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The Gestalt in Unconscious Processing: Evidence for the Unconscious Binding Hypothesis ZHANG Xiu-Ling;DONG Bo;JIANG Yun-Peng;ZHANG Ming 2012, 44 (12):  1563-1570.  doi: 10.3724/SP.J.1041.2012.01563 Abstract ( 1409 )   It remains unclear whether higher-level aspects of visual stimuli can be represented without awareness. The global workspace theory suggested that basic stimulus properties such as orientation, spatial frequency, color, and translational motion could still be encoded when rendered invisible. However, higher-level aspects of visual stimuli, for example, face perception, the meaning of words, could not be processed without awareness. Meanwhile, the unconscious binding hypothesis insisted that object-related representation could be formed by early and late perceptual binding even under invisible situation. In this study, we used incomplete pictures to investigated whether gestalt could facilitate perceptual binding during binocular rivalry. Specificly, we scrambled the complete and incomplete pictures to investigate: (1) whether there was a scrambled effect for both kinds of invisible pictures; (2) whether familiarity of the simple line pictures affected the time for stimuli breaking suppression. Continuous flash suppression was used in our experiment. Three factors were included: completeness of the construction (complete vs. incomplete), destruction of the meaning (scrambled vs. non-scrambled) and familiarity (upright vs. inverted). Subjects were instructed to respond as accurately and quickly as possible the appearance of any part of the test image as soon as possible and regardless of the specific content of the image. Eighteen volunteers participated in the experiment (8 males and 10 females). Results showed that non-scrambled pictures occupied less time than scrambled pictures to gain dominance against the identical suppression noise; The scrambled effect was observed both for incomplete and complete pictures; Upright pictures were not faster to enter consciousness than inverted ones. These results suggested that the features in incomplete pictures, even suppressed and invisible, could be bound together to form the object representation by gestalt. Apparently, high-level information (gestalt principles and meanings) of a stimulus did contribute to the strength of breaking suppression during its suppressed phase. Substantial information in the suppression phase of binocular rivalry could be processed to the extent that object-related representations could be achieved by gestalt. Our findings provided direct evidence for the unconscious binding hypothesis. Related Articles | Metrics

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The Effects of Phonological Similarity and Visual Similarity in Immediate Serial Recall of Chinese Characters LI Xuan;LIU Si-Yun 2012, 44 (12):  1571-1582.  doi: 10.3724/SP.J.1041.2012.01571 Abstract ( 1100 )   Phonological similarity effect and visual similarity effect are two typical effects found in immediate serial recalls. Previous studies have proposed several theoretical models about the two effects, but no consensus on the processing mechanism of the two effects has been obtained. On the other hand, most previous research used alphabetic languages to investigate the phonological similarity effect, and used pictures and faces for visual similarity effect. Very few studies have investigated the interaction of the two effects. The orthographic features of Chinese make Chinese language a perfect material to observe the interaction of phonological and visual similarity effects. Two experiments were conducted in this study: 1) in Experiment 1, the phonological and visual similarity of Chinese characters were manipulated in the immediate serial recall. Results showed that the phonological similarity effect was significant, and so was the interaction of the phonological and visual similarity effects. However, when the phonological information of the to-be-remembered items were similar, the visual similarity of the items improved the immediate serial recall; when the phonological information was dissimilar, the visual similarity of the items interfered the performance of the participants. 2) in Experiment 2, a mixed list was used in the immediate serial recall. Results indicated that both a phonological similarity effect and a reversed visual similarity effect were found, but not an interaction between the two. In addition, in the mixed list, the recall of the dissimilar items were not influenced by the similar ones; however, when the mixed list were visually manipulated, the dissimilar items were improved by the similar ones, which is exactly the mixed list advantage effect. In summary, current findings of the phonological similarity effect, the visual similarity effect, the interaction of the two effects, and the mixed list advantage effect in Chinese immediate serial recall helped us further understand the short-term memory processings underpinning performances of the tasks, and gave prominence of Chinese language in contribution to the studies of short-term memory. Related Articles | Metrics

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Levels of Processing for Repetition Blindness: Evidence from Chinese Reversed Words XIA Yi-Ting;LENG Ying;CHEN Yan;WANG Ji-Mei;CHENG Xiao-Rong;LU Jia-Mei 2012, 44 (12):  1583-1595.  doi: 10.3724/SP.J.1041.2012.01583 Abstract ( 780 )   Repetition blindness (RB) refers to the reduced performance in reporting a repeated item in a rapid serial visual presentation (RSVP) (Kanwisher, 1987; Kanwisher & Potter, 1989; Luo & Caramazza, 1995). The processing level at which the detecting deficit for the repeated item (C2) occurs is still under argument. For example, Token Individuation Theory (Kanwisher, 1987, 1991; Kanwisher & Potter, 1989, 1990) proposed that the repeated items were recognized as types but not individuated as tokens, suggesting that repetition blindness occurred at the perception level. While the Construction and Attribution Theory (Masson, 2004; Whittlesea & Masson, 2005) argued that construction and attribution processes led to repetition blindness when the repeated item was attributed to the wrong source, suggesting that repetition blindness occurred at the semantic level. Thus the present study examined the repetition blindness effect for Chinese reversed words to illustrate the processing level for the repetition blindness. We used a within-subject design with two variables, Repetition of words with three levels (completely repeated, reversedly repeated, and non-repeated), and Semantic similarity for reversed words with two levels (different and similar). The dependent variable was the accuracy rate for reporting C2. No matter the processing level at which the repetition blindness occurs, the accuracy rate in the reversedly repeated condition should be different from that in the non-repeated condition, showing a repetition blindness effect for reversed words. Further, if the accuracy rate for C2 in the similar meaning condition does not differ from that in the different meaning condition, it will suggest that the repetition blindness occurs at the perception level. Otherwise, it will suggest the repetition blindness occurs at the semantic level. Experiment 1 presented all words in sentences and asked participants to judge whether there were repeated words in a sentence, while Experiment 2 used the same stimuli, but asked participants to report the whole sentences. Results from a two-way repeated-measures analysis of variance (ANOVA) showed significant RB in both experiments. In Experiment 1, the accuracy rate for C2 in the similar meaning condition did not differ from that in the different meaning condition, but in Experiment 2, they did differ. Thus results in Experiment 1 supported that RB occurs at the perception level while results in Experiment 2 supported that RB occurs at the semantic level. To investigate whether the contradictive results were caused by different tasks, Experiment 3 presented all experimental material in lists of 6 words and asked participants to report all words in a list, similar to the full reporting task in Experiment 2. Results in Experiment 3 showed different accuracy rates for C2 in the two meaning conditions, thus again supporting that RB occurs at the semantic level. The results indicated: (1) In a RSVP paradigm, the RB effect occurred on Chinese reversed words. (2) The level at which the RB of Chinese words appeared depended on the experimental tasks. In a partial reporting task, the RB of Chinese words appeared at the perception level, and in a full reporting task, it appeared at the semantic level. Related Articles | Metrics

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The Cognitive Mechanism of Mood-Congruent False Memory in DRM Paradigm ZHANG Wei-Wei;GAO Fei;JIANG Jun;ZHANG Ji-Yuan;ZHANG Qing-Lin 2012, 44 (12):  1596-1606.  doi: 10.3724/SP.J.1041.2012.01596 Abstract ( 1726 )   The memory of people are not always correct, when people sometimes declare to remember some events that in fact has never occurred, this is how false memories produced. Spreading activation theory tries to explain the mechanism of false memories. According to this theory, semantics related information is organized together in memory. Semantic activation of the learning items will spread to critical lures that have semantic association with the items through semantic network and thus activates the critical lures to generate false memory. Due to the fact that false memory has important influence on daily life, many researches focus on how to reduce false memory. Presenting a warning signal is the most common method in the laboratory to reduce false memory. DRM paradigm only shows one type of human false memory phenomenon. Studies show that mood also has great influence on human memory and this effect is mainly reflected in mood-congruent memory bias. Bower (1981) used associative network theory of emotion to explain this phenomenon. Based on spreading activation theory and associative network theory of emotion, we hypothesized that unconsciously spreading activated semantic and emotional information leads people to retrieve mood-congruent information. This information includes original input information and moods and semantics related non-original information, namely false memory information. False retrieval of mood-congruent non-original information generates mood-congruent false memory. Therefore, Experiment 1 examined whether the existence of mood-congruent false memory among normal participants. After warning cues were added, experiment 2 explored whether warning cue can reduce false memory. This study will explore the hypothesis: (1) error recognition rate of positive critical lures in the positive mood is significantly higher than that in the negative and neutral moods, and error recognition rate of negative critical lures in the negative mood is significantly higher than that in the positive and neutral moods; (2)warning cues cannot reduce mood-congruent false memory. Thirty-two and thirty participants were randomly selected in experiment 1 and 2 by campus BBS, respectively. All participants were right-handed with normal or corrected to normal visions, and they had no history of mood disorders. They were equally selected from science major and liberal arts major. All data were analyzed by SPSS 16.0. The hypothesis is supported by the result. The results showed that: (1) error recognition rate of positive critical lures in the positive mood was significantly higher than that in the negative and neutral moods and error recognition rate of negative critical lures in the negative mood was significantly higher than that in the positive and neutral moods; (2) warning cue cannot reduce false memory and mood-congruent false memory; (3) participants were inclined to make “remember” judgment to mood-congruent critical lures with or without warning. This study creatively combined spreading activation theory with associative network theory of emotion to explain mood-congruent false memory phenomenon. Theoretical significance of this study lies in the fact that it can further reveal the mechanism of the interaction between the left hemisphere of the brain which is responsible for word processing and the right hemisphere of the brain which is responsible for perceptual material processing. Practical value is mainly manifested in the fact that it can be used to explain how a pessimist becomes increasingly pessimistic and how an optimist becomes increasingly optimistic. It also has important application value for emotional management and emotional adjustment in psychological counseling. Related Articles | Metrics

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The Role of Mental States and Causality in Moral Judgment: Examination on Dual-process Theory of Moral Judgment DUAN Lei;MO Shu-Liang;FAN Cui-Ying;LIU Hua-Shan 2012, 44 (12):  1607-1617.  doi: 10.3724/SP.J.1041.2012.01607 Abstract ( 1082 )   Moral judgment has been explored for many years. Cognitive development theorists have argued that moral judgment in adults mainly relied on intention, but attribution theorists have argued that causality played a key role in moral judgment. However, recent researchers put forward a dual-process theory of moral judgment, which distinguishes two processes of moral judgment: one which begins with harmful consequences and seeks a causally responsible agent, and the other which begins with an action and analyzes the mental states responsible for that action. The present study attempted to examine the rationality of this theory and to investigate the role of mental states and causality for younger children, older children and adults, and to explore children’s developmental process of moral judgment. In this study, 120 undergraduates, 120 children aged 10-11 and 120 adolescent aged 13-15 were tested for a moral sense of judgment. A 2 (desire: negative desire vs. neutral desire) ×2 (belief: negative belief vs. neutral belief) × 3 (causality: harm caused by the agents’ action, vs. no harm vs. harm caused by accidents) experimental design was conducted to test the roles of desire, belief and causality in moral judgment. Participants were presented with a series of stories, and then would answer two types of questions about the extent of the agents’ behavior badness and moral responsibility on a 7-point scale. Our findings were consistent with that of Cushman (2008), which showed that the roles of desire, belief, and causality were different under the two types of moral judgment questions. The results revealed that for 10-11 and 13~15 year-old children, there were significant main effects of desire and belief on the judgment of badness, which indicated that the judgment of badness was mainly based on the mental states of the agents. There were significant main effects of desire, belief, and causality on the judgment of moral responsibility for 10-11 year-olds, but no significant interaction effects were found. There were significant main effects of desire and causality, and significant interaction effects between desire and causality for 13-15 year-olds. The results showed that younger children paid more attention to the consequences and the mental states of the agents, but they cannot jointly use causal connection between behavior and consequence in the judgment of moral responsibility. In addition, younger and older participants did not use abstract mental states (e.g. belief) of the agents in the judgment of moral responsibility.The present study provided support for the dual-process theory of moral judgment. The results demonstrated that moral judgment of badness in adults mainly relied on mental states (e.g. desire, belief, and intention) and judgment of moral responsibility mainly jointly relied on the mental states of agents and causal analysis. There is a developmental process in jointly using information of mental states and causality for younger and older children in the judgments of moral responsibility. This study supported the dual-process theory of moral judgments, and provided additional data about development of moral judgment in children and adolescents. Related Articles | Metrics

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ERP Time Course of Understanding Private versus Communicative Intentions WANG Yi-Wen;HUANG Liang;XU Sheng;YUAN Bo;XU Yan-Jiao;LI Hong-Yu 2012, 44 (12):  1618-1627.  doi: 10.3724/SP.J.1041.2012.01618 Abstract ( 914 )   Theory of mind (ToM) refers to understanding other's mental states, such as beliefs, intentions, emotions, and thoughts, to predict other's behaviors. ToM gradually became one of the areas of much interest among developmental psychology and cognitive neuroscience. The concept of attribution of intentions to others is a central element of ToM. In the daily life, we not only need to understand the private intention of a single person, but also have to understand the communicative intention among two or multiple persons. Understanding the communicative intention is more complex than understanding the private intention. In the current study, the event related potentials (ERPs) technology was employed to explore the dissociative electrophysiological correlates for understanding private versus communicative intention while the subjects observing three types of comic strips: 1) private intention; 2) communicative intention; 3) physical intention. We report the ERP study to investigate the time course of understanding the private intention and understanding the communicative intention. Electrophysiological results showed a significantly larger amplitude peak of N250 over the parietal sites for private intention compared to communicative and physical intentions in the 200-300 ms epoch. At a later stage (i.e., from 300-600 ms), the mean amplitudes of the late positive component (LPC) for communicative intention were more positive than those for the private and physical intentions. Furthermore, the mean amplitudes of the LPC were also significantly larger for private intention compared to the physical intention from 400-600 ms. Our data provide a direct comparison between the electrophysiological correlates for understanding the private intention as well as understanding the communicative intention. Our findings show that understanding the communicative intention overlaps the neural system capable of understanding private intention but requires the involvement of an additional system. Individuals are first able to understand a single person’s intention, and understanding the communicative intention builds on that earlier understanding by involving the same mental-state processing characteristic of understanding private intention plus an additional communicative intention processing system as well. We believe that understanding private intention and understanding the communicative intention are two different levels of ToM. Understanding the private intention is the basis for understanding the communicative intention and the level of understanding the communicative intention is higher than the level of understanding the private intention. Related Articles | Metrics

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The Self-Threat of Unsolicited Social Comparison and Its Balance HAN Xiao-Yan;CHI Yu-Kai 2012, 44 (12):  1628-1640.  doi: 10.3724/SP.J.1041.2012.01628 Abstract ( 1070 )   People often encounter comparative information, actively or passively, to judge one’s self-worth. The Selective Accessible Theory (SAT) (Mussweiler, 2003) proposed that the similarity and dissimilarity test are the core mechanisms to determine the consequences of comparison on the basis of informational foci. This suggests that the information activated by the social context can actually determine the self-evaluation outcomes, displacing toward or away from the comparison target. However, little has done to explore the individual spontaneous choice toward different comparison target based on SAT and its influence on the self, especially in Chinese cultural context. Chinese people prefer upward comparison, i.e., comparing with more capable target to find their competency gap. Downward comparison would be used only if they cannot find effective ways to eliminate the negative feelings accompanied with upward comparison. Such dissimilarity hypothesis has been found to result in lower self-evaluation, according to SAT. Thus, the self-threat of comparison appears. The present study explores the source of such threat of comparison and its balance through 3 experiments. In experiment 1, participants were required to write down the names of three potential comparison targets. Control group is also used as a basic level to examine the effect after comparison. As expected, the information of routine upward comparison target was activated and the threat of comparison to self has emerged. Experiment 2 extends this finding by introducing the task relevance (high/low) to explore its influencing factor. Performance feedback (contrastive/non-contrastive) was provided to simulate an implicit upward comparison target, which would increase the information intensity of upward comparison target. Results suggest that the interaction between task relevance and performance feedback significantly influenced self-evaluation. Specifically, regardless of the level of task relevance, the contrastive and the non-contrastive performance feedback both led to lowered self-evaluation, suggesting the generalized trend of the threat of comparison among Chinese people. However, the generalization of self-threat of comparison doesn’t emerge in the emotional variable. Experiment 3 further explores the balancing strategy used by Chinese people to alleviate the threat of comparison. Results show that if people have the opportunity to affirm themselves, the threat of comparison would be attenuated, and knowledge foundation of the threat from upward comparison target would be inaccessible, yet the negative emotion was still there and exhibited a trend of generalization. Based on the results of these experiments, selective accessibility of dissimilar information exerts significant influence on the social comparison effect, and the Chinese people indeed show something different in this process. The implication and suggestions for future researches are discussed. Related Articles | Metrics

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The Influence Mechanism of Incidental Emotions on Choice Deferral LI Xiao-Ming;XIE Jia 2012, 44 (12):  1641-1650.  doi: 10.3724/SP.J.1041.2012.01641 Abstract ( 1358 )   The main purpose of this research was to discuss and analyze the effect of incidental emotions on choice deferral. After participants were evoked target emotions by pictures-induced or video clips-induced techniques in the two experiments, they were asked to complete the course or hotel selection task when the option of not choosing any of the alternatives was also provided. From the outcome-oriented and the process-oriented perspectives, this study aimed at exploring the influence of incidental emotions on choice deferral and the influencing mechanism. Study 1 used the pictures-induced technique to trigger target emotions (positive, neutral and negative) and to explore the effect of emotions and decision conflict on choice deferral. The results demonstrated that decision conflict affected choice deferral significantly, and higher decision conflict lead to more choice of the deferral options. The main effect for emotions was not significant. More importantly, there was a significant interaction on choice deferral; when the decision conflict was high, the participants in negative emotion would select the deferral option more often comparing with the participants in positive and neutral emotions; when the decision conflict was low, incidental emotions did not affect choice deferral significantly. Study 2 used the video clips-induced technique to evoke incidental emotions: happy and anger. In order to further explore the impact of the two target emotions on decision-making and to study the process of choice deferral, this study detected the process of decision-making by MouselabWeb procedure. The results showed that, individuals in the negative emotion (anger) would select the deferral option more often than happy individuals; there was a significant effect of the emotions on the process of decision-making. Happy individuals spent less time for searching information, and were involved in more reduced depth of information searching, greater variance in the proportion of time spent on each attribute and a more negative pattern (index reflecting degree of attribute-based (-) and alternative-based (+) processing); mediation analyses found that the time spent for searching process and the depth of information searching mediated the effect of incidental emotions on choice deferral. In general, this paper suggested that when there is not a dominating option in the choice options, individuals’ preference for the choice deferral is a function of emotions, such that preference for deferral is more pronounced for negative emotions than for positive emotions. Simultaneously, the decision-making strategies play an important role in the effect of emotions on choice deferral. Feelings-as-information theory could be used for explaining the results in the present studies. Related Articles | Metrics

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The Research on the Effects of Work-Family Support on Employees' Creativity WANG Yong-Li;ZHANG Zhi-Yu;HE Ying 2012, 44 (12):  1651-1662.  doi: 10.3724/SP.J.1041.2012.01651 Abstract ( 1359 )   Creativity is one of the central issues in organizational behavior and human resource management research. Nowadays, employees are paying more and more attention to the balance between work and family. As a result, many organizations hope to provide more family support to help employees devote themselves to the job, and thus improve their creativity. However, work-family support is a two-way concept, so the family support that plays an important role in this process should also be concerned. This research focused on work-family support which means the support from organization and family, and discussed the impact of employees’ perceived work-family support on employees’ creativity as well as the effect of work engagement as mediator. At the same time, we took personality into consideration and examined the moderating effects of creative personality in the process. Based on the existing literature, our study was conducted with matching questionnaires. The questionnaire for employees included work-family support, work engagement and creative personality, while employees’ creativity was rated by direct supervisors. Data was collected in Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Zhuhai and other cities among 773 groups of employees and their direct supervisors. After analyzing the data, we have found the following conclusions. (1) In the context of our Chinese culture, work-family support consists of four factors which are organizational support, leadership support, emotional support and instrumental support. Organizational support and leadership support are defined as work support, while emotional support and instrumental support are defined as family support. (2) Demographic variables had distinct influence on employees’ perceived work-family support and work engagement. (3) Employees’ perceived work-family support had significantly positive effect on work engagement. (4) Work engagement mediated the effects of work support on employees’ creativity. (5) Creative personality moderated the effects of work engagement on employees’ creativity. The creativity of individuals with high creative personality was strongly influenced by work engagement compared to individuals with low creative personality. The present study demonstrated the impact of employees’ perceived work support on employees’ creativity as well as the effect of work engagement as mediator. It is indicated that in order to enhance employee’s creativity, organizations should provide Family Friendly Policies besides selecting and training. Furthermore, it would be effective and meaningful to guide the immediate supervisors, who are regarded as representatives of the organization, to help employees balance between work and family. On the other hand, although the impact of family support on creativity was not significant, the positive effect of family support on work engagement should not be ignored. It is worthwhile for organization to develop a family friendly culture which helps employees’ to gain the support from family. The last contribution of this study is that the effect of work engagement was moderated by creative personality has been proved. For practical implications, it should be encouraged for managers to provide more work support for employees with high creativity personality. Related Articles | Metrics

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Organizational Injustice Perception and Workplace Deviance: Mechanisms of Negative Emotion and Traditionality WANG Yu-Qing;LONG Li-Rong;ZHOU Hao 2012, 44 (12):  1663-1676.  doi: 10.3724/SP.J.1041.2012.01663 Abstract ( 1455 )   Workplace deviance, a negative extra-role behavior, is commonly regarded as detrimental for both employees and organizations in the workplace. Recently, increasing research interests have been raised by western scholars in this area. Workplace deviance has been studied from various perspectives, the most promising one of which is organizational injustice. Accumulating studies have investigated the mechanisms underlie and processes of the relationship between employees’ perceptions of injustice and deviant behaviors. Despite fruitful findings have been obtained from those research based on the social exchange theory, the mechanisms of affect and emotion have long been neglected and under-studied. Drawing upon the Affective Event theory (AET) framework, the present study initially aims to interpret the mediating role of negative emotion played in the relationship between injustice perception and deviant behavior. Additionally, our second objective is to examine the moderating role of traditionality. More importantly, we integrate the moderating and mediating effects in the same framework, and propose that traditionality exerts stronger moderating effect on the second stage of the mediational model, that is, the relationship between negative emotion and deviance behavior. To avoid the common method bias, a paired survey for employees and their co-workers was used. Questionnaire A included scales of organizational justice perception, negative emotion, traditionality, and workplace deviance was appraised on Questionnaire B. The survey was distributed via MBA students and acquaintances. Participants were asked to appraise one of their familiar coworkers (Questionnaire B), and send the Questionnaire A to the target coworker. In total, 341 dyads of employees and their coworkers from 280 enterprises were sampled. Hierarchical Regression Modeling (HRM) and Total Effect Moderation Model with bootstrap methods were used to test the hypotheses. The results of mediating test showed that, negative emotion acted as a mediator between the relationship of both procedural and interpersonal justice with workplace deviance. In addition, results of total effect moderation model analysis suggested that traditionality significantly moderated the relationship between organizational injustice and workplace deviance in such a way that the negative effect of organization justice on deviance behavior was stronger for less traditional employees. Furthermore, results of the integrative analysis of moderation and mediation indicated that, in line with the expectation, the traditionality significantly moderated the positive relationship between negative emotion and deviant behavior. However, the moderating effect was not significant in the first stage of the mediating process. The results indicate that, facing to injustice treatment, employees would experience negative emotions regardless of their traditionality. However, due to the Chinese culture rule, employees with high traditionality are more likely to prohibit their negative expressions like deviance behavior when received unjust treatments. Our findings contribute to the literature in several ways. First, this research offers a new perspective to study the mediating mechanisms underlie the relationship between justice and workplace deviance in China, and provides an evidence to the AET in China. Second, our result concerning the moderating effect of traditionality contributes to the moderating mechanism between justice and workplace deviance. More importantly, the integration of the mediating and moderating models provide a more comprehensive and elaborative interpretation of the linkage between justice and deviance. Related Articles | Metrics

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Abusive Supervision and Employee’ Performance: Mechanisms of FSB and Learning Goral Orientation SHEN Chuan-Gang;MA Hong-Yu;YANG Jing;LIU Teng-Fei 2012, 44 (12):  1677-1686.  doi: 10.3724/SP.J.1041.2012.01677 Abstract ( 1397 )   The literature on abusive supervision has consistently demonstrated the negative relationship between member perception of supervisor's abusive behavior and member performance. The process through which relationship supervisor's abusive behavior influences subordinates’ performance, however, is still not fully understood. The present study provides a mechanism for the process. Specifically, we predict that the feedback seeking behavior (FSB) of members mediates these relationships, and learning goal orientation moderates the relationship between abusive supervision and FSB. In order to avoid the common method variance problem, two sources of survey were administrated. Data was from a total of 306 matched supervisor-subordinate dyads in 7 enterprises located in Hubei, Zhejiang, Xiamen. Two structured questionnaires were employed as the research instrument for this study. One consisted of three scales designed to measure abusive supervision, FSB and learning goal orientation. Among the major measures, the 15-items abusive supervision was adopted from Tepper (2000); FSB was measured via 6 items that was adopted from Saori Yanagizawa (2008); the five item learning goal orientation scale was adopted from Vandewalle & Cummings (1997). We used a scale adopted from Tusi et al. (1997) in the other questionnaire to measure supervisor-rated subordinates’ performance. Results show that the Cronbach's alpha coefficients for these above measures range from 0.75 to 0.94. Hierarchical regression and the total effect moderation model were utilized to examine the proposed hypotheses. In line with predictions, results of hierarchical regression demonstrate that abusive supervision is negatively related to FSB, supervisor-rated performance, and FSB partially mediate the relationship between abusive supervision and supervisor-rated performance. Specifically, the negative effect of abusive supervision on subordinates’ performance was partially mediated by subordinates’ FSB. In addition, results of total effect moderation model analysis reveal that subordinates’ learning goal orientation moderate the relationship between abusive supervision and FSB. Abusive supervision was more strongly related to FSB when subordinates’ learning goal orientation was low. The present study extends our understanding of social exchange between supervisor and subordinate in the link between abusive supervision and subordinate’s performance. Finally, the theoretical and managerial implications of the findings, limitations and future research directions were also discussed. Related Articles | Metrics

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Estimating Homogeneity Coefficient and Its Confidence Interval YE Baojuan;WEN Zhonglin 2012, 44 (12):  1687-1694.  doi: 10.3724/SP.J.1041.2012.01687 Abstract ( 1508 )   Multidimensional tests are frequently applied to the studies of psychology, education, society and management. Before aggregating all item scores to form a composite score of a multidimensional test, we should consider the homogeneity of the test. Homogeneity coefficient which reflects the extent that all test items measure the same trait can be employed to evaluate test homogeneity. If homogeneity coefficient is low, the composite score is meaningless and cannot be used for further analyses. Homogeneity coefficient is the proportion of variability in composite score that is accounted for by the general factor, which is viewed as common to all items. Any multidimensional test can be represented by a bifactor model that contains a general factor and local factors. Hence homogeneity coefficient can be calculated based on a bifactor model. A unidimensional test with positively worded items and negatively worded items can also be represented by a bifactor model, where the assessed construct is the general factor and method factors are local factors. The confidence interval of homogeneity coefficient provides more information than its point estimate. There are three approaches to estimate the confidence interval of composite reliability: Bootstrap method, Delta method and direct use of the standard error generated from an SEM software output (e.g., LISREL). It has been found that the interval estimates that obtained by Delta method and Bootstrap method were almost the same, whereas the results obtained by LISREL software and by Bootstrap method had large differences. Delta method was recommended when estimating the confidence interval of composite reliability. In order to compute the confidence interval of homogeneity coefficient, we deduced a formula by using Delta method for computing the standard error of homogeneity coefficient. Based on the standard error, the confidence interval can be obtained easily. We used an example to illustrate how to calculate homogeneity coefficient and its confidence interval by using the proposed Delta method with LISREL software. We also illustrated how to get the same result with Mplus software that automatically calculates the standard error with Delta method and presents the confidence interval. Before composite scores of a test are aggregated for further statistical analysis, it is recommended to report homogeneity coefficient so that readers could evaluate the extent that the statistical results are reliable. Related Articles | Metrics

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Total Contents of Acta Psychologica Sinica, Vol. 44, 2012 editor 2012, 44 (12):  1695-1704.  Abstract ( 725 )   Related Articles | Metrics