Loading...
ISSN 1671-3710
CN 11-4766/R
主办:中国科学院心理研究所
出版:科学出版社

Archive

    For Selected: Toggle Thumbnails
    Conceptual Framework
    The neural mechanism and transfer effect of creative cognitive reappraisal in negative emotion regulation
    WU Xiaofei, XIAO Feng, LUO Jing
    2022, 30 (3):  477-485.  doi: 10.3724/SP.J.1042.2022.00477
    Abstract ( 2279 )   HTML ( 263 )  
    PDF (613KB) ( 3133 )  

    Cognitive reappraisal plays an important role in regulating negative emotions. However, traditional cognitive reappraisal has some issues, such as a lower reconstruction degree and a lower emotion regulation effect. Considering these issues, we propose an effective emotion regulation strategy called creative cognitive reappraisal, which refers to a novel and unique interpretation that is highly creative and appropriate for current emotional stimuli. During the emotion regulation process, an individual suddenly experiences an "Aha!" moment when combining the interpretation with the stimulus situation. This study found a dramatic shift from negative to positive emotions and a long-lasting regulatory effect. According to imaging results, creative cognitive reappraisal was associated with the formation of a novel association in the hippocampus and positive emotional arousal in the amygdala.

    However, the guided reappraisal used in this work was more akin to an understanding of reappraisal interpretation than active emotion regulation, which has lower ecological validity. Furthermore, it is difficult to generate high creative reappraisal on one’s own, making the application of creative cognitive reappraisal challenging. Thus, the goal of this project is to teach participants how to learn the method of creative cognitive reappraisal and then transfer and apply this strategy to specific negative emotion regulation in daily life, i.e., to establish a "learn and then use" emotion regulation mode that can truly play the role of creative cognitive reappraisal during emotion regulation. Furthermore, because teenagers have more serious mood problems but also have higher creativity, this project intends to apply a creative cognitive reappraisal strategy for emotion regulation to teenagers while also teaching them creative emotion regulation strategies to assist them in learning cognitive transformations and reconstructions. This method can teach teenagers how to use positive emotional regulation strategies to deal with negative life events while also preserving their creativity.

    The specific research contents are as follows: 1) exploring the transfer effect of creative cognitive reappraisal in negative emotion regulation of college students and adolescents; 2) investigating changes in brain activation and representation patterns before and after creative cognitive reappraisal transfer; and 3) examining the similarities and differences in the neural mechanisms of creative cognitive reappraisal transfer between adolescents and adults. This project is an extension and expansion of the applicant's existing work, and it would establish a theoretical foundation for verifying and promoting creative cognitive reappraisal as a learnable, usable and efficient emotional regulation strategy.

    References | Related Articles | Metrics
    Social exclusion influenced intertemporal decision-making and its mechanism
    ZHANG Shuyue, HUANG Junqing, ZHAO Feng, XU Kepeng
    2022, 30 (3):  486-498.  doi: 10.3724/SP.J.1042.2022.00486
    Abstract ( 2291 )   HTML ( 344 )  
    PDF (800KB) ( 3104 )  

    Social exclusion exists widely, is a phenomenon that is ostracized or rejected by a group or an individual. It not only impairs people's needs of belonging and relationship but also has a negative impact on human cognition, affection, and behavior. For example, previous studies found that social exclusion could impair the cognitive function because people need to use their self-control resources to regulate the negative emotions resulting from social exclusion. Therefore, it is hard for excluded people to make rational judgments in decision-making which requires more cognitive resources. There were also empirical studies indicating that people tended to risk-seeking in risk decision-making tasks after been excluded. Intertemporal decision-making is a particular type of decision-making. It requires people to choose between the options occurring at different points of time, especially between present and future options. Though there was a high similarity between intertemporal decision-making and risk decision-making in theoretical development and neural basis, whether and how social exclusion affects intertemporal decision-making is largely unknown. Hence, the present study aimed to explore the effect of social exclusion on intertemporal decision-making and its potential mechanism.

    From the perspective of the process, intertemporal decision-making could be divided into evaluation and selection stages. This research concluded that there are two mechanisms of social exclusion affect intertemporal decision-making which respectively in the evaluation and selection stages. And this research concluded two mechanisms of social exclusion that affect intertemporal decision-making, respectively, in these two stages. Thus, we constructed a two-stage model to explain how social exclusion affects intertemporal decision-making. Intertemporal decision-making is closely related to the time of delay. Previous studies revealed that social exclusion would impair the time perception of the excluded people. Considering the importance of time perception for intertemporal decision-making, it would be with a great possibility that social exclusion would lengthen the excludeds’ time perception at the valuation stage, therefore reduce their subjective value of the delay option. Then the excluded people had to regulate their negative emotions by consuming self-control resources at the selection stage. While the reduction of self-control resources may weaken the control capability and make excluded people unable to resist the urge for immediate options, consequently, result in the high discount rate of intertemporal decision-making.

    We tried to buffer the negative effect of social exclusion and improve the intertemporal decision-making capability of the excluded people. Based on the two-stage model, time perception and self-control could mediate the effect between social exclusion and intertemporal decision-making. So, the key point is to recover the time perception and self-control resource damaged by social exclusion. Some studies indicated that the right ventrolateral prefrontal cortex (rvlPFC) was a crucial brain region that can regulate a range of negative effects of social exclusion, the activation of rvlPFC would significantly reduce the negative emotion and aggressive behavior in the social exclusion. Therefore, transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS, a non-invasive brain stimulation technology) would be used to activate the rvlPFC of the excluded people. We assumed that the activation of rvlPFC would normalize their time perception and recover their self-control resource. Moreover, social exclusion is a dynamic situation, the effect of the short-term exclusion has highly possible be different from the long-term exclusion. So, this research would also distinguish the short-term and long-term exclusion and give them the respective study.

    The results of this research would reveal how interpersonal factors affect the intertemporal choice and how to improve the excludeds' ability of intertemporal decision-making. The findings would have implications in helping the excluded people make rational decisions in life, such as health, education, marriage, savings, and improve their quality of life and personal achievement.

    Figures and Tables | References | Related Articles | Metrics
    Research on job crafting from the perspective of sustainable career: Motivation, paths and intervention mechanisms
    WANG Qiong
    2022, 30 (3):  499-510.  doi: 10.3724/SP.J.1042.2022.00499
    Abstract ( 1379 )   HTML ( 125 )  
    PDF (794KB) ( 1918 )  

    In the era of career boundarylessness, facing with the ever-weaker linkage between individuals and organizations, individuals have to initiate the tasks of self-career management to actively respond to the development and changes of occupational environment. Job crafting are bottom-to-top behaviors which help to actively change the boundaries of resources and daily tasks. Since in relevant with people’s autonomy and the improvement of internal resources and recognitions, job crating behaviors should be potential ways for realizing career sustainable development. However, job crating contains personal resource consuming and reinvest as well. The way people define their value resources determine their job crating motivations and paths. Prior literature mainly limited to the influences of job crating in within organizational context, and research on internal motivational antecedents is relatively insufficient and ignoring the explorations of why and how individuals craft their jobs. In this respect, the study here considers the interactive linkages between individuals’ occupation and daily work behaviors and proposes series of theoretical framework. Specifically, based on 3 successive sub-studies, we explore the potential motivations, paths and intervention mechanisms for individuals to gain sustainable competitive advantages through daily work. In study 1, we stick to the individual’s role of ‘central career agent’ in achieving sustainable career, and define the concept and measurement structure of career sustainability from perspectives of recognition, career development cycles, and individual as well as environmental resources. Meanwhile, grounded in prior literature and longitudinal empirical results, we reveal the potential influencing factors (i.e., demographic variables and personality traits) and dynamic development mechanisms of career sustainability. The effect paths of career sustainability on the occupational proactive behaviors (i.e. job crafting) are discussed as well. In Study 2, we focus the driven-force of job crafting and the driven outcome. Strong career sustainability captures plentiful skills and abilities to continuously respond to changes, which is conductive to the adjustment of job tasks and roles, and therefore should be the motive factor of job crafting. What’s more, based on conservation of resource theory, individuals have the innate motivation to protect and expand their value resources. Nevertheless, value resource differs across individuals and thus influence the investment directions and scale. We contend that individuals with high level of career sustainability, tend to more value the importance of sustainable career development, and consequently are more likely to craft their jobs toward the ways of achieving sustainable career. According to social cognitive theory, the cognition of individuals’ self-ability influences their behavior tendencies, and then influence the follow-up actual behaviors as well as the results of those behavior. Therefore, along with the improvement of career sustainability, the enhanced protean career orientation would directly influence the direction and strength of individuals’ job crafting. Consequently, the dynamic rising closed loop of career sustainability to career sustainability which linked by job crafting forms, which delineate the influence paths from individuals’ job crating to their sustainable career development at the same time. Rooted in the cross-level data which collected from multi waves, study 3 explores the influences of organizational career management supports on career sustainability and job crafting, and thus to interpret the vertical intervention mechanism of job crafting behaviors at organizational level. Formal and informal organizational career management tactics are compared base on quasi-experiments so that to provide theoretical references for managerial practitioners. Moreover, considering that individuals’ daily workplace behaviors (i.e., job crating) indirectly reflect the career value and professional abilities, the present study also offers theoretical implications from perspectives of sustainable career. Firstly, through testing the change and development of job crating, and exploring and motive (protean career orientation) and ability factors (career sustainability), we respond to the calls of exploring job crating motivations from career perspective. Secondly, we test the boost power of job crafting in the improvement of career sustainability, and expand the outcome variables of job crafting to the career horizon. Lastly, we build the theoretical framework of organizational job crating intervention, and expand the application boundaries of organizational career management supports based on empirical and quasi-experimental research. The conclusions here provide strategic bases for individuals to achieve sustainable career development and organizations to carry out win-win career management support.

    Figures and Tables | References | Related Articles | Metrics
    Research Method
    Concepts and evaluation of saturation in qualitative research
    YANG Liping, QI Lidong, ZHANG Bo
    2022, 30 (3):  511-521.  doi: 10.3724/SP.J.1042.2022.00511
    Abstract ( 4057 )   HTML ( 155 )  
    PDF (614KB) ( 2961 )  

    With the methodological changes in psychology, more and more researchers tend to accept qualitative research as an effective way to solve psychological problems and serve the public. In a qualitative study, sufficient sample is the guarantee of research validity, and saturation is an indicator used to assess the adequacy of research data. Saturation means that on the basis of the currently collected and analyzed data, further data collection will not help researchers develop a deeper understanding of the story or theory, so there is no need to continue to collect data. The concept of theoretical saturation was first proposed in grounded theory. Then with the development of qualitative research methods, researchers have further created more saturation concepts, including data saturation, code or thematic saturation, meaning saturation, etc. Due to the diversity of saturation and its judgment standards, the relationship between different kinds of saturation are complicated and ambiguous. In addition, previous studies lack operational description and practical guidance for the evaluation of saturation, which leads to the vagueness of the concept of saturation and many difficulties in evaluation. In order to solve these problems, this study clarified the concepts and evaluation methods of four levels of saturation, and provided suggestions for researchers' operations based on comparison and analysis. The four types of saturation occur at different stages of the research process, and each has its own specific connotations. Data saturation, code or thematic saturation focuses on the breadth of collected data, while meaning saturation and theoretical saturation focus on the depth of research data. In terms of evaluation methods and criteria, researchers usually judge data saturation based on the repeatability of initial data; code or thematic saturation is determined based on empirical research results, the emergence of new codes or themes, or saturation coefficients; the results of retrospective empirical analysis or tables of meaning unit are normally used to evaluate meaning saturation; while the assessment of theoretical saturation relies on a process called "continuous comparison" in grounded theory, which focuses on the continuous improvement of the theory. Some problems are discussed in this study. 1) The sample size standard for reaching saturation should be embedded in the specific research process instead of being uniformly set in advance. Because each study has its own uniqueness in terms of questions, purposes, methods, etc., which saturation is extremely sensitive to, the evaluation of saturation should be based on the characteristics of the current research to select an appropriate level of saturation. 2) Due to the logical uncertainty of saturation, a little oversampling would be helpful. The logical uncertainty here means that researchers can only predict the necessity of continuing data collection based on the information that has been collected, which relies on the subjective judgment of researchers, and its accuracy can never be further proved. Oversampling may be an effective way to solve this problem, which means that even if saturation has been achieved, the researcher is recommended to add 2 to 3 personal interviews or 1 to 2 focus group interviews to further confirm. 3) As an important index to evaluate the quality of qualitative research, saturation is not suitable for all qualitative research, such as psychobiography, narrative analysis, etc., which focus on single or a few cases and pay more attention to the integrity of individual stories. In the future, researchers should further focus on the evaluation and testing of saturation in different kinds of qualitative research.

    Figures and Tables | References | Related Articles | Metrics
    The measurement of problem-solving competence using process data
    LIU Yaohui, XU Huiying, CHEN Qipeng, ZHAN Peida
    2022, 30 (3):  522-535.  doi: 10.3724/SP.J.1042.2022.00522
    Abstract ( 1060 )   HTML ( 65 )  
    PDF (1011KB) ( 1210 )  

    Problem-solving competence is an individual’s capacity to engage in cognitive processing to understand and resolve problem situations where a method of solution is not immediately obvious. The measurement of problem-solving competence requires the use of relatively more complex and real problem situations to induce the presentation of problem-solving behaviors. This brings challenges to both the measurement methods of problem-solving competence and the corresponding data analysis methods. Using virtual assessments to capture the process data in problem-solving and mining the potential information contained therein is a new trend in measuring problem-solving competence in psychometrics.

    Firstly, this paper reviews the development of measurement methods from pen-and-paper tests to virtual assessments. Compared with the traditional paper-and-pencil test, modern virtual assessments are not only conducive to simulating real problem situations, improving the ecological validity of the test, but also can record the process data generated by individuals in the process of problem-solving. Process data refers to man-machine or man-human interaction data with timestamps that can reflect the process of individual problem-solving. It records the detailed steps of individual problem solving and reflects the strategy and cognitive process of individual problem-solving. However, it is not easy to adopt effective methods to analyze process data.

    Secondly, two methods of analyzing process data are summarized and compared: data mining methods and statistical modeling methods. Data mining is the process of using algorithms to uncover new relationships, trends, and patterns from big data. It is a bottom-up, data-driven research method that focuses on describing and summarizing data. Its advantage is that it can use existing algorithms to analyze a variety of process data at the same time, screen out variables related to individual problem-solving competence, and realize the classification of individual problem-solving competence. But sometimes, different algorithms could get different conclusions based on the same data, which leads to part of the results can not be explained. This method can not construct variables that can reflect the individual's latent trait, either. Statistical modeling method mainly refers to the method of analyzing data by using the idea of artificial modeling. It is a top-down, theory-driven approach. In statistical modeling, function models are generally constructed based on theoretical assumptions, and the observed variables are assumed to be randomly generated by the probability law expressed by the model. For the data recorded by virtual assessments, the existing modeling methods can be divided into three categories: psychometric joint modeling, hidden Markov modeling, and multi-level modeling. The main advantage of statistical modeling is that its results are easy to interpret and conform to the general process of psychological and educational research. Its limitation lies in that the modeling logic has not been unified yet because different types of process data need to be modeled separately. However, by giving full play to the advantages of the two data analysis methods, different problems in psychological and educational assessments can be dealt with. The interpretability of the results is very important in psychological and educational measurements, which determines the dominant role of statistical modeling in process data analysis.

    Finally, the possible future research directions are proposed from five aspects: the influence of non-cognitive factors, the use of multimodal data, the measurements of the development of problem-solving competence, the measurements of other higher-order thinking competence, and the definition of the concept and structure of problem-solving competence.

    Figures and Tables | References | Related Articles | Metrics
    Meta-Analysis
    The neural activities of different emotion carriers and their similarities and differences: A meta-analysis of functional neuroimaging studies
    LIU Juncai, RAN Guangming, ZHANG Qi
    2022, 30 (3):  536-555.  doi: 10.3724/SP.J.1042.2022.00536
    Abstract ( 1203 )   HTML ( 75 )  
    PDF (2928KB) ( 1366 )  

    Emotion recognition has always been a hot topic in psychology. Although some studies have explored the brain mechanisms of dynamic facial expressions, dynamic bodily expressions and emotional voices, empirical studies have their own inevitable defects, which may lead to low statistical test power and effect size and inconsistent results. In addition, the existing meta-analyses of the three emotion carriers still have some deficiencies. Therefore, at present, the overall understanding of the three emotion carriers is relatively incomplete, and the commonness and differences of neural mechanisms among different emotion carriers were still poorly known. So, based on the background of high ecological validity, this study adopted the meta-analysis technique based on large-scale data synthesis method to overcome the above shortcomings. First, three separated activation likelihood estimation (ALE) meta-analyses were used to identify the brain regions activated by each emotion pattern, and then conjunction and contrast analysis of these activation maps were used to assess common and unique neural activity between the three emotion carriers. It is the first time that meta-analysis is used to explore the brain mechanism of dynamic bodily expressions, and it is also the first time that meta-analysis is used to explore the similarities and differences of neural activity among three emotion carriers: dynamic facial expressions, dynamic bodily expressions and emotional voices, and further improves the overall understanding of the neural mechanisms of dynamic facial expressions and emotional voices by previous meta-analyses. The results of single meta-analysis showed that the brain regions of dynamic facial expressions included superior frontal gyrus (SFG), middle frontal gyrus (MFG), inferior frontal gyrus (IFG), precentral gyrus (PG), inferior parietal lobule (IPL), middle occipital gyrus (MOG), inferior occipital gyrus (IOG), fusiform gyrus (FG), superior temporal gyrus (STG), middle temporal gyrus (MTG), inferior temporal gyrus (ITG), parahippocampal gyrus (PHG), cerebellum, amygdala, lentiform nucleus (LN) and insula. Dynamic bodily expressions caused activation of the middle occipital gyrus, inferior occipital gyrus, fusiform gyrus, superior temporal gyrus, middle temporal gyrus, inferior temporal gyrus, cuneus, lingual gyrus (LING), cerebellum, and parahippocampal gyrus. The activation of emotional voices was concentrated in the middle frontal gyrus, inferior frontal gyrus, precentral gyrus, superior temporal gyrus, middle temporal gyrus, heschl’s gyrus (HG), insula, amygdala and caudate nucleus (CN). Conjunction analysis suggested that the left middle temporal gyrus and the right superior temporal gyrus were activated by three emotion carrier across the modalities. The results of the contrast analysis proved that the visual stimuli was more advantaged than the auditory stimuli, especially the dynamic facial expressions, the dynamic bodily expressions also played an important role. However, the emotional voices had their own uniqueness. In sum, these findings validate, support, and extend the existing neural models of the three emotion carriers, revealing a central, universal region of the emotional processing, but with each emotion carrier relying on its own reliable specific neural circuits. This study provides consistent results across studies for researchers of emotional problems, and representative reference coordinate points for future region of interest (ROI) analysis, which is conducive to propose and test hypotheses of future researches, and also is conducive to the identification and neural regulation of patients with emotional disorders. Future researches should further validate and extend these findings to explore the neural mechanisms of emotional processing at different ages and their similarities and differences. In addition, it is necessary to study the brain mechanism of each emotion type and the similarity and difference of neural activity of each emotion in different carriers in the case of sufficient data. Examining the connection of different brain regions, and the different functions of a brain region also is necessary. Meanwhile, it is essential to focus on the neural basis of dynamic bodily expressions.

    Figures and Tables | References | Related Articles | Metrics
    Associations between home literacy environment and children’s receptive vocabulary: A meta-analysis
    LIU Haidan, LI Minyi
    2022, 30 (3):  556-579.  doi: 10.3724/SP.J.1042.2022.00556
    Abstract ( 1293 )   HTML ( 147 )  
    PDF (1022KB) ( 1834 )  

    Home literacy environment (HLE) refers to a variety of resources and opportunities provided to children as well as the parental skills, abilities, dispositions, and resources that determine the provision of such opportunities for children. For more than half a century, a large body of studies have shown that HLE can significantly promote children’s receptive vocabulary development. However, the blurry operationalization of HLE’s construct and the inconsistency of effect sizes (ESs) in recent studies have made it difficult to understand what really works for children’s receptive vocabulary development at home. This meta-analysis systematically reviewed empirical studies published from 1990 to 2021 regarding the relationships between these two variables in order to clarify HLE’s construct, investigate the main effects, and explore potential moderators.

    Through literature review, we found that HLE was usually conceptualized from either the perspective of ecological system theory or interaction theory. Ecological system theory was more widely adopted by researchers, which involved home literacy resources, motivational atmosphere, and literacy activities. Next, we completed a comprehensive search of peer-reviewed published research, and 84 articles with 212 effect sizes and 65,550 children were finally included. We used CMA 3.0 for statistical analysis and results showed that: (1) Except for the age children began to be read to, there was no publication bias in the ESs of HLE and other sub-constructs or items. (2) Results of random effects model indicated a significant, moderate relation between HLE and children’s receptive vocabulary development, r=0.31, p<0.01. Among sub-constructs, items related to shared reading, i.e., the number of children’s books, the frequency of shared reading, and the frequency of children’s reading request demonstrated the highest ESs, followed by motivational atmosphere, including parents’ literacy beliefs and parents’ own reading habits. As for literacy activities, the ESs of informal literacy activities were low but significant, while formal literacy activities were not associated with children’s receptive vocabulary development. (3) As the ESs of HLE and the frequency of shared reading had a high level of heterogeneity, we used meta-regression to explore whether time periods, cultural backgrounds, child’s age and measurement methods were potential moderators. Results suggested that the ESs of HLE decreased significantly across time periods. One possible explanation was that the influx of multimedia has significantly changed HLE, and the other may lie in that the time children spent in pre-primary schools has increased significantly. It was also found that the ESs of the frequency of shared reading were stable during past 30 years, which supported previous literature that interactive reading between adults and children was an effective way for children’s receptive vocabulary development. The moderating effects of measurement methods were different for HLE and the frequency of shared reading. Specifically, the ESs of HLE obtained by questionnaires and the Home Observation for Measurement of the Environment did not lead to significant differences, while the ESs of the frequency of shared reading obtained by Children’s Title Checklist (CTC) were significantly higher than those obtained by questionnaires. We found that except for problems in understanding deviation, difficulty in recall, and social desirability effect, researchers may have different understandings of CTC measurements over time. Lastly, no moderating effects of cultural backgrounds or child’s age were detected.

    Taken altogether, this study supports previous literature that HLE is positively correlated with children’s receptive vocabulary, especially resources and opportunities related to shared reading. Findings also suggest that HLE is a changing and multifaceted construct and more research is needed to extend its conceptualization, especially tech-enabled literacy practices. Furthermore, researchers should also pay more attention to cultural differences in HLE and employ cross-cultural perspectives to improve the reliability and validity of measurements. All these would help advance future HLE research and practice.

    Figures and Tables | References | Related Articles | Metrics
    Regular Articles
    The vivid tactile experience from vision and auditory: Clues from multisensory channel integration
    WAN Bicheng, YANG Zheng, LI Hongting, MA Shu
    2022, 30 (3):  580-590.  doi: 10.3724/SP.J.1042.2022.00580
    Abstract ( 1436 )   HTML ( 110 )  
    PDF (637KB) ( 1660 )  

    Virtual reality creates an immersive experience for users by providing visual, auditory, and tactile information. However, tactile feedback still faces many technical bottlenecks, which limit natural interaction in the virtual reality environment. Pseudo-haptic technology based on multi-sensory illusion can enhance and enrich tactile perception with the help of information from other channels, which is one of the effective ways to optimize tactile perception in the virtual reality environment. In order to explore the problem in a more targeted way, the study focuses on roughness perception among different dimensions of tactile perception. We first discuss the relationship between visual, auditory, and tactile perception in roughness information integration and further analyze visual and auditory factors affecting roughness perception.

    In the process of roughness perception, the channel with less noise and more reliable information will have a higher weight. By evaluating the roughness under every single channel (visual、auditory and tactile) condition,and each double-channel(visual-tactile and auditory-tactile) condition, previous studies have quantified the high weight of visual and auditory channels in roughness perception. It further verifies that roughness perception results from integrating tactile, visual, and auditory information. Therefore, it has excellent potential to manipulate visual and auditory factors to induce or enhance roughness perception in the virtual reality environment.

    For visual factors, the texture of the surface, light or shadow, and the control display rate (CDR) may affect the perception of roughness. ①When the texture density of the object surface increase, the perceived roughness will increase accordingly; ②Since the angle of incidence influence the shadow of the surface texture, thus affecting the perception of roughness; ③ When the glossiness of surface decrease, the perceived roughness increase; ④Reducing the CDR of the virtual hand or presenting a vibratory virtual hand will increase the user's perception of the roughness.

    For auditory factors, manipulating loudness and pitch/frequency can change the roughness perception: increasing loudness in the entire frequency of sound or increasing loudness in a high, medium, or low frequency band of sound can improve the roughness perception. There is a strong correlation between pitch/frequency and roughness perception. According to current research, we speculated that there might be an inverted U-shaped curve between pitch/frequency change and roughness perception.

    In the future, in order to optimize the tactile roughness experience in virtual reality environment, studies can be carried out from the following aspects: Firstly, it is necessary to explore the differences between every single channel (visual, auditory, and tactile) information in the virtual reality environment and real environment respectively, since single channel information is the prerequisite for multi-sensory channel information in the virtual reality environment. Secondly, from the practical point of view, we can choose the channel more suitable to the current scene or task and provide sufficient information timely with emphasis. Thirdly, the difference of single-channel information in virtual reality will lead to information mismatch between different channels. Therefore, it is necessary to explore further how the brain integrates the originally different and mismatched multi-channel sensory information. Finally, most studies explored the usability of relevant sensory information on roughness perception from the perspective of single-channels or double-channels. Therefore, in the future, it is of significant importance to explore the information integration and processing rules of three channels in virtual reality.

    References | Related Articles | Metrics
    The role of object representation strength in the object-based attention of dynamic object
    LIU Yanxiu, XIE Tong, FU Shimin
    2022, 30 (3):  591-600.  doi: 10.3724/SP.J.1042.2022.00591
    Abstract ( 629 )   HTML ( 82 )  
    PDF (638KB) ( 706 )  

    According to object-based attention (OBA) theory, attention processes object as a unit. When attention is directed to a certain part of an object, the processing of other features of the object will be promoted. Object-based attention has been confirmed by many studies. However, most of the previous studies are based on static objects, and there are few studies on how object-based attention changes for dynamic objects. However, information in the real world is always changing, using dynamic objects for OBA research is more ecologically valid and necessary. For the attentional allocation of dynamic objects, there are two theoretical assumptions: the cued object hypothesis and the dynamic updating hypothesis. The cued object hypothesis proposes that object-based attention follows the original cued object, while the dynamic updating hypothesis assumes that object-based attention is determined by the changed object. The study of attention on dynamic objects also found the instantaneous object effect, which means the object-based attention follows the instantaneous object. We propose that experiments supporting the two theoretical hypotheses have differences in the experimental manipulation, which lead to changes in the relative strength between object representations of the cued object and the instantaneous object, resulting in the two seemingly contradictory points of view. As to whether attention is based on the cued object or the instantaneous object, we proposes that the relative strength between object representations of the cued and instantaneous objects plays a critical role. That is, when the cued object representation is stronger than the instantaneous object representation, the object-based attention follows the original cued object, vice versa. The concept of object representation strength is of great significance in OBA research. It is found that object representation strength can affect OBA, and stronger object representation can capture attention more easily. The factors that affect the object representation strength, such as the object presentation time, the factors that affect the surface consistency of an object (such as the object color, texture, continuous contour, etc.) and the top-down factors, will also indirectly affect OBA through affecting the object representation strength. For these reasons, introduces the concept of object representation strength to the discussion of the theory of attending dynamic objects is necessary, but previous studies did not pay attention to the effects of the object representation strength on dynamic objects. In this paper, we introduced the concept of relative object representation strength and analyze the attention theory based on dynamic objects and its experimental basis. This approach can further improve the attention theory based on dynamic objects, get a unified explanation for previous contradictory results, and explain the cause of the cued and instantaneous object effects from a new perspective. The concept of the relative strength of object representation may be critical for understanding how object-based attention is allocated under the circumstance of processing dynamic objects and resolving the conflict of related theories. At present, the research of attention based on dynamic objects mainly focuses on the determination of cued and instantaneous objects, ignoring the important role of relative object representation strength, and most of the results are compared by the reaction time. Further study could focus on the relative object representation strength to test the influence of the relative object representation strength on dynamic object-based attention and explore its underlying mechanisms. At the same time, since the OBA effect is small descriptively, the method of recording the reaction time may lead to replication issue for some results. More sensitive psychophysical methods can be used in future studies to obtain more stable and repeatable results and help to better clarify the mechanisms of the dynamic object theory.

    Figures and Tables | References | Related Articles | Metrics
    Cognitive reappraisal inventiveness in emotion regulation
    YAO Haijuan, WANG Qi, LI Zhaoqing
    2022, 30 (3):  601-612.  doi: 10.3724/SP.J.1042.2022.00601
    Abstract ( 2996 )   HTML ( 301 )  
    PDF (664KB) ( 2952 )  

    Emotion regulation is an essential ability to maintain individual mental health and life happiness. Cognitive reappraisal is one of the most effective emotion regulation strategies. Cognitive reappraisal inventiveness is a central component of the generation process in the context of cognitive reappraisal. It is the ability to create multiple and different reappraisals for negative situations. The total number and diversity of cognitive reappraisal strategies produced by individuals in cognitive reappraisal (i.e., the fluency and flexibility of cognitive reappraisal strategies) are taken as indicators of cognitive reappraisal inventiveness. A high creative cognitive reappraisal is an effective premise for ensuring individual emotional regulation.

    Here, we review recent studies on cognitive reappraisal inventiveness. A large body of research demonstrates that inventiveness in cognitive reappraisal is positively correlated with divergent thinking and openness, but not with neuroticism and trait anger. Creative cognitive reappraisal strategies, or high-level cognitive reconstruction using metaphor and analogy, are more conducive to the regulation of negative emotions, and the superior regulatory effect of creative cognitive reappraisal can be mediated by amygdala-based salient emotional arousal, hippocampus-based new association formation, and striatum-based mental rewarding to produce to a novel and positive experience that can be kept in long-term memory. These results are consistent with the creative reconstruction theory of cognitive reappraisal. The theory holds that an individual’s response to negative situations comes not from the event itself, but from their view of the event. Emotional situations are viewed as problems that can be solved by a variety of reappraisal styles. To regulate negative emotions, it is necessary to produce a novel and effective psychological representation of the emotional situation or event, modifying the initial maladaptive representation. Creative individuals may be more likely to find effective reappraisals. However, other studies claim that there is no correlation between cognitive reappraisal inventiveness and reappraisal effectiveness. Thus, no consistent conclusion about the relationship between cognitive reappraisal inventiveness and reappraisal effectiveness has yet been reached.

    By comparing the neural mechanisms of cognitive reappraisal inventiveness (using the Reappraisal Inventiveness Test, RIT) and traditional creativity (using the Alternative Use Test, AUT), it was found that both, the RIT and AUT, exhibited a comparatively strong increase in alpha power at prefrontal sites, indicating that they have similar brain activation patterns; however, the activation degree of cognitive reappraisal inventiveness is higher in the middle region of the prefrontal cortex, whereas the activation degree of traditional creativity is higher in the ventral prefrontal apex region. The regions of brain activation of the two forms of creativity overlap primarily in the right cerebellum, central anterior gyrus, central posterior gyrus, and anterior cingulate cortex, especially in the left prefrontal network. Cognitive reappraisal inventiveness activates the right superior frontal gyrus, middle frontal gyrus, right middle temporal gyrus, and left and right angular gyrus. Traditional creativity tasks primarily activate the left superior frontal gyrus, left inferior temporal gyrus, and left inferior frontal gyrus. This shows that traditional creativity and cognitive reappraisal inventiveness have common cognitive processing needs, including inhibiting strong responses, switching between different perspectives, and controlling memory retrieval; however, the process of cognitive reappraisal inventiveness requires the specific executive function of emotional representation.

    Future research may expand the group of participants by selecting participants with emotional disorders (e.g., depression and anxiety disorders), improve the measurement methods of cognitive reappraisal inventiveness, explore the situational and internal factors that affect cognitive reappraisal inventiveness (e.g., positive metaphor, trait anxiety, self-efficacy, and humorous personality), and further reveal how the neural mechanisms of the special process, or reaction mechanism of cognitive reappraisal inventiveness, differ from traditional creativity.

    References | Related Articles | Metrics
    Prosody perception in older adults
    ZHAO Xinxian, YANG Xiaohu
    2022, 30 (3):  613-621.  doi: 10.3724/SP.J.1042.2022.00613
    Abstract ( 916 )   HTML ( 71 )  
    PDF (588KB) ( 904 )  

    Prosody, which is defined as the variance in loudness or volume, changes in tempo or timing, and movement in pitch and intonation, plays an essential role in speech communication. The ability of speech communication, however, changes across the life span. It has been found that while word knowledge and syntactic processing during comprehension are largely preserved with aging, older individuals have deficits processing multiple acoustic cues about the intention and emotion of speakers, which can interfere with their perception of linguistic and affective prosodic cues, resulting in poor speech comprehension.

    Older individuals have a diminished ability to decode linguistic prosody. They have difficulty processing pitch contour, word stress, intonation, and speeded utterances. Recent fMRI, ERPs, and EEG studies have demonstrated that younger and older individuals activate different brain regions or neural sensitivity in linguistic prosody perception. Furthermore, aging impairs older adults’ abilities to process affective prosody, particularly for the speech conveying negative emotions. Age has tremendous effects on the automatic encoding of emotional prosody, and there is a general decline in emotion recognition with aging.

    Moreover, age-related diseases could have specific pathologic effects on prosody processing. Age-associated progressive deterioration of neuronal and physical functions affects older adults’ abilities to process time-frequency signals, especially for those with Parkinson’s disease, Alzheimer’s disease, and tinnitus. Studies on older individuals with age-related diseases have obtained significant findings regarding the brain regions involved in prosody processing. It has been observed that the superior temporal gyrus in the right hemisphere is predominantly linked to the processing of affective prosodic cues and that damage to the left hemisphere can result in similar deficits.

    Overall, current studies have carried out extensive explorations on prosody perception by older individuals, with considerable attention to the effects of different first languages and complex auditory environments. However, we thought that more in-depth studies should be conducted on the following topics. First, further explorations are needed to examine prosody processing in older adults with Mandarin and other dialect backgrounds. Specifically, given that Chinese is a tonal language with many dialects, it is unknown whether differences in tone and dialect can influence older adults’ linguistic and affective prosody perception. Secondly, more studies might be carried out to clarify the effects of complex auditory environments on prosody perception in older individuals. Previous studies have examined the impact of several noise types, which are merely part of the challenging conditions in daily communication. It is important to reveal older individuals’ prosody perception in specific situations of context, such as doctor-patient scenarios and family scenarios that they constantly experience. Thirdly, it is imperative to deepen our understanding of neural mechanisms underlying perceptual performance in complex prosodic tasks. Considering that there has been a multitude of neurological research on older adults with age-related diseases, more attention needs to be paid to the neurological performance of their healthy counterparts. Fourthly, further studies might also focus on prosody processing difficulties associated with age-related diseases, as it is still difficult to determine to what extent impairments of prosody perception in daily communication can predict age-related diseases. Finally, special attention needs to be drawn to the early intervention and the rehabilitation of prosody perception impairments in older individuals. It is still uncertain to what extent older adults, especially those with age-related diseases, can maintain or recover their abilities for prosody perception. A corresponding key issue is how to develop effective training methods for Chinese prosody perception rehabilitation. To sum up, future studies are expected to apply interdisciplinary theories and methodologies to explore prosody perception in older adults, which is of both theoretical and practical significance.

    References | Related Articles | Metrics
    Interpersonal motor synchronization in children
    ZHANG Linlin, WEI Kunlin, LI Jing
    2022, 30 (3):  623-634.  doi: 10.3724/SP.J.1042.2022.00623
    Abstract ( 1172 )   HTML ( 85 )  
    PDF (653KB) ( 1293 )  

    Interpersonal motor synchronization refers to the simultaneous and consistent actions of an individual toward others in the process of social interaction. It is like a "social glue" that can promote more pro-social behaviors in children. This paper focuses on the interpersonal motor synchronization in children, explores the development trajectory of children's interpersonal motor synchronization and its influencing factors through literature review. In particular, the paper discussed the atypical interpersonal motor synchronization among a specific group of children, namely those with autism.

    Although humans have acquired certain form of rhythm perception ability in early infancy, it takes six to seven years to synchronize rhythm and movement perfectly. The accuracy and stability of the interpersonal motor synchronization in children improve as they grow. In the development process, children's synchronization performance is affected by two major aspects. The first factor is that in the context of the laboratory, children’s synchronization performance is affected by their motor effectors (finger, head, feet, etc.), rhythmic stimulation types (such as visual stimulation, auditory stimulation), and synchronization objects (such as robots, adults, and children). The second factor is that children’s synchronization performance is restricted by cognitive factors, including time perception, motor planning, and motor execution. That is, in the process of interpersonal motor synchronization, children need to obtain cues from the environment and peers to form rhythm perception and time perception; in addition, they also need to plan their own actions, and at the same time anticipate the results of their own actions; At the same time, monitor the other party's behavioral responses, and adjust their own movement and rhythm perception accordingly to the synchronization of both parties, so as to better keep pace with others. Therefore, if an individual wants to achieve good synchronization performance, he must have a good time perception and rhythm perception ability, being able to expect the consequences of his own actions in advance, minimize motor noise during the motor execution and perform accordingly to the synchronization of both parties.

    The core symptoms of autistic children are social interaction defects and communication disorders. The interpersonal motor synchronization of this group shows atypical characteristics, that is, the level of spontaneous synchronization is lower and the synchronization performance is worse. The defect of time processing and the abnormality of the movement system may be the potential restricting factors of the difficulty of interpersonal movement synchronization in this group. To clarify the similarities and differences in the interpersonal motor synchronization between autistic children and typical children not only can help us understand the development trajectory of children's interpersonal movement synchronization but also inspire the practical application and intervention effect of interpersonal motor synchronization in autistic children.

    Future research needs to further explore the following issues: (1) The influence of motor ability on the interpersonal motor synchronization in children; (2) The influence of interpersonal and non-interpersonal factors on the synchronized movement among autistic children; (3) Explore the reason behind high failure rate of interpersonal motor synchronization interventions in the autistic group.

    References | Related Articles | Metrics
    Potential early identification markers for children with autism spectrum disorder: Unusual vocalizations and theoretical explanations
    LIU Min, HU Yang, LIU Qiaoyun
    2022, 30 (3):  635-647.  doi: 10.3724/SP.J.1042.2022.00635
    Abstract ( 1433 )   HTML ( 87 )  
    PDF (597KB) ( 1087 )  

    Early identification and intervention of children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) are critical to their developmental outcomes. Vocalizations are sounds produced by children before they learn to talk. These can be divided into two categories: nonspeech-like and speech-like. Speech-like vocalizations include consonant and vowel sounds. Nonspeech-like vocalizations are natural, vegetative sounds that do not resemble speech. The common analysis indicators of nonspeech-like vocalizations in children with ASD are fundamental frequency, pause length, and duration of crying. Commonly used analytical indicators for speech-like vocalizations are vocal complexity and vocal communication.

    Compared with typically developing children, those with ASD display a higher fundamental frequency of crying, yet shorter pauses in its length and duration. Atypical crying may represent an early biomarker for children with ASD that aids in early detection. The complexity of speech-like vocalizations in children with ASD is unusual and manifests as a lower or higher vocal complexity than those with typical development. Unusual vocal complexity appears to be a potentially useful indicator of emergent ASD, especially high vocal complexity, which may be an early identification marker for regression in children with ASD. When compared to typically developing children, children with ASD display low rates of vocal communication production, which may also be a useful early identification marker for the presence of ASD.

    The theoretical explanations for unusual vocalizations mainly include: motivation orientation theories, neuromotor orientation theories, perceptual orientation theory, and social feedback orientation theory. In motivation orientation theories, potential sources of variation in vocal complexity are strong intrinsic motivation of special interests and social motivation deficits. The social motivation deficits may also lead to less communicative vocalizations in children with ASD. According to neuromotor orientation theories, the immaturity or disorder of nerves leads to atypical vocal complexity in children with ASD. The delay in the development of sitting posture limits the acquisition of speech-like vocalizations in children with ASD. Damage to the vagal cranial nerve complex leads to higher fundamental frequency, shorter pauses between cry episodes of crying, and shorter crying episodes in children with ASD. The perceptual orientation theory suggests that atypical auditory processing of speech sound stimuli in children with ASD makes them unable to learn speech-like vocalizations, affecting the development of vocal complexity. Social feedback orientation theory proposes that the effectiveness of the social feedback loop of children with ASD is reduced. Thus, if the number of iterations of the social feedback loop decreases, their speech-like vocalizations are further reduced.

    Future research may consider in (1) exploring the possibility of unusual vocalizations as unique early identification markers for children with ASD, (2) strengthening the study of crying in early screening of children with ASD, (3) constructing an automatic learning classification model based on the strongest predictive acoustic parameters, (4) analyzing the influence of intrinsic and social motivation on speech-like vocalizations in children with ASD, and (5) investigating the neural mechanisms of unusual speech-like vocalizations. These evidence may be helpful for early identification and intervention of children with ASD.

    Figures and Tables | References | Related Articles | Metrics
    Facilitating the client change: A perspective from the therapeutic zone of proximal development
    WANG Dongmei, XIANG Kejia
    2022, 30 (3):  648-659.  doi: 10.3724/SP.J.1042.2022.00648
    Abstract ( 852 )   HTML ( 49 )  
    PDF (703KB) ( 866 )  

    Therapeutic zone of proximal development (TZPD) is an extension of Vygotsky's concept of the zone of proximal development in the field of psychotherapy. Based on the assimilation model, TZPD represents the space between the actual development level and the potential development level of clients within a developmental sequence. As a new concept to understand the change process of psychotherapy, it can enhance the understanding of setbacks in psychotherapy, provide an easy-to-operate theoretical framework for promoting the change of the client, and provide precise guidance for the therapist to choose supportive or challenging intervention strategies. In terms of research, TZPD theory is based on an unconventional methodology of Theory-Building Qualitative Research. TZPD theory is built upon accumulating observations in qualitative case studies in which TZPD helped the therapist understand and interpret the psychotherapy process. Under this methodology, researchers mainly use a therapeutic collaboration coding system (TCCS) as a research tool to analyze different case studies, understand the causes and characteristics of different counseling cases, and compare the effects of good and bad results based on TZPD, to describe the characteristics of the psychotherapy process. This kind of practice will provide a richer perspective for future research on the theoretical construction of psychological counseling and therapy and the understanding of psychological treatment mechanisms. In clinical practice, as the working area of psychotherapy, TZPD provides a new perspective for understanding the setback phenomenon in the psychotherapy process. Early researchers regarded setbacks as a hindrance in the psychotherapy process, but the TZPD suggests that setbacks may be therapists' exploration of the clients' TZPD boundaries and preparation for subsequent progress. The key point of therapists' work is not to avoid setbacks, but to discover and differentiate the phenomenon of setbacks under the enlightenment of TZPD theory, and choose the appropriate intervention technique at the appropriate stage. The future of TZPD hinges on further exploration of the clinical wisdom of experienced therapists. It's also worthy of carrying out theoretical exploration from different approaches and perspectives, which might ultimately explain setbacks in the process of assimilation and lead to a better understanding of the dynamics of the psychotherapy process.

    Figures and Tables | References | Related Articles | Metrics
    The effect and mechanisms of self-transcendence values on durable happiness
    LIU Ping, ZHANG Rongwei, LI Dan
    2022, 30 (3):  660-669.  doi: 10.3724/SP.J.1042.2022.00660
    Abstract ( 2249 )   HTML ( 238 )  
    PDF (718KB) ( 2665 )  

    Values refer to what people find important in life, which play a guiding role during an individual’s development and always affect the individual’s cognition, emotion and motivation. The understanding and attitude towards happiness were closely related to values which one endorsed. According to the theory of human basic values and the self-centeredness versus selflessness happiness model, a person, who endorses on the self-enhancement values may pay more attention to personal interests and is also led by the hedonic principle, i.e., seeking pleasant and gratifying stimuli and avoiding unpleasant ones, the consequence may be fluctuating happiness in forms of the alternation of transitory pleasure and afflictive effects. In contrast, individuals who endorse values of self-transcendence may be concerned about the well-being of others and they are also guided by the harmony principle, meaning that they are harmoniously interconnected with all the elements of a whole including themselves, others and all living arrangements. Therefore, they are likely to experience durable happiness, which is characterized by a state of enduring contentment and inner peace. Therefore, by shifting the attention from self to others may help individuals experience durable happiness. To our knowledge, however, the underlying mechanisms of the relationship between values of self-transcendence and durable happiness have received little attention. Therefore, the aim of the current study is to review the role of the values of self-transcendence in durable happiness and its mechanisms, to discover the path to find durable happiness. First, the role of the values of self-transcendence in durable happiness was disclosed. On one hand, values of self-transcendence were beneficial to mental health, and individuals may by means of the values experience fewer negative emotions in forms of anxiety, loneliness and depression; on the other hand, values of self-transcendence help an individual to establish and maintain harmonious interpersonal relationships, and thereby make an individual feel more connected and satisfied. Secondly, as far as the mechanism is concerned, the current study summarized the potential mechanisms between the values of self-transcendence and durable happiness from different perspectives such as cognition, emotion and behavior. Exactly, individuals who endorsed the values of self-transcendence may pay less attention to their own interests; therefore, they may reduce their worries about self- deficiencies and react less defensively to self-threatening information. This may release the negative impact of threats in terms of harmful emotional experience and hostile relationships. Then, less defensive responses may cut the distinctions and boundaries between self and others, self and the environment, and individuals may experience more socially engaging emotions such as empathy, compassion and love, which helps to strengthen interpersonal connections and enhances emotional stability. And socially engaging emotions may further stimulate individuals to display more prosocial behaviors, which may increase the sense of meaning in life and social cohesion. Overall, through these three paths, individuals who endorsed the values of self-transcendence may experience durable happiness. Although previous studies have contributed to investigate the mechanisms between values of self-transcendence and durable happiness, there are still some questions that need answers. Thus, the current study puts forward some valuable directions for future studies. Specifically, a variety of methods and means (such as longitudinal research, ERPs, fMRI) should be used to investigate the effect of values of self-transcendence on durable happiness. In addition, other potential mechanisms between the two variables, such as emotion regulation can be studied. Also, education about values of self-transcendence should be carried out to cultivate a healthy social mentality through joint efforts by families, schools and society.

    Figures and Tables | References | Related Articles | Metrics
    Disparagement humor: Could laughter dissolve hostility?
    LI Longjiao, WANG Fang
    2022, 30 (3):  670-683.  doi: 10.3724/SP.J.1042.2022.00670
    Abstract ( 2329 )   HTML ( 263 )  
    PDF (802KB) ( 2914 )  

    Disparagement humor refers to communication that derogates or denigrates a certain target but elicits amusement. Blending two contradictory elements in terms of social approvability, the paradox of disparagement humor has sparked three major questions: how does amusement arise from disparagement? What determines whether an attempt at disparagement humor is perceived to be funny or offensive? What are the unique aftereffects of this fusion? Four major theoretical frameworks have been proposed to understand the psychological mechanism of disparagement humor. From a psychoanalytic perspective, relief theory suggests that the entertainment of humor comes from the catharsis of hostility. From an intergroup perspective, superiority theory suggests that the feeling of superiority generated by the disparagement of others leads to humorous experiences. From a cognitive perspective, incongruity-resolution theory suggests that humor derives from the resolution of incongruencies. Additionally, from a cognitive perspective, to provide a more accurate and universal explanation for humor than incongruity-resolution theory, benign violation theory suggests that humor comes from appraising something as both a violation and benign. Among the theories, the former two address the unique motivational factors underlying disparagement humor, while the latter two provide universal cognitive models to explain all humor, including disparagement humor. Thus, a motivational cognition model proposed later in the article could effectively depict an integrated picture of the psychological mechanism of disparagement humor. However, people do not necessarily find disparagement humor funny; sometimes it is offensive. Factors influencing the reception of disparagement humor include group identities and attitudes, psychological distance between the recipient and the object of derogation, and personal and cultural differences. The social effects of humor and derogatory comments are usually opposite, but the fusion of the two can produce unique outcomes. First, it can serve as a prejudice releaser by creating a social norm that allows the expression of prejudice, which is normally forbidden in modern society. In addition, the use of disparagement humor can serve to reinforce social hierarchies by functioning as a legitimizing myth that justifies expressions of social dominance motivations. Conversely, when disparagement humor is used by a disadvantaged social group to subvert an inequitable social hierarchy, the strategy of covering an insubordinate message with humor may encourage the expression of subversion and thus promote social equity. Finally, the impacts of disparagement humor on interpersonal interactions are inconsistent due to the contradictory effects of disparagement and humor. After reviewing the relevant theories and studies, we propose an integrated process model of disparagement. The model takes benign violation theory as its fundamental framework, dividing the completion of disparagement humor into three parts: first, the expresser delivers disparagement; second, the audience evaluates the disparagement as benign; and third, a sense of humor is produced. The model also integrates the motivational perspectives of relief theory and superiority theory by addressing motivational factors in the delivery and evaluation process. In addition, the model displays the retroaction of disparagement humor’s aftereffects on its delivery and evaluation by combining the prejudice-releaser and legitimizing-myth role of disparagement humor. As it depicts a comprehensive process and captures the dynamism of disparagement humor, the model can hopefully serve as a scaffold for future research. It is also important for future research to explore the negative effects of disparagement humor. Moreover, the potentially positive effects of disparagement humor on intergroup relations and social justice when used by disadvantaged groups to fight social injustice merit investigation. Finally, it could be rewarding to study the cultural distinctiveness of disparagement humor in certain aspects of Chinese culture, such as its essential foreignness and prosperous localization, the commercialization trend of disparagement jokes, and the specifically Chinese content conveyed and popularized by disparagement humor.

    Figures and Tables | References | Related Articles | Metrics
    Similarities and differences between face-personality perception and voice-personality perception in first impression
    LI Dong, WU Qi, YAN Xiangbo, CUI Qian, JIANG Zhongqing
    2022, 30 (3):  684-692.  doi: 10.3724/SP.J.1042.2022.00684
    Abstract ( 1974 )   HTML ( 99 )  
    PDF (655KB) ( 2353 )  

    People can quickly form the first impression of the strangers’ personality according to their face cues and/or voice cues. To explore the difference and the similarity of these two ways of personality perception, we compared these two sides of studies reported by the same teams.

    Firstly, both the first impression of face-personality perception and the first impression of voice-personality perception have similar two -dimensional structure models. Some studies had named them as "valence-dominance dimensional model" and others had named them as "approachability-capability dimensional model". The two dimensions reflect inference about the person’s intentions——harmful v.s. harmless, and the person’s ability to implement these intentions, respectively. Furthermore, considering from the perspectives of occurrence and development, cognitive formation mechanism, physiological mechanism and neural mechanism, the internal mechanism of the first impression of face- and voice-personality perception are similar to some extent.

    On the other hand, there are some differences between the first impression of face- and voice-personality perception, including being different in some specific personality traits contained in the same dimension, the rate of the total variation explained by the same dimension or the personality traits, and the perceived reliability of the same dimension, etc.. Such differences indicate that, during the formation of the first impression of personality perception, the face and the voice cues are different in sensitive personality traits and sensitive dimensions. Face cues may be more sensitive to the valence/approachability dimension and the related personality traits, while voice cues may be more sensitive to the dominance/capability dimension and the related personality traits. In addition, face cues and voice cues provide different physical properties for the overgeneralization of cognition to rely on, therefore, the cognitive process and the results of the overgeneralization vary between these two modality processing, that is, the overgeneralization for some specific content and cognitive mechanism have the modal specificity. Some studies have disclosed neural evidence that the differences between two modal processing were manifested in the early stage of cognitive processing.

    Therefore, it is valuable to know the whole picture and the essence of similarities and differences between the first impression of face- and voice-personality perception. Their similarities consist of the basis for the integration of face-voice cues in the first impression of personality perception. Their differences indicate that face and voice would have adaptive weight allocation in the integration of personality perception. In the future study, it is necessary to directly compare the first impression of face- and voice-personality perception based on the same group of participants who provided the face and the voice stimuli, so as to directly, systematically and comprehensively reveal their similarities and differences. Secondly, since previous studies mainly used the open -ended subjective evaluation as the experimental task, focusing on the results of the first impression of personality perception, future research can design experimental tasks compatible with neuro-imaging techniques and investigate the process characteristics of the first impression of face- and voice -personality perception. In addition, as the sensitive personality traits and sensitive dimensions of faces and voice cues might be different, it is important to explore how people integrate these two sources of information and form a holistic first impression of personality perception.

    Figures and Tables | References | Related Articles | Metrics
    Do valence and effects of meta-stereotype conform to the rewarding principle?
    DONG Tiantian, WANG Ting, ZHANG Heyun, HE Wen
    2022, 30 (3):  693-702.  doi: 10.3724/SP.J.1042.2022.00693
    Abstract ( 748 )   HTML ( 51 )  
    PDF (583KB) ( 899 )  

    The term meta-stereotype refers to the beliefs of in-group members regarding the stereotypes that out-group members hold about them. Its valence can be positive or negative, and its effects can also be positive or negative. Previous researchers have held the view that the valence and effects of meta-stereotype conform to the “rewarding principle.” In other words, positive meta-stereotype activation would have a positive effect, and negative meta-stereotype activation would have a negative effect. However, recent studies, have found that this relationship was not consistent. Up to now, the nature of the relationship between the valence and effects of meta-stereotype is still a matter of debate.

    For the negative meta-stereotype activation, its threat effect conforms to the rewarding principle, whereas the reactance effect does not. The threat effect of the negative meta-stereotype is that its activation could result in psychological conflict for individuals engaged in social situations. This may induce them to face a loss of cognitive balance and experience anxiety and stress, resulting in negative consequences. In contrast, it is possible for the activation of negative meta-stereotype to have a positive effect, that is, the reactance effect. When the negative meta-stereotype is activated, individuals perceive that they are being negatively evaluated by the out-group members. They may act to refute the negative evaluation. They would then display positive behaviors in a way to maintain a positive in-group image or prove their own abilities. It was found that the threat and reactance effects of negative meta-stereotype differ in the research scope, mechanism, and interventions that would eliminate the negative effects of meta-stereotype.

    For the positive meta-stereotype activation, its boost effect conforms to the rewarding principle, whereas the choking effect does not. In general, the positive meta-stereotype reflects the positive evaluation by the out-group to the in-group members; that is, it contains a number of positive characteristics. Therefore, the activation of the positive meta-stereotype can lead to a boost effect. Specifically, when individuals feel that they are positively viewed by the out-group members, they not only feel better about themselves, but also are encouraged to give back to other out-group members in helpful, constructive way. In contrast, positive meta-stereotype activation may also have a negative effect; that is, the choking effect. If individuals perceive that the out-group members hold very high expectations of them, they may feel substantially more pressure. This can bring about undesirable outcomes. They might focus too intensely on themselves, or even feel worry and doubt their own abilities, and subsequently perform badly. After comparing previous studies of the boost and choking effects of positive meta-stereotype, it was found that the differences between them were in the research scope, mechanism, and the mode of activation.

    Based on the analysis of the four effects mentioned above, it appears that the effects of meta-stereotype activation of different valences are influenced by a variety of factors at the individual and the group levels. Among them, the individual-level factors are the difficulty of retrieving the meta-stereotype, the internal resources, the degree of meta-stereotype personalization, and the impression management motivation; the group-level factors include group social status.

    Although research on meta-stereotype has gradually expanded, it still mainly focuses on the threat effect of the negative meta-stereotype and the boost effect of the positive meta-stereotype respectively. Studies on the reactance effect of the negative meta-stereotype and the choking effect of the positive meta-stereotype are limited. Many issues remain to be addressed. Future research can further expand the fields and preconditions of the diverse effects activated by the negative and positive meta-stereotypes, explore the interventions to eliminate the negative effects of meta-stereotype, and investigate the role of meta-stereotype activation mode.

    References | Related Articles | Metrics
    The mechanism of dirty worker occupational stigma and its coping strategies
    ZhANG Guanglei, HUANG Ting, YIN Xiangzhou
    2022, 30 (3):  703-714.  doi: 10.3724/SP.J.1042.2022.00703
    Abstract ( 1417 )   HTML ( 114 )  
    PDF (726KB) ( 1444 )  

    “Dirty work” refers to occupational activities that are physically disgusting, that symbolize degradation, that wound the individual’s dignity, or that run counter to the more heroic of our moral conceptions. Firstly, the definition of dirty work is defined from the perspective of objective work characteristics, subjective cognition and contingency, and individual stigma, occupational stigma and organizational stigma are differentiated from the three dimensions of generation, management and dissemination. Secondly, a process model of perceived threat of occupational stigma was constructed based on cognitive evaluation theory, including :(1) antecedents and characteristics of occupational stigma. Antecedents of occupational stigma can be divided into macro factors (laws/regulations/social policies and socio-cultural environment), medium factors (media) and micro factors (public, dirty workers and dirty characteristics of work). The characteristics of occupational stigma are concealability, controllability, centrality and Disruptiveness. (2) Strategies for managing occupational stigma. According to the object and level of change, management strategies can be divided into four categories: individual/behavioral strategy, individual/cognitive strategy, collective/behavioral strategy and collective/cognitive strategy. Individual/behavioral strategies, including personal mobility, information management and confronting or countering outsiders' perceptions of taint and outsiders' behaviours, mainly refer to the strategies used by dirty workers to avoid damage to their own image by keeping a distance from negative occupational groups and distracting the attention of the audience, or to change others' negative evaluation of dirty work by taking active actions. Individual/cognitive strategies, including individualized strategies, acceptance, and emotional labor, mainly refer to the strategies used by dirty workers to reduce the negative impact of occupational stigma by reconstructing their individual cognition. Collective/behavioral strategies, including social competition and realistic competition, mainly refer to the strategies used by dirty workers to improve their professional status and protect their self-esteem from threats associated with occupational stigma through inter-group competition. Collective/cognitive strategies, including occupational ideologies and social weighting, mainly refer to the strategies used by dirty workers to improve their job evaluations by challenging the validity of occupational stigma.; (3) The impact of occupational stigma on dirty workers. The results can be divided into three categories: based on mental health, attitudes and behaviors at work, and relationship outcomes. The effects on mental health are reflected in the stress and negative emotions experienced by dirty workers. The influence on work attitude and behavior is manifested in low job satisfaction, low job meaning perception, high relative deprivation, high dimission behavior, counterproductive work behavior, job burnout and low task performance. The influence on interpersonal relationship is reflected in the perception of social isolation, disrespect and discrimination of dirty workers in interpersonal communication. Potential future research directions are proposed: (1) To explore the sources of occupational stigma from a dynamic perspective; (2) To explore the path and effect of occupational stigma management based on individual and situational factors; (2)To consider diverse cultural backgrounds.

    Figures and Tables | References | Related Articles | Metrics