naming task, all participants were surprisingly asked to estimate the clock time between the onset of eye-sight check and the end of naming task. The target intervals ranged between 15 to 40 minutes, and participants were unaware of the timing task when they were exposed to the target intervals.
In data analysis, interval ratio (estimated clock time/original clock time) and interval distortion ratio (|estimated clock time-original clock time|/original clock time) were calculated respectively to indicate the overestimation/underestimation tendency and the degree of estimation distortion. With independent samples t-tests, it was found that though MCI patients did not differ significantly from the control groups in the naming task, they underestimated target interval (M= .81, SD= .18) to a larger extent than healthy controls (M= .95, SD= .16). In addition, the distortion in time estimation was also larger for MCI patients (M= .23, SD= .12) than that for the control group (M= .13, SD= .10).
In general, the results suggest that MCI patients showed significant deficit in timing long intervals retrospectively. Such deficit could possibly be attributed to the memory decline of MCI patients, according to recall-based account of timing. MCI patients would underestimate the target duration with fewer details being retrieved about the target episode, as one’s remembered duration is largely determined by the amount of recalled information. In addition, the compromised ability in time perception of MCI patients could also be explained by the attention-based timing theory, that the estimated duration would be shorter when less attention is allocated to the time aspect of the target episode. In this view, as fewer attentional resources would be available and attributed to the temporal aspect during the naming task for MCI patients, the estimated duration would be prone to underestimation. Moreover, the dysfunction of internal clock may also account for the observed findings, that the declined pace of internal clock and the illusion of time acceleration would possibly be severer for MCI patients than for the healthy elderly, which leads to the significant group difference in retrospective timing.
The current findings provide direct evidence for the time distortion in MCI patients, which provides valuable insights into the progression of time distortion from normal aging to AD and may contribute to the early clinical diagnosis of Alzheimer’s disease. In addition, rather than grounding research in prospective timing and short intervals below 1 to 2 minutes, this study creatively investigates time perception for long intervals above 15 minutes using the retrospective task, which enables the full understanding of time perception at different time scales and in different paradigms. Moreover, further studies are needed to investigate the cognitive mechanisms and neural underpinnings of timing dysfunction elicited by MCI or AD.

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Neural Mechanism of Emotion Regulation of Social Pain

Mo Licheng, Li Sijin, Zhang Dandan

2024, 47(3): 530-537. DOI: 10.16719/j.cnki.1671-6981.20240303

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Human beings are “social animals”. Social relationships play a vital role in one’s survival and development. Individuals with destroyed social relationships often describe themselves feel like “heartbroken” or “heartache”. This negative "pain" experience caused by the breakdown of social relationships is called social pain. Social pain affects individuals’ basic survival needs, including senses of belonging, control, and meaningful existence. Studies have found that over-sensitive to social pain is related to various mental disorders. Due to the severe impacts caused by social pain, it is urgent to uncover the neural mechanism of social pain and how to deal with it.
Neuroimaging studies usually used the cyberball paradigm to evoke social pain in the lab, which have found that anterior cingulate cortex (ACC), especially its dorsal part (dorsal ACC, dACC) and anterior insula (AI) are key brain regions for pain perception and emotion experience. Emotion regulation is an important way to effectively alleviate the painful feelings and negative experience evoked by social pain. However, compared with the neural mechanism of social pain experience, we have limited knowledge about the neural mechanism of emotion regulation of social pain. Uncovering the latter will help to deepen our understanding of emotion regulation and potentially contribute to the development of interventions for social pain relief in clinics.
Literatures focusing on emotion regulation in general have demonstrated that people use various strategies to regulate negative emotions; among which distraction and cognitive reappraisal are the most frequently used methods. Neuroimaging studies have found that the prefrontal cortex (PFC) is the key brain region for emotion regulation. Compared with healthy individuals, patients with emotional disorders show abnormal response in brain areas associated with emotion regulation. Furthermore, recent findings indicate that PFC regions, especially its lateral part (including ventrolateral and dorsolateral PFC, vlPFC, and dlPFC) are crucial for emotion regulation of social pain and non-social pain/negative emotions. In addition to PFC regions, emotion regulation of social pain also recruits the social cognitive brain network, including posterior superior temporal sulcus, temporal-parietal junction activity, inferior parietal lobe, and posterior cingulate cortex. Using non-invasive brain stimulation (e.g., transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) and transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS)) to enhance the neural activation of the vlPFC and dlPFC could effectively alleviate social pain. Interestingly, the vlPFC and dlPFC have been found show functional specificity for reappraisal and distraction.
Future studies are suggested to further investigate the following questions. First, it is urgent to clarify the key brain regions involved in emotion regulation of social pain. Secondly, it is necessary to combine brain imaging with brain modulation techniques, together with patient data to uncover dynamic causal model of brain networks underlying emotion regulation of social pain. Third, neuromodulation or neurofeedback techniques can be used in clinics to help relieve social pain and restore social functions of patients.

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The Skewed Learning Advantage Effect of Cross-Situational Word Learning

Shi Yujing, Huang Yanli, Xie Jiushu, Liu Shuyun

2024, 47(3): 538-545. DOI: 10.16719/j.cnki.1671-6981.20240304

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Word frequency distribution is important for cross-situational word learning. Previous studies mainly investigated cross-situational word learning based on the uniform distribution. However, word frequency distribution usually follows the Zipfian distribution, a type of skewed distribution, in reality. Previous studies have relatively ignored cross-situational word learning based on skewed distributions, such as the Zipfian distribution. Few studies that focus on the skewed distribution have fierce controversies about whether the Zipfian distribution improves or inhibits cross-situational word learning.
Therefore, the present review first proposes a macro perspective of cross-situational word learning, which holds that the learning effect of each vocabulary is dependent on the learning effects of other vocabularies in the same learning environment. From the macro perspective, the present review first proposes the skewed learning advantage effect that is based on the mutual exclusivity strategy. Mutual exclusivity strategy refers to the following word learning methods. Specifically, learners assume that no two words have the same meaning. Then, learners eliminate the meaning competition of new words from the matching hypotheses that are established according to the co-occurrence law through the anchor point of the acquired words, thereby reducing the meaning ambiguity of the new words.
The skewed learning advantage effect believes that the effective use of mutual exclusivity strategy is the key to generate the Zipfian frequency promotion effect. Specifically, in the Zipfian distribution, learners can quickly learn high-frequency words. Then, learners make the learned high-frequency words as anchor points and use mutual exclusivity strategy to reduce the meaning ambiguity of new words. Thus, learners reduce the number of matching hypotheses in the memory system, thereby reducing the memory burden and improving the efficiency of cross-situational word learning. Moreover, if learners can repeatedly use the mutual exclusivity strategy, they may quickly learn multiple words, which is named word spurt. More importantly, the Zipfian distribution provides more opportunities for learners to use the mutual exclusivity strategy.
To further explain the mechanism of mutual exclusivity strategy and develop the skewed learning advantage effect. The present review examines the influence of language learning history, participant age, and situational ambiguity on the use of the mutual exclusivity strategy, as well as the word learning effect. The findings of some important studies suggest that these factors can influence the tendency of learners to establish matching hypotheses. For example, monolinguals are more likely to establish a one-to-one word-meaning matching hypothesis than bilinguals, while bilinguals are better at establishing and maintaining multiple matching hypotheses. Therefore, learners of different language learning histories have different tendencies of establishing matching hypotheses, resulting in different mechanisms of using mutual exclusivity strategy. In addition, different language learning histories contribute to the skewed learning advantage through different mechanisms.
To sum up, the present review firstly systematically reviews the studies of cross-situational word learning in the Zipfian distribution and explores the mechanism of word frequency distribution. Secondly, based on the mutual exclusivity strategy, the present review proposes the skewed learning advantage effect to respond to the controversy of previous studies. Finally, the present review develops the skewed learning advantage effect by deconstructing the mechanism of the mutual exclusivity strategy. In future research, how related factors, such as syntax, Chinese corpus, and social cues, influence skewed learning is another important question that needs to be investigated.

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From Subitizing to Numerosity: Enumeration of Small Number with Visual Distractors

Liu Wei, Zheng Peng, Wang Chunhui, Gu Qi, Jia Jun, Zhao Yajun

2024, 47(3): 546-553. DOI: 10.16719/j.cnki.1671-6981.20240305

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The number of 1~4 items can be appraised quickly and errorlessly, a phenomenon labeled subitizing. Effects of simultaneous distractor on subitizing are studied in the current study.
In Experiment 1, participants were asked to report the number of target dots presented briefly in the visual filed, and to ignore distractor lines which were presented simultaneously and spatially overlapped with the target dots in each trial. Point of subjective equality (PSE) and standard deviation (SD) of estimation for all participants were analyzed in each distracting condition, and linear regression model was tested with PSE as independent variable and SD as dependent variable in each condition. SD is an efficient index of estimation precision for a certain number. Weber fraction, which measures the ability or the precision of numerosity processing irrelevant of the number to be appraised, can be calculated when we divide SD by PSE. We found that distracting items, no matter in the same or distinct colors compared with target dots, have significant effects on number estimation of target dots. Errorless enumeration for small numbers, although was revealed in the baseline condition without distracting items, disappeared in various distracting conditions. According to these results, subitizing can be disrupted by distracting lines presented with target dots. It is suggested that distracting items affect subitizing by automatically diverting attention resource. The more competitive the distractor is, the greater the disrupting effect is. Control experiment showed that subitizing only survived in number tasks which do not require separation of target and distractor, probably because the attention resource stays unaffected and sufficient for subitizing in those cases. Moreover, according to the results of regression models, it is clear that SDs increased linearly with PSE or target number, hence W fractions were constant within a range of 0.1 to 0.3 in each distracting condition. In other words, Weber’s law was revealed in distracting conditions. These results further suggest that when subitizing is interrupted, number processing for 1~4 targets is taken over by numerosity mechanism, which is proposed to analyze numerosity features and is typically revealed in the processing of moderate numbers.
Experiment 2 investigated occupancy effects in small number processing when target items to be appraised were presented with simultaneous distracting items. Occupancy effect, which suggests that relative spatial approaching can make two items recognized as one object and hence induce underestimating errors, is generally proposed to explain why we have limited precision in number tasks when we are asked to compare or judge moderate numbers (more than 4 items). In Experiment 2a, a programme was designed according to the simplified occupancy model, and was adopted to simulate the results in Experiment 1a. According to the results, occupancy model succeeded in predicting the observed results in Experiment 1a, as human and computer subjects showed similar error patterns. Experiment 2b showed that decrease in absolute distance between items would not increase enumeration errors, hence the observed errors are due to occupancy effect, rather than visual approaching. In summary, Experiment 2 further supports the hypotheses that simultaneous distracting items can disrupt subitizing, and that numerosity mechanism takes the job to process small number when subitizing fails. It is proposed that the robust numerosity mechanism, rather than the fragile subitizing mechanism, is more proper to be the candidate for composing the basement of our math ability.

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Spatial Iconicity in Lexical Semantic Processing of Mandarin-Speaking Children with High Functioning Autism: Compared with Perceptual Processing

Song Yiqi, Zhu Chucheng, Liang Dandan

2024, 47(3): 554-561. DOI: 10.16719/j.cnki.1671-6981.20240306

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Spatial experience plays an important role in semantic processing. There is a large body of evidence proposing a close link between language and space in both adults’ and children's brains. Specifically, when processing words referring to objects that typically occur in the upper or lower sphere of our world (e.g., upper sphere: ‘‘moon” ; lower sphere: ‘‘puddle” ), the spatial experiences will be activated, and attention will be shifted toward the objects’ typical locations. That is how the spatial iconicity plays its role in lexical processing. The involvement of spatial iconicity in lexical processing supports the model of embodied language processing. Language impairments are salient features of autism spectrum disorders (ASD). Moreover, the atypical semantic processing has been well-depicted in individuals with autism. From the perspective of embodied language processing, previous studies have reported that adults with autism showed reduced activation in motor experience in language comprehension. However, the performance of children with ASD has not been examined. The current study was designed to address the question that whether children with high-functioning autism (HFA) will activate spatial experience during lexical processing.
A 2 (participant group: HFA vs. typically developing children) × 2 (stimulation form: word vs. picture)×2 (the objects’ typical locations: upper vs. lower) ×2 (stimulation location: upper vs. lower) mixed design was conducted. Sixty-four children with HFA and 64 typically developing (TD) children who were included in the final analysis were matched by chronological age, verbal IQ, nonverbal IQ, and full-scale IQ. All children are between 5 and 7 years of age. Objects with typical location were selected for the study. Half of the children were asked to put cards with object nouns in two boxes placed vertically and the other half of the children needed to put cards with object pictures into the two boxes. After completing the experimental task described above, the subjects were asked to directly state the spatial locations of the objects to make sure that the children already knew the locations of the objects.
Both groups showed ceiling effect when they stated the spatial locations of the objects, indicating that both children with HFA and TD children have known the locations of the objects. When placing the cards with object nouns, TD children showed a tendency to put nous referring to objects that typically occur in the upper sphere of our world in the upper box and put those referring to objects that typically occur in the lower sphere into the lower box. However, children with HFA randomly placed the noun cards. When placing the cards with object pictures, although both groups showed the spatial compatibility effect, children with HFA showed reduced spatial compatibility effect than TD children.
The results indicated that Mandarin-speaking children with HFA aged 5~7 years have difficulty activating spatial experience in lexical-semantic processing. Although pictures can activate the orientation features of objects, the activation of spatial experience in children with HFA is still weaker than that in TD children.

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Balanced Time Perspective and Mental Health: The Mediating Effects of Emotion Regulation Strategies

Li Xiaobao, Lyu Houchao

2024, 47(3): 562-569. DOI: 10.16719/j.cnki.1671-6981.20240307

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Balanced time perspective refers to an individual's overall positive cognition of the past, present, and future, and the ability to show adaptive time perspective depending on a situation's demands. Numerous studies have generally found a positive and strong association between balanced time perspective and indicators of mental health. However, little is known about the mediating mechanism underlying this link. Previous studies have shown that emotion regulation strategies are closely related to subjective well-being and anxiety. Generally speaking, individuals who frequently use cognitive reappraisal strategy are likely to experience better subjective well-being and less anxiety, whereas people who often use expressive suppression strategy tend to experience a low level of subjective well-being and a high level of anxiety. In addition, given that balanced time perspective is closely related to individual emotions, motivations, and behaviors, it may be an important factor affecting emotion regulation strategies. Thus, we hypothesized that emotion regulation strategies would mediate the linkage between balanced time perspective and mental health.
To test our hypotheses, a total of 1432 adults aged 17 to 76 years old (Mean age = 29.04 years old, SD = 14.38 years old) participated in the present study via an online survey. They anonymously completed questionnaires regarding balanced time perspective, emotion regulation strategies, life satisfaction, positive affect, negative affect, and anxiety. All the data were analyzed with the software SPSS 22.0 and Mplus7.0. We first used correlation analysis to preliminary test the relationship among study variables, and then structural equation modeling was used to test the mediating effects of emotion regulation strategies in the relationship between balanced time perspective and mental health. Mental health was treated as a latent variable including four indicators: life satisfaction, positive affect, negative affect and anxiety. Results showed that (1) balanced time perspective positively correlated with life satisfaction and positive affect, and negatively related to negative affect and anxiety. (2) Balanced time perspective positively linked with cognitive reappraisal and negatively linked with expressive suppression. Cognitive reappraisal was positively related to life satisfaction and positive affect, and negatively related to negative affect and anxiety. Expressive suppression was positively related to negative affect and anxiety. (3) The relationship between balanced time perspective and mental health was significantly mediated by cognitive reappraisal (in a positive direction) and expressive suppression (in a negative direction). These findings highlighted the importantance of involving balanced time perspective and emotion regulation strategies when explaining individuals’ mental health.
In summary, this study confirmed the positive effect of balanced time perspective on mental health and demonstrated the mediating role of cognitive reappraisal and expressive suppression in the relationship between balanced time perspective and mental health. The results of this study have implications for clinical practice and suggestions that promote well-being and reduce anxiety by building a balanced time perspective were provided. Limitations and future directions were also discussed.

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The Event-Based Prospective Memory Impairment in Children with ASD Aged 3-6: The Role of Executive Function

Ren Zhi, Sun Fanhui, Yuan Yang, Song Jiarun, Wang Lijuan

2024, 47(3): 570-580. DOI: 10.16719/j.cnki.1671-6981.20240308

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Prospective memory refers to the ability to remember the planned intention or behavior at an appropriate time or situation in the future. A growing body of research has investigated the event-based prospective memory (PM) in typically developing children but research on children with autistic spectrum disorders is limited. The inconsistent findings in studies on event-based prospective memory ability in populations with autistic spectrum disorders and the lack of empirical evidence from preschoolers, have also limited the understanding of the characteristics of prospective memory in children with autistic spectrum disorder. Besides, executive function plays an important role in prospective memory and dysfunctional executive function underlies the core symptoms of autism spectrum disorders. Given the weight of evidence demonstrating autistic impairment in such processes, and the potentially debilitating PM failures this may lead to, it is vital to better understand the characteristics of prospective memory impairment in children with autistic spectrum disorders. The present study investigated the developmental characteristics of event-based prospective memory in children with autism spectrum disorders aged 3~6 years and explored the potential impairment and mechanisms. Participants included 27 children with autism spectrum disorder age 3~6 and 30 matched typically developing children. All participants completed an event-based prospective memory embedded in a living task (an ongoing task) and were required to classify the pictures presented on the screen according to the principle of living or non-living. Meanwhile, a series of executive function tasks were also assessed to measure the abilities of working memory updating (the N-back Task), inhibitory control (the Go/No-go task), and cognitive flexibility (the Dimensional Change Card Sorting Task) in both autistic and typically developing children. First, results revealed that the performance of event-based prospective memory in children with autism spectrum disorder was significantly lower than that in typically developing children. That is, the impaired event-based prospective memory ability was found in 3- to 6-year-old children with autism spectrum disorder. Moreover, the impaired executive functions were also found in the children with autism spectrum disorder and the development of various components of executive function was closely related to the development of prospective memory in children with autism spectrum disorder. These have shown that event-based prospective memory deficits in children with autism spectrum disorder were accompanied by the impairment of executive function. Importantly, stepwise multiple regression analysis showed that inhibition control performance of autistic children could significantly predict prospective memory performance, rather than the updating or cognitive flexibility components in executive function. But the performance of prospective memory in typically developing children could not be predicted by inhibition control. To conclude, the patterns of results indicated that executive function, especially inhibitory control, played an important role in the event-based prospective memory deficits of children with autism spectrum disorder aged 3~6. These findings supported the multiprocess framework of prospective memory and provided empirical evidence for the executive function framework theory of prospective memory from a clinical perspective.

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The Return Sweep: An Essential Eye Movement in Multi-Line Text Reading

Gao Xiaolei, Wang Danhui, Li Xuling, Zeng Man, Gao Lei

2024, 47(3): 581-589. DOI: 10.16719/j.cnki.1671-6981.20240309

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In multi-line text reading, longer saccades are required to bring the reader’s fixation point from the end of the previous line to the beginning of the next line, which is called a return sweep. The return-sweep interval usually ranges from approximately 4~6 characters at the end of the previous line to approximately 5~8 characters at the beginning of the next line, with an end-to-end line distance of approximately 30~70 characters.
Return sweeps are essential for reading multi-line texts, which are common in natural reading. Research on return sweeps has mainly focused on the return-sweep launch site, target selection, accuracy, and the fixation adjacent to the return sweep. Studies have drawn five main conclusions: (1) Compared to those with high spelling and reading capacity, individuals with low spelling and reading capacity have a return-sweep launch site closer to the end of the line. (2) Readers can generally anticipate a return-sweep target based on the global typographic properties of the text, since selection of the return-sweep target is affected by the salience of the line-initial word, the return-sweep launch site, the font size, the line length, and individual differences among readers, as well as the combination of the length of the first word of the line and the return-sweep launch site, the combination of font size and the return-sweep launch site, and the combined influence of the font size, the line length, and the return-sweep launch site. (3) The accuracy of the return sweep is affected by the line length, the degree of deviation between the expected target and actual return-sweep landing position, the font size, the return-sweep launch site, salience of the line-initial word, and individual differences. (4) The fixations of the return sweep are divided into line-final and line-initial fixations, which are further divided into accurate line-initial and undersweep fixations. When durations between these three fixations are compared, the fixation duration for the line not adjacent to the return sweep is longer than for the line-final fixation and shorter than for the accurate line-initial fixation. Individual variations are also present in these durations. The duration of undersweep fixations is usually shorter than that for the line not adjacent to the return sweep. (5) During the undersweep fixation, a reader’s attention can temporarily focus on the fixation word instead of the first word of the line. Both adults and children can extract fixation words and information from the left side of the fixation words during the undersweep fixation duration to create a seamless transition in reading.
However, many aspects remain unclear. The influence of parafoveal information on word processing and saccadic target selection is not well understood across multi-line text and requires further study. For in-line saccades, a reader can obtain parafoveal prevision of the next word and select a saccadic target. However, during the return sweep, the longer interval and line distance places the first word of the next line beyond the parafoveal preview range, and the reader cannot preview the first word of the next line before the return sweep to select the saccadic target. Furthermore, the E-Z reader and SWIFT models are currently only used to explain single-line text reading. There is no model to explain the return sweep, which must be included for a reading model to simulate natural reading. Based on the above research, we propose that future research should aim to improve the existing reading model to accommodate the return sweep, examine the return sweep in other languages, compare the return sweep in first- and second-language reading, explore whether the line-final fixation durations are affected by the lexical properties of end-of-line fixation words, and investigate the influence of the lack of preview on lexical processing in the return-sweep process to understand the “preview benefit” in the boundary paradigm.

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Transposition Social Group Intervention Improves Symptoms and Empathy in Children with Autism

Chen Peiqi, Zhang Jianxin, Zhang Yuqing, Fang Meixin, He Muye, Liu Dianzhi

2024, 47(3): 590-597. DOI: 10.16719/j.cnki.1671-6981.20240310

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Theory of mind (ToM) refers to the ability to understand the state of mind of the self and others, and to properly explain the behavior of self and others. The theory of mind deficit is prevalent in children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and is a key factor in social impairment. Previous studies have shown that it is effective to intervene in the theory of mind of autistic children. Interventions for theory of mind in children with ASD have been divided into three main categories: direct intervention for false belief cognition, multi-component intervention for theory of mind based on the sequence of children's psychological development, and intervention that combine theory of mind and social skills. These three types of interventions have certain effects on improving children's simple interaction and dialogue skills, emotional understanding, belief understanding and pretend play, theory of mind, social communication, and empathy. However, there are the following shortcomings. Firstly, the intervention sample size is small, the content is large, the cycle is long, and it does not focus on thinking from the other person's point of view. Secondly, it is limited to a certain component or specific ability, such as "false belief understanding" "emotional understanding" "perspective taking" and so on. Focusing solely on one component or specific ability limits the effectiveness of the intervention. Thirdly, there was confusion between intervention content and effect assessment. Therefore, theory of mind intervention with ASD children should focus on developing time-saving, cost-effective group interventions and pay attention to the correlation between different stages of theory of mind and comprehensively intervening in various components.
Moreover, moderate separation between intervention content and effect assessment was emphasized. Bird and Viding proposed the self to other model of empathy (SOME), which includes five subsystems: Theory of Mind System, Affective Representation System, Situational Understanding System, Affective Cue Classification System, and Mirror Neuron System. As a crucial element of the model, the Self/Others Switch corrects the bias of the processing information of the input system to ensure that the Situational Understanding System and the Affective Cue Classification System process the situational and emotional cues of ‘other’ rather than ‘self’. Compared to Typically Developing Children (TD), children with ASD develop abnormalities in many aspects, such as the distinction between self and others' information, memory of self-related materials, self-statement and self-evaluation, and the ability to integrate social situation cues. Some researchers believe that when TD individuals process input information, they will shift their affective state of ‘self’ to ‘other’, but ASD individuals are difficult to activate this conversion system. This study utilized the SOME as a reference and self-others transformation as the breakthrough point. The research designed a transposition social group intervention program suitable for improving the symptoms of children with autism according to the sequence of children's psychological development, and evaluated the immediate and short-term maintenance effects. Through a step-by-step curriculum, ASD children learn to distinguish between self and others' wishes, beliefs, and other psychological components. In the curriculum design, through transposition (swapping positions) - repositioning (returning to the original position), children with ASD are consciously converted from the perspective of "self" to the perspective of "others", and the goal of speculating on the psychological state and intentions of others is achieved. The ultimate goal of the curriculum is to improve their autism symptoms and improve their ability to think differently.
Forty-one children with autism aged four to twelve were randomly divided into intervention and control groups. Both groups received routine rehabilitation intervention. The intervention group also received transposition social group training. The Autism Treatment Evaluation Checklist and the Interpersonal Reactivity Index were used to evaluate the effect of the intervention. It turned out that after the group intervention, the total score of autism symptoms, sensory/cognitive, health/physical/behavior, the total score of empathy, and perspective taking in the intervention group were significantly improved, and the effect remained during the follow-up period. Therefore, it is concluded that transposition social group intervention can effectively improve the overall symptoms and empathy ability of autistic children by using self-other-to-others as the starting point.

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The Mediating Role of Harsh Parenting in the Association between Child Negative Emotionality and Behavioral Problems

Liu Yapeng, Deng Huihua, Liang Zongbao, Zhang Guangzhen

2024, 47(3): 598-605. DOI: 10.16719/j.cnki.1671-6981.20240311

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Behavioral problems are prevalent in preschoolers. Thus, exploring the developmental mechanisms of preschoolers’ behavioral problems is necessary and significant. As two core different characteristics of negative emotionality, distress to limitations and fearfulness are associated with child externalizing and internalizing problems, respectively. However, the possible mechanisms accounting for these relations remains an open question. Thus, the present study aimed to investigate whether maternal and paternal harsh parenting mediated the impact of toddlers’ distress to limitations and fearfulness on externalizing and internalizing problems at preschool age.
A diverse sample of 358 mother-father dyads with their 14-month-old toddlers participated in this study. They were randomly recruited from a Maternal and Child Health Hospital in Nanjing, Jiangsu. When children were 14 months old, mothers rated on child negative emotionality and the demographic information concerning age, gender, and parental education level. At 24 months, the mother and father reported their harsh parenting, respectively. Two years later, both parents reported preschoolers’ externalizing and internalizing problems. Initially, the study used SPSS 21.0 to analyze data. This study conducted the analyses of descriptive statistics to calculate the mean and standard deviation of main variables and the Pearson product-moment correlation to analyze inter-correlation coefficients among those variables. Finally, a structural equation model was conducted in the Mplus 8.70 to examine the mediating role of parental harsh parenting in the relationship between child negative emotionality and behavioral problems after controlling demographic information.
Findings were as follows: (1) The distress to limitations positively and significantly predicted maternal rather than paternal harsh parenting (β_m= .17, pm < .01; β_f= .12, p_f > .05). However, fearfulness showed no significant correlation with both maternal and paternal harsh parenting (β_m= .07, β_f= .01, ps > .05). (2) Maternal harsh parenting positively and significantly predicted preschoolers’ externalizing problems (β= .23, p < .05), while paternal harsh parenting positively and significantly predicted preschoolers’ internalizing problems (β = .13, p < .05). (3) Maternal harsh parenting played partly mediating effect in the associations of distress to limitations with externalizing problems. More specifically, the distress to limitations not only influenced externalizing problems directly (β = .13, t = 2.11, p < .05), but also by relating to maternal harsh parenting ( .17× .23= .04, Sobel Z=2.03, p < .05). Moreover, although the mediating effect of parents’ harsh parenting in the association between fearfulness and internalizing problems was not significant (γ = .01, t = .73, p > .05), the fearfulness influenced internalizing problems directly (β = .12, t = 2.03, p < .05).
In sum, the finding that maternal but not paternal harsh parenting mediated the impact of distress to limitations on externalizing problems revealed that if mothers can react to toddlers’ distress to limitations in an appropriate way, the incidences of later externalizing problems of children will decrease. It corroborates the importance of furnishing mothers who have difficulties in dealing with their toddlers’ distress to limitations in daily life with effective guidance for family education. It also underscored the relation between child and maternal parenting in influencing preschoolers’ behavioral development is bilateral and interactive. Moreover, the results also revealed that the mechanism of fearfulness on internalizing problems is distinct from that of distress to limitations on externalizing problems.

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The Influence of Shyness on Academic Procrastination of Junior High School Students: The Mediating Role of Teacher Expectation Perception and Self-Worth

Chen Yingmin, Sun Changlin, Xia Doudou, Zheng Yuanhua, Hu Yongqi, Zhang Hai

2024, 47(3): 606-613. DOI: 10.16719/j.cnki.1671-6981.20240312

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The student’s academic procrastination will bring many negative effects to the individual, such as affecting the student's academic performance, subjective well-being, and life satisfaction. Exploring the influencing factors of academic procrastination has important theoretical and practical significance. According to the three-level variable relationship path in the educational context proposed by Matthews et al., personality traits may be the fundamental factor affecting academic procrastination. Shyness is an important personality trait. Studies have shown that shyness has a wide range of negative effects on students’ academic performance, such as negative prediction of students’ academic adaptation and learning adaptation. Then, shyness may also have an impact on academic procrastination. Similarly, the three-level variable relationship path points out that self-characteristics are important intermediate variables. The theory of self-worth believes that individuals may adopt a procrastination method in order to maintain their sense of self-worth. Studies have shown that self-worth can affect academic procrastination, and shy people may have lower self-worth due to their own characteristics. In other words, self-worth plays a mediating role between shyness and academic procrastination. Studies have shown that teacher expectations have an important impact on the individual’s sense of self-worth, and the transmission of teacher expectations is reflected in the teacher expectation perception. The teacher expectation perception may be an important source of personal self-worth. Shyness may lead to a lower perception of teacher expectations, and a lower perception of teacher expectations may further reduce their sense of self-worth, and these aggravate the individual’s academic procrastination. In other words, teacher expectation perception and self-worth play a chain-like intermediary role between shyness and academic procrastination. In addition, studies have shown that perception of teacher expectations may also play a mediating role between shyness and academic procrastination alone.
The purpose of this study is to explore the impact and mechanism of shyness on academic procrastination. The study adopted a cluster random sampling method, using shyness questionnaires, academic procrastination questionnaires, teacher expectations and perception questionnaires, and self-worth scale to survey 920 junior high school students (461 boys and 459 girls) from two middle schools. All questionnaires in this study showed good reliability.
The results show that: (1) Shyness, teacher expectation perception, self-worth, and academic procrastination are significantly correlated with each other. Shyness is significantly positively correlated with academic procrastination, and is significantly negatively correlated with teacher expectation perception and self-worth. Teacher expectation perception has a significant positive correlation with self-worth, and a significant negative correlation with academic procrastination. Self-worth and academic procrastination are significantly negative related. (2) Teacher expectation perception and self-worth can not only play a separate mediating role between shyness and academic procrastination, but can also play a chain mediating role of them.
These findings have important theoretical and practical value, and to some extent, they reveal the possible reasons for the academic procrastination of junior high school students. The research results not only expand the research in the field of academic procrastination, but also help students reduce academic procrastination. In addition, the research results can also provide certain reference and enlightenment for educational practice. For example, full attention should be paid to students’ academic procrastination, especially to shy individuals. At the same time, it is possible to make full use of the teacher’s expectation effect to reduce individual’s academic procrastination. Finally, enhancing the individual’s sense of self-worth is a powerful and effective way to reduce students’ academic procrastination. Especially in the junior high school stage when young people’s self-awareness is developing rapidly, educators should pay attention to the students’ internal development, consolidate their self-confidence, and enhance their sense of self-worth, so as to prevent or reduce the academic procrastination.

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The Transition of Online Aggressive Behavior among College Students: A Latent Transition Analysis

Jin Tonglin, Wu Yuntena, Zhang Lu, Lei Zeyu, Jia Yanru

2024, 47(3): 614-621. DOI: 10.16719/j.cnki.1671-6981.20240313

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With the rapid development of information technology, the online aggressive behavior associated with the use of the Internet has attracted the attention of society and academia. Existing studies have shown that the incidence of online aggressive behavior among Chinese college students is 59.5%, and that of foreign college students is 49.7%. Recently, this phenomenon among college students has become more rampant. Therefore, it is critical to focus on how online aggressive behavior among college students develop over time and the factors that influence this development pattern. However, most of the existing research on online aggressive behavior is cross-sectional study from variable-centered perspective, which limits our understanding of development pattern of this deviant behavior. Thus, we aim to explore the development pattern of the college students' online aggressive behavior by using longitudinal data and latent transition analysis methods from a person-centered perspective. Furthermore, previous literature has shown that there are some factors that can predict online aggressive behavior, such as age, gender, moral disengagement, and the experience of being left at home in childhood, but the related mechanism is still unclear. Thus, we further explore the factors which influence the development pattern of college students' online aggressive behavior.
We conducted a 2-wave longitudinal study with a 4-month interval. A total of 2000 (Mage = 19.39 years; 45.73% male) college students from 7 universities took a survey including the Online Aggressive Behavior Scale (OABS) and Moral Disengagement Questionnaire (MDQ) at two time points. SPSS25 and Mplus8.3 were used for data processing. Statistical methods include independent sample t test, latent class analysis and latent transition analysis, etc.
The results showed that: (1) There was a significant difference in the rate of college students' online aggressive behavior at the two points in time; (2) According to the conditional probabilities of the two groups in each item, the students were categorized as "low-aggressive group" and "high-aggressive group", and the proportion of the two groups changed with time were 86.6%, 91.0% and 13.4%, 9.0% respectively; (3) The latent transition analysis showed that the rate of the low- aggressive group to the high-aggressive group was 6.7%, and the rate of the high-aggressive group to the low-aggressive group was 35.4%; (4) Taking the low-aggressive group as the reference group, multivariate logistic regression analysis showed that compared with male students, the odds ratio of high-aggressive group for female students was .66. Age had no significant effect on high- aggressive groups. The odds ratio of the high-aggressive group was 5.43 for every 1 unit increase in the level of moral disengagement; (5) Taking college students who maintained their original latent status as the reference group, the results showed that the rate of female students transformed from low-aggressive group to high-aggressive group decreased (OR=.62). Under the influence of moral disengagement, the number of people who transformed from low-aggressive group to high- aggressive group increased (OR=5.53).
In short, it has been found that all the college students who exhibit online aggressive behavior can be divided into high-aggressive group and low-aggressive group, and the students in high-aggressive group demonstrates a trend to low-aggressive group easily with time. In addition, gender and moral disengagement are key influencing factors of the classification and transition of college students’ online aggressive behavior. The present study provided an insight to decrease the college students’ online aggressive behavior in practice, including reducing moral disengagement level, promoting mental health level, etc.

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The Relationship of Person: Organization Fit and Preschool Teachers’ Job Burnout: A Moderated Meditating Model

Huang Mingming, Guo Liping, Chen Liping, Zhao Shouying

2024, 47(3): 622-629. DOI: 10.16719/j.cnki.1671-6981.20240314

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With the popularization and development of preschool education in my country, the physical and mental health in preschool teachers has aroused social attention. At present, the shortage of preschool teachers in my country has increased the workload in preschool teachers, thus making preschool teachers in my country have a high incidence of job burnout. Job Burnout is a state of physical and emotional exhaustion experienced by individuals, and Job Burnout is an occupational mental health problem among preschool teachers, which can cause damage to the body and psychology in preschool teachers to a certain extent. It is a worldwide public health problem, which seriously hinders the construction of the preschool education faculty in my country. Based on the existing research conclusions and related theories, this research proposes the following three research hypotheses. Research hypothesis H1: Person-Organization Fit has a significant negative predictive effect on preschool teachers’ job burnout; Research hypothesis H2: Occupational adaptation plays a meditating role in the relationship of Person-Organization Fit and preschool teacher’ job burnout; Hypothesis H3: Psychological resilience has an significant moderating effect on the relationship of preschool teacher’ Person-Organization Fit and occupational adaptation and job burnout. It is hoped that, the hypothesis of this research can be demonstrated to explore the relationship of Person-Organization Fit and preschool teacher’ s job burnout.
In order to explore the relationship of Person-Organization Fit and preschool teachers’ Job burnout. 1127 preschool teachers were surveyed with the Person-Organization Fit scale, the teachers’ Job burnout Scale, the Occupational Adaptation scale and the Psychological Resilience Scale, then we used SPSS 21.0 and Process 3.4 to analyze the data, and investigate whether there is a common method deviation problem in the data. This study found that: (1)There is no obvious common method bias in the test results. Preschool teachers’ Person-Organization Fit, Occupational Adaptation and Job burnout is significantly correlated with each other. (2)Person-Organization Fit has a significant direct effect on the level of preschool teachers’ Job burnout (β =-.26, p < .001, 95%CI: -.51~-.10), and has a significant predictive effect on preschool teachers’ occupational adaptation (β =.18, p <.01, 95%CI:.14~.31), occupational adaptation has a significant predictive effect on preschool teachers’ Job burnout (β=-.24, p<.001, 95%CI :-.36~-.14). In other words, Person-Organization Fit can predict preschool teachers’ job burnout through the mediating role of Occupational Adaptation. (3) Psychological resilience has a significant predictive effect on preschool teachers’ job burnout (β=-.33, p<.001, 95%CI: -.44~-.30), and has a significant predictive effect on occupational adaptation (β=.36, p<.001, 95%CI: .13~.44), the interaction of psychological resilience and Person-Organization Fit also has a significant predictive effect on preschool teachers’ job burnout (β=-.06, p<.001, 95%CI: -.16~-.01), and has a significant predictive effect on preschool teachers’ occupational adaptation (β=-.09, p<.001, 95%CI: -.11~-.08), psychological resilience can moderate the relationship between Person-Organization Fit and Occupational Adaptation, and also can moderate the relationship between Person-Organization Fit and Job burnout. (4)With the improvement of psychological resilience, the mediating role of occupational adaptation begins to gradually decrease, occupational adaptation and psychological resilience can play a moderated mediating role between Person-Organization Fit and Job burnout in preschool teachers.
This study draws the following conclusions: (1) The degree of Person-Organization Fit can significantly predict the level of job burnout in preschool teacher. (2) Occupational adaptation plays an meditating role between Person-Organization Fit and preschool teacher' job burnout. (3) Psychological resilience can significantly moderate the relationship of person-organization fit on the occupational adaptation and job burnout in preschool teachers, and effectively moderate the mediating effect of occupational adaptation.

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Benefits and Costs of Problem-Focused Leader Interpersonal Emotion Management: An Integrative Perspective of Employees and Leaders

Zou Yanchun, Chen Qiyao, Peng Jian, Zeng Xiaoqing

2024, 47(3): 630-638. DOI: 10.16719/j.cnki.1671-6981.20240315

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Managing employees’ emotions is important to improve their work performance and achieve organizational goals. Leader interpersonal emotion management, leaders intentional management of employees’ negative emotions, can effectively improve employees’ work attitude and behavior. Does it also positively affect leaders themselves? Previous studies have mainly focused on the positive impact of leader interpersonal emotion management on employees. But few studies have explored the dark side of leaders’ interpersonal emotion management, in particular whether it hurts leaders themselves. This not only limits the academic research on the impact of leaders’ interpersonal emotion management, but also discourage the application of leaders’ interpersonal emotion management in practice. Therefore, based on the Conservation of Resources Theory, as well as the dual path of resource acquisition and resource loss, this study proposes that leaders’ problem-focused interpersonal emotion management (i.e., managing employees’ negative emotions by addressing the problems that evoke their negative emotions) can improve employees’ occupational well-being at the cost of leaders’ occupational well-being.
To test our hypotheses, we conducted a questionnaire survey. We collected three waves of data from leader-employee dyads in Chinese organizations. In the first wave, 400 employees reported their demographic information and evaluated their leaders’ interpersonal emotion management. Two weeks later (the second wave), these employees were invited again to report their emotional exhaustion and emotion regulation ability. Leaders were invited to report basic personal information and assess their emotional exhaustion and resilience. In the third wave, employees and their leaders who had completed the last two rounds of the survey assessed their occupational well-being. Finally, we obtained data from 99 leaders and 388 employees. Reliability analysis, confirmatory factor analysis, descriptive statistics, correlation analysis, and multilevel modeling analysis were conducted.
The results of the multi-level analysis showed that problem-focused leader interpersonal emotion management has a significant positive correlation with employees’ occupational well-being and a significant negative correlation with leaders’ occupational well-being. Second, problem-focused leader interpersonal emotion management can improve employees’ occupational well-being by reducing employees’ emotional exhaustion. The above relationship is stronger when employees’ emotion regulation ability is higher. Third, problem-focused leader interpersonal emotion management can reduce leaders’ occupational well-being by increasing their emotional exhaustion. The above relationship is stronger when leaders are high in resilience.
This study has implications for theory and practice. On the one hand, this study expands the research on the consequences of leaders’ interpersonal emotion management and comprehensively explains the resource change process, including resource gain and resource loss, underlying leaders’ interpersonal emotion management, which can help the academic community to further understand how and when leader interpersonal emotion management is beneficial for employees and detrimental for leaders themselves. On the other hand, the results of this study can help the business community to realize the dark side of leaders’ interpersonal emotion management (reducing occupational well-being by increasing emotional exhaustion of leaders). As such, organizations should design practices to mitigate the detrimental effects of leaders’ interpersonal emotion management on leaders themselves.

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How does Interpersonal Relationship Affect Bribery Decision-Making? A Cross-Cultural Comparison of China and the United States

Zhang Qujie, Shi Lingzheng, Cheng Xiaorong, Fan Zhao, Ding Xianfeng

2024, 47(3): 639-647. DOI: 10.16719/j.cnki.1671-6981.20240316

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Bribery, a fundamental form of corruption, involves public officials using their positions to illegally acquire property and gain personal advantage, making it one of the most damaging corrupt practices in society. Previous studies indicate that interpersonal connections influence decisions regarding bribery. Individuals tend to favor closer associates when contemplating whether to accept a bribe, thereby elevating the likelihood of succumbing to corruption. Furthermore, the perception of interpersonal closeness varies between individualistic and collectivistic cultures. In collectivist societies, distinctions in how individuals treat those of varying closeness levels are more pronounced, whereas such differences are less pronounced in individualistic cultures.
Hence, the central question arises: do cultural disparities impact the interpersonal mechanisms that govern bribery decisions? We hypothesize that interpersonal relationships exert a more substantial influence on bribery decisions in collectivist cultures, which prioritize interpersonal relationships, than in individualist cultures. Interpersonal relationships are categorized into direct and indirect relationships, and this study also examines how bribery decisions based on direct and indirect relationships behave differently. To account for potential moderating factors, we also investigate how cultural differences in the effects of relationships may vary in the context of risk probability and bribe amounts.
The experiments were conducted in China and the U.S. Data for Chinese subjects were collected on the Credamo platform and data for U.S. subjects were collected on Amazon Mechanical Turk. In the experimental procedure, each subject first reads the instruction, then reads the situational story and makes a bribe decision in each independent variable condition. We manipulated the independent variable conditions through different situational stories. A four-factor mixed design was used:2 (country: United States, China) × 3 (relationship distance: relative, friend, stranger) × 2 (risk probability: 20%, 80%) × 2 (bribe amount: 50,000, 500,000). Country is a between-group variable and other factors are within-group variables. The dependent variable is the probability of bribery. Two experiments were conducted before and after this study with similar procedures to explore the direct and indirect relationships respectively by changing the situational stories.
In Experiment 1, we examined the direct relation and found that the probability of bribery decreased as the relationship distance increased in both China and the United States. However, it is essential to note that disparities exist between the two countries. Notably, the strength of the relationship effect is significantly more pronounced in China compared to the United States. Furthermore, Experiment 1 also revealed the presence of a three-way interaction effect of relationship distance, country, and risk probability, implying that cultural distinctions in relationship effects manifest only in low-risk circumstances.
In Experiment 2, the examination shifted to the indirect relation, where the results underscored a significant interaction between relationship distance and country. Specifically, in the United States, no discernible relationship effect was observed in the context of bribery decision. Conversely, in the collectivist culture of China, a clear inverse relation was observed, with the likelihood of bribery gradually decreasing as the indirect relationship distance increased. It is noteworthy that this interaction effect was only discernible in low-risk scenarios, with no substantial disparities in high-risk conditions.
Based on the results, we conclude that, on the one hand, there is cross-cultural consistency in the influence of interpersonal relationships on bribery decisions. In both collectivist and individualistic countries, bribery probability decreases with the increase of relationship distance. On the other hand, there is cross-cultural variability in the effect of relationships on the decision to accept a bribe, with stronger relationship effects in collectivist than in individualist countries, both in direct and indirect relations, and with cultural differences in relationship effects differing only in the low-risk condition.

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Daily Job Crafting, Recovery Experience, and Next Day Burnout: The Mediating Role of Personal Resource and Job Resource

Zhang Xiaolong, Da Shu, Gao Chunrong, Zhang Xichao

2024, 47(3): 648-656. DOI: 10.16719/j.cnki.1671-6981.20240317

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Burnout is an essential topic in the workplace, which not only affects employees’ performance but also makes them more susceptible to a variety of health problems. In general, burnout has both stable tendency and daily fluctuations. An important factor influencing burnout in daily work life is employees’ coping strategies. Employees use a variety of approaches to cope with burnout, including mitigating the effects of job stressors, making direct changes to job characteristics through job crafting, and creating boundaries between work and non-work domains to reduce conflict between the work and home domains. This study investigates how different daily coping strategies, particularly recovery and job crafting, are related to daily burnout levels based on the Job Demands-Resources model. Further, personal resource and job resource are also included as mediators.
We utilized a daily diary design to test hypotheses. Participants were recruited from social networks such as WeChat and microblogs, and 120 full-time employees volunteered to fill out questionnaires for ten consecutive business days. Specifically, all participants reported job crafting after work on day N, recovery experience in the morning on day N+1, personal and work resources at noon on day N+1, and burnout after work on day N+1. After data cleaning, 112 valid participants and 902 valid questionnaires were remained.
The results indicated that: (1) Employees’ daily job crafting is negatively related to next-day burnout via job resource and personal resource; (2) Employees’ daily recovery experience is negatively related to next-day burnout; (3) Employees’ daily recovery experience is negatively related to next-day burnout via personal resource.
From the theoretical perspective, our study supports the State Theory of Burnout. That is, burnout not only has a long-term stable component but, at the same time, has some fluctuations in daily levels. Meanwhile, this study demonstrates that employees’ everyday recovery experiences and job crafting, as two crucial adaptive coping strategies, have positive implications for mitigating daily burnout. Future research can explore other factors that are related to burnout and how daily burnout can affect other aspects of employees’ lives.
This study also has some practical implications. Burnout has significant detrimental effects on individuals, affecting employees’ psychological and physical health as well as job performance, and predicting more absenteeism. Our study suggests that both job crafting and recovery experiences enable employees to cope better with burnout. Organizations can help employees cope better with burnout by creating an environment conducive to recovery experiences and job crafting.
This study also has some limitations. First, the study data were all obtained from employees' self-reports. The problem of common method variance is inevitable in data analysis. Future data collection could use multiple sources of data collection. Second, only two strategies, job crafting and recovery experience, were considered in this study. In real life, employees may use more affluent strategies to cope with burnout, such as selection, optimization with compensation and spillover. Future research could explore the role of other coping strategies and the interaction among them.

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Supervisor Developmental Feedback and New Employees’ Performance: The Role of Perceived Insider Status and Core Self-Evaluation

Zhao Shenran, Zhao Junzhe, Wang Minghui, Zhao Guoxiang

2024, 47(3): 657-663. DOI: 10.16719/j.cnki.1671-6981.20240318

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As employees change jobs more frequently and the cost of replacing employees increases, understanding and managing the socialization process will provide organizations with a competitive advantage. Thus, how to effectively retain human resources is still a major issue of concern. Especially for new employees, the transition to a new job or role is inherently challenging and stressful. Adequate resources are effective for new employees’ adjustment and successful socialization. As an important resource holder, managers can foster the speed of new employees’ adaptation by providing supporting resources. Supervisor developmental feedback refers to the useful information provided by the supervisor to enable the employee to learn, develop, and improve their work, and to improve the employee’s work attitude and behavior. Based on the resource conservation theory, this study introduced supervisor developmental feedback into the special context of organizational socialization and characterized task performance and work initiative as the result of organizational socialization. Meanwhile, it developed the mediating mechanism of perceived insider status between supervisor developmental feedback and organizational socialization outcome. To further examine the positive meanings of supervisor developmental feedback to organizational socialization, this study explored a boundary condition of this association in order to understand the contexts under which the strength of this relationship may vary.
In this study, we collected data from enterprises in Shanghai, Beijing, and Guangdong Province, mainly in service and manufacturing industries. Based on the three-wave data from 172 leader-employee dyads, we tested the hypothesis through data analysis by SPSS and MPLUS. The results showed that the supervisor developmental feedback can promote the new employee to form the perceived insider status, thus further improving the new employee's task performance and work proactivity. Core self-evaluation positively moderated the indirect effect of supervisor developmental feedback on task performance and work proactivity. Specifically, the above indirect effects are significantly strengthened when the new employee’s core self-evaluation is high.
The results have substantial implications for both practice and research. First of all, based on the resource conservation theory, this study takes the supervisor developmental feedback as an important resource, investigates the influence of the supervisor developmental feedback on the organizational socialization of new employees, and broadens the scope of application of the theory. Secondly, this study proves the validity of supervisor developmental feedback, which has a positive effect on new employee's identity and work behavior. Finally, this paper discusses the moderating effect of core self-evaluation which is a new employee’s personal trait, and provides a more comprehensive view, namely, individuals with high core self-evaluation can make better use of the resources given by their supervisors to realize organizational socialization.
In addition, findings of this study provide practical strategies for organizations to retain new employees. On the one hand, supervisors should focus on the form of feedback to new employees, in a developmental and supportive way to effectively promote the new employees to complete the role identities transformation and adaptation. On the other hand, supervisors should pay attention to the effect of new employees’ personal characteristics on the process of organization socialization, and carry out targeted management measures.

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The Sense of Agency in Social Interactions

Li Yunyun, Gu Jingjin, Zhao Ke, Fu Xiaolan

2024, 47(3): 664-670. DOI: 10.16719/j.cnki.1671-6981.20240319

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The Sense of agency refers to the experience of controlling one's own acts and external events. It is an important part of self-consciousness and arises not only in individual situations, but also in social interactions. Previous studies on the sense of agency in social interactions showed inconsistent findings, which might be attributed to the confusion of social interaction types.
Here, we distinguished three types of social interactions, including competition, cooperation, and hierarchical situations, and further differentiated several sub-types in each situation. Then we systematically reviewed the literature investigating the sense of agency in these situations. Studies have shown that, in the competitive situation, individuals’ sense of agency over their own and others' actions and outcomes is reduced. In the cooperative situation where each participant contributes to the consequence equally, they may experience a sense of joint agency as well as a sense of agency over partners' actions. However, the sense of agency over one’s own action depends on the similarity between participants’ actions. Participants have stronger agency over their own actions when their actions are distinguishable and complementary in accomplishing the joint goal, while they would lose control over their own actions when their actions are similar and hard to be distinguished. In the hierarchical interaction situation where individuals contribute to the consequence unequally, the leader and the follower have comparable levels of sense of joint agency when their actions are unrelated to each other. Surprisingly, the leader has lower sense of joint agency than the follower when the leader induces the follower's action. With respect to the sense of agency over individual’s actions, leaders experience a stronger sense of agency over their own and followers’ actions than followers. However, leaders will lose sense of agency when they coerce others to give the victim an electric shock.
The fronto-parietal network is involved in the processing of the sense of agency in social interactions. It is proposed that the supplementary motor area (SMA) may subserve the generation of action intention and the understanding of other's action intention. Angular gyrus (AG) and insula are associated with the comparison between the internal expectations and the sensory feedbacks of actions. The temporo-parietal junction (TPJ) and medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) are involved in distinguishing between self and others in social interactions. The precuneus may be a node that connects the processing of action control to the processing of social context.
The sense of agency is closely related to the generation of the social responsibility. The reduction of the sense of agency might be the cause of the bystander effect in the competitive situation, the responsibility diffusion effect in the cooperation situation, and the lack of the sense of responsibility for followers in the hierarchical joint action. According to the types and sub-types of the social interactions, a reasonable organization of the social interactive activities may help to enhance individual’s sense of agency and avoid adverse social effects.
Some issues need to be examined in future studies, such as the difference in the sense of agency across different interaction situations, the sense of agency in a multi-person interactive situation, and the neural mechanisms underlying the sense of agency in the cooperative and hierarchical interaction situations.

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The Impact of Perfectionism on Job Performance from the Perspective of Job Crafting: The Moderating Role of Workplace Friendship and Workplace Ostracism

Ni Xudong, Wang Tingting, Zhu Xingkui

2024, 47(3): 671-679. DOI: 10.16719/j.cnki.1671-6981.20240320

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Nowadays, the competition between people has become increasingly fierce. Most people are encouraged to pursue perfection at work, which leads to the rise of perfectionism and a wave of research on perfectionism. According to the two-factor model of perfectionism, it can be divided into striving perfectionism and worrying perfectionism. Perfectionism is very common in work, and different types of perfectionism have different effects on job performance. However, the current research on perfectionism is mainly concentrated in the fields of physical education, education, medicine, and so on. There are a few studies on perfectionism in the field of organization. Therefore, in order to expand the relevant research, this paper explores the process mechanism between perfectionism and job performance based on the perspective of job crafting.
This research takes corporate employees as the main body and uses two questionnaire survey methods online and offline to collect data. All items are self-evaluated by employees. In order to reduce the deviation of the same origin, this study adopts an anonymous questionnaire method, and conducts the survey in three time periods. In the first wave, 150 questionnaires were collected offline. In the second wave, 150 questionnaires were collected offline, and in the third wave, 200 questionnaires were collected online. A total of 500 questionnaires were distributed. After excluding invalid questionnaires, a total of 377 valid questionnaires remained. This study uses SPSS 22.0 and AMOS 21.0 for data analysis.
The results showed that, perfectionistic strivings had a positive impact on job performance; perfectionistic concerns had a negative effect on job performance; perfectionistic strivings positively affected job performance through approach job crafting; perfectionistic concerns negatively affected work performance through avoidance job crafting; workplace friendship negatively moderated the relationship between perfectionistic strivings and approach job crafting; and workplace ostracism positively moderated the relationship between perfectionistic concerns and avoidance job crafting.
Based on the perspective of job crafting, this research explores the impact mechanism of perfectionism on job performance and enriches the research of perfectionism in the field of organizational behavior. The research results reveal the internal mechanism between perfectionism and work performance, which enrich the relevant understanding of job crafting. It proves that employees of different types of perfectionism will take different behaviors, which in turn has different effects on performance.
Besides, this paper adds workplace friendship and workplace ostracism as boundary conditions. The results showed that workplace friendships negatively moderate the relationship between perfectionistic strivings and approach job crafting. However, workplace ostracism positively moderates the relationship between perfectionistic concerns and avoidance job crafting. The findings broaden the research on workplace exclusion and workplace friendship, and further the understandings of the contextual adjustment of job remodeling. At the same time, on the organizational level, practical advice is provided for organizations to evaluate the perfectionism of employees and treat different types of perfectionists in different ways to help everyone realize their self-worth. Additionally, it is necessary to give employees a certain degree of autonomy, so that employees can actively change their work according to their own abilities and requirements.

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Impact of Social Exclusion on Consumers’ Brand Attachment: The Role of Loneliness and Rejection Sensitivity

Yue Siyi, Wang Huaiyong

2024, 47(3): 680-687. DOI: 10.16719/j.cnki.1671-6981.20240321

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In recent years, many scholars have begun to focus on the effect of social exclusion on consumers’ brand preference, and investigate how the excluded consumers choose the products and brands to indirectly express their desire about establishing social connections with others. In fact, extant research also suggested that consumers not only used brand as an indirect mean of self-expression, but also took brand as the objects of social connection and emotional attachment. However, it is not yet clear whether social exclusion affects consumers’ brand attachment. According to interpersonal relationship theory, consumer-brand relationships are more like interpersonal relationships. A more intimate, continuous, and stable relationship can be formed through a personified expressive brand relationship based on interaction, and consumers show similar emotions (e.g., attachment) in relationships in brands as they do with other humans. Attachment can help individuals cope with adversity and stress, and it may be an important mechanism to increase adaptive respondse to the painful experience of social exclusion. Are consumers who has established attachment with brands more likely to successfully cope with the social exclusion? What is the underlying psychological mechanism and boundary condition?
In the current study, three experiments were conducted to explore the relationship between social exclusion and consumers’ brand attachment, as well as mediating (loneliness) and moderating (rejection sensitivity) variables of this relation by proposing a moderated mediation model. We used a variety of experimental materials, and chose different paradigms on manipulating social exclusion to exclude the effects of control variables (e.g., the type, quality, appearance, and taste of the experiment stimuli), and increase the external validity and robustness of the findings. The results showed that: (1) Social exclusion had a positive impact on brand attachment, that is, individuals with brand attachment were able to more effectively cope with social exclusion. (2) Loneliness mediated the relationship between social exclusion and brand attachment. (3) Rejection sensitivity not only moderated the effect of social exclusion on loneliness, but also moderated the mediating effect of loneliness. Specifically, for individuals with high rejection sensitivity, social exclusion had a stronger effect on loneliness, and loneliness mediated the relationship between social exclusion and brand attachment.
To sum up, this study links social exclusion with consumers’ brand attachment and reveals the mediating and moderating effects of social exclusion on brand attachment. Our findings have important theoretical and practical implications. On the one hand, this study not only helps people to understand the relationship between consumers and brands, but also enriches past studies on social exclusion and brand attachment, which is conducive for scholars to carry out further research. On the other hand, this study provides a new perspective for individuals on how to deal with the negative impact of social exclusion and the negative experience of loneliness, as well as scientific methods for marketers on how to effectively develop brand attachment.

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Subjective Social Class and Moral Judgment: The Chain Mediating Roles of Independent Self-Construal and Belief of Zero-Sum Game

Hu Hanyu, Peng Ming, Chen Tianlong

2024, 47(3): 688-694. DOI: 10.16719/j.cnki.1671-6981.20240322

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Different moral judgment tendencies reflect individuals’ different moral norms, especially in the face of moral dilemmas. Utilitarianism entails that only consequences of moral actions matter and consequences which lead to maximization of well-being for maximum number of agents ought to be preferred. According to previous studies, objective social class can positively predict utilitarian moral judgment, but there is no study about the relationship between subjective social class and utilitarian moral judgment. According to the social rank theory, the psychological root of the class difference is caused by comparing with others, which shaped the individual’s subjective social class. Thus, this study aims to investigate how the subjective social class affect sutilitarian moral judgment, which is helpful to better understand their relationship and extend the relationship to subjective social class. The theory of social cognitive suggests that class-based social cognitive patterns are shaped by the pervasive social goals, values, and expectations. Different subjective social class construct social cognition and belief differently. For example, the person who holds higher subjective social class tend to form independent self-construction, and prefer competition more than cooperation, which is the core of zero-sum game beliefs. Therefore, this study assumed that these innate cognition and intuition-based beliefs may play a mediating role between subjective social class and utilitarian moral judgment. In this study, independent self-construal and zero-sum game belief have been introduced as two mediating variables to explore their effects in the relationship between subjective social class and utilitarian moral judgment. In sum, this paper aimed to explore the relationship between subjective social class and moral judgment, and to examine the serial mediating role of independent self-construal and belief of zero-sum game.
We recruited 523 participants and utilized the moral judgment questionnaire, the MacArthur Scale of subjective social class, the self-construal scale, and the zero-sum game belief scale. Results show that: (1) The subjective social class can predict the utilitarian moral judgment positive significantly. (2) The independent self-construal and belief of zero-sum game plays a chain mediating role in the relationship between subjective social class and moral judgment. (3) Belief of zero-sum game plays a suppressing effect between the relationship of subjective social class and the utilitarian moral judgment. After controlling for the self-construal, the belief of zero-sum game can weaken the direct effect between subject social class and the utilitarian moral judgment.
The results of this study reveal a continuous mediating model, which is the basis of the relationship between subjective social class and moral judgment. We know that subject social class is formed by comparing with others, which is a sense of relationship between self and others. The belief of zero-sum game, on the other hand, is one’s belief about the world. Both are social factors that can affect our moral judgment. The findings extend the relationship between objective social class and moral judgment to subjective social class and support the hypothesis that there is a complex connection between subjective social class and utilitarian moral judgment. This conclusion contributes to a better understanding of how social factors affect moral judgment.

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The Effects of Intergenerational Supports on Depressive Symptoms for Older Adults: The Mediate Effect of Attitude toward Ageing and The Moderate Effect of Urban-Rural Disparity

Shi Jiaming, Liu Xiaoting

2024, 47(3): 695-702. DOI: 10.16719/j.cnki.1671-6981.20240323

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Depressive Symptoms for older adults have become one of the serious health problems in the ageing society of China, which has numerous negative effects on wellbeing for older adults. It is meaningful to investigate the potential mechanism of depressive symptoms and intergenerational supports within family under the social transition of traditional cohesion of filial piety in China, especially to explore the association between social supports providing from children and the depressive symptoms for older parents, even though the results are usually mixed. The mechanisms underlying how intergenerational supports affect depressive symptoms is fairly limited. The attitude toward ageing is the internal experience and evaluation on the process of ageing for older adults. Drawing from cognitive-behavioral theories of depression and socioemotional selectivity theory, this study constructs a mediation model that intergenerational supports affect depressive symptoms through attitude toward ageing. In addition, as the long-time of urban and rural division in China, this effect of intergenerational supports on attitude toward ageing and depressive symptoms for older people demonstrates the disparities in rural and urban areas. However, very few studies have explored the urban-rural differences in the effects of intergenerational supports on attitude toward ageing and depressive symptoms. In response to the research gap, the current study explores the moderating effects of urban-rural disparities on these associations.
The 2014 wave of China Longitudinal Aging Social Survey (CLASS) was employed in this study. The 2014 wave of CLASS was conducted in 28 provinces across mainland China, with 11,511 samples included in the survey. In the analyses, this study excluded those failed to pass the cognitive function examination prepared in advance as well as the samples with missing data of key variables. Finally, a total number of 4,188 samples was selected, with 2,823 in urban and 1,365 in rural areas. SPSS 23.0, the program PROCESS, and Amos 20.0 were used in this study to analyze data. At first, this study examined the common method deviation analysis. Secondly, this study reported the descriptive results and the correlation analysis between main variables. Thirdly, the bootstrap estimation procedure in PROCESS was employed to investigate the mediating role of attitude toward ageing on the association between intergenerational supports and depressive symptoms. At last, PROCESS was applied to explore the moderating role of urban-rural disparities on the effects of intergenerational supports on attitude toward ageing and depressive symptoms.
The results are as follows: (1) Intergenerational supports are significantly associated with older adults’ depressive symptoms. (2) The attitude toward ageing plays a mediating role in the relationship between intergenerational supports and depressive symptoms. (3) Although the urban-rural disparity doesn’t significantly moderate the associations between intergenerational supports and attitude toward ageing, the urban-rural differences on the relationships between intergenerational supports and depressive symptoms are significant: intergenerational economic support and care support have higher significant effects in reducing rural elderly’s depressive symptoms than urban older adults.
Some theoretical and practical contributions are proposed by the study. The results suggest that intergenerational supports are significantly associated with depressive symptoms for older adults. Furthermore, the results present a framework through exploring the mediating effects of attitude toward ageing, which clarifies the underlying mechanism between intergeneration supports and depressive symptoms, and also inspire the future intervention of reducing older adults’ depressive symptoms. In addition, intergenerational economic and care supports are more significantly related to rural group, which reveals that the lack of formal social support systems for rural elderly persons causes them over dependent on informal family intergeneration supports. It’s urgent and necessary to bridge the gaps of formal support system for older people in rural areas, such as pension, medical insurance and long-term care services.

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Effect of Maximizing Tendency on Choice Deferral:The Serial Mediating Role of Processing Depth and Choice Difficulty

Wang Huaiyong, Wu Jun, Wang Xinhui

2024, 47(3): 703-710. DOI: 10.16719/j.cnki.1671-6981.20240324

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People often do not decide right away. Instead, they defer their decision to return to it at later time, and it be defined as choice deferral. This phenomenon refers to a situation in which an individual chooses not to choose for the time being. Previous research mainly focused on the cognitive and emotional factors that affect choice deferral, however, with the rising of research on individual differences in decision making, recently more and more scholars begin to explore whether different people have different preferences on choice deferral. For instance, some studies demonstrated that older adults were more likely than young adults to choose the deferral option, and compared to promotion-focus individuals, prevention-focus individuals were more likely to delay their choices and so on. As one of the important individual difference variables, decision-making styles have become a hot research topic. Schwartz et al. (2002) suggested that people vary in the extent to which they seek the best during choice—some people were more likely to try to maximize, while others were content to satisfy. As far as we know, there is no research to explore the effect of maximizing tendency on choice deferral. Therefore, the purpose of the present research uses the information board technique to reveal the effect of maximizing tendency on choice deferral and the underlying information processing mechanism.
The current research employed one factor (decision-making style: maximizing/satisficing) between-subject design, used the revision of the Maximization Scale to measure decision-making style, and took choice deferral, information processing mode (processing time, depth and pattern) and choice difficulty as dependent variables. The experiment was conducted on computer. Firstly, the participants were required to complete multi-attribute decision task, and made their deferral choice. Secondly, subjects’ subjective rating of the difficulty experienced in the process of decision-making was record. Lastly, subjects reported the revision of the Maximization Scale and personal information, and the experiment was finished. The results from the experiment indicated that: (1) Maximizing tendency was significantly positively correlated with choice difficulty and choice deferral, specifically, compared to satisficers, maximizers were more likely to experience choice difficulty, and delay their choice; (2) Maximizing tendency was significantly positively correlated with information processing mode, specifically, maximizers were inclined to spend more time, search more depth on processing, and show more preference for alternative-based search pattern. (3) Processing depth and choice difficulty respectively mediated the effect of maximizing tendency on choice deferral. (4) Maximizing tendency affected choice deferral through the serial mediating effect of processing depth→choice difficulty.
In sum, these results suggested that maximizing tendency had different preferences on choice deferral, moreover, processing depth and choice difficulty could explain the effect of maximizing and satisficing style on choice deferral to some extent. Our findings could not only enrich the literature of decision-making style and choice deferral, but also contribute to understanding of how to provide the appropriate marketing strategy for individuals with different decision-making styles.

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Lower Class Perception Impedes Prosociality among Higher Objective Class People in China

Ding Yi, Ji Tingting

2024, 47(3): 711-717. DOI: 10.16719/j.cnki.1671-6981.20240325

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What does it do to people when they are rich or poor? Do they differ in their patterns of prosociality towards others? For example, are the rich more or less likely to share their wealth with others? These questions are relevant to any society, but perhaps even more so in contemporary China which faces a transition to greater wealth as well as greater differences in wealth. Some research from western societies suggests that relative to lower class individuals, individuals from upper class backgrounds tend to show less generosity and behave more self-serving. They also focus more on their personal goals and show less compassion toward others. We should note, however, this line of evidence is somewhat inconsistently observed across methods or samples. Here we test the effect of social class on prosociality in China, a large country which faces a transition to greater wealth but also stronger wealth inequality. There are reasons to believe that such effect may be different in China. Note that individualistic cultures such as the United States emphasize the importance of autonomy and the pursuit of personal goals, whereas collectivistic cultures such as China emphasize the importance of interdependent self-construal and the pursuit of collective goals.
In this research, using both nationwide and university student samples in China, we conducted two studies to test how objective and subjective social class influence prosociality. In Study 1, we measured participants’ objective and subjective social class and assessed their prosociality by asking them to report the percent of annual income that they spent on charitable donations last year. In Study 2, we measured participants’ objective social class and manipulated subjective social class by asking participants to compare themselves to the people at the very bottom (or top) of the social ladder. To measure participants’ prosociality, we observed the offer they send to another participant in a dictator game. Notably, as the costs of prosociality rise, the likelihood and magnitude of prosociality diminish. Thus, the effect of social class on prosociality cannot rule out an alternative explanation that prosociality is simply less affordable for lower class participants. To address this issue, Study 2 also created a third-party dictator game in which participants would play on behalf of the other player, thus prosociality in the third-party dictator game is costless, making higher- and lower-class participants’ prosociality more comparable. In addition, Study 2 tested the potential mechanisms (e.g., feelings of social responsibility) that explained the effects of social class on prosociality.
The two studies reveal three key findings. First, in China, higher objective social class participants behaved in a more selfish fashion when they were perceived to have lower (but not higher) subjective social class. Second, such effect could be explained by feelings of social responsibility. Third, the cost of prosociality did not moderate this class effect on prosociality.
These findings underline the importance of studying samples beyond WEIRD (Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, and Democratic) to address issues on social class and prosociality, and suggest that the wealthy in China are less prosociality when they feel that they are less wealthy. Importantly, recent evidence indicates that Chinese people tend to be more lower-class identification. Taken together, a lower-class identification might damage the prosocial mindset among (wealthy) Chinese people.

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The Effects of Advice Seeker’s Gaze Direction and Expression on Advice Giving

Song Aijia, Duan Jinyun

2024, 47(3): 718-725. DOI: 10.16719/j.cnki.1671-6981.20240326

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Advice giving is a new hot topic in behavioral decision research. For the recipient, advice is helpful in many situations. However, the proposer is faced with relatively difficult work, and usually is difficult to judge whether his proposal is useful or welcome in advance. Advice is not always needed, advice giving can be perceived as challenging and face-threatening. Individuals usually collect sufficient information and consider before giving advice.
In this interpersonal interaction process, facial information is first involved, yet few researches have probed into the effects of the combination of gaze direction and expression, which are both significant facial signals during communication. To fill this gap, this study focuses on the influences of gaze direction and expression of the advice seeker on advisor’s advice giving, exploring the mediating effects of advisor’s perceived authenticity and state prosocial motive. Based on the Shared Signal Hypothesis, individuals have a greater sensitivity for the congruent emotion-gaze combination. The congruent expression-gaze signal enhances relative emotion perception and increases advice taking. Furthermore, during the advice-giving process, the authenticity of emotional performance is an important dimension that affects adviser's trust on the advice seeker, and the degree of a person's being trust is closely related to his or her persuasiveness and influence. Also, adviser will spontaneously generate moral emotion and state prosocial motivation according to the need of help from others, which may play a role as well.
This research used a mixed design -- 2 gaze direction (forward and strabismus; between subjects) * 2 expressions (sad and smile). Subjects were recruited through an online platform and randomly assigned to the forward group or strabismus group. There were 81 participants (38 males) with an average age of 29.35 years (± 5.53 years).
The results showed that: (1) When advice seekers’ signals of gaze direction and expression are consistent, advisors are more likely to take the advice. Specifically, compared with the front sad face group, when seeing a strabismus sad face, advisors are more inclined to give advice. (2) Advisor’s perceived authenticity and state prosocial motive play as mediators between advice seeker’s gaze direction and advice giving. We confirmed that specific combination of gaze direction and expression has different effect on advice giving, which is of great significance to the development of theoretical and practical research in the field of advice giving. Our results supported the shared signal theory and the EASI model. Meanwhile, the importance of contextual factors such as gaze direction on facial expression understanding is emphasized. In addition, the revelation of the mediations of advisor’s perceived authenticity and state prosocial motive is instructive to the field of behavioral decision research. We measured the perceived authenticity of advisors, emphasizing the importance of individuals' subjective perception, and fill in some gap that need to be supplemented in related fields. The results suggest that, in the process of seeking advice, we can better promote others' advices by maintaining the consistency of the signals of expression and gaze direction.

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Adolescent Smartphone Addiction and Unintentional Procrastination: The Mediating Role of Attentional Control and the Moderating Role of Self-Expansion via Smartphone

Liu Qinxue, Tian Zhonghe, Qi Di, Wu Jayin, Zhou Zongkui

2024, 47(3): 726-733. DOI: 10.16719/j.cnki.1671-6981.20240327

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Smartphone has been exceedingly popular among adolescents and becomes an essential tool for communicating, looking for information, and having fun. However, the extensive use of smartphones leads to smartphone addiction, which brings many negative consequences, such as procrastination.
Procrastination was usually regarded as a failure of self-regulation. However, recently, the Metacognitive Model of Procrastination has proposed that procrastination can be further divided into intentional procrastination and unintentional procrastination (UP). Studies have shown that UP, which is passive, involuntary, and with negative metacognitive beliefs and feelings, can better predict negative consequences such as depression, anxiety, and failure in academic achievements than intentional and general procrastination. Thus, this study took the concept of UP to better illuminate the mechanism of how smartphone addiction was related to UP. According to prior studies, smartphone addiction may be an important factor that influences the UP in adolescents. Therefore, this study attempted to examine the relation between the two variables and the underlying mechanism.
Attentional control is the ability to consciously activate, focus and shift attention during interference. Empirical studies have found that smartphone addiction could damage one’s attentional control. Meanwhile, according to the Self-Regulatory Executive Functioning Theory and the Metacognitive Model of Procrastination, the derogation of attentional control may be related with UP. Therefore, attentional control may mediate the relation between smartphone addiction and UP among adolescents.
From the perspective of the self-expansion model and the role of smartphone in our life, prior researchers proposed the concept of self-expansion via smartphone. We inferred that adolescents’ level of self-expansion via smartphone would moderate the relation between smartphone addiction and attentional control.
The present study constructed a moderated mediation model to explore the effect of smartphone addiction on adolescents’ UP, and further explore the mediating role of attentional control and the moderating role of self-expansion via smartphone. A sample of 866 students (44.9% males; Mage = 16.00 years, SD = .84 years) from two regular high schools completed the Smartphone Addiction Scale for College Students, the Attentional Control Scale, the Unintentional Procrastination Scale, and the Mobile Phone Self-Expansion Scale. SPSS 24.0 and SPSS macro PROCESS were used to manage and analyze data.
The results indicated that: (1) Adolescent smartphone addiction positively predict UP. (2) Attentional control (including distraction and shifting) played a partial mediating role between adolescent smartphone addiction and UP. (3) Self-expansion via smartphone moderates the relation between smartphone addiction and distraction but not shifting. Specifically, when the level of self-expansion via smartphone is higher, smartphone addiction predicted distraction more significantly.
The study revealed the mechanisms in the relation between adolescent smartphone addiction and UP. Smartphone addiction could influence adolescents’ UP through attentional control, and the mediation effect of attentional control was influenced by self-expansion via smartphone. Moreover, the present study extended previous research and provided empirical implications for the prevention of procrastination and how to reduce the negative consequences of smartphone addiction. We could reduce adolescents’ tendency to complete self-expansion via smartphone and train their attentional control ability to reduce the negative effects of smartphone addiction.

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Two-Step Differential Item Functioning Detection Procedures without A Priori Information

Han Yuting, Yuan Kehai, Liu Hongyun

2024, 47(3): 734-743. DOI: 10.16719/j.cnki.1671-6981.20240328

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Differential item functioning (DIF) analysis plays a crucial role in determining the fairness and validity of educational assessments. Most traditional DIF analysis techniques rely on pre-defined anchor items that are assumed to be DIF-free. Unfortunately, if these anchor items themselves exhibit DIF, the results may be biased or even misleading. To address this issue, this article proposes a novel two-step DIF detection process inspired by the DIF detection method without prior information proposed by Yuan et al. (2021).
The difficulty-difference quantile-quantile (D-QQ) plot is a scatterplot that depicts the actual difference in difficulty between two groups of test items on the vertical axis against the theoretical difference in difficulty obtained by Monte Carlo methods under the null hypothesis (that there are no DIF items in the test) on the horizontal axis. If the test does not contain DIF, then the observed differences in difficulty between the items in the reference and target groups should match these of the Monte Carlo. Then the D-QQ plot will fall on a line. In the first step, the items that fall on the line of the D-QQ plot are selected as anchor items. In the second step, these anchor items are combined with traditional DIF methods for the actual analysis. The two-step DIF detection method proposed in this article includes a number of methods, including combining the anchor items selected in the first step with the MH method, known as the two-step MH method, and combining them with the Wald method, known as the two-step Wald method.
Two empirical studies were conducted using these DIF detection methods to analyze the datasets from the 2012 Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) math test and a language proficiency test for first grade middle school students in a certain region of China, demonstrating the practical application of the two-step DIF detection procedures.
A Monte Carlo simulation study was conducted to compare five DIF detection methods. They are the two-step MH method, the two-step Wald method, the original MH and Wald methods, and the Graphical DIF Detection Method based on the Relative Change of Item Difficulty Difference (RCD). The empirical Type I error rate and statistical power of these methods were compared under various combinations of the number of examinees, the number of test items, different patterns of DIF occurrence, and DIF size. Additionally, the impact of the number of anchor items on the two-step MH method, the two-step Wald method, and the RCD method was explored by simulation.
The results of the simulation study indicated that sample size and actual levels of DIF make little difference on the average empirical Type I error rate for various DIF detection methods. But they significantly affect statistical power. That is, the larger the sample size and the greater the DIF values, the higher the average statistical power of the DIF detection methods. The study also showed that when the test length was between 20 and 40, selecting the middle four items on the x = y line of the D-QQ plot as anchor items resulted in desirable outcomes. And the two-step DIF procedures performed optimally with respect to empirical type I error rate and statistical power, even when half of the items exhibited DIF. The RCD method performed well under most conditions, though its type I error rates were slightly inflated when the test contains DIF items favoring both reference and target groups (the balanced condition). Meanwhile, the MH and Wald methods with purification were ineffective in detecting DIF items when 10 out of the 20 total items favoring one group. However, when the sample size for each group is less than 2000 and under balanced conditions, the statistical power of the two-step methods might be slightly lower than that of the original MH and Wald methods. The empirical study confirmed the feasibility of the new approach in detecting DIF with real data, and demonstrated that the D-QQ plot allowed for a visual evaluation of the plausibility of each method.
The two-step DIF detection procedures proposed in this article offer a more effective and reliable solution for ensuring the fairness of educational tests. The proposed methods, based on the idea of the DIF detection method without prior information, allow for the identification of anchor items by visual inspection, instead of relying on predefined a priori information. The results of both simulation and empirical studies demonstrate the effectiveness of these approaches and their superiority over existing methods. The statistical rationale underlying the proposed approaches is sound and has the potential for broader applications.

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Person-Fit in Cognitive Diagnostic Assessment

Yu Xiaofeng, Tang Qian, Qin Chunying, Li Yujun

2024, 47(3): 744-751. DOI: 10.16719/j.cnki.1671-6981.20240329

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Cognitive Diagnostic Assessment (CDA) is a widely used educational assessment. It can provide guidance for further study and teaching by analyzing whether the test-takers have acquired knowledge points or skills. In psychometrics, statistical methods for assessing the fit of an examinee’s item responses to a postulated psychometric model are often called person-fit statistic. The person-fit analysis can help to verify diagnostic results, and is mainly used to distinguish the abnormal examinees from the normal ones. The abnormal response patterns include “sleeping” behavior, fatigue, cheating, creative responding, random guessing responses and cheating with randomness, all of which can affect the deviation of examinee’s ability estimation. The person-fit analysis can help researchers identify the abnormal response patterns more accurately, so as to delete the abnormal responding examinees and improve the validity of the test. In the past, most of the person fit researches were mainly carried out under the Item Response Theory (IRT) framework, while only few papers have been published dealing with person-fit under the CDM framework. This study attempts to fill a gap in the literature by introducing new methods. In this study, a new person fit index (R) was proposed. In order to verify the validity of the newly developed person fit index, this study explores the type I error and statistical test power of R index under different item length, item discrimination and different misfit types of respondent, and compares it with existing methods RCI and l_z. Type I error rate was defined as the proportion of flagged abnormal response patterns by a person fit statistic out of 1,000 generated normal response patterns from the DINA model. The control variables of this study include: the number of subjects is controlled to 1000, the cognitive diagnosis model is chosen as DINA model, the attributes are 6, and the Q matrix is fixed. Finally, to reflect the value of person fit index in practical application, the R index is applied to the empirical data of fractional subtraction. The results show that the type I error of R index is reasonable and stable at .05. In the aspect of statistical test power, with the improvement of item differentiation, the statistical test power of each index in different abnormal examinees is improved. With the increase in the number of items, most of the statistical power show an upward trend. For different types of abnormal subjects, R index perform best in the cases of random guessing responses and cheating with randomness. In the case of fatigue, sleep, and creative responding, the l_zindex perform better. In the empirical data study, the detection rate of abnormal examinees is 4.29%. With the increase of the discrimination of items and the increase of the number of items, the power of R index has improved, and the performance of R index is the most robust when the discrimination of item is low. The R index has a high power for the types of abnormal behavior such as creative responding behavior, random guessing responses and cheating with randomness.

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“The Cost of Caring” : Evaluation and Intervention of Compassion Fatigue

Jiang Yutong, Li Hong, Meng Xianxin

2024, 47(3): 752-759. DOI: 10.16719/j.cnki.1671-6981.20240330

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Empathy and compassion play a vital role in healthcare and have been linked to positive results not only for patients but also for healthcare professionals. However, given the continuous exposure to the suffering of others, the empathy and compassion shown by healthcare professionals can be financially, physically and mentally costly. In other words, being exposed to patients experiencing trauma or distress has adverse effects on professionals’ mental and physical health, and that of the people they care for. The term “compassion fatigue” was coined to describe the phenomenon of exhaustion and dysfunction as a consequence of prolonged exposure to suffering and stress. The present article gives a comprehensive review of literature on causes, symptoms, evaluations, at-risk populations, and interventions of compassion fatigue.
Compassion fatigue is characterized by cognitive reexperiencing (e.g., nightmares, intrusive thoughts), inattention, sleeplessness, sadness, depression, general anxiety, anger and irritability, emotional exhaustion and detachment, negative coping behaviors (e.g., avoidance behaviors), escalation in self-destructive tendencies, reduced work efficiency and satisfaction, decreased capacities to experience sympathy and empathy, and compromised decision-making abilities and caregiving skills. In addition, those experiencing compassion fatigue often have a feeling of professional inadequacy, believing that they are deficient in the capacity for nurturing. Workers in caregiving and public service industries such as psychotherapists, nurses, doctors, and social workers, have been found to be particularly susceptible to compassion fatigue.
Compassion fatigue is generally evaluated on three dimensions, including secondary traumatic stress, burnout, and compassion satisfaction. Secondary traumatic stress, the secondary exposure to extremely or traumatically stressful events, is related to healthcare professionals’ adverse emotions resulting from helping or wanting to help others. Burnout is defined as a state of physical and emotional exhaustion stemming from a chronic state of emotional demand. Compassion satisfaction is defined as the sense of accomplishment derived from helping others, and is associated with the ability to care for others. Compassion fatigue is commonly evaluated by the Professional Quality of Life Scale, which has been widely used in workers in the caregiving and public service industries. The Professional Quality of Life Scale is a self-report questionnaire with 30-item, in which participants are required to report the frequency of their experiences over the past 30 days. Each item is rated on a 6-point Likert scale (ranging from 0 = never to 5 = very often). To calculate scores, responses for each subset of 10 items are summed. Notably, before computing scores, a total of 5 items (1, 4, 15, 17, and 29) need to be reversely coded.
To effectively prevent and reduce compassion fatigue, scholars have explored factors that influence the development of compassion fatigue, and found that social support and self-care are two important factors that can reduce compassion fatigue. Social support can enhance compassion satisfaction, and thereby reducing healthcare professionals’ compassion fatigue. Self-care can boost resilience, which in turn reduces professionals’ compassion fatigue. Thus, giving social support to healthcare professionals and teaching healthcare professionals about knowledge of self-care may be effective strategies for preventing and reducing compassion fatigue in healthcare professionals.
In summary, the focus of previous studies has primarily been on the causes and symptoms of compassion fatigue. However, there are limited studies focusing on at-risk populations, and on the evaluation and intervention of compassion fatigue. In terms of at-risk populations and evaluations, previous research has centered on workers in the healthcare industries. Future research should expand the scope of at-risk populations of compassion fatigue and develop evaluation tools that are applicable to diverse at-risk populations. In terms of interventions, some existing programs are complicated and hard to implement. Thus, it is necessary to develop effective and simple interventions. Furthermore, more empirical research is needed to examine the effectiveness of interventions.

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Methodological Consistency of Qualitative Research in Psychology

Yang Liping, Chen Jiamin, Tan Mengge, Qi Lidong, Zhang Huihui

2024, 47(3): 760-767. DOI: 10.16719/j.cnki.1671-6981.20240331

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There is a common phenomenon that researchers using qualitative research in psychology lack of methodological level of thinking, which leads to the inconsistency of methodology, approaches and procedures, and ultimately cause the poor validity of the study. This study attempts to clarify how to achieve the methodological consistency of qualitative research methodology, approaches and procedures, and guide researchers to move from spontaneous to conscious selection of methodological position, approaches and procedures, so that qualitative research can be more rigorous and standardized, and the quality and validity would be improved.
The scientific methodological system is typically divided into three levels: methodology, approaches, and procedures. The primary methodological categories of qualitative research in psychology include post-positivism, phenomenology, hermeneutics, and social constructionism.Qualitative research includes approaches, such as grounded theory, ethnography, phenomenology, psychobiography, and narrative analysis. Different approaches contain various procedures which consist of literature review, question formulation, data collection, and data analysis techniques. The research approach, which is guided by methodology and contains specific procedures, integrates methodology and specific procedures. The matching of methodology, research approach, and procedures is called methodological consistency.
To achieve methodological consistency, firstly, researchers must clarify their methodological status. Researchers applying different research paradigms see the “world” differently, focus on different problems, and solve them in distinct ways. The details and aspects of experience mean a lot in phenomenological research while the “action of language” plays an important role in social constructionist research. Secondly, researchers should be clearly aware of the methodological assumption of the selecting research approach. For example, when using the grounded theory, it can be guided by critical realism or constructionism, which must be clearly demonstrated by the researcher. In addition, whether the research approach is appropriate to the purpose of research need to be considered. Thirdly, the specific research procedures must be consistent with the research approach and methodology. The same research strategies are used in various ways and they have different emphasis in different research approaches and methodologies. The methodology and research approaches somehow determine how researchers ask questions, interview strategies, coding methods, the analysis process, text writing, and so on.
This study argues that methodological consistency can be achieved by following means. Firstly, researchers should be problem-centered and the approach used in the research should be chosen according to the possibility and feasibility of answering the research question. Secondly, researchers can promote methodological consistency by enhancing the reflexivity of their research. Reflexivity is essential to establish rigor and validity and can be demonstrated at all stages of the study. Thirdly, this study proposes that methodological consistency should be included in the criteria for evaluating the quality of qualitative research. Assessing whether the researcher clarifies the methodological position and the consistency of the research orientation, research objectives, research approaches, research procedures, and analytical perspectives can improve the validity of the study.
Although there is no single standard for delineating methodologies, research approaches, and specific research procedures, it is undeniable that the researcher must carefully manage the relationship between methodology, research approach and procedures, and consider how to produce more insightful and meaningful qualitative research by achieving methodological consistency.

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