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ISSN 0439-755X
CN 11-1911/B

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    25 January 2018, Volume 50 Issue 1 Previous Issue    Next Issue

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     The influence of Chinese and English background pop music to the memory of Chinese and English words in Chinese undergraduates
    GAO Qi, BAI Xuejun
    2018, 50 (1):  1-8.  doi: 10.3724/SP.J.1041.2018.00001
    Abstract ( 13431 )   PDF (328KB) ( 609 )  
     It was generally found that pop music would do harm to the efficiency and accuracy of visual activity when it was as a kind of background music. This is called irrelevant sound effect, which means that the presence of irrelevant sound significantly impairs people’s performance on main visual task. Some researchers believe that the reason of this phenomenon is because the lyrics of the background pop music add extra workload to the working memory, which interferes with the visual task. Moreover, it was shown that the first language lyrics impaired participants’ performance more seriously than a strange language. To participants, the second language is less familiar than the first language but more than a strange language. So how about the irrelevant sound effect when lyrics are participants’ second language? And how about it when the visual task contains the second language? This study aimed to investigate the influence of different language lyrics to the visual memory task, the familiarity of whose materials was different in two experiments. It was hypothesized that there would be significant irrelevant sound effects in different language background musics with different language materials, and languages of the lyrics and materials would have reciprocal actions in both experiments. 180 participants from a university (90 for each experiment)who have passed CET6 (College English Test 6) attended this study to research the effect of lyrics in background pop music on short-term memory for familiar and unfamiliar Chinese and English words. There were three kinds of background sounds: no background sound, Chinese background pop music and English background pop music. In order to control effects caused by instruments, this research used Let it go sung by Yao Beina (Chinese) and Demi Lovato (English) as the background music in both two experiments. Only the refrain was used as music materials. In the first experiment, participants should remember 32 Chinese and 32 English familiar nouns and finish an instant recall task. In the second experiment, participants should remember 10 unfamiliar Chinese and 10 unfamiliar English nouns and finish an instant recognition task. Memory materials were displayed by Eprime 1.0 randomly. In the first experiment, the main effect of music types was significant, F(2,87) = 15.67, p < 0.00, ηp² = 0.15. The scores in the condition of no background music (M = 14.12) were significantly higher than the other two conditions. Participants’ scores in English background pop music (M = 12.50) were significantly higher than that in Chinese background pop music (M = 10.30). In the second experiment, the results showed that the scores in the condition of no background sound (M = 6.87) were still significantly higher than the other two conditions (M = 6.03 for Chinese music, M = 5.83 for English music). F(2,87) = 4.69, p < 0.05, ηp² = 0.05. The difference between two experiments was a significant reciprocal action in the second experiment, F(2,87) = 19.23, p < 0.01, ηp² = 0.20. The scores in the condition of Chinese background pop music were higher when the materials were Chinese words (M = 7.03), and the scores in the condition of English background pop music were higher when the materials were English words (M = 6.93). The conclusion was that lyrics in background music would effect the main visual task no mater what kind of lyrics’ language was, but different familiarity of languages indeed had different influences on the efficiency and accuracy of the main task. When memory words were familiar, the familiar language of lyrics would do more harm to the memory. While the words were unfamiliar, which means the task was more difficult, lyrics would do more harm to the memory of words that with the same language. The level of difficulty of the task and the familiarity of lyrics’ language both can effect the memory, while the former is more important.
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     The effect of identity switch in Multiple Identity Tracking
    HU Luming, LYU Chuang, ZHANG Xuemin, WEI Liuqing
    2018, 50 (1):  9-27.  doi: 10.3724/SP.J.1041.2018.00009
    Abstract ( 2790 )   PDF (1772KB) ( 109 )  
     The Model of Multiple Identity Tracking (MOMIT) proposed by Oksama and Hyönä (2008) models observers’ tracking performance among multiple unique moving items. The model provides a functional explanation for the process for how the “what” and “where” information work together in a dynamic visual environment. However, two main issues in MOMIT are still unclear. First, though MOMIT supposes that the “what” and “where” information can be analyzed separately by the identity processing system and location processing system in the early stage, it is unclear whether these two processing systems share the same attentional resources. Second, MOMIT posits that the what-where bindings are stored in the temporary episodic buffer, but there is no direct evidence of this. Exploring these two issues may help us understand the cognitive mechanism of multiple identity tracking (MIT) better and improve the MOMIT. In this study, we used a variant of the MIT paradigm in which we interfered with the what-where binding by making the objects switch identities during tracking. In Experiment 1, we designated three identity-switch conditions: identity switch within the set of targets, identity switch within the set of distractors, and identity switch within all objects. And in the baseline condition the objects’ identities did not change throughout tracking. Given the limitation of the whole report method, Experiment 2 then tested the hypothesis again using the partial report method. The numbers of 0-9 were used as the objects’ identities in both experiments. The results of Experiment 1 showed that identity switching impaired both location tracking and identity recognition. Specifically, the location tracking and identity recognition was impaired the most in the condition where identities switch for all objects, followed by the condition in which the identities of the targets switched, and then the condition in which the identities of the distractors switched, which was not significantly different from the baseline condition. In addition, this declining trend was the same when participants had to track 4 targets and 5 targets. In other words, the increase of tracking load diminished people’s capacity to track location and identity recognition. The results of Experiment 2 showed the same effect due of interfering with what-where bindings. We also found that the partial report method revealed more data than the whole report method. Finally, in Experiment 3, we completely randomized pronunciations of the letters A-Z in the auditory channel in order to eliminate the interference of phonetic rehearsal. The results were the same as in Experiment 1. That is, the phonetic rehearsal did not affect the effects of identity-location binding. Overall, the results provide deeper understanding of MIT and improve the MOMIT through direct behavioral evidence. (1) The results reveal that the location processing system and identity processing system share a common attention resource pool, and the utilization of “where” information in the visual system seems to take precedence over “what” information. (2) The impairment of what-where binding will damage the tracking performance of MIT. (3) People mainly use attentional resources to enhance visual resolution towards targets (target-oriented) in MIT, rather than processing distractors. (4) The whole report method is less sensitive than the partial report method and may underestimate the capacity of visual working memory. (5) Even after controlling for phonetic rehearsal, people still experience interference from identity-location binding when they are tracking multiple moving objects.
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     Self association facilitates attentional inhibition in human visual search
    LI Yangzhuo, QIAN Haoyue, ZHU Min, GAO Xiangping
    2018, 50 (1):  28-35.  doi: 10.3724/SP.J.1041.2018.00028
    Abstract ( 2588 )   PDF (480KB) ( 109 )  
     The stimuli newly associated with the self are apt to gain perceptual saliency and display advantages in attentional attraction. Another line of studies demonstrated that perceptual saliency could facilitate active suppression through a top-down control. Therefore, we hypothesize that, if the WM feature is to be suppressed voluntarily, self-associated stimuli was more easily inhibited compared with other information in the visual search task. In current study, participants first completed an associating learning task to form four pairs of color-label links (e.g., green-self, blue-stranger, red and yellow-neutral). Then, they took a Working Memory-guided visual search task in which they needed to search a target shape among several items. Before searching, participants were asked to memorize a specific color, which was one of the four colors used in the learning task. They were informed that items with this cue color were distractors in the search task. After the search task, participants were asked to recall the memorized cue color. The results showed the RTs of the search task were significantly shorter when the informed distracter color was self-associated compared with when the color was stranger-associated or neutral, no significant difference in searching time between stranger-associated color and neural color condition. Analyses of search accuracy and memory accuracy also revealed no significant difference across conditions. These results conformed the facilitation of search performance when the known distracters were in previously link to self, participants could inhibit the distracters more easily and search target more rapidly. To summarize, although valuable objects such as self-relevant information are attractive in nature, people often encounter situations where they would prefer to aviod such distraction while focusing on the task goal. The present study confirmed our hypothesis that the self-associated information was actively suppressed more easily and thus enhanced participants’ performance in visual research. These findings demonstrate a flexible role of learned self association on cognitive control.
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     Cathodal transcranial direct current stimulation on the right temporo-parietal junction modulates the helpful intention processing
    GAN Tian, SHI Rui, LIU Chao, LUO Yuejia
    2018, 50 (1):  36-46.  doi: 10.3724/SP.J.1041.2018.00036
    Abstract ( 1310 )   PDF (734KB) ( 143 )  
     Helping behaviors are critically important for human social development. However, most moral neuroscience studies have concentrated on immoral and negative behaviors such as killing, murder and harm. The neural mechanism of helpful intention processing in moral judgment is still unclear. Functional MRI studies have demonstrated the involvement of the right temporo-parietal junction (RTPJ) in the attribution of mental states. Previous studies have found that the role of intention processing in harmful moral judgment can be modulated by changing the cortical excitability of RTPJ with transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS). Will the RTPJ play a critical role in the intention processing during moral judgment of helpful behavior? In order to explore the potential causal role of RTPJ in helpful moral judgement, the present study manipulates the cortical excitability of RTPJ with cathodal tDCS. We hypothesize that inhibiting the neural activity of RTPJ with cathodal tDCS could influence the role of intention processing in helpful moral judgment. To test the hypothesis, 18 healthy right-handed adults participated in this study. All participants underwent both cathodal and sham tDCS sessions in random order. Participants were counter-balanced in 2 separate days with a 1 week interval between both stimulations. To assure the target cortex to be activated completely, a relatively weak current (1.5 mA) was constantly delivered over the RTPJ for 20 min. For the sham tDCS, the stimulation only lasted for 15 sec. After stimulation, participants read stories in a 2 (intention: positive vs. neutral) × 2 (outcome: positive vs. neutral) design and were asked to make moral judgment about how much praise the actor deserves. We analyzed the praise score and reaction time by a 2 (intention) × 2 (outcome) × 2 (tDCS: cathodal, sham) repeated measures ANOVA. Results showed that actors with positive intentions were judged more praiseworthy than those with neutral intentions, and actors producing positive outcomes were judged more praiseworthy than those causing neutral outcomes. However, there was no significant interaction between intention and outcome. For the reaction time, judgments of positive intentions were faster than that of neutral intentions. The responses to positive outcomes were faster than neutral outcomes. Most importantly, the moral judgments were faster under cathodal tDCS than sham tDCS stimulation, especially under the positive intention condition rather than the neutral intention condition. The present study assessed the potential effect of the tDCS on helpful intention processing in moral judgment. Our findings indicate that the response times of moral judgment in the positive intention condition were shorten after receiving the cathodal stimulation, suggesting that altering the cortical excitability in the RTPJ could influence human’s socio-cognitive ability. These results demonstrate the critical role of RTPJ in intention processing during helpful moral judgment, which provides us a better understanding about the role of RTPJ in moral judgment and helping behaviors.
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     Effects of peer presence and self-esteem on adolescent risk-taking behavior: Evidence from an ERP study
    TIAN Lumei, YUAN Jingchi, LI Yongmei
    2018, 50 (1):  47-57.  doi: 10.3724/SP.J.1041.2018.00047
    Abstract ( 3993 )   PDF (2583KB) ( 576 )  
     Adolescents are known to engage in more risk-taking behaviors (such as smoking, drug use, skiing, and climbing) than children and adults. Previous research has suggested that at least two factors are associated with adolescent risk-taking behavior: one is the presence of a peer, which could activate the brain’s reward circuitry and lead to adolescents’ more reward preference and risk-taking; the other is self-esteem, high self-esteem individuals are inclined to take part in more risky behaviors, particularly those socially acceptable risky behaviors. However, the interaction between peer presence and self-esteem on adolescent risk-taking behavior is still unclear; especially evidence from ERP studies is rare. With ERP technique, the present study explored the interaction between peer presence and self-esteem on adolescent risk-taking behavior. According to the scores on Rosenberg’s Self-Esteem Scale, 34 participants were chosen from 216 freshmen and were divided into two groups: the 16 students with top scores were in high self-esteem group and the 18 adolescents with lowest scores were in low self-esteem group. Each group was then divided into two subgroups: one was peer presence subgroup in which each adolescent was asked to bring a sex-same peer to come to observe his or her following experiment performance on the Balloon Analogue Risk Task (BART); in the other subgroup without a peer in presence, all participants completed the BART alone. All participants’ EEGs were recorded when they were operating BART and their BART values (total number of inflating balloons / number of unexploded balloons) were also calculated as their behavioral index of risk-taking behavior. Behavioral results indicated that: 1) those adolescents with either a peer in presence or high self-esteem showed more risk-taking behaviors; 2) self-esteem moderated the effect of peer presence on adolescent risk-taking behavior: only for high self-esteem adolescents, did peer presence significantly increase their risk-taking behaviors. The ERP experiment showed similar results: 1) compared to the alone group, the group with a peer in presence demonstrated larger amplitudes of N1, P3 and LPP; and high self-esteem adolescents’ P3 and LPP amplitudes were also greater than those with low self-esteem, indicating possibly more risk-taking behaviors; 2) the effect of peer presence was only significant for high self-esteem adolescents who showed greater amplitudes of N1, P3 and LPP components when observed by a peer. These findings provide ERP evidence for the effects of peer presence and self-esteem on adolescent risk-taking behavior and suggest that adolescents with high self-esteem should be more influenced by their peers on their risk-taking, particularly on that non-negative risk-taking, possibly because they are more sensitive, more exciting, and have a stronger approach motivation to rewards in risk-taking.
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     The double-edge sword effects of leader group prototypicality in the multi-team context
    LIANG Yongyi, YAN Ming, CHU Xiaoping
    2018, 50 (1):  58-68.  doi: 10.3724/SP.J.1041.2018.00058
    Abstract ( 2206 )  
     Leader group prototypicality refers to the subordinates’ perception of the extent to which a team leader was representative of the collective identity. A number of studies have investigated the positive consequences of leader group prototypicality, while some scholars proposed that leader group prototypicality probably induced negative results. Whether leader group prototypicality simultaneously leads to both positive and negative effects, however, is far less clear to date. Drawing from the self-categorization theory and the social identity theory, we argued that leader group prototypicality not only facilitated subordinates’ self-categorization into their teams, but also engendered their social-categorization tendencies in the multi-team context. With this argument, we examined the distinct mechanisms simultaneously and independently occurring between leader group prototypicality and intra-team collective citizenship behavior via the subordinates’ intra-team identification. We also inspected the relationship between leader group prototypicality and inter-team collective deviance via the subordinates’ perception of inter-team distinctiveness. To test our model, we conducted a survey on 257 subordinates and 72 team leaders from 4 companies in the Guangdong province. The survey questionnaires were distributed and coded on an online survey system. All respondents were informed of the confidentiality of their responses. In an attempt to avoid the common method bias, we collected multiphase multisource data from the subordinate and the team leader. In phase 1, subordinates were invited to report their evaluation on the leader group prototypicality and control variables. In phase 2, subordinates were invited to self-report their intra-team identification and their perception of inter-team distinctiveness. Similarly, team leaders were invited to report their intra-team collective citizenship behavior, their inter-team collective deviance as well as other related variables. Empirical results supported our postulation that leader group prototypicality was a double-edge sword in the multi-team context. Specially, with respect to the intra-team process, leader group prototypicality was positively related to subordinates’ intra-team identification, and subordinates’ intra-team identification was positively related to intra-team collective citizenship behavior. Subordinates’ intra-team identification mediated the indirect effect of leader group prototypicality on intra-team collective citizenship behavior. Meanwhile, with respect to the inter-team process, leader group prototypicality was also positively related to subordinates’ perception of inter-team distinctiveness, and subordinates’ perception of inter-team distinctiveness was positively related to inter-team collective deviance. Subordinates’ perception of inter-team distinctiveness mediated the indirect effect of leader group prototypicality on inter-team collective deviance. Moreover, intra-team self-categorization and inter-team social categorization represented unique systems. In other words, intra-team identification was not significantly related to inter-team collective deviance, nor perception of inter-team distinctiveness was significantly related to intra-team collective citizenship behavior. With these findings, we make several contributions to the literature and management practice. First, we addressed the question whether leader group prototypicality could simultaneously cause beneficial and damaging results. Second, we identified the differential indirect effects of leader group prototypicality on subordinate behavior. Third, our work provided evidence and complemented the traditional focus on intra-team context by drawing our attention to the underlying inter-team process of leader group prototypicality. Finally, our work helped to build a comprehensive framework for understanding the double-edge sword effects of leader group prototypicality in the multi-team system. From a practical point of view, our study raised our attention of the co-existed positive and negative effects of leader group prototypicality, and recommended managers to adopt remedies in promoting the positive effects while prohibiting the negative ones.
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     The effect of presentation format for consumer responses: Evidence from eye movements
    LI BaoZhu, WEI ShaoMu
    2018, 50 (1):  69-81.  doi: 10.3724/SP.J.1041.2018.00069
    Abstract ( 2448 )  
     Research has shown that the framing strategy (mental simulations and analogies) have a great influence on the consumer response. The most existing research mainly focused on presentation format conveyed by words. However, the framing strategy based on mental simulations and analogies also could use pictures. Therefore, the researcher adopted the eye movement tracking technique to do experiment which explored the relationship between the independent variable (presentation format) and the intermediary variable (eye movement index) to find the inherent mechanism of product feedback, as well as studied the adjustment variables which include product type and framing strategy. The experiment was conducted among 78 respondents (56.41% were female). And it constructed theoretical model with three factors, which are 2 (presentation format: words versus pictures) ×3 (framing strategy: mental simulation versus analogy versus control) × 3 (product type: utilitarian versus hedonic versus hybrid). The presentation format is independent variable, and the framing strategy and product type are adjustment variables. All the participants ascertained that they had limited familiarity with the products at the beginning of the experiment. After that, the stimuli were shown to the participants and the eye movement has been noted by TX300 Eye-tracker simultaneously. Finally, the participants filled out two questionnaires about product comprehension and product attitude. In the present research, for the three type stimulus, the words expression created a higher level of participants fixation count and fixation duration than pictures. The product comprehension test showed that the main effect of product comprehension were significant, words would be more successful in enhancing comprehension to the product than pictures in all three product types. As for the product attitude, the interaction effect of framing strategy and presentation format was significant and this interaction effect on fixation count and fixation duration was also significant. The pictures created more positive product attitude than that of words in the mental simulation condition. Furthermore, there was no significant difference in eye movement index between the words and pictures for the hybrid product in the mental simulation and analogy condition. Bootstrap analysis showed that eye movement mediated in presentation format and product responses. The following experiment of Latin-square design and Low-level element test reached the same conclusion, that the individual response to product will not be affected by position effect of stimulus and Low-level element (e.g: brightness and saturation). This research revealed that presentation formats and framing strategies are interactive and affect the individual responses based on the different type products. As for utilitarian product, using words would be more successful in increasing individual eye movement index and also can improved the product comprehension than using pictures. Whereas, the picture does gain much more attention from the participants than words in mental simulation condition and has more positive attitude to the product than using words for the hedonic product. As for hybrid product, using words improve the product presentation, and the framing strategy based on mental simulations or analogies has less influence on product attitude. This research combined presentation format and framing strategy and adopted eye tracker technology to analyze the individual eye movement index, thus it confirmed the influence of presentation format on product feedback. The conclusions of this study would be the guidance of enterprise's advertising planning.
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     Preliminary study on creative thinking mechanism of market information integration
    LIU Min, ZHANG Qinlin, YU Wei, ZHANG Hua
    2018, 50 (1):  82-90.  doi: 10.3724/SP.J.1041.2018.00082
    Abstract ( 1418 )  
     In this age of information, a variety of market information can be obtained and plenty of opportunities often appear. It is very important for investors to seize the opportunity, and it depends on whether they can hold the heuristic information, use and integrate the available information, then develop effective program to make decision timely. Successful investors can seize the heuristic information, distinguish between necessary and redundant information of market and integrate useful information becoming a profitable program which ordinary people are not easy to figure out. This process is creative. The study aims to explore this creative thinking mechanism of market information integration. The study tried to reveal the creative thinking mechanism in information integration of market by using the method of individual test and group test, supported by individual interviews, and carried out two experiments exploring how the quantity of information and the highlighting of key heuristic information affected decision-making results on business investment problem. The information used in experiments was from real market. In experiment Ⅰ, participants were divided into two groups, one group was asked to develop a program according to 6 necessary information, another group was asked to develop a program according to 6 necessary information and 14 redundant information. In experiment Ⅱ, participants were also divided into two groups, one group was asked to develop a program according to 6 necessary information and 6 dynamic redundant information, another group was asked to develop a program according to 6 necessary information and 6 static redundant information, and whether they had marked key heuristic information was randomly assigned to each group. The results of experiments showed that the more information provided to the participants, the larger the space of information integration problem, then the integration process was more difficult; when participants searched in the problem space, they needed to seize the key heuristic information to form an initial intention of thinking and make a clear direction for further search; after the formation of the initial intention was formed, participants needed to select necessary information, eliminate redundant information, and integrate all the information available, thus the initial intention was more refined, and eventually a profitable perfect investment program was formed. The study explored the creative thinking process of market information integration, and the findings of this study could try to apply for the training practice in human resource management. There is still much work to do for this study, including developing test materials, the discrimination of the materials, the effect of working memory capacity and perception.
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     Parent-child relationship and the comparison between parents and their children on their children’s mate preference
    WANG Yan, QIAN Xiaoyun, TIAN Qian, GAO Jun, LI Xiaoxu
    2018, 50 (1):  91-100.  doi: 10.3724/SP.J.1041.2018.00091
    Abstract ( 6905 )  
     One of the important factors influencing young people’s mating choice would be their parents’ preferences for their children-in-law. Especially in China with only one child in most families, parents’ involvement could not been ignored. However, the literature is very limited on the differences on mating preferences between parents and their adult children within the same families. Few studies on Chinese families have been conducted on this topic so far. Based on questionnaires colletcted from 1142 individuals from 339 Chinese families (mother, father and their adult unmarried child), this research explored the differences in the mating preference for the potential children-in-law between the parents and their adult children. A total of 7 factors have been extracted in the exploratory factor analysis, which were namely, good character, good genes, good personality, good resources, same nationality and political background, good parents and good spouse. Based on these 7 factors, the differences in mating preferences between the two parents and between parents and their adult children have been explored. Compared with parents of the sons, the adult daughters’ parents were more concerned on the mating standards on good characters, good resources and same nationality and political background. Comparisons between the two parents showed that as compared to mothers, sons’ fathers were more concerned with the appearance of their potential daughter-in-laws. Futhermore, the adult daughters’ mothers demanded more on their potential son-in-law’s good characters, good personality and good resources. As for the differences between parents’ and their adult children, the children were more concerned with their future spouse’s good genes and pleasurable personality whereas the parents emphasized more on the good characters, good resources and same nationality and political background of their potential child-in-laws. Finally contrary to the common belief, results showed the closer the relationship between parents and their adult children, the greater were the differences between their mating preferences. The correlational analyses showed that the closer the fathers’ perceiced relationship with the children, the greater their demand on the traits of “good characters” and “good parents” for their child-in-laws as compared with their children’s preference. Similarly, the closer the mothers’ perceived relationship with the children, the greater the concern the mothers would have on the trait of “good characters” for their children-in-laws. However, the closer the relationship between mothers and sons, the more demanding the sons would be on the preference for “good spouse” as compared with mother’s preference. Contradictorily, children’s perceived relationship with parents did not have impact on the difference between parents and adult children in the children mate preference.
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     Willingness to cooperate: Emotion enhancement mechanism of perceived social mindfulness on cooperative behaviour
    DOU Kai, LIU Yaozhong, WANG Yujie, NIE Yangang
    2018, 50 (1):  101-114.  doi: 10.3724/SP.J.1041.2018.00101
    Abstract ( 3154 )  
     Cooperative behaviour is important for the sustainable development of human being. The underpinning mechanisms of the display and maintenance of this behaviour are, however, vastly unknown. These under-researched questions have attracted the attention of researchers in psychology, biology, economics, and neuroscience. In everyday life, cooperation is a complicated decision involving the cognitive perception of other peoples’ state of mind, emotion and behavioral intention during the interpersonal interaction. Cooperative behaviour happens in both individual and group levels. Besides motivated by economic reasons such as rewards and punishments, individuals may also cooperate because of social reasons, such as, trust and positive emotion. Social mindfulness means people notice and protect other’s autonomous needs in the process of interpersonal interactions. Social mindfulness is a crucial way to enhance other people’s positive emotion and establish interpersonal relationships. It provides a new perspective in the investigation of the dynamic processes underlying cooperative behaviour. Whether individuals will contribute more to the group depends on their experiencing of positive emotion in interpersonal interaction. The present research aims to investigate this process through two game experiments conducted in real contexts of interpersonal interaction. This research revealed how and why the people’s social mindfulness would influence recipient’s cooperative behaviour through positive emotion. Experiment 1 was in a between-subject design with people’s social mindfulness manipulated in a “selection of goods” game and the recipient’s positive emotion assessed after the game. The recipients participated in a public goods game and the amount of contribution served as an indicator of their cooperative behaviour. The results showed that recipients experiencing high social mindfulness in the “selection of goods” game reported more positive emotion and less negative emotion. More importantly, they were willing to contribute more resources in their subsequent public goods game. Positive emotion mediated the relation between perceived social mindfulness and cooperative behaviour. Based on the results in Experiment 1, we further examined the role of autonomous needs in the relation of social mindfulness and positive emotion in Experiment 2. In this experiment, the level of autonomous needs were manipulated by asking participants to select the amount of help they would like their opponents to give card selection game. The results showed that positive emotion mediated the relation between perceived social mindfulness and cooperative behaviour. Moreover, autonomous needs moderated the link of perceived social mindfulness and positive emotion. Specifically, as compared to those with low autonomous needs, recipients with high autonomous needs experienced less positive emotion when their needs were not satisfied. In conclusion, the present research demonstrates that positive emotion is an important mechanism which helps convey people’s social mindfulness and results in recipient’s cooperative behaviour. The satisfaction of autonomous needs is the basic reason obtaining positive emotion experience. These findings expanded the research on cooperative behaviour and provide evidence on the development of social mindfulness. The present findings shed light on daily decision and management on issues such as: (1) selecting right time to express social mindfulness; (2) enhancing employees’ well-being through social mindfulness; and (3) training employees’ social mindfulness and the helping them establish an “other people oriented” cognitive style.
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     A qualitative research on the development of attachment to GOD by christians through prayer
    ZHANG Xiumin, YANG Liping
    2018, 50 (1):  115-129.  doi: 10.3724/SP.J.1041.2018.00115
    Abstract ( 2994 )  
     The research on the attachment to God initiated by Kirkpatrick tends to use quantitative research methods, that is, to use the Attachment to God Inventory (AGI) or experiment methods to study. Taking into account that prayer exists primarily as a process or a dialogue, it should be more suitable for qualitative research. The study of prayer and the attachment to God in China is still at an early stage. In this study, qualitative research methods were used to explore the formation and development of an attachment to God during the process of prayer by Christians. The researchers, as non-believers, were external to the religious world of the participants; they used an intensity sampling method and a comprehensive sampling strategy to gain study participants. The sample was composed of 14 Christians (7 men and 7 women) who were formally baptized (between 2 years and 32 years ago). Researchers conducted in-depth interviews with each of the participants. From a grounded theory base, preliminary analysis, generic analysis and theoretical construction of the collected data were made. Participants inspection and non-participants inspection were adapted to verify the research results’ validity. The following conclusions were drawn: Prayer is an important channel for Christians to communicate with God. Based on the prerequisite of "faith", Christians expose their minds to God, make psychological appeals to God, and gradually establish an intimate relationship with God. This provides a context in which the attachment to God can be activated. In turn, the increase in intimacy with God promotes the degree of Christians’ faith in God. Difficulties in real life provide incentives for Christians to pray and thus promote the development of their attachment to God. Christian prayer usually goes through three stages, and eventually forms a "God-centered" coping schema. During this process, the concept of "God" is increasingly embedded into the Christian self, the psychological representations of "God" are constantly strengthened, while the psychological representations of "self" are weakened. Eventually Christians enter a state of "no me". This study made a comparison between the attachment to God and interpersonal attachment and an exploration to the internal working model of the attachment to GOD during the process of prayer by Christian. On one hand, the study enriches and promotes the development of research on religious psychology in China, on the other hand, it provides a path to guide people's religious behavior. The results of this study are considered to be able to contribute to social harmony and stability, and to promote people to live and work in peace.
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     Optimization of test design for examinees with different cognitive structures
    PENG Yafeng, LUO Zhaosheng, LI Yujun, GAO Chunlei
    2018, 50 (1):  130-140.  doi: 10.3724/SP.J.1041.2018.00130
    Abstract ( 2209 )  
     Doctors have to use different medical technologies to diagnose different kinds of illness effectively. Similarly, teachers have to use well designed tests to provide an accurate evaluation of students with different cognitive structures. To provide such an evaluation, we recommend to adopt the Cognitive Diagnostic Assessment (CDA). CDA could measure specific cognitive structures and processing skills of students so as to provide information about their cognitive strengths and weaknesses. In general, the typical design procedure of a CDA test is as follow: firstly, identify the target attributes and their hierarchical relationships; secondly, design a Q matrix (which characterizes the design of test construct and content); finally, construct test items. Within that designing framework, two forms of test are available: the traditional test and the computerized adaptive test (CAT). The former is a kind of test that has a fixed-structure for all participants with different cognitive structures, the latter is tailored to each participant’s cognitive structure. Researchers have not, however, considered the specific test design for different cognitive structures when using these two test forms. As a result, the traditional test requires more items to gain a precise evaluation of a group of participants with mixed cognitive structures, and a cognitive diagnosis computer adaptive test (CD-CAT) has low efficiency of the item bank usage due to the problems in assembling a particular item bank. The key to overcome these hurdles is to explore the appropriate design tailored for participants with different cognitive structures. As discussed above, a reasonable diagnosis test should be specific for the cognitive structure of target examinees so to perform classification precisely and efficiently. This is in line with CAT. In CAT, an ideal item bank serves as a cornerstone in achieving this purpose. In this regard, Reckase (2003, 2007 & 2010) came up with an approach named p-optimality in designing an optimal item bank. Inspired by the p-optimality and working according to the characteristics of CDA, we proposed a method to design the test for different cognitive structures. We conducted a Monte Carlo simulation study to explore the different test design modes for different cognitive structures under six attribute hierarchical structures (Linear, Convergent, Divergent, Unstructured, Independent and Mixture). The results show that: (1) the optimal test design modes for different cognitive structures are different under the same hierarchical structure in test length, initial exploration stage (Stage 0), accurately estimation stage (Stage 1); (2) the item bank for cognitive diagnosis computer adaptive test (CD-CAT) we built, according to the different cognitive structures’ optimal test design modes, has a superior performance on item pool usage than other commonly used item banks no matter whether the fixed-length test or the variable-length test is used. We provide suggestions for item bank assembling basing on results from these experiments.
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