Subjects: Psychology >> Social Psychology submitted time 2023-03-27 Cooperative journals: 《心理学报》
Abstract： Previous empirical research has found the effect of insight on promoting memory retention during problem solving. Furthermore, neuroimaging studies have revealed that the amygdala, which is assumed to be associated with Aha experience, plays an important role in long-term memory of insightful events. While the emotional Aha experience is a key characteristic of insightful problem solving, some researchers emphasized that the core processes in creating insights involve breaking the mental set and forming novel and valuable associations. However, the cognitive and neural mechanisms underlying the promoting effect of insight on memory have not yet been fully explored. In this study, the paradigm of choice of answers to ChineseChengyu riddles was adopted to investigate how the process of forming novel associations impacts the effect of insight on promoting subsequent memory. Two experiments were conducted in this study. In Experiment 1, the paradigm of choice of answers to ChineseChengyu riddles consisted of two phases. In the learning phase, participants were asked to select the novel and suitable answer to theChengyu riddle from four options; after one week, in the testing phase they were asked to recall the answer that they chose in the learning phase. The novel association and normal association condition were distinguished according to the selections of participants. The paradigm used in Experiment 2 was similar to that of Experiment 1. Additionally, the functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) was used to record the neural activity in the learning phase. The results of Experiment 1 showed that the score of Aha experience in the learning phase and accuracy in the testing phase were significantly higher in the novel association condition compared to the normal association condition. In addition, Experiment 2 showed that the activity in the brain regions related to insight, including the hippocampus, amygdala, middle frontal gyrus, superior temporal gyrus and middle temporal gyrus, were significantly greater in the successful recall compared to the failed recall in novel association condition. Further analysis indicated that successful recall of novel association involved more activity in the right hippocampus compared to the recall of normal association. The current study verified the promoting effect of insight on memory, and indicated that forming novel semantic associations and related activity in the hippocampus may underlie this effect.
Subjects: Psychology >> Clinical and Counseling Psychology submitted time 2022-01-28
Abstract：
Conceptually, prosocial behavior reduces externalizing problems (e.g., aggression) and internalized problems (e.g., depression) because prosocial behavior promotes positive emotions (e.g., to find delight in helping others). Therefore, understanding the development cascades of prosocial behavior tendency, internalizing and externalizing problems is of great value to the promotion of adolescent mental health.
Developmental cascades model describes the above-mentioned process, that is, the function of one domain (level or system) will affect the function of another domain (level or system); as time goes on, multiple interactions in different domains (levels or systems) will produce cumulative effects that can spill over and affect the functions of other domain (level or system) (Masten & Cicchetti, 2010). Researchers usually use longitudinal data to test a developmental cascade model. However, previous studies tend to base their conclusions on Cross-Lagged Panel Models (Kenny, 1975), which cannot sufficiently answer the causally reciprocal relationship the developmental cascade model described because CLPM mixed the between- and within-person effects(Berry & Willoughby, 2017; Hamaker et al., 2015). The results of the within-person analysis, which takes the person himself as the control, is more likely indicating the within-person changes of studied variables and their temporal relationships, and thus are consistent with the theoretical hypothesis of the developmental cascades model (Zyphur et al., 2020). The current study attempts to test the developmental cascades of prosocial behavior tendency, internalizing and externalizing problems in a sample of Chinese adolescents, and to show how the within-person analysis and the analysis based on traditional CLPM influence the conclusions.
The demographic questionnaire together with Prosocial Behavior Tendency (Carlo & Randall, 2002), Depression-Anxiety-Stress Scale (Wang et al., 2016) and Buss Warren Aggression Questionnaire (Maxwell, 2008) were administered in two junior schools for three years. Totally 894 students completed the three-wave investigation. Among them, the age ranged from 11 to 15 years old (12.7 ± 0.60), including 517 boys (57.8%) at the beginning of the investigation. In terms of parents' education level, 94.6% of fathers completed nine-year compulsory education, and 56.9% of them completed high school or above level education; 91.5% of mothers completed nine-year compulsory education, and 52.2% of them completed high school or above level education.
Two models of within-person analysis (RI-CLPM and GCLM) (Hamaker et al., 2015; Zyphur et al., 2020) were used to analyze the data, compared with the traditional CLPM. The data fitting indexes of the three models are all acceptable, but the results are different leading to very different conclusions. Particularly, GCLM can separate within- and between-person effects; (2) GCLM do not assume continuous development in comparison with RI-CLPM. These advantages of GCLM make GCLM have accurate estimates than other two models. Based on the results of GCLM, the research showed that: (1) at the within-person level, prosocial behavior tendency has a moderate or weak co-movements with internalizing and externalizing problems. The prosocial behavior tendency measured at T1 can predict the internalizing problems measured at T2, and the prosocial behavior tendency measured at T2 can predict the externalizing problems measured at T3; (2) For the girl group, the internalizing problems measured at T2 can predict the externalizing problems measured at T3, while in the boy group, the results did not support the reciprocal relationship between internalizing and externalizing problems; (3) The public, submissive, emotional and altruistic factors of prosocial behavior tendency can negatively predict the next-year internalizing problems, and these four factors can negatively predict the externalizing problems measured at T2. These results suggest the value of prosocial behavior as the potential way to promote adolescent’s mental health, within-person analysis in the developmental cascades research, and also indicate that mental health promotion programs should take the gender difference into account.
Peer Review Status:
Awaiting Review
Subjects: Psychology >> Medical Psychology submitted time 2019-12-27
Abstract： " " " " " " "
Subjects: Psychology >> Clinical and Counseling Psychology submitted time 2019-03-13
Abstract： Following the Behavioral Therapy and the Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy (CBT), Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) is considered as one of the third wave of behavioral therapies. ACT is based on the relational frame theory, and its therapeutic model includes 6 components (i.e., acceptance, cognitive defusion, self-as-context, committed action, contact with the present moment, values) and psychological flexibility. What is the empirical evidence for these hypothesized components or mechanisms? In recent years, integrating meta-analysis and structural equation modeling, the meta-analytic structural equation model (MASEM) has made it possible to systematically examine the mechanisms of psychotherapy. Compared to the traditional single randomized controlled trial (RCT) studies, the MASEM combines multiple samples to increase statistical power and obtain more robust model estimates. The current study utilized two-stage structural equation modeling (TSSEM) to examine three aspects of the mechanisms of ACT, including: (1) the mediational effects of psychological flexibility and the 6 components, (2) the unique mechanisms of ACT compared to CBT, and (3) the generalizability of these mechanisms to internet-based ACT interventions. Studies were identified by searching Web of science, PsycARTICLES, PsycINFO, Pubmed, Elsevier, EBSCO, Wiley Online Library from the first available date until November, 2017. We used the search term Acceptance and Commitment Therapy combined with acceptance, cognitive defusion, self-as-context, committed action, contact with the present moment, values, or psychological flexibility. Selection criteria included: (1) adult sample (age > 18), (2) RCT or quasi-experimental design, which measured pre-post change with ACT interventions, (3) quantitative measures of psychological outcomes (clinical or non-clinical) before and after treatment, and (4) quantitative measures of mediational variables at pre and post treatment. Excluding criteria were (1) not having a control group, (2) mixed intervention studies, which integrated ACT with other interventions, or included the Acceptance component but not the complete ACT model, or used CBT with the Acceptance component, and (3) medication treatment as the control group. The metaSEM package in R was used for the TSSEM analysis to examine the mechanisms of ACT. The literature search resulted in 50 studies, involving issues such as pain disorder, personality disorder, depression, anxiety, substance abuse, and work-related burnout among healthy populations. Most studies examined psychological flexibility (k = 39), followed by contact with the present moment (k = 14), acceptance (k = 6), cognitive defusion (k = 9), and values (k = 5), whereas the studies of self-as-context (k = 1) and committed action (k = 1) were excluded from further MASEM analysis due to a low number of publications. Results indicated that (1) the mediational effects of psychological flexibility, acceptance, contact with the present moment, and values were significant, while the effects of cognitive defusion were not significant, (2) the mechanisms of ACT are evident in internet-based interventions, suggesting the generalizability of these mechanisms, and (3) compared to the traditional CBT, the hypothesized mechanisms of ACT have their unique advantages. Implications for future studies: (1) measure all 6 core mechanisms as comprehensively as possible; (2) focus more on the increase of wellbeing as opposed to improvement of symptoms; (3) use RCT based multiple measurements combined with the experience sampling method; and (4) apply more advanced statistical methods in addition to the traditional mediation statistics.
Subjects: Psychology >> Applied Psychology submitted time 2018-11-14
Abstract： Contact intervention is an important way to reduce the public stigma of mental disorders. Various forms of contact have been widely used in intervention studies of this approach, and have proven to be effective in reducing stigma in terms of attitude, emotion, behavior intention and so on. The effect of contact intervention depends on how the intervention is carried out and individual differences of the intervention object. Regarding implementation, effective contact intervention involves three key ingredients: people with mental disorders, information and interaction, which may be affected by certain characteristics. During study, the presence of multi-form contact, continuous contact, contact quality and other ingredients can further magnify the effect of the intervention. As for the intervention object, the effect varies according to individual differences. In the future, the study design for contact intervention should be further improved, to enrich the study of the theoretical mechanism of contact intervention, and promote development of evidence-based practices of contact intervention. In addition, further study will focus on application of contact intervention in reducing public stigma of specific groups and specific types of mental disorders, as well as verification of the effect of contact intervention in the culture of China.
Hits
Hits
Downloads
Comment