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Is Loss Aversion A Robust Effect? An Uneven Route of Seeing that losses Loom Larger than the Same Amount of Gains LIU Huan, LIANG Zhu-Yuan, LI Shu 2009, 41 (12):  1123-1132.  Abstract ( 2961 )   Loss aversion, which means that negative changes (losses) loom larger than equivalent positive changes (gains), is one of the basic elements of Prospect Theory. The general accepted interpretation for lose aversion is that the outcome of choice can be regarded as gains or losses compared with different reference points, and that losses have greater impact on preference than gains. In the present research, we hypothesized that the loss aversion was due to the uneven routes of gains and losses, where “route” was defined as the number of transitions of the same possession. In conventional scenarios, the gains were usually one-route with the one transition from not having a possession to having it, whereas the losses were typically two-route, with the another transition from having to not having it. As a result, the reason why lose aversion can be detected in these scenarios is because the number of routes for losses is greater than that for gains, and that the greater number of routes brings stronger psychological feelings. To test our hypothesis, several scenarios were developed which differed from the traditional one of “one-route gains vs. two-route losses”. A total of 355 undergraduate or graduate students were recruited and paid for participation. In Study 1, “one-route gains vs. one-route losses”, “two-route gains vs. one-route losses” and “one-route gains vs. three-route gains” scenarios were designed and posed to participants. The possible loss aversion was measured by the participants’ willingness to accept symmetric fair bets and the ratio of loss to gain. In Study 2, the psychological feeling was measured by using unmarked lines and hand dynamometer to examine whether psychological feeling varied with the number of routes of losses and gains. The results revealed that: (1) the loss aversion effect was not robust enough to survive in a context where the asymmetry pattern of “one-route gain vs. two-route loss” was changed or reversed, and (2) the more routes of gains and losses were imposed, the stronger psychological feelings will be experienced. The present data pit route-based account against the reference point account and demonstrate that the mechanism of route may provide a more promising explanation for the observed changes in loss aversion. The implications of these findings for tax policy-making and social reform were discussed. Related Articles | Metrics

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Eyes Gaze Cueing Effect: Endogenous or Exogenous Processing Mechanism? ZHAO Ya-Jun, ZHANG Zhi-Jun 2009, 41 (12):  1133-1142.  Abstract ( 1603 )   Observing another person’s averted eye gaze led to automatic shift of attention in the corresponding direction, which facilitated subsequent early visual processing. This phenomenon was termed ‘eyes gaze cueing effect’, in short, ‘gaze cueing effect’ (GCE). Many researchers tried to interpret the processing mechanism underlying GCE. However, there were controversies on this topic. Friesen and Kingstone (2003) claimed that gaze cues triggered a kind of reflexive or exogenous shift of visual attention that was normally associated with the abrupt onset of a stimulus in the periphery of vision. Whereas Vecera and Rizzo (2004) found a patient EVR with frontal-lobe damage was impaired in using eye gaze cues to allocate attention, suggesting that GCE may involve frontal-lobe processes which control voluntary, not automatic, shifts of visuospatial attention. Both viewpoints have gained some evidences. Thus, whether gaze cues shifted spatial attention reflexively (exogenously) or voluntarily (endogenously) was still in debate. This issue would be clarified in the present study in two aspects. On the one hand, how gaze cues shifted observer’s attention. On the other hand, how gaze cues affected the processing of the target in the corresponding direction. Two experiments were conducted in this study, which employed the spatial Stroop paradigm and the target search task respectively. In both experiments, subjects were presented with a gaze cue to the right or left visual field (VF) before the occurrence of a lateralized target to response. There were two conditions in this non-predictive cueing task: (1) targets were presented in the VF indicated by the eye gaze direction (congruent); or (2) targets were opposite to the eye gaze direction (incongruent). In the first experiment, 22 subjects were required to discriminate the direction to which the peripherally presented arrow points. While in the second experiment, another 16 subjects all were instructed to finish two different tasks: One involved the detection of single feature, and the other involved the search of feature conjunction. Stimulus presentation and data collection were conducted by E-prime software. From the first experiment, it was found: (1) The lack of GCE was due to the processing conflict between gaze cue and other endogenous cues, which indicated that the two cues had similar processing mechanism; (2) Gaze cue produced larger spatial Stroop effects for valid than invalid trials, which suggested that eyes gaze led to the generation of an internal representation of the spatial location. From the second experiment, similar facilitation effects of the gaze cue for both single feature and feature conjunction search was found, which revealed that gaze cue affected feature extraction as well as later processing stages (decision and response processes), but it did not influence feature integration directly. It was concluded that the intrinsic mechanism of GCE belonged to the endogenous attention system. Eyes gaze cue may induce observers’ attention shift through the generation of an internal representation of the spatial location indicated by the cue, and facilitate target feature extraction and encoding, thus speed up the response ultimately. Related Articles | Metrics

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The Influence of the Unexpected Stimulus’ Speed on Inattentional Blindness FENG Cheng-Zhi, FENG Xia 2009, 41 (12):  1143-1151.  Abstract ( 1128 )   Inattentional blindness is a phenomenon that, when people focus on a visual stimulus, they often neglect other stimuli appearing in the visual field. It is influenced by many factors, such as the position, size, color of irrelevant stimuli, the relationship between unexpected stimulus and attended stimulus, and so on. The main purpose of this study is to examine the influence of the speed of unexpected stimulus on inattentional blindness. Two experiments were conducted to investigate the perception or awareness of the unexpected irrelevant stimulus with different moving speeds under equi-interval and equi-distance conditions with the revised Mack and Rock’s paradigm. Each experiment corresponds to a variation of Mack & Rock condition, the vigilant condition and the full attention condition respectively. Subjects were asked to count the number of a central fixation flashing within a 10s interval. After that, the screen was masked with a random line pattern for 2000 msec. Then subjects were required to report the number as accurately as possible. This procedure was followed on the first three trials. In the fourth trial (unexpected trial), a critical stimulus – an unexpected dark gray circle, with different speeds moving across one of the quadrant either vertically or horizontally. Immediately after the trial in which the critical stimulus was presented, subjects were asked whether they had seen anything on the screen other than the flashed cross, which was anything that had not been presented on previous trials. If subjects reported that they had seen something, they were asked to identify it by describing it and indicating the quadrant where the critical stimulus appeared and the moving direction of the critical stimulus. The fifth trial (divided-attention trial) was the same as the fourth, then one may expect that another shape of a critical stimulus was added in order to increase the confusion of the critical stimulus. The participants were asked to to report the properties related to the critical stimulus on the last trial (full-attention trial), but not to perform the counting task. Under the equi-interval condition, the moving critical stimulus was presented for 200ms; but under the equi-distance condition, the presentation time of the moving critical stimulus varied with the speed of the critical stimulus in order to keep the distance equal. We found (1) The inattentional blindness was significantly influenced by the moving speed and the moving interval of the critical stimulus. (2) Within a certain range of moving interval, the faster was the critical stimulus, the smaller was the proportion of inattentional blindness. There was no significant difference when the moving distances of different moving speeds were the same. (3) When the presentation time was beyond some range, the influences of the moving speed to inattentional blindness decreased dramatically, and an inverted-U relationship was shown between the influences of moving speed to inattentional blindness and the presentation time. Detailed analyses and discussion of the results are presented at the end of the paper. Related Articles | Metrics

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An investigation of the Status quo of China’s Contemporary Youth’s Affective Quality LU Jia-Mei, LIU Wei, HE Wen, YUAN Jun, ZHU Pei-Liang, LU Sheng-Hua, WANG Jun-Shan, TIAN Xue-Ying 2009, 41 (12):  1152-1164.  Abstract ( 1684 )   A large-scale investigation on the affective quality of youth population in China is a significant though challenging endeavor. Followed from the youth affective quality theory and developmental affection with classified thoughts, current study developed an original investigative tool with good reliability and validity—“Questionnaire on Youth’s Affective Quality”. This instrument dealt with the complexities in affect measurement and is of great theoretical and practical significance. The questionnaire was used to investigate youth affect development on twenty-nine different affects, including patriotism, affectionateness, integrity, responsibility, learning happiness, self-confidence, achievements, exploration, curiosity; aesthetic for craftwork, aesthetic for nature, aesthetic for art, aesthetic for environments, aesthetic for science; well-being, self-reliance, passion, cherish, cooperation, gregariousness, affiliation, trustworthiness, intimacy, forgiveness, emotionally appealing, emotional cognition, emotional experience, emotional evaluation, emotional adjustment. They belong to six categories (moral affection, rational affection, esthetic affection, interpersonal affection, life affection and emotional intelligence) that evolve from the identity level of affection and the operational level of affection. Item analysis, analysis of reliability and validity and the exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis all verified that the questionnaire met with the criterion of an effective measurement tool. Based on the analysis of the sub-questionnaires, we also carried out the high-order factor analysis which confirmed the presence of a higher-order factor – the “affective quality”. This finding strongly supports the definition and the theoretical basis of “affective quality”. The questionnaire is administered to 25,485 students of primary schools, junior schools, high schools and vocational schools. The geological regions encompasses those of well-developed, developed and less developed regions in China including 117 schools in urban and suburban areas of nine major cities(Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Changchun, Zhengzhou, Xian, Xining, Guiyang, Haikou). The results showed: 1) As a whole, the affective quality of youth in China are positive, but still needs to be improved. 2) A structural difference mainly exists between males and females. 3) From the elementary, junior to high school, affective quality exhibited a downward trend, in which learning happiness and self-confidence has reached significance level. 4) Affective quality was correlated positively with students’ self-evaluation of learning performance and their parents’ educational levels. 5) Good teacher-student relationships, enthusiasm of teachers’ classroom teaching facilitated directly and importantly to the development in all aspects of students’ affective quality. This investigation crucially supplies first-hand information for educators on how to improve the affective quality of youth students as well as for academics on the theoretical implications for affective quality research. Related Articles | Metrics

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Effect of Family Functioning on Adolescents’ Alienation: Moderated Mediating Effect XU Fu-Zhen,ZHANG Wen-Xin,ZHANG Ling-Ling 2009, 41 (12):  1165-1174.  Abstract ( 2620 )   Alienation is a negative emotional state, reflecting individual impotence in dealing with others and establishing an effective bond with social groups, such as among family, classmates and peers. While modest alienation is good for psycho-social development, high levels of alienation may negatively impact development. Adolescence is a period of heightened risk for high levels of alienation. Research on the relationship between the family environment and peer relations revealed that higher conflicts among numbers of family as well as weak or unhealthy family functioning could lead to adolescents feeling alienated from their parents and resisting inclusion in their family. Those who scored high on the alienation scale usually lived in a troubled family, where family members experienced a lack of close relationships and self-control, and were unable to adapt to social experiences properly. However, peer groups are another necessary micro-system that play an important role in adolescents psychological social development. Good peer relations can provide adolescents with valuable information and feelings of support; and positive peer acceptance can help alienated adolescents alleviate the sense of stress and anxiety. But neither family environment nor peer acceptance can affect adolescents’ alienation on its own. Research is needed to examine the interaction between the effects of the family environment and peer acceptance. The majority of research on adolescent alienation has been conducted in Western cultures, and information on how contemporary Chinese adolescents experience alienation is still limited. In the past two decades, China has experienced profound transformations; rapid social and economic development has changed the family structure through socioeconomic status and general family functioning. It is thus necessary to explore the alienation characteristics of Chinese adolescents from a systemic perspective, and to find the interaction mechanisms of family functioning and peer acceptance. The present study investigated the effect of family socioeconomic status, family functioning, and peer acceptance on adolescents’ feelings of alienation in contemporary China. The Adolescent Alienation Scale, Family Function Scale, Family SES measure and Peer Nomination survey were administered to 608 adolescents (317 boys and 291 girls) attending junior and senior high school in Jinan City, Shandong Province, using Structural Equation Model Analysis. Results were as follows: (1) There was a significant difference between school-age stages; senior high school students reported higher alienation than students from junior high school. (2) A significant difference was found among three dimensions of adolescents’ alienation; environmental alienation was highest, followed by social alienation, and interpersonal alienation being the lowest. (3) Family functioning could fully mediate the relationship between family socioeconomic status and adolescent alienation. That is, parents’ education level, their professions, and the family’s income could affect adolescents’ alienation through influencing family functioning. However, the mediating effect of family functioning was moderated by peer acceptance. High peer acceptance could actually protect adolescents who were in a family with poor functioning from high alienation. In fact, family functioning, as a moderated mediator, had an effect on adolescents’ alienation. These results imply that we could assist adolescents with high alienation by improving their family socioeconomic status, improving their family functioning, and helping them build positive peer relations. Related Articles | Metrics

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Deficient Inhibition of Return for Emotional Faces in Depression DAI Qin, FENG Zheng-Zhi 2009, 41 (12):  1175-1188.  Abstract ( 1457 )   Depression is a commonly-occurred mental disorder. Researchers have highlighted the attentional bias of depressive disorders, although results have been mixed. The cue-target task has often been used to explore attentional bias; a particular phenomenon revealed by such studies is the inhibition of return (IOR). However, cue-target task has seldom been used so far in the study of depressed patients. The aim of the present study was to investigate the IOR phenomenon in depressed individuals in cue-target task using emotional faces as cues. Control participants who had never suffered depression (NC), participants who had experienced at least two depressive episodes in their lives but were currently remitted (RMD), and participants diagnosed with a current major depressive disorder (MDD), were recruited using BDI, SDS, HAMD and CCMD-3 as tools. Seventeen participants in each group completed a cue-target task in a behavioral experiment that comprised three kinds of experimental condition, two cue types and four face types. Each participant also completed a simpler cue-target task in an event-related potential (ERP) experiment. In this task, a target appeared after a cue and the participant responded to its location. In the behavioral experiment, it was found that when the stimulus onset asynchrony (SOA) was 14 ms, the NC and RMD participants had IOR effects for all faces and MDD participants for angry and sad faces. When the SOA was 250 ms, all three groups all had cue validity for sad faces but the effect was much more marked for the MDD group. When the SOA was 750 ms, the NC participants had an IOR effect for sad faces, the RMD participants had cue validity for angry, happy and sad faces, and the MDD participants had cue validity for sad faces and an IOR effect for angry faces. In the ERP experiment, the NC participants showed a bigger P3 amplitude for happy cue than the other groups, a smaller P1 amplitude for happy faces in the invalid cue condition than for other faces, a smaller P1 amplitude for sad faces in the valid cue condition than for other faces, a bigger P3 amplitude for happy faces in the valid cue condition compared with MDD participants, and a bigger P3 amplitude for sad faces in the invalid cue condition compared with other groups. The RMD participants had larger P3 amplitude for sad cue than for other faces, larger P3 amplitude for happy faces in the valid cue condition compared with MDD participants, and smaller P3 amplitude for sad faces in the invalid cue condition compared with NC participants. The MDD participants had a larger P1 amplitude for sad cue compared with other groups, a larger P3 amplitude for sad cue than for other face cues, a smaller P3 amplitude for sad faces in the invalid cue condition compared with NC participants, and a smaller P3 amplitude for happy faces in the valid cue condition compared with other groups. It can be concluded that the MDD participants had cue validity and deficient IOR for negative stimuli. The deficient inhibition of negative stimuli renders them unable to eliminate the interference of negative stimuli and causes the maintenance and development of depression. The RMD participants had cue validity and deficient IOR for both positive and negative stimuli, which enables them to perceive positive and negative stimuli sufficiently and to maintain emotional balance. Related Articles | Metrics

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The Mechanisms of How Abusive Supervision Impacts on Subordinates’ Voice Behavior LI Rui, LING Wen-Quan, LIU Shi-Shun 2009, 41 (12):  1189-1202.  Abstract ( 2110 )   In today’s dynamic and hypercompetitive business environment, employees’ opinions and suggestions intended to improve organizational functioning and well-being are critical to the survival and development of an organization. Yet, many individuals are not willing to provide thoughts and ideas without inhibition in organizational context. Accumulating evidence suggests that leadership plays a significant role in employees’ voice behavior. However, past studies in this domain have primarily focused on the positive aspects of leaders’ characteristics and behaviors. Also the mechanisms and processes by which leader-related factors exert their impact have not been adequately explored in the existing literature. In the present study, we tried to examine the influence of abusive supervision on the voice behavior dimensions of promotive voice and prohibitive voice, and investigate the mediating role of perceived organizational support and psychological safety as well as the moderating role of perceived supervisory status playing in the linkages between abusive supervision and voice behavior in the context of Chinese organizations. A structured questionnaire was employed as the research instrument for this study. It consisted of five scales designed to measure the variables of interest, namely abusive supervision, voice behavior, perceived organizational support, psychological safety, and perceived supervisory status. To avoid the Chinese people’s tendency of choosing the mid-point of the scale regardless of their true feelings or attitudes, all of the items on the survey were responded to on 6-point Likert scales which did not include a mid-point. Data were collected from 504 full-time employees who came from enterprises and institutions located in Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Changsha and Qingdao. Cronbach’s alpha coefficients for the above measures were from 0.84 to 0.93, showing good measurement reliabilities. Results of confirmatory factor analysis indicated the discriminant validity of the measurement was also satisfactory. Structural equation modeling (SEM) and total effect moderation model were utilized to analyze the data for testing the hypotheses proposed. In line with predictions, results of SEM analysis revealed that abusive supervision had a significant negative influence on both promotive and prohibitive voice behavior. However, the effects of abusive supervision on the two kinds of voice behavior were transmitted through different mechanisms. Specifically, abusive supervision’s negative effect on promotive voice was fully mediated by perceived organizational support, while its negative effect on prohibitive voice was fully mediated by perceived organizational support and psychological safety. In addition, results of total effect moderation model analysis suggested subordinates’ perception of supervisory status in organizations significantly moderated the relationship between abusive supervision and perceived organizational support. Abusive supervision was more strongly associated with perceived organizational support when subordinates perceived higher supervisory status. Meanwhile, the indirect effects of abusive supervision on promotive and prohibitive voice mediated by perceived organizational support or psychological safety were also stronger when perceived supervisory status was higher. Finally, the theoretical and managerial implications of the findings, limitations, and future research directions were discussed. Related Articles | Metrics

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The Measurement of Organizational Innovation Climate and Its Moderating Effect in the Relationship between Employees’ Innovation Ability and Innovation Performance ZHENG Jian-Jun,JIN Sheng-Hua,MA Guo-Yi 2009, 41 (12):  1203-1214.  Abstract ( 2347 )   In the west, organizational innovation climate is a very important field in the literature pertaining to organizational behavior. However, there has been few studies on OIC (short for organizational innovation climate), and especially there is a lack of researches on measurement of OIC in the Chinese culture. The present paper attempts to get findings about the structure and measurement of COIC (short for Chinese organizational innovation climate), and tries to better understand how OIC exerts effect on the relationship between employees’ innovation ability and innovation performance. Firstly, through a content analysis of data collected from 46 MBA students (using open questionnaire); the primary COIC Questionnaire is established in China. Then, data collected from a diverse sample of 483 subjects is used to explore the primary questionnaire’s reliability and validity by EFA. Lastly, using item analysis and CFA, data from another sample of 413 subjects is used to confirm the validity and reliability of the formal COIC Questionnaire. Meanwhile, we conducted another analysis on the moderating effect of OIC on employees’ innovation ability and innovation performance. 　　In the Chinese context, the results indicate that COIC contains seven dimensions which are Incentive Mechanism, Leader Exemplar Behaviors, Team Collaboration, Superior Supports, Resources Guarantee, Organizational Promotion, and Autonomous Work. CFA further confirmed COIC’s factorial validity. The range of Cronbach α of the seven factors is from 0.843 to 0.881, and Cronbach α of the entire COIC Questionnaire is 0.916. After controlling demographic variables, the predictor’s standardized regression coefficients of interpersonal quality are positive and significant. In this study, we found that seven dimensions of the COIC have rationality, and COIC has proper reliability and high validity. With comparison to similar studies, the result shows similarity as well as Chinese cultural uniqueness. Meanwhile, the OIC moderated the relationship between the employees’ innovation ability and innovation performance. Related Articles | Metrics

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The Impacts of Perceived Organizational Support and Perceived External Prestige on Organizational Citizenship Behavior: Organizational Identification as Mediator and Need for Self-esteem as Moderator SHEN Yi-Mo, YUAN Deng-Hua, ZHANG Hua, YANG Dong, ZHANG Jin-Fu, ZHANG Qing-Lin 2009, 41 (12):  1215-1227.  Abstract ( 1837 )   The last two decades have witnessed a surge in interest in the degree to what contribute to organizational citizenship behavior, which is viewed by some researchers as an important impetus to organizational effectiveness. A considerable amount of researches have shown that organizational citizenship behavior is largely derived from multiple determinants (i.e. organizational justice, perceived organizational support, organizational commitment, job satisfaction), yet the underlying mechanism of how those factors regulate OCB remains largely elusive. The present study introduced a social-exchange model of organizational citizenship behavior incorporating both direct exchange and indirect exchange, and explored the critical roles of organizational identification and need for self-esteem in the social exchange process. A sample of 234 supervisor-subordinate dyads collected in China was used for data analysis by structural equation modeling and hierarchical regression analysis. Results indicated that: (1) perceived external prestige (PEP) and perceived organizational support (POS) had significant direct impacts on two types of organizational citizenship behaviors (OCBI and OCBO) by the full mediating effect of organizational identification. (2) Individual’s need for self-esteem moderated the relationship between POS and organizational identification. However, it didn’t moderate the relationship between PEP and organizational identification. It is demonstrated that both indirect and direct social exchanges play important roles in determining employees’ organizational citizenship behaviors and organizational identification. Both POS and PEP have impacts on organizational citizenship behavior through the mediating effect of organizational identification. Meanwhile, individual’s need for self-esteem can moderate the relationship between POS and organizational identification, rather than the relationship between PEP and organizational identification. Results highlight the importance of organizational identification and need for self-esteem in enhancing the understanding of the links between social exchange and organization citizenship behavior. Related Articles | Metrics

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The Effect of the Violent Elements in Violent Games on the Players and the Observers’ Aggression ZHANG Xue-Min,LI Mao1,SONG Yan,LI Yong-Na,WEI Liu-Qing 2009, 41 (12):  1228-1236.  Abstract ( 2193 )   The general aggression model (GAM, Anderson & Bushman, 2002) provides a framework of the negative effect of the violent video games. It is assumed in the GAM that individual acts of aggression are caused by the interactions between situational (e.g., frustrations, or the presence of firearms), individual (e.g., personality and attitudes), and biological (e.g., increases in blood pressure) variables. The previous studies have shown that violent video games play an important role in the increases of aggressive behaviors, aggressive cognition, hostility, psychological arousal, and physiological responses. Because most of the existent research focuses only on examining the relationship between aggression and the playing of the violent video games, it still remains unclear how the situational, individual, and biological variables interact with each other to lead to the aggressive behaviors. The present two experiments were designed to investigate how the situational factors such as different ways (playing vs. observing) of presence of violence and different elements (shooting and blood) of violence in video games influence the aggressive behaviors and cognition. Seventy-two male undergraduates participated in the research. Half of the participants were asked to play the 45 degree shooting game called Alien Shooter, and the other half were asked to watch a video tape of somebody playing the same game. After a period of time of playing or observing the game, all the participants performed both the competitive reaction time task and the extrinsic affective Simon task. The results showed that: (1) players were more aggressive than observers in both tasks, which means that active involvement in the violent video games yielded more negative outcome than passive involvement did, and (2) both shooting and blood elements promote aggression of players, but only the blood element (not the shooting element which attracted more attention of the observer) made observers to infer that other players would be aggressive. The findings of the present research are valuable in the video game design, at least in terms of decreasing violence in the games. According to the present results, the application of substitution of shooting and blood in the game will lead to less violence of the game, and it in turn will decrease the negative effect of video game play. Related Articles | Metrics

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Developing a Multidimensional Scale to Assess Safety Behaviors in Airline Flight YOU Xu-Qun,JI Ming,DAI Kun,YANG Shi-Yun,CHANG Ming 2009, 41 (12):  1237-1251.  Abstract ( 1289 )   Crew Resource Management (CRM) and Threat and Error Management (TEM) are known to be reliable techniques to improve human performance by preventing and avoiding flight errors in cockpit. Neither CRM nor TEM, however, has carried out an in-depth systematic analysis on the error-inducing navigation behavior and, as a result, there is a lack of reliable behavior objectives or effective evaluation measures for implementing trainings on error preventing skills, problem diagnosis on navigation behaviors, and effective evaluation on safety performance. Although a relatively comprehensive evaluation system for technical-skill assessment on airline pilots has already been adopted in some countries, the system for evaluating non-technical skills remains weak. The current situation characterized by more emphasis on examining technical skills while little on evaluating and training non-technical skills/human factor skills leads to one of the major reasons for the lasting high accident rates induced by human factors in current aviation safety field. The fundamental key to this issue, necessarily, is to start with evaluating and diagnosing the standardization of navigation safety behaviors of airline pilots. Unlike other industries adopting the rate of accidents and incidents or injury rate as safety index, the airline industry has adopted “the standardization of navigation behaviors of airline pilots” as a fairly effective index to evaluate safety operation performance, and diagnose operating errors, due to its character of being able to objectively and veritably capture various potential risk behaviors leading to flight accidents or incidents. On the basis of combining CRM and TEM models with the characteristics of Chinese aviation safety culture, the present study established a multidimensional evaluation method to assess navigation safety behaviors of Chinese airline pilots, aiming at providing a set of objective and effective assessing instruments for selecting and training Chinese airline pilots, and evaluating and diagnosing the standardization of navigation behaviors in airline flight. All the 118 subjects came from China Southern Airlines Ltd. as college graduates with good physical and mental health. They met physical examination standards formulated by Civil Aviation Administration of China. Through literature review, expert interview, and open-ended questionnaire survey, twenty-seven representative aircrew behavior patterns which could influence modern airline flight safety were selected, which, in turn, composed the test items for assessing navigation safety behaviors under Chinese culture background. Four flight experts were invited to conduct Level Evaluation on the actual flight performance of the 118 airline pilots, according to the test content throughout the following four flight phrases: preparation/skidding, taking off/climbing, cruise, and descending/approach/landing — from "Lower than the Anticipated level (1)" to "Crew Paragon (4)". The results of Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) conducted on the evaluation data concerning the navigation safety behaviors of 118 Chinese airline pilots indicated that the four-dimension model composed of Automation System Understanding, Leadership and Management, Situation Awareness and Decision-making, and Interpersonal Communication and Cooperation was the best fit of data among the 5 hypothesized models. Moreover, it is of satisfying reliabilities and construct validities throughout the four flight phases. With safety performance accessing data of 86 pilots (in terms of Safety Regulations, Flight Style, Flight Skills and Aircrew Management) as criterion variables, and the pilots’ flight performance data throughout the different phases of airline flight as predictive variables, a series of hierarchical regression analyses were implemented, respectively. The results showed that the present multidimensional scale had high differential validity and predictive validity; the four dimension variables contributed significantly to the evaluation of navigation safety behaviors in different flight phases, with differentiated contribution levels according to different mission requirements in varied flight phases. In sum, the multidimensional scale developed in this study not only provides an effective tool to standardize the navigation safety behaviors of crewmembers, to identify the errors in aircrew navigation behaviors, and to examine safety performance, but also lays a solid theoretical foundation for developing programs specifically for pilot selection and aircrew CRM trainings. Related Articles | Metrics

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Structural Equation Modeling of Latent Interactions Without Using the Mean Structure WU Yan,WEN Zhong-Lin,LIN Guan-Chyun 2009, 41 (12):  1252-1259.  Abstract ( 1367 )   Estimating the interaction between variables is a particularly important theoretical, substantive, and empirical issue in psychology, as well as in many other social and behavioral sciences. Interactions between (multiple indicator) latent variables are rarely used because of the implementation complexity especially when the mean structure is known as a necessary part of any latent interaction model. There are four types of parameters related to the mean structure, which are namely, the intercepts of the y-measurement equations, the intercepts of the x-measurement equations, the intercepts of the structural equations, and the means of the exogenous latent variables. In this article, it is shown that the mean structure in the latent interaction model comes from the non-zero mean of the latent interaction construct ξ1ξ2 (the product of the two first terms). Thus, the means of the exogenous latent variables and the intercepts of the y-measurement equations are always necessary even if all indicators are mean-centered when the traditional latent interaction construct is used. By building a new latent interaction construct so that its mean is zero, we obtain a structural equation model of latent interaction in which the mean structure is no longer necessary and the parameters of main and interaction effects are unchanged. A simulation study comparing the estimated parameters and goodness of fit indices of the two latent interaction models with and without the mean structure by using the matched-pair product indicators and the unconstrained approach is demonstrated. The simulation results are consistent with the theoretical predictions. This research unambiguously shows that the mean structure problem which has unduly deterred the applied researchers for a long time can now be solved. Related Articles | Metrics

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TOTAL CONTENTS OF ACTA PSYCHOLOGICA SINICA, Vol. 41, 2009 2009, 41 (12):  1260-1266.  Abstract ( 925 )   Related Articles | Metrics

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reviewers of journal 2009, 41 (12):  1267-1267.  Abstract ( 848 )   Related Articles | Metrics