Subjects: Psychology >> Developmental Psychology submitted time 2023-03-28 Cooperative journals: 《心理科学进展》
Abstract： Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) are generally assumed to be lifelong due to its poor prognosis. However, more sophisticated research has shown that autistic children diagnosed and treated at earlier ages are able to enter the normal range of cognitive and adaptive skills. With proper intervention, meanwhile, they lose their autism diagnosis and achieve “optimal outcomes.” That said, most of them still display varying degrees of residual deficits. This paper first describes ASD outcomes and traces the definitional evolution of “optimal outcomes.” It then analyses the distribution of optimal outcome children, with a particular focus on residual deficits. In so doing, the paper teases out individual characteristics and predictors of outcome in this group to provide empirical and effective evidence for systematic intervention in children with ASD.
Subjects: Psychology >> Developmental Psychology submitted time 2023-03-28 Cooperative journals: 《心理科学进展》
Abstract： Acquired spatial incompatible stimulus-response associations in a prior practice task can reduce, eliminate, or even reverse the Simon effect in a subsequent transfer task. This is called the transfer-of- learning (ToL) effect. Researchers have found some factors that influence the ToL effect in both individual and social situations. Some relevant theoretical explanations, e.g., the short-term memory associations account, the bottom-up priming mechanism and the response-opposite strategy, can explain the ToL effect. Future research should seek to clarify whether or not the stimulus-response transfer is bidirectional, and explore the cognitive neural mechanisms involved, as well as the developmental aspects of the ToL effect.
Subjects: Psychology >> Social Psychology submitted time 2023-03-27 Cooperative journals: 《心理学报》
Abstract： Future thinking is an important process to psychologically simulate one’s perception of their future. It plays a crucial role in the recovery, persistence and recurrence of depression. Many studies have examined future thinking in depression and found that future thinking is disrupted in depression and is mainly manifested as weakened positive expectations and increased negative expectations for the future. However, the results of the existing studies have not been consistent, which may be due to the fact that ‘self’ in the future events have not been considered in previous research. In the present study, two experiments were conducted to investigate whether the abnormalities of future thinking in non-clinical depression can be modulated by the self in relation to the relevance of personal goals. For this purpose, the present study focused on comparing four different kinds of future events: future positive events either related or unrelated to personal goals, and future negative events either related or unrelated to personal goals. In Experiment 1, the future thinking task (FTT) was utilized; 23 non-clinical depressive subjects (whose BDI score was higher than or equal to 14) and 25 non-depressive subjects (whose BDI score was not higher than 4) were enrolled. The subjects were required to think about positive and negative future events that could happen to them in the next ten years, either related to or unrelated to their personal goals. After the FTT task, the subjects were asked to evaluate the likelihood that the events would occur to them in the future based on a 50-point Likert scale (1: not at all likely to occur, 50: extremely likely to occur). In Experiment 2, the likelihood estimation measure (LEM) paradigm was used, in which the four types of events were produced according to the interview with the participants before the formal experiment, and the subjects were instructed to evaluate the likelihood that the given events would occur to them in the future based on a 50-point Likert scale as in Experiment 1.Results of Experiment 1: The results of Experiment 1 showed that the depressive group imagined fewer positive events related to personal goals compared with the non-depressive group. In contrast, there were no significant differences between the two groups in the imagination of the other three types of events. Additionally, the depressive group (in contrast to the non-depressive group) considered that the positive events related to personal goals were less likely to happen to them, whereas negative events related to personal events were more likely to happen to them. This difference was restricted to events related to personal goals, as we did not observe a significant difference between the two groups in evaluating the likelihood of positive and negative events that were unrelated to personal goals. Results of Experiment 2: The results of Experiment 2 showed that the depressive group (in contrast to the non-depressive group) perceived the personal goal-related positive events to be less likely to occur to them. When assessing the likelihood of the negative events presented, the depression group (as opposed to the non-depression group) considered these events to be more likely to happen to them, whether the events were related to the personal goals or not.Taken together, the results of the current study demonstrated that (1) the abnormality in future thinking of positive events in non-clinical depressive individuals appears to be modulated by the relevance of the personal goals, and (2) the non-clinical depressive individuals showed an abnormal increased in future expectancy of negative events, regardless of whether personal goals were involved. In conclusion, our data demonstrate a deficit in the future thinking of positive events specifically related to personal goals in non-clinical depression. Our study thus shows that the relevance of personal goals is an important factor when investigating future thinking in depression.
Subjects: Psychology >> Social Psychology submitted time 2023-03-27 Cooperative journals: 《心理学报》
Abstract： Deep in our consciousness, we all know that we will die someday. The management of mortality and death-related emotions influence our behavior profoundly. Terror Management Theory (TMT) and Death Reflection (DR) theory postulate different directions to manage mortality salience (MS; i.e., reminding people of their mortality). While TMT proposes a series of external defenses to restrain the fear of mortality, DR focuses on inner growth when contemplating our mortality. On the other hand, the role of emotion in managing mortality is a major challenge: Firstly, does MS lead to changes in emotion? Secondly, if MS does influence emotion, what are the main emotions that can be induced? Thirdly, what role do emotions play when mortality becomes salient? Based on the reflective function of sadness, the present study proposed the “sorrow management assumption”, and hypothesized that MS would induce fear and sadness; death reflection would evoke more sadness, while pure mortality salience would evoke more fear. Next, we expected that fear and sadness would lead to two different modes of response to MS, i.e., “fear management” and “sorrow management”. Finally, we proposed that fear and sadness would mediate the relationship between MS and external defenses, and MS and internal growth, respectively.The current study conducted three experiments to compare the “sorrow management” and “terror management” of MS. In Experiment 1, 82 participants were recruited to explore the emotional changes during and after MS by using a variety of emotion measurement methods (i.e., micro-expression, self-report emotion, physiological skin conductance response, and heart rate). In Experiment 2, 152 participants were recruited. Two death consciousness manipulations (mortality salience paradigm, death reflection paradigm) were used to explore the different after-effects of two death management patterns (i.e., “sorrow management” and “terror management”) on external defense and internal growth. Additionally, the mediating role of emotion (fear, sadness) was also explored. In Experiment 3, 182 participants were recruited to explore the different effects of terror and sorrow management. Sad and fearful background music was used to arouse respective emotions when conducting mortality salience manipulations. The results of Experiment 1 showed that reminding people of their mortality led to increased sadness and fear, and the death reflection paradigm (vs. mortality salience paradigm) aroused significantly more sadness. The results of Experiment 2 did not find significant differences between the two different manipulations on the external defense (i.e., worldview defense, external life goal structure) and internal growth (i.e., internal life goal structure), but found that fear mediated the effect of MS on external defense (i.e., external life goal structure). The results of Experiment 3 did not observe a significant MS effect on the external defense (i.e., self-esteem striving, external life goal structure), but found that MS prompted the participants to attach more importance to internal growth (i.e., internal life goal structure) in sad (not fear) background music; emotion (i.e., sadness, fear) did not function as a mediator in the relationship between MS and internal life goal structure; background music (i.e., sadness, fear) functioned as a moderator in the relationship between MS and internal life goal structure. In conclusion, these results indicated that MS did elicit sadness and fear, especially sadness, and death reflection elicited more sadness than pure mortality salience; fear played a mediating role between MS and external defense (i.e., external life goal structure); MS promoted internal growth (i.e., internal life goal structure) under sadness (not fear) background music. The current study expands the understanding of the role of emotions when reminding people’s mortality, particularly for sadness, thus it is an important innovation and addition to TMT. The present study also provides empirical evidence for “sorrow management” of mortality, which provides enlightenment for psychological rescue in epidemics and other social disasters.
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