• “Neijuan” in China: The psychological concept and its characteristic dimensions

    Subjects: Psychology >> Social Psychology submitted time 2023-09-01

    Abstract: With the deepening and spread of reform and opening-up, China has undergone rapid and unprecedented economic growth and societal transformations over the past few decades. Accumulating evidence has revealed the impacts of sociocultural changes on Chinese mental health. Since 2020, a popular buzzword, “Neijuan” (involution), has garnered significant attention and discussion in daily life. Neijuan could be traced back to agricultural involution, which refers to a process of inward over-elaboration in agricultural development. This concept was first identified by the anthropologist Geertz (1963), who observed that population growth failed to enhance productivity growth and economic development.
    Despite Neijuan's growing attention, it is still unclear about the connotation and characteristic dimensions of this social phenomenon. Cultural psychology provides a solid theoretical and empirical basis for exploring how social and cultural changes affect individuals’ psychological states and behaviors. In this context, we propose that Neijuan is a multidimensional psychological concept of great significance in this new era, closely connected to cultural changes in China’s rapid development and growth.
    To explore the psychological concept of Neijuan, Study 1 employed a grounded theory approach through in-depth interviews to clarify the intricate psychological components of Neijuan. Based on the results of Study 1, Studies 2 and 3 developed a measurement tool to validate the multiple characteristic dimensions of Neijuan in Chinese culture, utilizing exploratory factor analysis (EFA) and confirmatory factor analysis (CFA). The findings suggested that Neijuan comprises four dimensions: resource scarcity, social norm, psychological pressure, and competition. Subsequently, Study 4 used Neijuan scenario-based task in the university and workplace environments to assess participants’ behavioral tendencies related to Neijuan and examined the relationship between individuals’ perceptions of Neijuan and their actual behaviors. Results revealed that individuals with higher levels of perceived Nejuan exhibited a greater tendency to engage in behaviors associated with Neijuan.
    In summary, the series of studies sought to explore the psychological concept and multiple characteristic dimensions of Neijuan, which provides a theoretical and empirical basis for understanding this significant phenomenon in the contemporary era. The current research also offers an effective measurement tool to assess individuals’ perception of Neijuan and enlightens future research on the effect of Neijuan on psychological maladjustment and non-benign competition behaviors related to Neijuan.

  • 运算动量效应的理论解释及其发展性预测因素

    Subjects: Psychology >> Social Psychology submitted time 2023-03-28 Cooperative journals: 《心理科学进展》

    Abstract: As a fundamental mathematical skill, approximate arithmetic is one of the critical abilities in daily life to represent and operate on the numerosity of objects approximately. Investigating how arithmetic bias is formed and developed is important to understand the underlying mechanism of arithmetic operation. When performing arithmetic operations, individuals tend to overestimate outcomes in addition and underestimate outcomes in subtraction, such estimation bias is called the Operational Momentum (OM) effect. Currently there were three mainstream theoretical accounts (i.e., attentional shift account, heuristic account, compression account). The main differences among these three accounts are whether the spatial-numerical association is invoked and how deeply the numerical elements are processed. The attentional shift account, as the most recognized explanation mechanism, argues that the OM effect is due to spatial shifts of attention along the mental number line. When calculating and estimating numerosities, individuals first map the first operand onto the mental number line, then, according to the kind of the operation sign, the attentional focus was shifted to a new location on the mental number line with the distance of the representation of second operand on the mental number line. When performing mental arithmetic, the mental representation usually shifts positively on the mental number line along the direction of operation sign, therefore, the outcome is represented larger in addition and multiplication and smaller in subtraction and division (Katz & Knops, 2014; McCrink et al., 2007). The heuristic account is firstly used to explain the findings of the OM effect in infants, which assumes that individuals use intuitive operational logic and adopt a simple heuristic to solve the mathematical problems: addition indicates larger outcomes and subtraction indicates smaller outcomes. The compression account assumes that the OM effect is the result of the necessary compression and decompression process on the logarithmic compression of the mental number line. This account is still in the theoretical stage and needs more empirical work to verify. Furthermore, the three accounts are not mutually exclusive - some findings suggested the OM effect can be explained by multiple accounts.Early arithmetic is fundamental to the acquisition of complex mathematical concepts and advanced arithmetic operations. By reviewing recent findings of the OM effect in early development, we found many studies have demonstrated the OM effect in infants (Cassia et al., 2016, 2017; McCrink & Wynn, 2009), but it remained puzzled in later development as work in children have shown inconsistent findings. As age increases, research work with 6- to 7-year-old children observed an inverse OM effect (Knops et al., 2013), however, adult-consistent OM effect has been found in 7- to 12-year-old children and the OM effect monotonically increased with age (Jang & Cho, 2022; Pinheiro-Chagas et al., 2018). Together these show a U-shaped developmental trend in OM effect between preschoolers and school-age children. This trend may be related to the improvement of the mathematical ability and the maturation of the spatial attention. Specially, with the acquisition of the mathematical knowledge, preschool children’s mathematical ability would improve, the knowledge of the counting principle and other related mathematical concepts appear to influence the performance of the arithmetic computations. Meanwhile, the maturation of the spatial attention may influence the mapping of numerical representations onto the mental number line therefore influences the OM effect.Given the importance of the underlying mechanism of the OM effect on understanding the arithmetic operation in development, future research in developmental field should investigate: 1) the developmental trajectory of the OM effect with multiple paradigms and techniques; 2) the role of the Approximate Number System in the origin and development of the OM effect; 3) generalizability of the OM effect in complex arithmetic or even algebraic operations; 4) the joint effect of various factors (e.g., mathematical abilities and spatial attention) on the OM effect; and 5) the intervention for arithmetic bias.

  • 拒绝敏感性与边缘型人格特征的关联:一项元分析

    Subjects: Psychology >> Social Psychology submitted time 2023-03-28 Cooperative journals: 《心理科学进展》

    Abstract: Rejection sensitivity (RS) refers to the cognitive-affective processing disposition to anxiously expect, readily perceive, and intensely react to cues of interpersonal rejection (Downey et al., 2004). The developmental model of rejection sensitivity suggests that rejection experience is a disadvantaged environment during the growth process of individuals with borderline personality disorder. Also, forming and maintaining stable interpersonal relationships is human motivation and the basis of physical and mental health. Social rejection is considered as an important negative event in social situations and can be used to measure individual adaption (Baumeister & Leary, 1995). Compared with borderline personality disorder, individuals with higher borderline personality features are more universal in our daily life and inclined to perceive rejection and exclusion, which includes marked instability on emotion, interpersonal functioning, identity, and behavior impulsivity (APA, 2013). Previous studies have shown that there is a positive correlation between rejection sensitivity and borderline personality disorder or borderline personality features, which is related to tense and negative interpersonal relationship patterns, negative emotional experience, and so on (Ayduk et al., 2008; Hidalgo et al., 2016; Masland, 2016; Staebler et al., 2011), but the results of those previous empirical studies regarding the relationship between rejection sensitivity and borderline personality features are quite different and relatively wide (de Panfilis et al., 2016; Dixon-Gordon et al., 2013; Lazarus et al., 2018). The wide range of correlation coefficients from previous studies may be caused by other potential influencing factors, which should be fully discussed at present (Cavicchioli & Maffei, 2019; Foxhall et al., 2019; Gao et al., 2017). For example, the correlation may be stronger in more immersive laboratory studies than in questionnaires based on imagined situations, when rejection sensitivity is measured (Berenson et al., 2009; Downey & Feldman, 1996; Williams et al., 2007; Wrege et al., 2019); individualism emphasizes that people make friends with more independent choices and pays more attention to personal interests, while collectivist cultures value interpersonal relationships, which may have a stronger correlation (Chen et al., 2018; Falk et al., 2009). Therefore, the present meta-analysis study aims to examine potential factors related to the association between rejection sensitivity and borderline personality features, which helps to avoid sample heterogeneity and get more precise and unique results. As mentioned above, the current study aimed at integrating the results of existing research and examining the possible factors related to the relationship between rejection sensitivity and borderline personality features through the meta-analysis. Fifty original journal articles that met the inclusion/exclusion requirements were included, including 84 effect sizes, and 7, 400 participants. The homogeneity test indicated heterogeneity of effect sizes. Therefore, we used subgroup analysis and meta-regression to explore how different types of study design, source of the sample, sample type, indices of borderline personality features, and type of rejection sensitivity measurement affect this relationship. The results revealed that (1) the relationship between rejection sensitivity and borderline personality features was the strongest in the subgroup of the cross-sectional design, non-European and American samples, mixed subject samples, overall borderline personality feature, and rejection sensitivity measured by questionnaires; (2) participants’ age and the proportion of female participants did not have the significant effect to this relationship in the subgroup with large sample size, namely the cross-sectional design, European and American samples, overall borderline personality feature, and rejection sensitivity measured by questionnaires. This is the first meta-analysis to systematically explore how the underlying moderators have the effect of the relationship between rejection sensitivity and borderline personality features, which will advance research in this field. In the future, researchers should pay more attention to explore the predictive relationship between rejection sensitivity and borderline personality features through longitudinal studies, investigate the relationship between different components of rejection sensitivity and borderline personality features, and conduct experiments studies to explore this relationship in China.

  • The theoretical accounts and developmental predictors of operational momentum effect

    Subjects: Psychology >> Developmental Psychology submitted time 2022-06-13

    Abstract:

    Investigating how operational momentum effect is formed and moderated by developmental factors is critical in understanding the underlying mechanism of arithmetic computation. Early arithmetic is fundamental to acquisition of complex mathematical concepts and advanced arithmetic operations. When performing arithmetic operations, individuals tend to overestimate outcomes in addition and underestimate outcomes in subtraction, such estimation bias is called operational momentum (OM) effect, which includes three main theoretical accounts (i.e., attentional shift account, heuristic account, compression account). Though many studies using various experimental designs have demonstrated the OM effect in adults, it remained puzzled in development as findings in children have shown inconsistent findings. The present review discussed the trajectories and influencing factors of OM effect in early development. Future directions in the developmental field should investigate: 1) the developmental trajectory of OM through integrating multiple paradigms; 2) the role of Approximate Number System plays in the onset and development of OM; 3) generalizability of OM in complex arithmetic or even algebraic operations; 4) the joint effect of various factors (e.g., mathematical abilities and spatial attention) on OM; and 5) intervention for operational bias.

  • Differences in parents' life satisfaction and emotional state when children at different educational stages: A study based on Tianya community users

    Subjects: Psychology >> Applied Psychology submitted time 2022-03-06

    Abstract:

    [Objective] This study is based on the Tianya community and explores the differences in parents' life satisfaction and emotional state when children at different educational stages. [Methods] The word frequency distribution of parents whose children are in preschool, primary school and junior middle school is calculated by using the Emotion Dictionary of Dalian Institute of Technology, and the life satisfaction of the parents is predicted based on the word frequency. We then compare the differences in parents' life satisfaction and emotional state between groups. [Results] For life satisfaction, junior high school parents were significantly lower than preschool parents and primary school parents. The result indicated that in terms of happy emotional words, the word frequency of pre-school parents was higher than that of primary and junior middle school parents. While in terms of reassuring words and praising words, the word frequency of junior middle school parents was higher than that of pre-school parents. In the category of believing words, parents whose children are in junior high school had the highest word frequency. Pre-school parents had the highest word frequency, and primary school parents had the second higher word frequency in terms of affectionate words. With regard to the missing words and panic words, junior high school parents’ word frequency was significantly higher than primary school parents, with more panic words being expressed by junior high school parents than preschool parents as well. [Limitations] This study collected the data based on the Tianya community, in which this study might ignore the possibility that some parents may still record their lives in the same post while their children’s educational stages have changed. Future research can focus more on possible influencing factors (e.g., high school parents, different roles of parents, longitudinal study) in the relationship between children’s educational stages and parents’ life satisfaction. [Conclusions] In terms of life satisfaction, junior high school parents were significantly lower than preschool and primary school parents. In terms of emotional expression, there are variations between parents whose children are at different educational stages on various emotional words, including happy, reassuring, praising, believing, affectionate, missing, panic words. " " "

  • The relationship between rejection sensitivity and borderline personality features: A meta-analysis

    Subjects: Psychology >> Personality Psychology submitted time 2021-02-08

    Abstract: "

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