Table of Content

15 July 2012, Volume 28 Issue 4

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The Role of Visual-perceptional Clues in the Small Discrete Quantities Representation of Preschool Children

LAI Ying-hui, CHEN Ying-he, CHEN Cong

Psychological Development and Education. 2012, 28(4):  337-344. 

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This study analyzed the role of visual-perceptional clues in the small numerical values representation of preschool children.80 children preformed the magnitude discrimination task,and 74 of them preformed the magnitude comparison tasks.The results showed that young children did not show the preference of accumulated surface areas,they can analyze the accumulated surface areas and the number of biscuits simultaneously,in order to distinguish the abstract magnitude relation.This ability enhanced with age,most of the subjects with low magnitude discrimination abilities were 3 and 4-year-old,in which the younger group performed significantly better in square biscuits condition than rounded biscuits.When the accumulated surface areas interfered the magnitude comparison,the correct rate became lower with the magnitude ratio growing,so the small magnitude representation was no longer accurate; while the perceptual features of single elements were more distinctive,the correct rate of magnitude compare was no longer interfered by the magnitude ratio.This indicated that the single and global perceptual clues are both affect the small magnitude representation, suggesting that the small magnitude representation of preschool children is not always precisely,it sometimes also needs the analog magnitude systeml.

3-to 4-Year-olds’ Trust Judgment Based on Trustee’s Trustworthiness Trait: Trait Effect and Age Differences

LI Qing-gong, XU Fen, ZHOU Xiao-mei

Psychological Development and Education. 2012, 28(4):  345-352. 

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This study,which involved two experiments,investigated the ability to make trust judgment based on trustee's trustworthiness trait (TTT) of 96 3-to 4-year-olds.In experiment 1,all children were read 3 stories and each of the 3 stories had two kids and varied on the kids' traits.In Competence Story,two kids varied in competence (talented vs.untalented).In Honesty Story,two kids varied in honesty (honest vs.dishonest).Finally,in Benevolence Story,two kids varied in benevolence (kind vs.mean).At first,children would be asked to make judgment about which kid to trust.And later,they would be asked to make moral evaluation on these kids.Experiment 2 only changed the order of trust judgment and moral evaluation.Children were asked to evaluate the kids before to make trust judgment.The purpose to make the change in experiment 2 was to ease children's cognitive load when making trust judgment.The results were as follows: (1) the effect of trait was not found in the ability of 3-to 4-year-olds to make judgment based on TTT.The accuracies of trust judgment among three traits were not different.(2) In experiment 1,4-year-olds performed better than 3-year-olds in trust judgment.Age differences still existed after controlling children's ability of evaluation based on TTT.(3) In experiment 2,3-year-olds could make trust judgment accurately just as 4-year-olds did.There was no significant age difference.These results revealed that the reason why 3-year-olds can't make trust judgment based on TTT spontaneously just as 4-year-olds did was the heavy cognitive load of task.

Preschool-Age Children’s Suggestibility Under Pressure: Moderating Effects of Inhibitory Control

CAO Xiao-jun, CHEN Xu, LIU Qing-ying, LUO Le

Psychological Development and Education. 2012, 28(4):  353-361. 

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Based on previous researches,the current study further sought to examine the interaction of inhibitory control and pressure on 3-to 5-year-old children's suggestibility.Children were administered the Video Suggestibility Scale for Children and batteries of inhibitory control tasks,as well as different levels of situational pressures during interviews for suggestibility.The results showed that the suggestibility of 3-to 5-year-olds decreased significantly with increased age,and the pressure affected children'suggestibility,that is,the greater pressure was,the higher suggestibility became.In addition,The findings indicated that in hibitory control played a significantly moderating role in the relationship between pressure and suggestibility.With inhibitory control rising, the effects of pressure on the suggestibility of children were gradually diminishing.For the children with lower levels of inhibitory control,the pressure positively predicted suggestibility; but for the children with higher levels of inhibitory control,the pressure didn't significantly predict suggestibility.

The Effect of error Judgment on Error Monitoring in Children with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder

DING Ying, YANG Shuang

Psychological Development and Education. 2012, 28(4):  362-367. 

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A Go/NO-GO task and an error awareness task were combined to investigate the level of error awareness on error monitoring in children with ADHD.The results showed that the children with ADHD can detect their error reactions.Moreover,the error awareness task can induce the post-error slowing in children with ADHD.It is attributed to that the task can stimulate the awareness detection in the children with ADHD and can increase the inter stimulus interval (ISI) time in the GO/NO-GO task.The results indicated that increasing the ISI time can impel the children with ADHD to change the strategy after making errors,which can improve their abilities of error awareness.

Adolescents’ Prosocial Intention in Conflict Situations: The Effect of Anticipated Significant Others’ Viewpoint

ZHANG Qing-peng, LIU Jing-li, HUANG Hui, LI Jie, KOU Yu

Psychological Development and Education. 2012, 28(4):  368-375. 

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Significant others affected adolescents'prosocial intention in particular situation.Moreover,the effect of anticipated others'viewpoint and attitude is more significant.This study investigated the role of adolescents' anticipated others'viewpoint in prosocial intention in the assumptive dilemmas.The result demonstrated that the degree of deviation between adolescents' prosocial intention and anticipated others' viewpoint changed with different conflict situations types differently.Adolescents'prosocial intention and anticipated parents'viewpoint showed the minimum degree of deviation in the conflict situation of"one's own health vs.other people's health", while the minimum degree of deviation between their prosocial intention and anticipated teachers' viewpoint appeared in the situation of "one's own study vs.other people's study".Then came the minimum deviate degree between adolescents' prosocial intention and anticipated peers' viewpoint,which existed in the situation of "interpersonal relationship vs.honest quality".Adolescents'approval degree in significant others'viewpoint moderated the relation between anticipated others'viewpoint and their prosocial intention.when adolescents highly agreed with anticipated significant others'viewpoint,this viewpoint positively predicted their prosocial intention.When they were less likely to agree with anticipated significant others'viewpoint,the predictive effect of this viewpoint didn't exsit.The results indicated that adults and peers influenced adolescents separately,and the influence was restricted by life events field.

The Affective Arousal and Valence in the Attentional Blink Sparing Effect Elicited by Affective Pictures: Evidence from an ERP Study

JIA Lei, LI Xiao, SUN Xiao, ZHANG Qing-lin, LI Hai-jiang, JIANG Jun

Psychological Development and Education. 2012, 28(4):  376-383. 

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This study examined the roles of the valence and arousal in the attentional blink (AB) sparing effect which elicited by affective pictures.Our behavior results revealed an AB sparing effect elicited by the positive T2 pictures,and the valence (but not the arousal) was responsible for this effect.So it revealed the advantage of positive emotion in the AB sparing effect.The ERPs results supported the effects in behavior data and further indicated that this AB sparing effect happened in the working memory consolidation phase represented by P3.For the early attentional processes represented by P2 and N2,however,the AB and the affective process did not interact with each other.

Based on Two Dimensional Models of Time-Investment——Focus on the Degree of Research of High School Students’ the Academic Diligence

LEI Hao, LIU Yan-ling, WEI Jin, TIAN Lan, WANG Xin-qiang

Psychological Development and Education. 2012, 28(4):  384-391. 

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To avoid deficiency that one dimensional assessment exists that overestimate or underestimate performance of diligent learning,based on two approaches,degree of diligent learning in "time (behavior) into"and "focus on the degree",proposed the two dimensional core model of 386 high school students'the academic diligence in "time (behavior) into" and "focus on the degree",and examine the model results in the high school application.The results show that: (1) Based on the double-dimension core of academic deligent,divide students into four groups,and the difference on time investment and focus the degree of this four groups students are as followings: in time investment,two high time investment groups students have higher time investment level,the other two groups students have lower time investment level; and the distribution on focus the degree also is so.This illustrate that the grouping of this research is effective.(2) The model can divide high school students into groups efficiently, Firstly high time investment-low interest group makes up the largest proportion (30.4%),secondly low time investment-low degree of focus group (28.6%),again low time investment-high degree of focus group(23.6%), high investment of time-high focus on makes up the smallest percentage of severe group (17.4%).(3) Model has significant effect in monitoring of overall academic achievement and chinese,mathematics,english.At the same time high school students of having a high learning time (behavior) and high degree of concern have the best level of overall overall and single of the academic performance.Therefore,the model of academic diligent degree (behavior) into-focus on the degree has good effect.

A Meta-Analysis of the Relationship between Dispositional Optimism and Mental Health

QI Xiao-dong, ZHANG Da-jun, SHAO Jing-jin, WANG Jia-ning, GONG Ling

Psychological Development and Education. 2012, 28(4):  392-404. 

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This study assessed quantitatively the relationship of dispositional optimism and the positive standards and negative standards of mental health utilizing meta-analysis.For the positive standards of mental health 70 studies (including a total of 83 independent samples,30627 participants),and for the negative standards of mental health 75 studies (including a total of 105 independent samples,39064 participants) met the criteria for inclusion in the meta-analysis.The results showed: (1) Overall,the correlations between dispositional optimism and mental health were highly strong (r=0.41 for positive standards of mental health and r=-0.41 for negative standards of mental health).(2) Different standards of mental health moderated the correlation, the correlation of between dispositional optimism and self-esteem is highest among positive standards,the correlation of between dispositional optimism and depression is highest among negative standards.(3) Additionally,results indicated that dispositional optimism measure used didn't moderate the correlation between dispositional optimism and mental health (both for positive standards and negative standards of mental health).(4) Results indicated that age didn't moderate the correlation between dispositional optimism and mental health.(5) Cultural differences moderated the correlation significantly,the correlation in the western culture is higher than in the eastern culture.

A Cross-lagged Analysis of the Relationship between Parent-Child Attachment and Anxiety Symptoms in Middle Childhood

ZHAO Jin-xia

Psychological Development and Education. 2012, 28(4):  405-412. 

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This longitudinal study investigated 472 children of 3rd grade from two ordinary primary schools twice (one year in between) to explore the development of parent-child attachment and anxiety symptoms in middle childhood,as well as the relationships between parent-child attachment and anxiety symptoms by Kerns Attachment Security Scale and Spence Children Anxiety Scale.The results indicated as follows: (1) Both parent-child attachment and anxiety symptoms in mid-childhood existed stability to some extent,and separation anxiety,social phobia,panic disorder and obsessive compulsive disorder manifested developmental changes.(2) Parent-child attachment correlated negatively and significantly with children's anxiety,which meant that the higher attachment security was,the lower anxiety levels were.(3) Cross-lagged analyses indicated that parent-child attachment influenced children's anxiety,and maternal attachment has short-term effects,but paternal attachment has shortterm and long-term effects on children's anxiety.(4) Secure paternal attachment buffered effectively the negative effect of insecure maternal attachment,but secure maternal attachment did not buffer the negative effect of insecure paternal attachment.

Interpersonal Competence Mediating Paths from Social Perspective-taking and Public Self-consciousness to Adolescents’ Emotional Adaption

WANG Ming-zhong, ZHOU Zong-kui, FAN Cui-ying, SUN Xiao-jun

Psychological Development and Education. 2012, 28(4):  413-420. 

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465 high school students were conveniently chosen as our subjects who were investigated with such instruments as the Interpersonal Competence Questionnaire,the Self-Consciousness Scale,UCLA Loneliness Scale and The Perspective-taking Subscale.With every class as a unit and under the supervision of two psychological graduates,these scales were administered to adolescents.Data were collected and analyzed by using SPSS 17.0 and LISREL 8.80.Results strongly supported the hypothetical model.Both social perspective-taking and public self-consciousness could directly positively predict the interpersonal competence and social anxiety of adolescents; The interpersonal competence could negatively predict their loneliness and social anxiety; The interpersonal competence could completely mediate the path from social perspective-taking to their loneliness as well as the path from public self-consciousness to their loneliness; The interpersonal competence could partially mediate the path from social perspective-taking to social anxiety as well as the path from public self-consciousness to their social anxiety.Further analysis revealed that adolescents show significantly different levels of interpersonal competence in different interpersonal contexts.And social perspective-taking,as well as public self-consciousness,contribute significantly differently to adolescents'interpersonal competence in different interpersonal contexts.We discussed the significance of this study for improving adolescents'interpersonal competence and relieving their loneliness and social anxiety by improving their social perspective taking and public self-consciousness.

Adolescent New Media Dependence Behavior: the Roles of Parental Factors and Refusal Self-efficacy

XU Ying, SU Shao-bing, LIN Dan-hua

Psychological Development and Education. 2012, 28(4):  421-427. 

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A sample of 500 students who claimed cell phone ownership were recruited to explore the characteristics of new media dependence (including internet addiction and cell-phone dependence) and its association with parental factors and refusal self-efficacy.Results showed: (1) There were 40% and 19.8% of adolescents respectively found to be marginal internet addicts and cell-phone dependents.In addition,46.4% of adolescent reported at least one kind of dependent behaviors.Significant association was found between the two kinds of new media dependence behaviors.(2) New media dependence behaviors were significantly associated with refusal selfefficacy,parental attitudes towards dependence behaviors and parental monitoring.Refusal self-efficacy completely mediated the effect of parental behaviors and attitudes on adolescent new media dependence behavior.In addition, refusal self-efficacy partially mediated the effect of parental monitoring on adolescent new media dependence behaviors.The implications of designing effective adolescent new media dependence behaviors prevention intervention program were also addressed in the present study.

Research on Relationship between Adolescents’ Life Position and Interpersonal Communication Ability in Northwest China Minorities Region

YANG Ling, CAO Li-li, LU Jing, AN Hua-hua

Psychological Development and Education. 2012, 28(4):  428-433. 

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Investigating one ethnic mix of school,a single minority school,and a general secondary school with 521 students in Lanzhou City distributed in Gannan Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture in Northwest China Minorities region.This study used Life Position Scale and Middle School Students Interpersonal Communication Ability Questionnaires as the research tools.discussing the relationship between the Life position and Interpersonal communication ability of the middle school students and effect in their interpersonal skills development.The results indicated: (1) In Northwest China Minorities region,Tibetan-Chinese mixed school students' life position was significantly higher than single nationality school students,but there was no significant difference between TibetanChinese mixed school and general school; (2) In Northwest China Minorities region,Tibetan-Chinese mixed school students'Interpersonal communication ability was significantly higher than single nationality school students,but there was no significant difference between Tibetan-Chinese mixed school and general school; (3) There existed significant correlation between Life position and Interpersonal communication ability in Northwest China Minorities region; (4) The characteristics of the psychological status of the middle school students in Northwest China Minorities region is better to predict the development of interpersonal communication ability.

The Development of Empathy Across the Lifespan: A Perspective of Double Processes

HUANG He-qing, SU Yan-jie

Psychological Development and Education. 2012, 28(4):  434-441. 

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Empathy contains both the bottom-up emotional process and the up-down cognitive process,and the two processes have distinct developmental trajectories and mechanism.Emotional empathy is inherent,and shows a tendency to decrease from infancy to adulthood,and then increase with aging.The developmental trajectory of emotional process takes on a continuous shape of U.The shared representation between self and other in the Mirror Neuron System may be the potential factor affecting the development of emotional empathy.Cognitive empathy increases from infancy to adulthood and decrease gradually from then on.The developmental trajectory of cognitive empathy is like a convert U.The development of cognitive empathy is due to the ability to distinguish self and other,and the ability to inhibit the proneness of self center.The brain network involving the development of cognitive empathy is Temporal-parietal association area and the frontal cortex.To catch a whole picture of the development of empathy,both processes of empathy should be investigated.

The Stability of Attachment in Adulthood

WANG Yan, WANG Da-hua

Psychological Development and Education. 2012, 28(4):  442-448. 

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Bowlby's attachment theory holds that the internal working models of attachment developed during childhood can influence the behavior in the interpersonal relations in future.As a result,adult attachment style laid down early years is able to persist,and this continuity of adult attachment can be shown by the stability of adult attachment style in different time.During the past 2 decades researches using different kinds of measurements have demonstrated that adult attachment is relatively stable.However,researchers have become interested in attachment instability and proposed life-stress model,social-cognitive model and individual-difference model to describe the predictors of attachment style change.Though there have been many researches about the stability of adult attachment,some aspect need to be improved further.