Subjects: Psychology >> Social Psychology submitted time 2023-11-19
Abstract： Both behavioral and electrophysiological studies have demonstrated the future positive bias of individual temporal self-evaluation. However, the characteristic of collective temporal self-evaluation is still an open question. The present study aimed to investigate the similarities and differences between individual and collective temporal self-evaluation using a temporal self-reference paradigm among Chinese undergraduates. In comparison to Westerners, Chinese are more unified in their self-concept, and their temporal self contains more social, relational, and family selves in the context of collectivist culture. Therefore, it was assumed that the collective temporal self-evaluation might be highly similar to individual temporal self-evaluation across time, according to dependent self-construal theory.
The present study adopted a 3 (time dimension) × 2 (reference object) × 2 (valence) within-subjects design and employed an event-related potential (ERP) technique to explore the individual and collective temporal self-evaluation using two experiments. Brain electrical activity was recorded from 64 scalp sites using tin electrodes mounted in an elastic cap according to the international 10-20 system, and late positive components (LPC) were used as the EEG indicators because LPC was closely related to temporal self-evaluation. In Experiment 1, 30 Chinese undergraduates were recruited, and they were asked to evaluate their and strangers’ past self, present self, and future self, using positive and negative personality adjectives. In Experiment 2, 23 Chinese undergraduates were recruited to assess past self, present self, and future self of Chinese and Americans.
In Experiment 1, the behavioral results showed that participants tended to use more positive adjectives and fewer negative adjectives to evaluate their future self, compared to their past self and present self; They tended to use more negative adjectives to evaluate their past self, compared to their present self. In addition, participants tended to use more positive adjectives and fewer negative adjectives to evaluate their future self, more negative adjectives to evaluate their present self, and more negative adjectives and fewer positive adjectives to evaluate their past self, compared to Zhangsan’ self (“Zhangsan” was often referred to the name of an ordinary person in China). These behavioral results indicated that individual self-evaluation was positive across time and had a trend to increase from past to future. ERP data showed that negative adjectives evoked greater LPC amplitudes than positive adjectives in the tasks of evaluating past self and present self, while there was no significant difference in the evaluation of future self, which demonstrated that participants had more “negativity bias” effects in individual past self-evaluation and present self-evaluation, compared to individual future self-evaluation. In Experiment 2, the behavioral results showed that participants tended to use more positive adjectives and fewer negative adjectives to evaluate collective temporal self than non-collective temporal self. The positive attitudes toward collective temporal self were no significant differences between different temporal dimensions (past, present, and future), indicating that participants had a stable and consistent positive bias toward their collective temporal self. ERP data showed that greater LPC amplitudes were evoked for negative adjectives than positive adjectives in evaluating collective past self and present self, while there was no significant difference in evaluating collective future self, which indicated that participants had more “negativity bias” effects in collective past self-evaluation and present self-evaluation, compared to collective future self-evaluation.
In conclusion, our study suggested that both individual self-evaluation and collective self-evaluation had a positive bias across time. Moreover, there existed a “negativity bias” effect at the neurophysiological level in individual self-evaluation and collective self-evaluation. These results demonstrated that individual temporal self-evaluation and collective temporal self-evaluation among Chinese college students had similar cognitive and neurophysiological characteristics, to some extent, providing supporting evidence for the theory of dependent self-construal.
Subjects: Psychology >> Personality Psychology submitted time 2023-09-03
Abstract： Time Perspective (TP) is a crucial psychological framework that allows individuals to classify, organize, and manage their life and social experiences. Achieving a balance between the past, present, and future is essential for optimizing social adaptation, facilitating well-being, and promoting mental health. However, the theoretical framework and underlying mechanisms linking balanced time perspective (BTP) to mental health remain unclear due to the lack of clarity in its concept and limited measurement methods. Based on the review of existing studies, a dual-pathway theoretical framework has been developed. This framework encompasses different conceptual orientations of BTP and could serve to clarify the direct and indirect paths, as well as the potential boundary conditions, between the 'time shift orientation' and 'general healthy orientation' aspects of BTP and mental health. Future research should aim to clearly distinguish between these different conceptual orientations of BTP, focus on developing measurement methods for 'time shift orientation' BTP, and deepen both theoretical and empirical exploration of BTP and mental health, particularly within the context of Chinese culture.
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