Subjects: Psychology >> Educational Psychology submitted time 2024-04-09
Abstract： Academic procrastination is a common phenomenon in the learning process across various student groups, which has been proven to affect individual’s academic achievement as well as mental health. Notably, academic procrastination has been further categorized into two types—passive procrastination and active procrastination. The former refers to forced delays to avoid unpleasant tasks and is considered “negative” procrastination, while the latter refers to the intentional postponing of tasks in order to achieve better results and is considered “positive” procrastination, both of which have significant psychological and behavioral impacts on individuals. Therefore, the present research aimed to test an internal cognitive-level antecedent—social mobility beliefs—of academic procrastination (i.e., passive procrastination and active procrastination). In particular, based on the cognitive-behavioral model, this research investigated whether social mobility beliefs could influence academic procrastination and, more specifically, whether they would reduce passive procrastination whereas promoting active procrastination. In addition, this research examined whether future time focus could act as a mediator in this relationship./t/nTo test the hypotheses, four studies were conducted in a mixed-method approach and using multi-source samples. In particular, using a sample of high school students, Study 1 was to provide initial correlational evidence for the association between social mobility beliefs and passive procrastination, as well as the mediating role of future time focus. Study 2 was still a survey study, aiming to extend Study 1 by using a college student sample and including a measure of active procrastination. Study 3 aimed to take one step further to provide causal evidence for the effect of social mobility beliefs on future time focus, active procrastination and passive procrastination. Following the experimental-chain-mediation approach, Study 4 aimed to further demonstrate the causal relationship between future time focus and active procrastination as well as passive procrastination by manipulating future time focus./t/nThe main findings of the present research are as follows. First, social mobility beliefs negatively predict and decrease passive procrastination. On the other hand, social mobility beliefs positively predict and increase active procrastination. Furthermore, the focus of future time plays a mediating role in the social mobility beliefs−passive procrastination association and social mobility beliefs−active procrastination association. These findings are observed among both high school students and college students./t/nThe present research contributes to the existing literature in the following ways, while also providing some practical implications. First, it innovatively investigates both passive procrastination and active procrastination and compare them, which has been relatively understudied. Second, it extends the consequences of social mobility beliefs in the academic realm, revealing that strong social mobility beliefs can weaken the tendency of passive procrastination but encourage active procrastination. Third, it discovers an internal cognitive factor that might account for academic procrastination, suggesting that social mobility beliefs can motivate students to avoid passive procrastination and engage in active procrastination. Moreover, it identifies the mediating role of future time focus underlying the effect of social mobility beliefs on passive procrastination and active procrastination. Practically, this research provides targeted recommendations for reducing passive procrastination among students and improving their academic motivations in the future.
Peer Review Status:
Awaiting Review
Subjects: Psychology >> History of Psychology submitted time 2024-03-27
Abstract： Cultural evolution is often compared to biological evolution. One subset of cultural evolution that has received widespread attention from researchers is Cumulative Cultural Evolution (CCE). CCE refers to the adaptive changes in complexity, functionality, etc., that occur in cultures as they are modified and passed from generation to generation. Although cumulative cultural evolution is an interdisciplinary concept, it has a strong psychological underpinning. Psychological factors have played an important role in the development of its conceptual framework and schools of interpretation, and have contributed to the expansion of core criteria and the integration of the two schools of interpretation. Future research can further clarify the definitional criteria of CCE from the perspective of theoretical development, explore the process and details of CCE from the perspective of integration of two schools of interpretation, or confirm the impact of psychological factors on CCE from the perspective of psychology, thereby advancing the field of cumulative cultural evolution.
Subjects: Other Disciplines >> Synthetic discipline submitted time 2023-10-09 Cooperative journals: 《心理学报》
Abstract： Pro-environmental behavior, such as saving energy and taking public transportation, is beneficial to protecting the environment. Previous studies suggested that personality traits, environmental-related values, beliefs, affection, and norms are antecedents of pro-environmental behavior. However, protecting the environment is also rooted in motives for happiness and well-being. Generally speaking, there are three different types of well-being in positive psychology, namely hedonia, eudaimonia, and psychological richness. Based on different conceptions of well-being, research has shown that hedonic values were negatively related to pro-environmental behavior. Eudaimonic values were related to environmental values but it cannot directly predict pro-environmental behavior. Given it’s a new conception, the relationship between psychological richness and pro-environmental behavior is still absent. Thus, the present study aimed at exploring how psychological richness would influence pro-environmental behavior as well as its underlying mechanism and boundary conditions. To reach the goals, we conducted ten studies with different experimental manipulations of psychological richness, multi-source participants, and various assessments of pro-environmental behavior. In correlational Study 1.1, we tested the link between psychological richness and pro-environmental behavior. In experimental Study 1.2~1.4, we manipulated psychological richness by recalling past memory and making the perspective change to explore its potential influence on pro-environmental behavior. In Study 2.1~2.4, the measurement-of-mediation design and experimental-causal-chain design were used to examine the mediating role of self-expansion. Based on the cross-sectional Study 2.1, in Study 2.2 we randomly assigned participants to the psychological richness condition and control condition to complete the task, and investigated whether psychological richness affected personal self-expansion. In Study 2.3, self-expansion was manipulated to explore its effect on pro-environmental behavior. To support our model, Study 2.4 was conducted to test whether psychological richness facilitates pro-environmental behavior through self-expansion. To investigate the moderating effect of nature-self size, we manipulated psychological richness in Study 3.1 and conducted a cross-sectional survey in Study 3.2. As predicted, the present study found that both psychologically rich life and state psychological richness were positively related to pro-environmental behavior. Results indicated that psychological richness motivates people to engage in pro-environmental activities. The increased self-expansion was the reason why people experiencing psychological richness were more willing to protect the environment. Lastly, the results also demonstrated the moderating effect of nature-self size on the association of self-expansion and pro-environmental behavior. Overall, the results extend the research on the effects of psychological richness on personal growth and sustainable social development. First, it suggested that pursuing well-being and behaving pro-environmentally were not in conflict. Namely, living a psychologically rich life motivates people to protect the environment. Second, message framing that promotes psychological richness could encourage individuals to engage in environmentally friendly activities.
Subjects: Psychology >> Social Psychology submitted time 2023-03-28 Cooperative journals: 《心理科学进展》
Abstract： Cultural change has gradually become the focus of psychologists’ attention, and related studies have addressed core issues such as the content, causes, and mechanisms of cultural change. Cultural evolution, a way of studying cultural change from an evolutionary perspective, explores the issue of the mechanism of cultural change. Cumulative Cultural Evolution (CCE) is a subset of cultural evolution. It refers to the adaptive changes in efficiency, function, and complexity of human culture over time through multiple social transmissions and innovation among individuals or groups. CCE plays a vital role in understanding the mechanisms of the emergence of human cultural uniqueness and sociocultural change.Throughout the research in this area, single-subject experiments, “microsocieties” designs, and computer simulations have often been used to explore the underlying mechanisms. Based on the evidence from these three types of laboratory studies, it is possible to sort out the mechanisms of occurrence and influence of CCE. In terms of the mechanisms by which CCE occurs, the transmission and modification of cultural information are the two core processes of CCE. Numerous empirical studies have found that copying and teaching ensure high-fidelity transmission of cultural information. Copying includes both results-oriented and action-oriented copying, and teaching can be defined as the act of facilitating the learning of others. These two are considered two representative social learning mechanisms in information transmission. The modification of cultural information is reflected in innovation. Empirical evidence shows that innovation can make modified cultural information more adaptive. The high-fidelity transmission prepares the ground for cultural innovation, and culture achieves sequential improvement through repeated cycles of high-fidelity transmission and modification, promoting the cumulative development of culture. Thus, copying, teaching, and innovation are three crucial foundations for CCE.In addition, CCE is a complex dynamic process in which behavior and environment interact. In this process, various factors influence information transmission and modification that originate from the environment where the information is transmitted and from the subject who transmits the information. Therefore, the influence mechanism of CCE can be understood in terms of environmental and subjective factors. The former mainly involves task difficulty, environmental uncertainty, group size, and social interaction; the latter mainly involves technical reasoning, cognitive flexibility, innovation ability, and social identity. The generalization of these factors can help explain the boundary conditions under which CCE occurs and, in particular, clarify inconsistent findings that have emerged from previous studies. Overall, these factors affect how information is processed in the transmission process, such as identification, collection, and use, which affects the rate of cultural accumulation and the probability of innovation.CCE explains the uniqueness of human culture from the perspective of accumulated modifications of culture over time, while laboratory studies in this field specifically describe how cultural information is transmitted from person to person to produce change. Future research can advance the field in terms of research methods, research areas, and research mechanisms. Specifically, first, the new paradigm (single subject multi-task design) is proposed considering the operationalization of task characteristics, and the feasibility of this new paradigm needs more empirical evidence to verify. Second, the current research on CCE has accumulated rich empirical evidence in the technical domain, and future research can consider conducting more laboratory studies in non-technical domains. Finally, the upward transmission of cultural information has been neglected in previous studies of CCE. Future research could consider exploring the value and significance of this process in CCE in the context of the current phenomenon of “cultural feedback” in China.
Subjects: Psychology >> Social Psychology submitted time 2023-03-27 Cooperative journals: 《心理学报》
Abstract： As the population of a society ages and evolves, the cognitive capacity and life-long learning ability of older adults is extremely significant. The current study aims to investigate whether interpolated testing can effectively improve the abilities of older adults to learn and retain new information. In other words, this study targets to verify whether the forward testing effect (FTE) can be applied to older adults comparing to the younger participants in previous research. Previous research on younger adults and older children (rather than younger elementary school children) indicates that the FTE in learning of single items is primarily due to the release from proactive interference (PI). Research on younger elementary school children indicates that they cannot reduce PI; thus, they do not have FTE in their early years as they are just learning. However, this finding cannot explain why people have the FTE during complex learning, which is also attributed to the reduction of mind-wandering (MW). Other research demonstrates that learning engagement plays a role to make a great difference between PI and MW amongst older and younger adults. Will older adults (aged over 60) experience FTE when learning simplified things? How about complex materials?The current study conducted three experiments to research the above questions progressively. All participants (older adults) were randomly divided into two groups using a computer. The tested group was then given interim tests, and the other (control) group went without any test until the last list or segment. Finally, both groups took a memory test on the things they have encountered through the learning process. The size of these groups was determined according to the effect size in previous studies. The number of participants in each experiment was 30, 32 and 49. In experiment 1, both groups were given five lists of words. The test group was given an interim test after studying each of the five lists, whereas the control group was required to solve the math problem after studying each list, where they only took an interim test on list 5. In experiment 2, the participants had five lists of common supermarket items to learn. The test group was also given an interim test after studying each of the five lists. However, the control group only had to restudy lists 1-4, and then, they were given an interim test after studying the fifth list. In experiment 3, the participants were instructed to study a four-segment lecture video where the instructions and experimental procedures were the same as those in experiment 2. All the participants in the three experiments mentioned above were over 60 years of age.The result of experiment 1 shows that the test group recalled approximately twice as many correct words as the math group in the list 5 interim test. The result indicates that interpolated tests facilitate older adults' learning of new single items. For the test group, the repeated measures ANOVA, with lists 2-5 as the within-subjects variable, showed that PI linearly increased across lists. This finding indicates that interim tests could not completely prevent the build-up of PI across lists for older adults. Notably, the math group experienced approximately three times as much PI as the test group in the list 5 interim test. The result indicates that interim tests prevent the build-up of PI for older adults. In Experiment 2, the test group recalled approximately twice as many correct words as the restudy group in the list 5 interim test. The repeated measures ANOVA showed that, for the test group, PI linearly increased across lists 2-5 interim tests. The restudy group committed approximately three times as much PI as the test group in the list 5 interim test. The result of Experiment 3 shows that the test group recalled approximately twice as many correct items as the restudy group in the Segment 4's interim test. This finding reveals that interpolated testing enhances the learning ability of older adults for new complex materials.The results show that interpolated testing effectively enhances older adults' learning and retrieval of new information. The test groups scored higher than the math and restudy groups in learning of single items and complex materials. The results support an integrated theory of interference reduction and learning engagement, which can comprehensively explain the FTE difference amongst younger children, older children, younger adults and older adults. Therefore, we can use FTE as a effective method to modify the learning and memorising condition of older adults.
submitted time 2023-03-25 Cooperative journals: 《心理科学进展》
Abstract： Cultural change has gradually become the focus of psychologists’ attention, and related studies have addressed core issues such as the content, causes, and mechanisms of cultural change. Cultural evolution, a way of studying cultural change from an evolutionary perspective, explores the issue of the mechanism of cultural change. Cumulative Cultural Evolution (CCE) is a subset of cultural evolution. It refers to the adaptive changes in efficiency, function, and complexity of human culture over time through multiple social transmissions and innovation among individuals or groups. CCE plays a vital role in understanding the mechanisms of the emergence of human cultural uniqueness and sociocultural change.Throughout the research in this area, single-subject experiments, “microsocieties” designs, and computer simulations have often been used to explore the underlying mechanisms. Based on the evidence from these three types of laboratory studies, it is possible to sort out the mechanisms of occurrence and influence of CCE. In terms of the mechanisms by which CCE occurs, the transmission and modification of cultural information are the two core processes of CCE. Numerous empirical studies have found that copying and teaching ensure high-fidelity transmission of cultural information. Copying includes both results-oriented and action-oriented copying, and teaching can be defined as the act of facilitating the learning of others. These two are considered two representative social learning mechanisms in information transmission. The modification of cultural information is reflected in innovation. Empirical evidence shows that innovation can make modified cultural information more adaptive. The high-fidelity transmission prepares the ground for cultural innovation, and culture achieves sequential improvement through repeated cycles of high-fidelity transmission and modification, promoting the cumulative development of culture. Thus, copying, teaching, and innovation are three crucial foundations for CCE.In addition, CCE is a complex dynamic process in which behavior and environment interact. In this process, various factors influence information transmission and modification that originate from the environment where the information is transmitted and from the subject who transmits the information. Therefore, the influence mechanism of CCE can be understood in terms of environmental and subjective factors. The former mainly involves task difficulty, environmental uncertainty, group size, and social interaction; the latter mainly involves technical reasoning, cognitive flexibility, innovation ability, and social identity. The generalization of these factors can help explain the boundary conditions under which CCE occurs and, in particular, clarify inconsistent findings that have emerged from previous studies. Overall, these factors affect how information is processed in the transmission process, such as identification, collection, and use, which affects the rate of cultural accumulation and the probability of innovation.CCE explains the uniqueness of human culture from the perspective of accumulated modifications of culture over time, while laboratory studies in this field specifically describe how cultural information is transmitted from person to person to produce change. Future research can advance the field in terms of research methods, research areas, and research mechanisms. Specifically, first, the new paradigm (single subject multi-task design) is proposed considering the operationalization of task characteristics, and the feasibility of this new paradigm needs more empirical evidence to verify. Second, the current research on CCE has accumulated rich empirical evidence in the technical domain, and future research can consider conducting more laboratory studies in non-technical domains. Finally, the upward transmission of cultural information has been neglected in previous studies of CCE. Future research could consider exploring the value and significance of this process in CCE in the context of the current phenomenon of “cultural feedback” in China.
Subjects: Psychology >> Social Psychology submitted time 2023-03-07
Abstract： Pro-environmental behavior, such as saving energy and taking public transportation, is beneficial to protecting the environment. Previous studies suggested that personality traits, environmentalrelated values, beliefs, affect and norms are antecedents of pro-environmental behavior. However, protecting the environment is also rooted in motivation for happiness and well-being. Generally speaking, there are three different types of well-being in positive psychology, namely hedonic, eudaimonic, and psychological richness. Based on different conceptions of well-being, research has shown that hedonic value was negatively related to pro-environmental behavior. Eudaimonic value was related to environmental values but it cannot directly predict pro-environmental behavior. Given it’s a new conception, the relationship between psychological richness and pro-environmental behavior is still absent. Thus, the present study aimed at exploring how psychological richness would influence pro-environmental behavior as well as its underlying mechanism and boundary conditions. To reach the goals, we conducted ten studies with different experimental manipulations of psychological richness, multi-source participants, and various assessments of pro-environmental behavior. In correlational study 1.1, we tested the link between psychological richness and proenvironmental behavior. In experimental study 1.2–1.4, we manipulated psychological richness by recalling past memory and making the perspective change to explore its potential influence on proenvironmental behavior. In study 2.1–2.4, the measurement-of-mediation design and experimentalcausal-chain design were used to examine the mediating role of self-expansion. Based on the crosssectional study 2.1, in study 2.2 we randomly assigned participants to the psychological richness condition and control condition to complete the task, and investigated whether psychological richness affected personal self-expansion. In study 2.3, self-expansion was manipulated to explore its effect on pro-environmental behavior. To support our model, study 2.4 was conducted to test whether psychological richness facilitates pro-environmental behavior through self-expansion. To investigate the moderating effect of nature-self size, we manipulated psychological richness in study 3.1 and conducted a cross-sectional survey in 3.2. As predicted, the present study found that both psychologically rich life and state psychological richness were positively related to pro-environmental behavior. Results indicated that psychological richness motivates people to behave in an environmentally friendly. The increased self-expansion was the reason why people experiencing psychological richness were more willing to protect the environment. Lastly, the results also demonstrated the moderating effect of nature-self size on the association of self-expansion and pro-environmental behavior. Overall, the results extend the research on the effects of psychological richness on personal growth and sustainable social development. First, the research suggested that pursuing well-being and behaving pro-environmentally were not in conflict. By taking the newly constructed psychological richness, living a good life motivates people to protect the environment. Second, message framing promoting psychological richness could be used to encourage individuals from engaging in environmentally friendly activities.
Peer Review Status:Awaiting Review
Subjects: Psychology >> Social Psychology submitted time 2022-12-16
Abstract：
Cumulative Cultural Evolution (CCE) refers to the adaptive changes in efficiency, function, and complexity of human culture over time through multiple social transmissions and innovation among individuals or groups. A large number of studies have been conducted to explore the underlying mechanism of CCE in the laboratory through single-subject experiments, “microcultures” or “microsocieties” designs, and computer simulations. Copying, teaching, and innovation are three important foundations for CCE. Copying and teaching ensure that cultural information is transmitted with high fidelity. Innovation makes modified cultural information more adaptable. Cultural information is gradually accumulated in the repeated high-fidelity transmission and modification cycle. In general, the boundary conditions of CCE can be summarized into two aspects: environmental factors and subjective factors. The former mainly involves task difficulty, environmental uncertainty, group size, and social interaction; the latter mainly involves technical reasoning, cognitive flexibility, innovation ability, and social identity. Future research can verify the feasibility of the new paradigm (single subject multi-task design), conduct laboratory research on non-technological cultural evolution, and explore the value and significance of upward transmissions of cultural information in CCE in the context of the current phenomenon of “cultural feedback” in China.
Peer Review Status:Awaiting Review
Subjects: Psychology >> Cognitive Psychology submitted time 2020-07-04
Abstract： "
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