Subjects: Psychology >> Developmental Psychology Subjects: Psychology >> Social Psychology submitted time 2024-03-28
Abstract： Sharing our positive feeling with friends or turning to them for help when we are sad is immensely common in daily life. The process by which an individual consciously regulates the emotions of others is called interpersonal emotion regulation. Differ from intrapersonal emotion regulation, interpersonal emotion regulation is influenced by the emotional state of both parties. This study aims to elucidate this influence on interpersonal emotion regulation, including interpersonal emotion regulation effect and strategy selection. Experiencing the same emotions helps to identify other’s emotion and help them control their emotions. If so, we can validate the mood-congruence effect in interpersonal emotion regulation and further explore the underlying mechanisms.
In this study, we used an adapted emotion selection paradigm. 51 pairs of best friends (experiencers and regulators) were randomly chosen from one university and filled out the Friendship Quality Questionnaire prior to the experiment. Each pair of best friends completed the experiment in two separate and quiet rooms. During the formal experiment, both of them were presented with different emotional events and their emotional state were recorded before and after the experiment of interpersonal emotion regulation. And then, the experiencers were asked to anticipate the strategy that the regulator may use. After that, the experiencers were first asked to share their emotional events or mood with the regulators and seek for help via WeChat. The regulators completed emotion regulation after receiving the help signals. The results showed the emotional consistency effect, that is, when the emotions of both sides(experiencers and regulators) were consistent, comparing with the regulation effects when the emotions were inconsistent, both the interpersonal regulation effect of experiencers and the self-regulation effect of regulators were better. Meanwhile when the emotions were inconsistent, negative emotions were preferentially regulated whoever in that emotion state. In addition, only in interpersonal regulation of negative emotions, the strategy matching degree is affected by the emotional state of the regulators. Experiencers experienced better interpersonal regulation in negative emotional states than in positive emotional states.
Based on the finding in Study 1, we speculate that the emotional consistency effect in interpersonal emotion regulation may partly originate from the preferential processing of negative emotions. By sorting through the previous literature, we thought that self-regulation by the regulators may led to the allocation of cognitive resources. Therefore, in Experiment 2 we set up an emotional congruence situation to verify our hypothesis. We randomly recruited 88 friend pairs from one university and divided them into three groups to participate in the experiment, including control group, self-focused attention group , friend-focused attention group. The procedure is similar to Experiment 1. And the difference is that in Experiment 2, the regulators were asked to adjust their attention tendencies to manipulate the cognitive resources allocated to interpersonal emotion regulation, and both of experiencers and regulators were presented with same emotional events. The results revealed that only in negative emotions state, the self-focused attention group has worse interpersonal emotion regulation effect and lower strategy matching degree than those of the friend-focused group.
These suggest that: (1) In interpersonal interaction, the effect of regulating the negative emotions of others is better than that of regulating the positive emotions. (2) Emotional consistency effect exists in interpersonal emotion regulation. That is, the effect of interpersonal emotion regulation is better when both of experiencers and regulators are in the same emotional state. When the emotional states are inconsistent, the regulators preferentially regulates the negative emotions whoever in that emotion state. (3) Only when interpersonal regulating negative emotions occurs, the allocation of cognitive resources caused by attention focusing on friend can effectively improve the strategy selection and regulation effect.
Peer Review Status:
Awaiting Review
Subjects: Psychology >> Social Psychology submitted time 2024-02-02
Abstract： The existing literature on fertility has predominantly focused on analyzing objective factors at macro and micro levels, such as gender, age, income, family relationships, economic situation, and social structure, that impact an individual’s fertility intentions. However, an often overlooked yet equally significant factor lies in an individual’s perception of the social climate surrounding fertility. This factor encompasses attitudes and behaviors related to fertility displayed by similar others. This article presents five studies from a social cognitive perspective aimed at addressing the following questions: (1) How do individuals perceive the fertility attitudes and behaviors of others? (2) To what extent and in what manner does this perception influence an individual’s own fertility intentions? (3) How can we explain this relationship?
This paper presents a comprehensive investigation comprising five studies that focus on individuals born between 1995 and 2005. In Studies 2a, 2b, and 3, we specifically targeted childless individuals. The key variables under examination included perceptions of fertility attitudes, operationalized as individuals’ judgments of the desired family size; perceptions of fertility behaviors, proxied by individuals’ judgments of the magnitude of change in China’s total fertility rate from 2021 to 2022; and fertility intentions, measured using a scale developed by the researchers. Study 1 involved a cross-sectional survey with 904 participants, of which 735 had never given birth. The primary aim of Study 1 was to gain initial insights into how individuals perceive the attitudes/behaviors of others and how these perceptions relate to their own fertility intentions. Studies 2a and 2b utilized experimental designs to establish a causal relationship between the perception of others’ fertility attitudes/behaviors and one’s own fertility intentions. In contrast, Study 3, a three-round longitudinal survey, sought to investigate whether fertility efficacy and perceived responsibility could explain the observed relationships. Lastly, Study 4 represents a single-paper meta-analysis that focuses on effect sizes for the key findings derived from the studies in this paper.
The main results can be summarized as follows: (1) Childless participants consistently displayed a tendency to underestimate others’ fertility attitudes/behaviors, whereas participants who had given birth in Study 1 exhibited an overly optimistic view of others’ fertility attitudes/behaviors. (2) The underestimation of others’ fertility attitudes/behaviors had a consistent suppressive effect on participants’ own fertility intentions. (3) Overly pessimistic views of others’ fertility attitudes/behaviors significantly reduced participants’ fertility efficacy in successfully pursuing fertility, as well as their perception of fertility as a family and social responsibility. Both of these factors, in turn, contributed to a reduction in fertility intentions, with the effect of fertility efficacy being more pronounced. (4) Notably, all key findings exhibited effect sizes ranging from small to moderate, highlighting the nuanced nature of these relationships.
The above findings have significant theoretical and practical implications. Firstly, the results suggest that perceptions of the social climate regarding fertility play a crucial role in an individual’s fertility decisions. Consequently, solely focusing on objective factors may not yield a comprehensive understanding of the intricate processes influencing fertility decisions, thereby bridging a gap in the existing literature. Secondly, the findings imply that a social norms approach can effectively address biased perceptions of others’ attitudes/behaviors toward fertility. By doing so, this approach contributes to bolstering fertility intentions, presenting a valuable complement to current policies that primarily emphasize economic factors.
Subjects: Psychology >> Educational Psychology submitted time 2024-01-11
Abstract： Recent studies from international journals indicated the feasibility of early programming education and its effects on children’s cognitive skills and early academic skills. However, there is a paucity that these studies did not examine how early programming education promoted children’s executive functioning (an essential skill for early academic skills and school readiness). Therefore, the present study aimed to examine the effect of early programming activities on children’s executive functioning. Participants were 32 5-year-old and 6-year-old children (16 boys and 16 girls) attending in the third year of kindergarten in Shanghai, and were randomly divided into two groups, i.e., the experimental group and the control group. Children in both groups received a pretest and posttest of executive functioning. Children in the experimental group attended early programming activities that were performed with Bee-Bot (programming tool) lasted for eight weeks, and they were also evaluated on learning outcomes at the end of all activities. Results showed that children in experimental group had a grasp of the programming ideas and could complete most of the activities. Children in experimental group also performed better on an executive functioning task and were rated higher on working memory scale than these in control group, controlling for the pretest.
Peer Review Status:Awaiting Review
Subjects: Psychology >> Developmental Psychology submitted time 2023-07-02
Abstract： The development of prosocial behaviors (e.g., helping, sharing) is an important part of children’s moral development. Previous research has indicated that the freedom to make choices (whether children make choices for themselves or other people make choices for them) has an important impact on children’s prosocial motivation and behaviors. However, little research has investigated the impact of the relatedness between the child and the adult who makes the choices, or the provision of reasonable explanations on children’s prosocial behaviors. Therefore, across two studies, we investigated how, one, the freedom to make choices, two, the relatedness between children and the adults who make choices for them, and/or three, the provision of reasonable explanations for those choices, may influence children’s prosocial motivation and behaviors. We conducted both studies with children aged 4–5 in China. In Study 1, children were asked to make decisions about sharing stickers with a puppet. They were randomly assigned to one of three choice conditions: self–choice, mother–choice, and experimenter–choice. In the self–choice condition, the child could decide for themselves whether to share with a puppet or not; in the mother–choice condition, the child’s mother instructed the child to share, and in the experimenter–choice condition, the experimenter instructed the child to share. After this, we measured children’s feelings during the sharing task, and their sharing behaviors towards a novel partner. Meanwhile, mothers in the self–choice and the mother–choice conditions completed a questionnaire measuring child–mother relatedness. We found that although there was no overall significant difference in children’s sharing behaviors or feelings across the three conditions, mother-child relatedness significantly moderated the effect of choice condition on children’s sharing feelings. Children who had positive relationships with their mothers demonstrated positive feelings when their mothers made the choice for them, similar to when they made the choice themselves. However, those who had neutral or negative relationships with their mothers, demonstrated worse feelings when their mothers made the choice for them compared to when they made the choice themselves. In Study 2, we employed similar methods, but used the following three conditions: the self–choice condition, the mother reasonable–choice condition (where the mother provided a reasonable explanation for the choice) and the mother unreasonable–choice condition (where the mother forced the child to share without providing a reason). We found that, when sharing with the first puppet, children were significantly more likely to share in the mother reasonable–choice and mother unreasonable–choice conditions than in the self–choice condition. However, when sharing with a new puppet, children in the mother reasonable–choice condition shared more stickers than those in the self–choice condition or the mother unreasonable–choice condition. Taken together, these two studies show that children’s prosocial motivations do not necessarily decrease when others make choices for them. Instead, for children positively connected with their mothers, following their mother’s choices can lead to positive feelings to a similar degree as those experienced when making choices themselves. Additionally, mothers’ reasonable choices and guidance can facilitate subsequent sharing behaviors. The findings of this study have significant implications about the development of preschoolers' prosocial motivation.
Subjects: Psychology >> Social Psychology submitted time 2023-03-28 Cooperative journals: 《心理科学进展》
Abstract： Interpersonal synchrony (IS) is the co-occurrence of speech features, behavior as well as physiological and neurological activities of two individuals or more. Over the past decade, ever-increasing advancement in the measurement methods of this phenomenon has prompted researchers to make a thorough investigation into almost every aspect of interpersonal interactions, an important research field of which is the therapeutic interaction between the counselor and the client in psychological counseling. Clinical psychologists attempt to reveal the interactional patterns between the psychological counselor and the client and to understand the mechanism underlying the successful establishment of working alliance from the perspective of interpersonal synchrony. This, to a large extent, has addressed the predicament in the study of alliance, that is, a lack of research on interactional features between the counselor-client dyad combined with outdated measurement methods solely dependent on self-report data. To elucidate the interactional features of alliance, researchers mainly focus on the relation between non-verbal synchrony, physiological synchrony as well as interpersonal brain synchrony and working alliance together with its influencing factors. They found that physiological synchrony between the psychological counselor and the client indicated more positive working alliance, and might serve as an objective measure of the counselor's degree of empathy; however, the bidirectional relationship between non-verbal synchrony and alliance and the likelihood of non-verbal synchrony acting as a supplementary form of assessment of alliance quality still require further investigation. Besides, interpersonal brain synchrony has the potential to be an additional neurological indicator of the successful formation of alliance. In terms of the mechanism underlying the successful establishment of alliance, extant theories, such as Shared Intentionality Theory, Polyvagal Theory, Social Psychological Theory, Resilience Model and so on, illuminate the rationale behind how interpersonal synchrony brings forth working alliance and even therapeutic effect. Besides, Oxytocin Synchrony Hypothesis focuses on the biological mechanism of the formation of alliance while Interpersonal Synchrony Model (In-Sync Model) combines different modes of interpersonal synchrony (i.e., non-verbal synchrony and interpersonal brain synchrony) and provides a more integrative theory to uncover the mechanism. Nevertheless, there are still some key issues yet to be addressed in this research field. First, whether interpersonal synchrony can act as an objective indicator of the successful formation of alliance requires further evidence. Additionally, while it is vital to differentiate between different components of alliance (i.e., trait-like component and state-like component) and different types of non-verbal synchrony (i.e., counselor-led synchrony and client-led synchrony), extant research seldom takes the dynamic nature of interpersonal synchrony into account and investigates its contribution to the state-like component of alliance. Furthermore, there still lack theories and empirical evidence devoted to integrating different modes of interpersonal synchrony to uncover the interactional features during the formation of alliance, with the majority of current theories only centered on a single mode of interpersonal synchrony; although the In-Sync Model tries to take both non-verbal synchrony and interpersonal brain synchrony into account, it lacks empirical validation and requires further refinements. Future researchers should integrate different types and modes of interpersonal synchrony when studying its relation with alliance and other influencing factors, pay more attention to the dynamics of interpersonal synchrony alongside the change of working alliance, develop more integrative theories to reveal the essence of working alliance, and, in clinical practice, promote the type of interaction in psychological counseling that features interpersonal synchrony between the psychological counselor and the client.
Subjects: Psychology >> Social Psychology submitted time 2023-03-27 Cooperative journals: 《心理学报》
Abstract： Bounded rationality theory derives from contemporary cognitive psychology, manifests itself in economics, and radiates to many disciplines. However, different opinions exist on what bounded rationality is and what it means to people, not only causing confusion in theory but also bringing confusion in practice. The purpose of this study is to: (1) clarify the essential meaning of bounded rationality from the philosophical and historical backgrounds of human rational evolution; (2) put forward different views on the value of bounded rationality; (3) summarize the far-reaching historical significance and theoretical value of existing achievements. The author points out that bounded rationality is not the optimization under constraint, not to mention the irrationality. In essence, it is an objective description of the level of human rational evolution and development so far, that is, human beings are rational either in the attitude to reality or in the ability to recognize and transform reality. However, limits to human rationality are observed. Bounded rationalists question popular rationalism in contemporary social science and the reliability of the methodology and knowledge system derived from it, but they do not question rationality itself. They eliminate the dualism thinking mode of rationalism or irrationalism in history, which provides us with a new perspective to understand the nature of rationality from the resource, quantitative, and dynamic development views. In the sense of value rationality, bounded rationality is defective, but in the sense of instrumental rationality, bounded rationality is reasonable, so finding a proper balance point between them is necessary. The concept of bounded rationality in psychology and its extensive influence have led to another human rational evolution after the “probability revolution” of the Renaissance. It is one of the most important contributions made by this discipline to the treasure house of human thought and knowledge. It not only has far-reaching historical significance but also has interdisciplinary methodological significance.
Subjects: Psychology >> Social Psychology submitted time 2023-03-27 Cooperative journals: 《心理学报》
Abstract： Traumatic events have been recognized as important precipitants of sleep problems. Meanwhile, traumatic insomnia is one of the criteria for diagnosing post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). However, whether trauma-induced sleep problems are secondary symptoms of PTSD or a core feature of PTSD has not yet reached a consistent conclusion. Recently, the emerging cross-lagged panel network analysis method has played an important role in understanding the role of symptoms in psychopathology. The advantage is that the role of each symptom can be systematically analyzed, and the longitudinal predictive pathway of each symptom can be estimated, thereby inferring the leading symptoms of psychiatric disorders. The present study aims to explore the role of trauma-induced sleep problems in the evolution of PTSD among children and adolescents through the cross-lagged panel network analysis. Three months after the Zhouqu debris flow, we started this 2-year longitudinal study. Three assessments were performed at 3 months (T1), 15 months (T2) and 27 months (T3) after the disaster. We enrolled students from 2 primary schools and 3 secondary schools in the hardest-hit areas. Ultimately, 1, 460 children and adolescents completed three rounds of evaluation. At T1, there were 702 students from grades 4 to 6, and 758 students from grades 7 to 9. The average age of the participant was 12.89 (SD = 2.29). Symptoms of PTSD were assessed with the University of California at Los Angeles PTSD Reaction Index based on the DSM-IV. The cross-lagged panel network analysis was conducted using R packages glmnet and qgraph. Results showed that at T1→T2, sleep problems had the highest out-expected influence centrality, followed by physiological cue reactivity. They were sources of activation for the nodes receiving its edges, that is, they were easy to activate other symptoms in the PTSD network. Sleep problems at T1 positively predicted a lot of other PTSD symptoms at T2, including intrusive thoughts, nightmares, flashbacks, emotional cue reactivity, restricted positive affect, restricted negative affect, irritability/anger, hypervigilance and exaggerated startle response. The results also revealed several indirect influence paths such as sleep problems predicting nightmares then affecting flashbacks. However, when it comes to T2→T3, it is detachment rather than sleep problems that had the highest out- expected influence. It positively predicted diminished interest, restricted positive affect, sleep problems and irritability/anger. We also found some feedback loop: detachment→ restricted positive affect→diminished interest→detachment. This is the first study to explore activation paths of PTSD symptoms among children and adolescents through the cross-lagged panel network analysis. These findings have improved the understanding of the role of trauma-induced sleep problems in the long-term development of PTSD. The results showed that sleep problems at 3 months after the disaster activated a large number of symptoms in PTSD at 15 months after the disaster. Therefore, it is inferred that early sleep problems were the core symptom in the development of PTSD among children and adolescents in the early post-disaster period. However, its predictability decreased in the later period (15 months to 27 months). In conclusion, these findings emphasize the time specificity of the impact of traumatic sleep problems on PTSD symptoms. We recommend that trauma-induced sleep problems should be given greater priority in the diagnostic criteria for PTSD among children and adolescents in the early post-disaster period. Meanwhile, early psychological assistance should vigorously develop treatments based on sleep problems to prevent the occurrence and development of PTSD. One year or longer after the traumatic event, the intervention target should be set to physiological cue reactivity and detachment.
Subjects: Psychology >> Social Psychology submitted time 2022-12-09
Abstract：
Job candidates and competitors aim to earn admission or high ratings. People tend to avoid displaying their skills in front of an expert due to the prediction that they will be rated unfavorably because the expert can accurately evaluate their level of skill. However, is this prediction accurate? The present research proposes a misprediction: candidates will undervalue the advantages of showing skills in front of an expert. This is because evaluators partially base their evaluations on the pride elicited by alluding to their expertise, whereas candidates base their predictions on whether their competence will be accurately evaluated but neglect evaluators’ pride. Eight studies (N = 1,888) demonstrated the proposed misprediction and tested its underlying mechanism. In Study 1, we assigned the participants to the candidate or the evaluator condition. The candidates made an incentive-compatible prediction on how they would be more likely to be admitted by displaying their skills in front of an expert or a non-expert. The evaluators admitted one between a candidate displaying skills in the evaluators’ area of expertise and a candidate displaying skills outside the evaluators’ area of expertise. The results showed that the evaluators preferred the candidate who showcased skills in the evaluators’ area of expertise. However, the candidates avoided doing so, which reduced their chances of admission. Studies 2 and 3 replicated the results in Study 1 with different competition forms (promotion or elimination) and domain assignments (active choice or passive assignment). These studies ruled out two alternative explanations that the evaluators preferred the candidate who showcased skills in the evaluators’ area of expertise solely because they were similar to the candidate or could easily evaluate the candidate. Studies 4 and 5 manipulated the candidates’ motivation to win the competition and their level of competence, respectively, to test whether they avoided displaying skills in front of experts due to the concern that their competence could be evaluated accurately by experts. The results indicated that the candidates showed a stronger misprediction and were less likely to showcase skills in front of experts when they highly (vs. less) desired to win the competition or had a lower (vs. higher) competence. Study 6 prompted the candidates to empathize with evaluators. We asked the candidates to think about their feelings when others made references to their expertise. As a result, the candidates were aware of their pride and made a more accurate prediction. Study 7 manipulated the evaluators’ pride to test whether they preferred the candidate who displayed skills in the evaluators’ area of expertise because that they felt pride when their expertise was referred to. The results revealed that the evaluators with lower (vs. higher) pride were less likely to admit the candidates who displayed skills in the evaluators’ area of expertise. In Study 8, we recorded the participants’ real-time thoughts during their decision making. The results again showed that the candidates focused on their competence during their decision-making process, whereas the evaluators’ preferences were affected by their pride. In addition, the real-time thoughts led to the underestimation about the benefits of displaying skills in front of an expert. We reveal that people fail to accurately predict the effect of a self-presentation strategy. Candidates undervalue the strategy of displaying skills in front of experts due to the empathy gap that they neglect the pride experienced by experts. Consequently, candidates mistakenly avoid displaying skills in front of experts and thus miss the chance to earn admission. Besides, we offer a feasible approach to reduce such a bias. Our findings encourage candidates to empathize with evaluators and strategically perform to experts.
Peer Review Status:Awaiting Review
Subjects: Psychology >> Psychological Measurement Subjects: Psychology >> Applied Psychology Subjects: Medicine, Pharmacy >> Preventive Medicine and Hygienics submitted time 2022-12-06
Abstract：
Objective Simplify health literacy scales and conduct psychometric tests in Chinese cohorts. Methods A total of 7449 residents were included in the evaluation of the scale, and the data were randomly generated into 2 data sets for de Results A 9-item version of the scale (HLS-SF9) and a 4-item version of the scale (HLS-SF4) were simplified using CTT and the Mokken model, respectively.The Cronbach’s α coefficients of HLS-SF9 and HLS-SF4 were 0.913 and 0.842, HLS-SF4 was tested for one common factor by exploratory factor analysis(EFA), and the results of the confirmatory factor analysis(CFA) of HLS-SF9 showed that all the fitness indicators of its three-dimension model were excellent. And there was a significant positive correlation between the Perceived Social Support Scale and the Family Health Scale Short-Form as the calibration scale (r=0.367, p<0.001; r=0.292, p<0.001) (r=0.340, p<0.001; r=0.266, p<0.001), indicating good empirical validity. At the same time, HLS-SF9 and HLS-SF4 are highly consistent with the content measured by the original version of the scale. Conclusions The simplified Health Literacy Scales have good reliability and validity, and are reliable and effective tools for quickly assessing the health literacy of Chinese people.
Peer Review Status:Awaiting Review
Subjects: Psychology >> Social Psychology submitted time 2021-12-25
Abstract： The prevalence of misprediction hinders conflict management. Therefore, it is imperative to explore mispredictions in conflicts to facilitate effective conflict management. However, research has mainly shed light on mispredictions in non-conflicts and neglected the uniqueness of conflicts. This project investigates mispredictions in conflicts and their mechanisms and consequences. Specifically, the aim of this project is fourfold. First, it explores mispredictions in conflicts and proposes the bias-amplification effect of conflicts. Second, it investigates the negativity driving mechanism of the bias-amplification effect. Third, it examines consequences of the mispredictions in conflicts. Last, it develops effective and feasible interventions to eliminate these mispredictions in conflicts. This project is intended to establish a theoretical model of mispredictions in conflicts. The results help to extend theories on behavioral decision making as well as guide the public and social governance to make accurate predictions about others, to improve conflict management, and to reach high-quality decisions."
Peer Review Status:Awaiting Review
Subjects: Psychology >> Cognitive Psychology submitted time 2021-09-05
Abstract： The recognition of the intentions of observed actions or behaviors is an important social function in the human visual system. Previous research has invested much effort into understanding how the human vision system recognizes object-directed intentions of actions (i.e., actions are implemented to approach physical objects without influencing others). However, actions are also directed to social entities or agents to impact others, which is defined as social intentions (or social interaction intentions). This study aimed to investigate how vision systems recognize social intentions. For the purpose of demonstrating that individuals involved in social interaction are rational and should maximize the utility of actions overall, this paper proposes the hypothesis that when the costs of Agent A helping Agent B to achieve the goal state are less than the costs of Agent B acting alone to achieve this goal state (i.e., cue of minimizing cost), these two agents are recognized with social intentions. To test the above hypothesis, we manipulated the theory of minimizing costs by presenting cartoonized animations that depict how two agents move and influence each other. Specifically, a movable Agent A placed an apple in front of Agent B, who is always stationary. In front of Agent B, a fence was either set in place or not, to operationalize the costs of Agent B achieving the target (i.e., the apple). In this case, when a fence was placed in front of Agent B, his path of achieving the target was blocked; accordingly, when Agent A pushed the apple to the front of Agent B and helped Agent B achieve the target, the costs of Agent B (i.e., path) to achieve the target were less than when Agent B achieved the target alone. However, when there was no fence in front of Agent B, the costs of Agent B achieving the target alone were less than the costs of Agent A helping Agent B to achieve the target. In brief, only when there was a fence in front of Agent B, the actions of Agent A in placing the apple in front of Agent B aligns with the information of minimizing costs, and can be recognized as a social intention; when there was no fence in front of Agent B, the object-directed intention should be attributed, as Agent A approached the target of the apple. To identify the recognized intentions of actions, we measured μ suppression (electroencephalogram oscillations within the 8~13 Hz range in the sensorimotor regions; namely, C3 and C4 channels) related to action understanding. It was suggested that the functional grouping of two individuals in social intentions should induce greater suppression of the representation of individual object-directed actions. To strictly control for the possible low-level differences, the action of Agent A, placing the apple in front of Agent B (i.e., transferring action) was paired with the action of Agent A, placing the apple in front of a stone (i.e., disposing action), which was typically recognized as an object-directed intention, whether the fence was present or not. Each action lasted two seconds, and participants were asked to count the fillers (i.e., incomplete actions) when watching the actions presented on the screen. In Experiment 1, when the fence was present in front of Agent B, the transferring action (M = -17.3% relative to the baseline) induced more μ suppression than the disposing action (M = -8.5%). More importantly, the occipital α with the same frequency band as μ was not modulated by the action type, but this component was suggested to be functional with attentional mechanisms. These results were further confirmed by cluster-based permutation tests without selecting the channels of interest. In Experiment 2, to test whether the effect in Experiment 1 was dependent upon the information of minimizing costs, the fence was removed and accordingly, the critical information was absent. We found that the difference in μ suppression between transferring and disposing actions was insignificant when the fence was not present. To further test the hypothesis proposed in this study, we used a behavioral indicator (i.e., measuring the sensitivity of changes). We manipulated the information of minimizing costs, as in Experiments 1 and 2, but participants engaged in a change detection task. In this task, a set of identical actions were memorized in sequence and participants were required to detect whether anything changed in the test animation compared to those previously memorized. It has been suggested that chunking results in more efficient processing of the configuration (e.g., encoding of interactants’ identity), but involves a cost for the individual parts within it, resulting in a memory confusion effect. Hence, if Agent A is perceived as having a social intention toward Agent B, they should be chunked in memory. Accordingly, participants would be less likely to detect changes within the interaction (i.e., the roles of Agents A and B in an interaction were swapped during the test; defined as role swap), but would be more likely to detect changes in pair composition (i.e., the recipient in an interaction was replaced by the recipient from another interaction, defined as structure change) relative to kinematically identical non-social transferring actions. It was found that in Experiment 3a, when the fence was placed in front of Agent B in the role swap condition, participants were more sensitive to such change in the disposing action (M = 1.97, SE = 0.25) than to the transferring action (M =1.38, SE = 0.24); by contrast, in the structure change condition, the sensitivity of detecting such change in the transferring action (M = 2.04, SE = 0.21) was higher than that of the disposing action (M = 1.51, SE = 0.23). In Experiment 3b, when there was no fence in front of Agent B, participants were even more sensitive to the role swap change than the structure change, but it was not influenced by the action type. It has been widely suggested that the disposing action is attributed to an object-directed intention (i.e., regardless of whether the fence was present or not) and the recognized social intention should induce greater suppression and higher sensitivity for a structure change and lower sensitivity for a role swap change than the recognized object-directed intention. Hence, we concluded that the results, in which the transferring action induced more μ suppression and higher sensitivity for a structure change and lower sensitivity for a role swap change than the disposing action (i.e., when the fence was present), were attributed to the fact that the transferring action was recognized as having a social intention. However, this recognition depends on the information of minimizing costs; otherwise, the difference in μ suppression and different sensitivities of changes between transferring and disposing actions would be observed as well, when the fence was not present. Hence, this study provides solid evidence that when the costs of Agent A helping Agent B to achieve the goal state are less than the costs of Agent B acting alone to achieve this goal state (i.e., minimizing costs), they are recognized with social intentions." "
Peer Review Status:Awaiting Review
Subjects: Psychology >> Management Psychology submitted time 2021-07-31
Abstract： In a voice behavior chain, managers can be both the initiator and the reactor. However, managers can neither solicit employee voice efficiently nor respond to employee voice effectively in practice all the time. Although there has been an increasing amount of research on managerial solicitation, endorsement and evaluation, those topics are separated and unsystematic. To address the managerial puzzle theoretically and practically, we propose the framework of voice behavior chain. Based on the Input-Process-Output Model, we summarize the antecedents and consequences of voice solicitation, voice endorsement, and voice (voicer) evaluation. We aim to depict the roles managers play in the voice behavior chain, and to provide suggestions for the practice in employee voice management.
Peer Review Status:Awaiting Review
Subjects: Psychology >> Social Psychology Subjects: Psychology >> Applied Psychology submitted time 2021-04-02
Abstract： "
Subjects: Psychology >> Personality Psychology submitted time 2021-02-08
Abstract： "
Peer Review Status:Awaiting Review
Subjects: Psychology >> Social Psychology submitted time 2020-11-14
Abstract： In many cases, people intend to offer help but unfortunately cause more troubles to help recipients. After doing so, helpers often expect negative evaluations from help recipients. However, is this prediction accurate? The present research proposes a misprediction: helpers will overestimate the negative impacts (underestimate the positive impacts) of their behaviors on help recipients when they try to help but cause more troubles. The reason for this misprediction is that in contrast to helpers’ predictions about help recipients, help recipients pay more attention to helpers’ warmth and less attention to helpers’ competence. We conducted six studies (N = 1,763) to test the proposed misprediction and test its underlying mechanism. Study 1 adopted a 2 (outcome: success or failure) × 2 (role: helper or help recipient) between-subjects design. Helpers predicted help recipients’ reactions (gratefulness, satisfaction, the likelihood to seek help again, the likelihood to recommend helpers to others), whereas help recipients rated their own reactions. The results showed a misprediction such that helpers exaggerated the negative reactions of help recipients. In addition, the misprediction was specific to failure. In the success condition, helpers made accurate predictions about help recipients’ reactions. These results also ruled out alternative explanations of the spotlight effect and social desirability bias. Studies 2a and 2b adopted an identical design to that in Study 1 and replicated the results in Study 1 in a different scenario by bounded and unbounded scales. In addition, we found the existence of the misprediction made by helpers in both proactive and reactive helping. Study 3 replicated the results by using indicators involving money. In Study 4, with an identical design to that in Study 1, helpers made predictions about how help recipients rated their warmth and competence, whereas help recipients rated helpers’ warmth and competence. Afterwards, helpers predicted help recipients’ reactions, whereas help recipients rated their own reactions. The results showed that helpers underestimated help recipients’ ratings of warmth and competence in the failure condition and that this underestimation accounted for the overestimation of help recipients’ negative reactions. In Study 5, we recorded participants’ real-time thoughts during their prediction or rating process. We found that helpers considered their competence (warmth) earlier and more (later and less) than help recipients, indicating that helpers focused more on their competence and less on their warmth when making predictions about help recipients than help recipients did. The query order and content accounted for the overestimation of help recipients’ negative reactions in the failure condition. We show that people who try to help others but eventually cause more troubles mispredict the reactions of help recipients. Helpers overestimate the negative consequences (underestimate the positive consequences) of their behaviors to help recipients. We also reveal the underlying mechanism of this misprediction that helps recipients pay more attention to helpers’ warmth and less attention to helpers’ competence compared to helpers’ predictions about help recipients. Understanding this misprediction helps alleviate the concerns of helpers when they are intended to offer help but actually do harm to others and helps promote subsequent helping behaviors.
Peer Review Status:Awaiting Review
Subjects: Psychology >> Statistics in Psychology submitted time 2020-10-17
Abstract： P-value is the most widely used statistical index for inference in science. Unfortunately, researchers in psychological science may not be able to interpret p-value correctly, resulting in possible mistakes in statistical inference. Our specific goal was to estimate how nonsignificant results were interpreted in the empirical studies published in Chinese Journals. Frist, We randomly selected 500 empirical research papers published in 2017 and 2018 in five Chinese prominent journals (Acta Psychological Sinica, Psychological Science, Chinese Journal of Clinical Psychology, Psychological Development and Education, Psychological and Behavioral Studies). Secondly, we screened the abstracts of the selected articles and judged whether they contained negative statements. Thirdly, we categorized each negative statement into 4 categories (Correct-frequentist, Incorrect-frequentist: whole population, Incorrect-frequentist: current sample, Difficult to judge). Finally, we calculated Bayes factors based on the t values and sample size associated with the nonsignificant results to investigate whether empirical data provide enough evidence in favor of null hypothesis. Our survey revealed that: (1) 36% of these abstracts (n = 180) mentioned nonsignificant results; (2) there were 236 negative statements in the article that referred to nonsignificant results in abstracts, and 41% negative statements misinterpreted nonsignificant results; (3) 5.1% (n = 2) nonsignificant results can provide strong evidence in favor of null hypothesis (BF01 > 10). The results suggest that Chinese researchers need to enhance their understanding of nonsignificant results and use more appropriate statistical methods to extract information from non-significant results.
Peer Review Status:Awaiting Review
Subjects: Psychology >> Social Psychology submitted time 2020-08-14
Abstract： In many social comparisons, people know exactly how they and others do. These comparisons induce a self–other gap. A variety of important decisions are made on the basis of judgments of the gap between ourselves and other people. Existing research indicates biased judgments of self–other gaps, with unknown absolute performance of others. However, the question we are interested in is whether judgments of a self–other gap will be accurate when both absolute performance of oneself and others are specified. This research investigated how the self–other gap was shaped by absolute and relative performances. We proposed the generalization effect, in which individuals generalized their absolute performance to rate their relative position to others though the actual self–other gap was specified. We conducted seven studies (N = 2766) to test our proposed generalization effect on perceived self–other gap. Study 1 adopted a 2 (absolute performance: gain or loss) × 2 (relative performance: gain or loss) between-subjects design. The participants, who were informed their performance as well as their classmate’s performance in a test, rated the gap between themselves and the classmate. The result indicated that absolute gain caused a larger perceived self–other gap for relative gain (“I am far ahead of her”) than for relative loss (“I am not far behind her”). Conversely, absolute loss caused a larger perceived self–other gap for relative loss (“I am far behind her”) than for relative gain (“I am not far behind her”). Studies 2 and 3 replicated the results in Study 1 with investment and social media scenarios. Besides, Study 2a excluded the influence of information order and Study 2b excluded the effect of emotion. Studies 3a and 3b ruled out the alternative explanations of numeric size. Study 4 tested the association mechanism by cutting off the associations between multiple dimensions. We adopted a 2 (association: cutting-off or control) × 2 (absolute performance: gain or loss) × 2 (relative performance: gain or loss) between-subjects design. In the cutting-off condition, we designed a debiasing intervention where general associations among multiple dimensions were cut off. As a result, the effect found in Studies 1 to 3 persisted in the control condition but disappeared in the cutting-off condition where associations among multiple dimensions were cut off. The result indicated that generalization among dimensions accounted for the effect we found. The result also ruled out the explanations of egocentrism and focalism. Study 5 manipulated the reference point in social comparison and found a null effect for reference point on the generalization effect, which ruled out the explanation of reference point. We reveal that assessments of relative performance are biased even when people have sufficient information about their own and others’ absolute performances because people generalize their absolute performance to relative performance. The generalization effect reflects the overgeneralization bias in social comparison. People fail to realize that absolute performances are not necessarily related to relative performances. Moreover, the current research offers a feasible approach to reduce such a bias. " "
Peer Review Status:Awaiting Review
Subjects: Psychology >> Other Disciplines of Psychology submitted time 2019-09-22
Abstract： Death awareness refers to thinking about and the recognition of the inevitability of personal death. As a critical component of the human-unique ability of autonoetic consciousness, death awareness can be viewed as a cognitive adaptation for time management. We hypothesize that activating death awareness may affect intertemporal choice, in which people make tradeoffs between rewards across different time points. Such effects of death awareness on intertemporal choice may be mediated by time perception, a subjective assessment of the speed of time passage. In this research, we investigate the impact of death awareness on time perception and intertemporal choice, and the relationships among them. Study 1 examined the relationship between death awareness and time estimation. Eighty-three college students were randomly assigned to either a death awareness activation group where mortality was made salient to the participants or a control group where the participants imagined their toothache experience. After a word-search distraction task, the participants in both groups completed a time-passage (400ms, 800ms, 1200ms, 1600ms) estimation task. The results showed that the participants in the group of death awareness activation gave significantly shorter estimates than the participants in the control group. Study 2 (n = 123) extended the measure of time perception to a more extended period and also measured the delay discounting rate of the participants from their intertemporal choices between a smaller-and-sooner reward and a larger-and-later reward. The participants were randomly assigned to either a death awareness activation group or a toothache awareness activation group. The participants then indicated how long ten years was to them by marking on a line with the statement “10 years is very short” on the left end side of the line and the statement “10 years is very long” on the right end side. The participants in the death-awareness activation group marked the line closer to the left end (“life is short”) than those in the control group. As predicted, the participants in the death-awareness activation group had a lower delay discounting rate and were more future-oriented in making intertemporal choices. Moreover, bootstrapping analysis revealed a partial mediation effect of time-passage estimation between death awareness and delay discounting. In conclusion, death awareness serves adaptive functions in time management. Activating death awareness makes people feel that time passes more quickly and promotes future-oriented decisions.
Subjects: Psychology >> Cognitive Psychology submitted time 2019-08-30
Abstract： Advice is vital for individuals in decision-making process and social interaction, whether by giving or taking. An individual can either exert one’s influence on others with advice, or draw support from others’ advice to enable better decision-making. Given the importance of behaviors related to advice, it has become critical for scholars to investigate the antecedents of them. However, the previous studies have focused largely on advice taking, with minimal attention to advice giving, but actually which is equally vital. To fill this gap, the current study, inspired by eye effects, seeks to explore the relationship between advice-seekers’ gaze direction and advisors’ willingness to give advice, and the mechanism underlying this relationship. Drawing from the signaling theory, we examined the effect of advice-seekers’ gaze direction on advisors’ advice giving, as well as the process linking them by focusing on the mediating effect of perceived role expectation and the moderating effect of rejection sensitivity. Three experiments with different decision making scenarios were conducted to test our hypotheses. The advice-seekers’ gaze direction (direct vs. averted) was manipulated by same images of faces (3 models, 3 males and 1 female) in three experiments. The experiment 1 employed an undergraduate’ career decision-making scenario to examine the direct effect of advice-seekers’ gaze direction on advisors’ willingness of giving advice, as well as the mediating effect of perceived role expectation. 102 university students were recruited for this experiment (39 males; mean age 23.76 ± 4.39 years), and are randomly divided into two groups (direct vs. averted). The experiment 2 adopted a 2 (gaze direction: direct vs. averted) ×2 (rejection sensitivity: high vs. low) between-subject design to examine the moderating effect of rejection sensitivity with an undergraduate’ decision-making scenario in daily study life. 318 undergraduates were recruited (155 males; mean age 21.74 ± 1.49 years). Using the tendency to expect rejection scale (TERS), we placed 86 participants (35 males) who scored in the 27% in the high rejection sensitivity group and 86 participants (36 males) who scored in the bottom 27% in the low rejection sensitivity group. The experiment 3 employed a job-related decision making scenario in organization to examine the full model (a moderated mediation model). 198 full-time employees were recruited (88 males; mean age 31.20 ± 5.06 years). The results of three experiments showed that: (1) advice-seeker's gaze direction directly influenced the advisors’ willingness of giving advice. When the advice-seeker's gaze direction was direct rather than averted, advisors were more willing to give advice; (2) perceived role expectation mediated the relationship between advice-seeker's gaze direction and advisors’ willingness of giving advice; (3) advisors’ rejection sensitivity moderated the relationship between advice-seeker's gaze direction and advisors’ willingness of advice giving, as well as the indirect relationship of advice seeker's gaze direction on advisors’ willingness of giving advice through perceived role expectation. When the advisor's rejection sensitivity was high, seeker's direct gaze direction had a stronger effect on the advisors’ willingness to give advice, as well as the indirect effect abovementioned. These findings contribute to our understandings of how to promote advisors to give advice, and add to the research on eye effects as well.
Subjects: Psychology >> Cognitive Psychology submitted time 2019-05-09
Abstract： Self-reference can improve the memorization of stimulated information, and this is a phenomenon called the self-referential effect. Previous studies from the perspective of social distance (such as parents, friends, and strangers) show that the speed of processing or classifying stimulus and memory performance under self-reference significantly outperform the cases under other-reference. Other than social distance, another concept greatly influences individual cognition and behavior: spatial distance. However, research from the perspective of spatial distance is scant. To broaden the perspectives on the self-referential effect, we constructed different distance conditions through a 2D corridor and investigated how spatial distance affects self-referential processing through a learning-recognition paradigm and event-related potential techniques. Neutral nouns were used as the experimental materials. We designed a 2 (reference: self, other) ×2 (distance: far, near) within groups design and added a stranger reference as the alert group. The corridor has three grids: the upper, middle, and lower grids. In the learning stage, the neutral noun was randomly presented in the middle grid while the name was also shown randomly in the upper or lower grid. Two levels of the distance variable were measured by the distance between the middle and the upper or lower grids. Participants were required to press the up arrow “↑” when name (except stranger’s name) appeared in the upper grid, and press the down arrow “↓” when name (except stranger’s name) appeared below. If a stranger’s name appeared in any grid, the participants had to press “f”. And try to associate the words with the names in mind during experiment. After a simple calculation of the interference task, a surprise recognition test was conducted. The response time, accuracy rate and EEG data of the participants were recorded during the experiment. The results showed that the response time under self-reference was significantly shorter than that under other-reference, and the response time of near-distance was significantly shorter than far-distance. The main effects of distance on the amplitude of P1 and N1 components and the latency of N1 component were significant, whereas the main effects of reference on those aspects were not significant. Self-referential and other-referential processing in near-distance induced larger LPC amplitude and right frontal activation relative to the far-distance alternative. In the recognition stage, memory performance in self-reference was significantly better than that in other-reference, and such performance under the near-distance condition was significantly better than that under the far-distance situation. However, memory performances under other-reference with the far- and near-distance conditions were not significant. This study broadens our understanding of self-referential processing from the perspective of spatial distance. Compared with the far-distance condition, the near-distance counterpart enhances self-referential processing; thus, when individuals process the self-reference information in the near-distance, greater LPC amplitude and right frontal activation as well as better memory performance is achieved. This study provides implications for future exploration of the self-referential effect from the perspective of spatial distance.
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