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Mourn with Deep Grief for Professor KUANG Pei-Zi editor 2012, 44 (9):  1137-1137.  Abstract ( 810 )   Related Articles | Metrics

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Processing Levels and Its Prerequisite During Subliminal Perception: Evidences Based on Visual Masking Priming WANG Pei;HUO Peng-Fei;WANG Ling-Hui 2012, 44 (9):  1138-1148.  doi: 10.3724/SP.J.1041.2012.01138 Abstract ( 1177 )   Dehaene, et al. (1998) and Greenwald, et al. (1996) have brought substantial evidence on the existence of subliminal perception. But there are still controversies about which level can subliminal perception reach. While some researcher argued the subliminal stimuli can be processed semantically, other researcher argued it was a shallow processing based on the visual characteristic of stimuli. Both sides have empirical evidences to support their views. Several theories object the subliminal semantic process, such as direct motor specification hypothesis, target stimuli activation theory and action trigger theory. Van Opstal and his colleagues (2005) believed that even not all of the experiments can be explained by action trigger theory, at least under some masking conditions, real semantic prime occurred. In order to explore whether and why semantic process exists in the subliminal process, two experiments were designed in this study. Based on previous researches, the present paper explored the depth and potential moderators of priming effects with picture and Chinese words as stimuli. 26 college students (age ranged from 20 to 26 years old (14 female, average ages was 22.3) ) participated in the experiment1. The masked priming paradigm and category classification task were adopted in the experiment1. Both indirect and direct measurements were tested on participants to make sure that the priming stimuli were operated unconsciously. At the mean time, big categories such as “animal” and “non-animal” were used to prevent the interpretation of action trigger. In the experiment2, 28 college students participated in the exp2. Two participants were excluded due to their slow reaction. The final sample was constituted by 26 participants (16 female, average ages was 19.2). Priming stimuli and target stimuli were presented by different form, such as word characters and pictures, to prevent the potential stimuli—response connection. Moreover, the size of target category was manipulated to examine their effect on subliminal process. The main results are as follows: when using pictures as materials, there is no interaction between priming stimuli and target stimuli. The fact that priming effect could still be seen in a big category classification task provides further evidence of subliminal semantic process. Meanwhile, subliminal semantic process also can be seen by using pictures as priming stimuli and Chinese characters as target stimuli, since there are no interactions between them. In addition, the depth of subliminal perception is decided by which level of process participants’ use on target stimuli. If participants process the target stimuli on a low level, the subliminal stimuli would be processed in the perceptive level. If participants process the target stimuli on a deep level, the subliminal stimuli would also be processed in the semantic level. The present study has important implications in the area of subliminal perception. Not only does this study provide further evidence of the existence of semantic subliminal perception, but also indicates that the task context could determine whether stimuli will be processed semantically or nonsemantically, which in turn can influence priming effect. Related Articles | Metrics

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Performance Monitoring and Behavioral Adjustments in a Time-Estimation Task: Evidence from ERP Study XIANG Ling;WANG Bao-Xi;ZHANG Qing-Lin 2012, 44 (9):  1149-1159.  doi: 10.3724/SP.J.1041.2012.01149 Abstract ( 1037 )   It is important for successful future behavior to learn from past mistakes. In the last two decades, performance monitoring has received a lot of attention. Some studies showed that the FRN (feedback related negativity) was sensitive to adjustment behavior following the feedback stimulus, whereas some studies did not find any relationship between ERN amplitude and behavioral adjustments. So it is unclear how the brains learn from past mistakes. In the present study, we used a time-estimation task with feedback type (correct, incorrect-slow, incorrect-fast with the graded incorrect feedback as a function of the degree of error under gain and loss condition. Event-related potentials were recorded to explore the neural mechanism of the performance monitoring and behavioral adjustment in time-estimation task. Thirteen healthy volunteers participated in this study. Subjects were asked to estimate a 1-second interval and feedback was based on the estimation of the participants. Subjects received graded incorrect feedback as a function of the degree of error and the ‘punishment’ on incorrect trials was loss 30 Yuan, loss 20 Yuan, or loss 10 Yuan relative to correct trials. Analyses of the behavioral data revealed that the subjects shortened or lengthened their judgments according to feedback and the amount of adjustment was related to the suggested degree of error. Behavioral data indicated that the subjects made use of the information provided by the feedback in adjusting their behavior from one trial to the next. Analyses of ERP data focused on feedback-related negativity (FRN) and P300. FRN analyses revealed that FRN was sensitive to feedback value but insensitive to fast-slow incorrect feedback or three punishment levels. These results suggested the dissociation between the processes underlying generation of the FRN and the processes responsible for behavioral adjustments. P300 showed an opposite pattern relative to FRN: P300 was modulated not only by fast-slow incorrect feedback but also by the three incorrect levels. Post hoc tests confirmed that P300 became larger in the order of Loss 10 Yuan < Loss30Yuan whether in the gain or the lose condition as verified by the behavioral results. In this case, the additional information provided in the time estimation task would be used by systems that produced the P300 to update reward expectations and to guide adaptive decision making. Thus, P300 is taken as an index of the updating of action representation and a brain potential of behavioral adjustment. These findings suggest that brain responses in performance monitoring and behavioral adjustment may be divided into an earlier rapid, semi-automatic, alerting process which indicates that behavioral adjustments are needed and a later slower, conscious cognitive appraisal process which indicates updating of action representation that vary as a function of current contexts and processing goals. Related Articles | Metrics

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The Markov Chain Model for Forecasting of Subject Representation to Thinking Point State XU Peng;XIONG Jian 2012, 44 (9):  1160-1166.  doi: 10.3724/SP.J.1041.2012.01160 Abstract ( 791 )   Acquiring quantitative data of linguistic and mental representations is not only a techno-keystone about the correlative between language and mentality but also a difficult point of research methodology about linguistic analysis. The mathematical model which, combining natural linguistic structure, provides quantitative analysis is of very important impact for understanding the psychological information delivered by language representation. The sentential subject, including mostly noun and pronoun, is the starting point of this sentence and the foundation of logistic thinking. The linguistic representation people use is a kind of random phenomenon, in other words, people have to use natural language to symbolize thinking process and its outcome. However, in a sentence, whether the noun or the pronoun will appear first is purely random. In linguistic representation of sequential sentences, the structure of the subjects is of Markov property. So we may adopt the Markov chain model to depict the random phenomenon of sentence subject representation. We collected 124 data sets from a general subject class, a selective course taken by 124 college students finished with a written report by each student. The source of the participants was widespread, including students from sophomore to senior, while their majors involve arts, science, and engineering, as well as sports, beaus-arts, and music, etc. Such a sample set fits the requirement for this research quite well. Each sample involved 5 topic sentences and 1 Thematic Apperception Test. There were 121 valid data, the valid rate of the data reached 97.58%. Based on the Markov property definition of sentence subject representation, the research aim of this project is to calculate the transition matrix of sentence subject representation in aggregate of language representation so as to observe the implicit status of the thinking point trend a person demonstrated through explicit natural language representation. Through this research, we found that the n/r-state (noun/pronoun) of sentence subject is a regular chain, no matter what it is initially, the sentence subject representation a person spoke will eventually move to the n/r-way. Excluding 13 invalid data, the 109 valid data show that the average transfer rank of subject n/r (r/n)-state reached 2.4 times. This transformation of sentence subjects displayed the regular chain law. The result of this research indicate the following facts: (1) the sentence subject representation noun (n) / pronoun (r) was a regular chain. No matter what is the initial state, it will approximate the n/r-way. The transition law of sentence subject representation reflects the thinking process. Individuals adjust its thinking according to the situation surrounding it. The subject representation of the first sentence reflects the randomness of the subjective and objective thinking trend. A person would present the thinking point of objective or subjective through some sentences which show that people care outside as well as selfhood. (2) The explicit natural language representation is the objective clue in observing implicit psychological change. Based on this, the possible implicit psychological change can be predicted (3) As a research methodology, Mathematic Model is capable of revealing the quantity and qualitative relation between language and mind representation effectively. Further research directions are as follows: (1) The language representation model will be optimized by the language volume modeling and the signal stability modeling in order to boost the external validity of application and popularization. (2) Take the age as mediator variable, the time series model of language representation and the discrete model of group discrepancy will be established, and further exam the formation of individual community mentality. Take the year as a mediator variable in addition, it will build a corpora of natural language to go a step further to observe and study the social psychological feature of an individual. Related Articles | Metrics

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Early Life Exposure to Bisphenol A Affects Anxiety and Depression Behaviors in Mice and Its Molecular Mechanism HONG Xing;XU Xiao-Hong;YANG Yu-Jie;XIE Ling-Dan;WANG Zhen-Lu;ZHANG Qin;ZHANG Guang-Xia;LIU Xing-Yi 2012, 44 (9):  1167-1179.  doi: 10.3724/SP.J.1041.2012.01167 Abstract ( 946 )   The effect of Bisphenol-A on the brain and behavioral development has attracted extensive attention. This study was to investigate the anxiety and depressive behaviors of adult offspring mice following maternal exposed to BPA (0.4 or 4 mg/kg/day) from gestation day 7 (GD 7) to GD 20 or postnatal day (PND) 1 to PND 14. The anxiety behavior of BPA-treated mice on PND 56 were tested using open field, dark-light transition, mirrored maze, and elevated plus maze; and depressive behavior was tested using forced swim task. The results showed that, both gestational and lactational exposure to BPA increased anxiety in both sexes of adult offspring but the effect pattern was different due to the exposure period and gender. The females those gestational exposed to BPA exhibited an increased anxiety in all of the 4 models, while the females those lactational exposed to BPA and the males of gestational or lactational exposure to BPA exhibited an increased anxiety in 2 of the 4 models. Gestational exposure to BPA significantly prolonged the immobile time in the forced swim test of both sexes of offspring, and the same effect was induced by lactational exposure to BPA only at 4 mg/kg/day. Furthermore, Western blot analyses showed that gestational or lactational exposure to BPA significantly inhibited the expression of AMPA receptor subunit GluR1 in the hippocampus and amygdale. These results suggest that both gestational and lactational exposure BPA increased anxiety and depression in both sexes of adult offspring mice, and gestational exposure to BPA has stronger effect on the anxiety and depression. The inhibition of GluR1 level in the hippocampus and amygdale might be associated with the BPA-induced anxiety and depressive behaviors of adult offspring mice. Related Articles | Metrics

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Mindfulness Can Reduce Automatic Responding: Evidences from Stroop Task and Prospective Memory Task WANG Yan;XIN Ting-Ting;LIU Xing-Hua;ZHANG Yun;LU Huan-Hua;ZHAI Yan-Bin 2012, 44 (9):  1180-1188.  doi: 10.3724/SP.J.1041.2012.01180 Abstract ( 2225 )   Mindfulness Meditation Practices (MMPs), defined by Kabat-Zinn (2003) that the awareness that emerges through paying attetnion on purpose, in the present moment, and non-judgmentally to the unfolding experience monment by moment, are a subgroup of mediation practices which are receiving growing attention. Although cognitive aspects of meditation underlie much of its clinical application, the processes underlying these clinical and intervention effects are presently not well understood. This study provides cognitive experimental supports for the idea that mediation leads to a reduction in habitual responding using randomly selected subjects, a secular form of meditation, and a full experimental design. Healthy adults were tested before and after random assignment to an 8-week course of Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) and Mindfulness-based cognitive theropy (MBCT), or a wait-list control. Testing included measures of Stroop task and prospective memory task, with prospective memory task embedded in a classic Stroop task in Chinese character. Results demonstrated that subjects completing the mindfulness training showed a significant reduction on RTs on both of the two tasks compared to pre- test by post-test, especially under the condition of Stroop incongruent, while the control subjects did not show the reduction. The RT difference between the ongoing task of before and after-PM was significantly decreased in control group in post-test relative to pre-test, but no difference was found in mindfulness group. Results suggested that mindfulness meditation practices can improve the achievement of Stroop task and prospective memory task, and cope with the interference of automatication and restraint the automatiation processing of prospective memory as the familiarity with the tasks by the subjects. Our results provides empirical support for the contention that mindfulness meditation practices leads to the deautomatization of response. No research on mindfulness exploited by prospective memory were found published until now. Related Articles | Metrics

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Two-Stage Model of Stereotype Activation Based on Face Perception ZHANG Xiao-Bin;ZUO Bin 2012, 44 (9):  1189-1201.  doi: 10.3724/SP.J.1041.2012.01189 Abstract ( 1594 )   The mechanism of stereotype activation has been the hot spot in stereotype research. The previous studies indicated the activation of stereotype was not always automatic. Under some conditions, the stereotypes did not activate automatically. Some factors affect automatic activation of stereotypes, such as cognitive load, anticipation, processing purpose and so on. However, there were no decisive conclusion on why stereotype activation was affected by these factors and what the mechanism of these effects was. One major reason causing above-mentioned problems was that the previous studies have ignored the exploration into the mechanism of the stereotype activation through studying the processing process of stereotype activation, such as whether stereotype activation can be divided. There were two reasons causing this negligence. One reason was that previous research paradigm was not suitable to explore the processing process of stereotype activation. The other reason was that, under the framework of social cognition, researchers have neglected the effects of perceptual processing to stereotype activation. Based on the above analysis, from the more ecological validity perspective of person construal, the authors proposed two-stage model of stereotype activation and verified it through two experiments. In Experiment 1, 32 participants were randomly selected and assigned to the experimental treatments. The authors compared the reaction time of gender categorization, the judgment of stereotype match in priming paradigm and the judgment of stereotype match in simultaneous presentation paradigm. In Experiment 2, 33 participants were randomly selected and assigned to the experimental treatments. Based on simultaneous presentation paradigm, operating the difficulty of extracting social category from faces by the face deformation, the authors explored the effect of face perception on stereotype activation. The results of Experiment 1 showed that the reaction time of the judgment of stereotype match under simultaneous presentation paradigm was significantly longer than the reaction time of gender categorization and the judgment of stereotype match in priming paradigm respectively, and it was equal to the sum of the reaction time of gender categorization and the judgment of stereotype match under priming paradigm. The effect of face presentation (inverted) to stereotype activation was different between priming paradigm and simultaneous presentation paradigm. The results of Experiment 2 showed that, with the increase of the difficulty to extract social category from faces, the reaction time of stereotype activation became longer. The results of two experiments confirmed two-stage model of stereotype activation proposed by the authors, that is, the stage of social category activation based on face perception and the stage of stereotype information activation. Category activation and stereotype information activation are two distinct processes. The results also indicated that face perception to extracting social category had significant effect on stereotype activation: the more difficult to extract social category from the faces the longer to the reaction time of stereotype activation is. Related Articles | Metrics

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The Antecedents and Outcomes of Psychological Ownership for the Organization: An Analysis from the Perspective of Person-Situation Interactions LI Rui;LING Wen-Quan;Liu Shi-Shun 2012, 44 (9):  1202-1216.  doi: 10.3724/SP.J.1041.2012.01202 Abstract ( 1288 )   In recent years, there has been an increasing scholarly attention to retaining valued employees and enhancing their performance by creating a feeling of ownership for the organization. This feeling of ownership is described as ‘psychological ownership’ and conceptually defined as a “state in which individuals feel as though the target of ownership (material or immaterial in nature) or a piece of it is ‘theirs’(Pierce, Kostova, & Dirks, 2001). On the basis of Pierce et al.’s initial theories and propositions, this study tried to explore the antecedents and outcomes of psychological ownership for the organization in the context of Chinese organizations. Specifically, the first objective of our study is to examine the main and interactive effects of supervisor’s authoritarian leadership style and employee’s collectivism on psychological ownership. The second objective of this study is to examine the effect of psychological ownership on employee silence, and investigate the moderating role of supervisor-subordinate guanxi playing in the linkages between them. A structured questionnaire was employed as the research instrument for this study. It consisted of five scales designed to measure the variables of interest, including psychological ownership, authoritarianism leadership, collectivism, supervisor-subordinate guanxi, and employee silence. 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 216 full-time employees coming from telecommunication companies located in Guangdong province. To avoid the problem of common method variance, two waves of survey were administrated, with a time separation of two weeks. In the first wave, employees were asked to provide ratings of psychological ownership, authoritarianism leadership, collectivism, and supervisor-subordinate guanxi. In the second wave, employees were asked to provide information on their own performance of silence and demography variables. Cronbach’s alpha coefficients for the above measures were from 0.75 to 0.86, showing acceptable measurement reliabilities. Results of confirmatory factor analysis indicated the discriminant validity of the measurement was also satisfactory. In line with the hypotheses proposed, results of hierarchical regression analysis revealed that authoritarianism leadership negatively predicted employees’ psychological ownership, whereas the main effect of collectivism on this feeling was not significant. Results of moderated regression analysis suggested authoritarianism leadership significantly moderated the relationship between collectivism and employees’ psychological ownership. Collectivism was positively associated with employees’ psychological ownership only when supervisors’ authoritarianism leadership was weak. In addition, results showed the main effect of psychological ownership on employee silence was not significant, while supervisor-subordinate guanxi played a strengthening role in the relationship. Finally, the theoretical and managerial implications of the findings, limitations, and future research directions were discussed. Related Articles | Metrics

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The Effect of Transformational Leadership on Follower Performance and Satisfaction: The Mediating Role of Psychological Capital and the Moderating Role of Procedural Justice SUI Yang;WANG Hui;YUE Yi-Ni;Fred Luthans 2012, 44 (9):  1217-1230.  doi: 10.3724/SP.J.1041.2012.01217 Abstract ( 1971 )   This study examines the mediating effect of psychological capital (PsyCap) and the moderating effect of procedural justice on the relationship between transformational leadership and followers’ job performance and satisfaction. PsyCap refers to an individual's positive psychological capacities consisting of elements of hope, optimism, resilience, and self-efficacy. We argue that transformational leadership shapes followers' PsyCap, which in turn, contributes to their job performance and satisfaction. Transformational leadership is able to influence followers' PsyCap in that each of its components (i.e., charisma or idealized influence, inspirational motivation, intellectual stimulation, and individualized consideration) is able to foster followers' state of hope, optimism, resilience, and self-efficacy. To further explicate the mediating effect of PsyCap, our second objective is to examine the moderating role of procedural justice. Drawing upon the relational model of authority, we hypothesize that procedural justice moderates the relationship between transformational leadership and PsyCap, and consequently the indirect relationship between transformational leadership and followers' job performance and satisfaction. Specifically, the relationship between transformational leadership and PsyCap is stronger when procedural justice is high rather than low. Data were collected from a logistic company in China. A total of 801 frontline employees and their immediate supervisors participated in the survey. Our sample consisted of 785 employees and 49 supervisors. Among the supervisors, males covered 69.2%, with an average age of 39.0 and organizational tenure of 17 years. Among the employees, males covered 71.3%, with an average age of 35.6 and organizational tenure of 7 years. We used regression analysis and bootstrap methods to test our hypotheses. The mediating test shows that followers' PsyCap acted as a mediator between transformational leadership and followers' job performance and satisfaction. In addition, hierarchical regression analysis shows that the relationship between transformational leadership and followers' PsyCap became stronger as followers' procedural justice growing from low to high. Furthermore, conditional indirect effect test shows that the mediating effect of followers' PsyCap on the transformational leadership –performance and satisfaction linkage was significant only among followers who perceived high levels of procedural justice. All hypotheses were supported. Our findings contribute to the literature in several ways. First, this research offers a new approach to the influence of transformational leadership by examining followers’ positive psychological states. This finding also enriches the literature on PsyCap. Second, our results concerning the moderating effect of procedural justice on the relationship between transformational leadership and followers' PsyCap (and job performance and satisfaction) contribute to the integration of justice research and leadership theory. To sum up, this study deepens our understanding of transformational leadership by examining the mediating effect of PsyCap and moderating effect of procedural justice in one theoretical framework. Related Articles | Metrics

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Effect of Leader Core Self-Evaluation on Follower Organizational Citizenship Behavior: The Role of Ethical Leadership and Collectivistic Orientation WANG Zhen;SUN Jian-Min;ZHANG Rui-Juan 2012, 44 (9):  1231-1243.  doi: 10.3724/SP.J.1041.2012.01231 Abstract ( 1767 )   Despite that a growing body of literature has demonstrated the importance of personality as a predictor of organizational citizenship behavior (OCB), these studies mainly focused on personality-OCB linkage at the same level, and ignored the trickle-down effect from the leader to the follower. Drawing on trait-based perspective of leadership effectiveness, we first investigated the effect of leader’s core self-evaluation (CSE) on follower’s OCB. The second unanswered question was that if leader’s CSE influenced follower’s OCB, what was the underlying mechanism? This question was consistent with previous argument that most studies paid less attention to the mechanism of personality-performance relationship. Based on theoretical and empirical evidence, we proposed that it was through ethical leadership behavior that leader’s CSE influenced follower’s OCB. The third question addressed the potential boundary condition of relationship among leader’s CSE, ethical leadership and follower’s OCB. Although leadership researchers have frequently suggested that followers’ reactions to leadership were contingent on their individual differences, to date this claim has not been comprehensively investigated in ethical leadership area. In this field study, we explored the role of follower’s collectivistic orientation, a cultural value at individual level in ethical leadership-OCB linkage. Thus, the general purpose of this paper was to develop and test a model in which leader’s CSE influenced follower’s OCB through the mediating effect of ethical leadership, and follower’s collectivistic orientation moderated the association of ethical leadership with follower’s OCB. We examined these research questions with matched field data collected from China. Consistent with hypotheses, results revealed that leader’s CSE had significant positive effects on follower’s OCB targeted at both the organization and the individual, and these effects were mediated by leader’s ethical behavior. In addition, results of cross-level moderating effect analysis demonstrated that follower’s collectivistic orientation moderated the association of ethical leadership and OCB in such a way that the effect of ethical leadership was stronger for followers who were high in collectivistic orientation. Our study extended personality-performance relationship by linking leader’s CSE with follower’s OCB, and its underlying moderating and mediating mechanisms. In addition, we tested the cultural contingency of ethical leadership by investigating whether ethical leadership and its relationship with OCB could be generalized across cultures. It is claimed that ethical leadership and its consequences might be variform functional universal, given that its relationship with OCB varies with follower’s collectivistic orientation. However, the readers are reminded that such a statement should be interpreted with cautions, and investigated in future cross-cultural studies. Related Articles | Metrics

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The Influence Mechanism of Third-Party Product Reviews (TPRs) on Impulse Buying Intention Within the Internet Environment:by Product Category and Commentators Rank for Regulation Variables CHANG Ya-Ping;XIAO Wan-Fu;QUN Wu;YAN-Jun 2012, 44 (9):  1244-1264.  doi: 10.3724/SP.J.1041.2012.01244 Abstract ( 1974 )   In recent years, with the rapid growth of online retailing, more and more consumers choose to buy commodities online. According to relevant investigations at home and abroad, many online consumers often purchase impulsively. Meanwhile, the internet has become an open platform for consumers to publish opinions (e.g. electronic word-of-mouth -eWOM) which are increasingly important for retail decision makers. Extensive research has identified eWOM as one of the key factors that influences consumer behavior. However, little research focuses on the influence mechanism of TPRS on impulse buying intention within the internet environment. Based on the study theory of cognitive psychology (SOR), Kotler’s model for consumer behavior, Elaboration Likelihood Model (ELM) and Hovland’s persuasion model, this paper proposes a model for the influence of TPRS on consumers’ online impulse buying intention, which is moderated by the product categories and commentators’ level. There are three studies in this paper. In the first study, an interview is conducted to analyze the dimensions of TPR. 210 respondents are surveyed through questionnaires to build the model between TPR, emotional responses and impulsive purchase behavior. In the second study, we test the moderation effect of product category of TPRs on impulse buying intention. In the third study, we test the impact of TPRs commentator levels on impulse buying intention. We adopt several statistical methods to test the assumptions of our study: factor analysis, regression analysis and Chow-test. In this paper, the structure of TPR includes four dimensions: content, quantity, quality and time. We use dimensions of emotion responses: pleasure and arousal. The results show that: content, quantity and time of TPR increase consumer online impulsive purchase intentions. Pleasure and arousal are the mediators of the relationship between online consumer reviews and impulsive purchase intention. When buying low involvement degree (VS: high involved degree) products and reading the comment of senior commentators (VS: primary commentators), the influence of TPR on consumer impulse purchase intentions are stronger. This paper draws the following main conclusions: First, the scale of TPR based upon the Informatics theory can effectively measure the concept of a third party review. Second, the theory of cognitive psychology (SOR), Kotler’s model of consumer behavior , can more effectively explain the relationship between TPR and impulse purchase intentions than traditional stimulation and emotional theory can. Third, the ELM theory and persuasion model define the usage of the model between a third party review and the impulse purchase intention. Related Articles | Metrics

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Self-Deception: Deceiving Yourself to Better Deceive Others LU Hui-Jing 2012, 44 (9):  1265-1278.  doi: 10.3724/SP.J.1041.2012.01265 Abstract ( 4771 )   Existing research has approached self-deception mainly as an intrapersonal process representing personality traits, motivational biases in information processing, and inconsistencies between explicit and implicit self-systems. Using an evolutionary approach, we treat self-deception as an interpersonal process whereby individuals deceive themselves to better deceive others. This approach advances two new theoretical developments in the understanding of self-deception. We propose that the probabilities of deception detection should affect the likelihood and activation of self-deception, and that a dual-retrieval memory system can be used to operationalize inter-personal self-deception. We first review the existing literature by highlighting three characteristics. First, self-deceptive individuals show contradictory responses between self-report and physiological or behavioral reaction, and these inconsistencies are motivated by the desire to maintain high self-esteem. Second, self-deception is driven by self-enhancing motivations in information processing that includes perceiving, evaluating, and retrieving information. Third, self-deception is also viewed as a personality attribute, representing individual differences in viewing oneself in an overly positive light. These studies also examine affective effects of self-deception and the correlations among emotion, cognition, motivation, and decision-making behaviors. We then present our evolutionary explanation of self-deception which we believe advances the development of this psychological construction and research both theoretically and methodologically. Theoretically, as proposed by the evolutionary biologist, Robert Trivers, self-deception is the result of the “arms race” between deception and deception detection. Because deception is prevalent in all animals including human beings, deception detection has evolved to prevent oneself from being deceived. Cues such as signs of nervousness may be leaked through changes in facial and eye muscle contraction, voice volume and pitch, and other observable physiological and bodily changes. The evolutionary adaptation to avoid these physiological cues of detection is self-deception that leaks out no cues for detection because the individual is unaware of the ongoing deception. Methodologically, we propose a way to test the evolutionary hypothesis about self-deception. Because self-deception evolves to better escape detection, it must respond to social conditions that register the probabilities of deception detection so that individuals should self-deceive when they sense high rather than low probabilities of detection. Social status, moral standing, and the mere number of the deceived, relative to that of the deceiver, represent the detection-registering conditions that should affect the likelihood and activation of self-deception. We also propose a dual-retrieval memory procedure to operationalize self-deception. In the first retrieval that takes place in front of the deceived, the deceiver fails to retrieve encoded information due to the motivation to deceive and to escape detection. In the second retrieval after successful deception has been achieved, the deceiver retrieves the true or full information to achieve fitness gains. The difference between the two retrievals in the self-serving direction proves self-deception. Related Articles | Metrics