Evidence of positive selection acting at the human dopamine receptor D4 gene locus

Associations have been reported of the seven-repeat (7R) allele of the human dopamine receptor D4 (DRD4) gene with both attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder and the personality trait of novelty seeking. This polymorphism occurs in a 48-bp tandem repea

8～12岁男孩的性激素与智力、人格的关系

Recently there emerged more and more researhes concerning about sex hormone-related cognitive ability and behaviours. Few were carried out in pre- to early adolescent children., and the objective of the current study is to investigate whether there are covariance between sex hormones, intelligence and personality in 232 pre- to early adolescent boys, including 62 gifted boys. Indexes of sex hormone levels were salivary testosterone and estradiol concentrations, the 2D:4D digit ratio ( a reliable pointer of prenatal sex hormone concentraions). The Cattell Culture Fair Intelligence Test and a Chinese version of Children’s Personality Questionaire was applied in the current study. The main findings are: 1) salivary sex hormone concentrations significantly positively correlated with intelligence performance in 10-year-old boys; 2) salivary testosterone negatively related to intelligence performance in 12-year-old boys; 3) gifted boys bears lower testosterone concentrations in both prenatal period and pre- to early adolescence; 4) for personality, higher salivary estradiol was related to extraversion and digit ratios correlated with several personality factors in 8-year-old boys. In conclusion, results in the current study suggested that for male early maturers, intelligence may be negatively influenced by early coming androgen surge. In contrast, male late matures may benefit from their lately and moderately increasing hormone. Besides, the results suggested that the relationship between 2D:4D digit ratio and personality may also be paid attention to.

感激与利他：从特质与情境的角度考察感激对利他倾向和行为的影响

Recently, as a moral affect and trait, gratitude has been acquiring growing attention in social psychology. Previous research showed those who are grateful were motivated not only to reciprocate the benefactor, but also to make altruistic behavior towards other people. By reviewing previous studies, we found two approaches on exploring the gratitude-altruism link: one is to examine the relationship of correlation between gratitude being a personality trait and altruistic tendency using questionnaires as research method; another is to probe into the causality of gratitude and altruistic behaviors by experimental methods. The present research consists of five studies combining correlative studies and experimental designs, trying to explore the effect of gratitude on altruistic tendency and altruistic behavior from perspective of trait and situation. Participants are 1769 Chinese undergraduates and 332 community residents. Firstly, results of study one showed dispositional gratitude was significantly positively correlated with altruistic tendency: higher dispositional gratitude, higher altruistic tendency. When social desirability, Big Five, and grateful mood were controlled, the correlation of gratitude and altruism still remained relatively significant. Secondly, results of the most experiments showed: main effects of both dispositional gratitude and situational gratitude were significant. For example, people with high dispositional gratitude showed higher altruistic tendency than people with low dispositional gratitude; People in high condition of gratitude arousing showed higher altruistic tendency than people in low condition of gratitude arousing as well as the control group. Thirdly, data analyses showed that the interaction effect of dispositional gratitude and situational gratitude on general altruistic tendency and altruistic behavior was significant. Compared with people with high dispositional gratitude, those with low dispositional gratitude was relatively more sensitive to condition of gratitude arousing. The latter show enhanced altruistic tendency in condition of gratitude arousing than in control condition. This interaction effect was also represented in three different condition of altruistic behavior. (1) As for beneficiaries of altruistic behavior, people with low dispositional gratitude showed enhanced altruistic behavior in condition of gratitude arousing towards strangers rather than friends and relatives. (2) As for the receiver role of altruistic behavior, people with low dispositional gratitude showed less “reject” or more “acceptance” in condition of gratitude arousing than that of the control condition. (3) When it comes to the cost of altruistic behavior, people with low dispositional gratitude showed enhanced altruistic tendency in condition of gratitude arousing than that of the control condition. However, altruistic behaviors of high cost in real life were more affected by dispositional gratitude.

Enriched environment experience overcomes the memory deficits and depressive-like behavior induced by early life stress

Stress in early life is believed to cause cognitive and affective disorders, and to disrupt hippocampal synaptic plasticity in adolescence into adult, but it is unclear whether exposure to enriched environment (EE) can overcome these effects. Here, we rep

高中生家庭功能与情绪问题的关系及人格的中介作用

The aim of this research is to explore the characteristics of family functioning，personality and their relation to anxiety and depression in high school students. A total of 914 high school students were assessed with The Chinese Family Assessment Instrument and Five -factor Personality Questionnaire and Mental Health Test and Middle School Students Depression Questionnaire. The result indicates, 1. The family functioning and Personality were all significant difference to school, gender, mother’s education and father’s education. 2. There were school, gender, mother’s education and father’s education differences in anxiety of students. 3. There were school, mother’s education and father’s education differences in depression of students. 4. Family functioning were predictive factor directly to anxiety of students, personality serves in part as medium between family functioning and anxiety of students. 5. Family functioning were predictive factor directly to the high school students’ depression, personality serves in part as medium between family functioning and depression of students. 6. The different schools had special features in relation models between family functioning, personality and anxiety of students. 7. The different schools had special features in relation models between family functioning, personality and depression of students.

中学生自我状态现状及其与亲子沟通、心理健康的关系研究

The communication between parents and children is one of the focuses in adolescence research area. However，the ego states in communication were seldom referred to. In present research, the relationship among high school students’ ego states, parent-child communication status and mental health level was explored. Study1: Ego State Questionnaire (ESQ) was revised according to 400 high school students from both rural and urban areas. Study2: Revised Ego State Questionnaire was administered to 450 high school students. Data was analyzed by cluster analysis. Study3: The relationship among ego states, parent-child communication status and mental health level was researched systematically according to 450 high school students. The main results of the thesis were as follows: 1) The five factors of Johu Dusy’s ego states were confirmed. 2) The revised RESQ had good reliability and validity, and could be used in researching middle school students ego states and related area. 3) Gender differences: Girls’ NP score was higher than boys’. Boys’ Adult and AC score was higher than girls. 4)School difference: students’ A and FC from key high school scored higher than students form normal high school. 5) The students were divided into two groups according to parental education level. The split point was high school. Students whose parents’ education level was above high school scored higher in NP than the other group of students. 6) The students were clustered into 4 groups according to cluster analysis: adapted、rational、contradictory、self-centered。 7) adapted、self-centered students’SCL-90 score was lower than average level, contradictory students’ score was higher than average level, rational students’score was equal to average level. 8) Both NP and Adult ego states had significant negative correlation with SCL total score, CP ego states had significant postive correlation SCL total score. 9) NP, A ego states had significant postive correlation with family communication atmosphere, father-son, father-daughter, mother-son, mother-daughter communication status . CP had significant negative correlation with above variables. AC had significant negative correlation with family communication atmosphere . 10) The stepwise regression showed that Adult ，Control Parent ego states and communication between parents and children score had prevented from mental health significantly. Adult ego states impacted mental health through communication between parents and children.

听力障碍与听力正常群体视觉注意发展及其机制的比较

One of the most important functions in the individual development is the interaction and integration of each sensory input. There exist two competing theories, i.e. the deficiency theory and the compensatory theory, regarding the origin and nature of changes in visual functions observed after auditory deprivation. The deficiency theory proposed that integrative processes are essential for normal development. In contrast, the compensatory theory stated that the loss of one sense may be met by a greater reliance upon, therefore an enhancement of the remaining senses. Given that hearing impaired children’s learning depends primarily on visual information, it is important to recognize the differences of visual attention between them and their hearing age-mates. Differences among age groups could exist in either selectivity or sustained attention. Study 1 and study 2 explored the selective and sustained attention development of hearing impaired and hearing students with average cognitive ability, aged from 7 years to college students. The analysis and discussion of the results are based on the visual attention development as well as deficiency theory and compensatory theory. According to the results of the study 1 and study 2, the spatial distribution and controlling of the visual attention between hearing impaired and hearing students were also investigated in the study 3 and study 4. The present work showed that: Firstly, both hearing impaired and hearing participants had the similar developmental trajectory of the sustained attention. The ability of children’s sustained attention appeared to improve with age, and in adolescence it reached the peak. The hearing impaired participants had the comparable sustained attention skills to the matched hearing ones. Besides, the results of the hearing impaired participants showed that they could maintain their attention and vigilance on the current task over the observation period. Secondly, group differences of visual attention development were found between hearing impaired and hearing participants. In the childhood, the visual attention developmental speed of the hearing impaired children was slower than that of the hearing ones. The selective attention skill of the hearing impaired were not comparable to the hearing ones, however, their selective skill improved with age, so in the adulthood, hearing impaired students showed the slight advantage in the selective attention skill over the hearing ones. Thirdly, hearing impaired and hearing participants showed the similar spatial distribution in the attention resources. In the low perceptual load condition, both participants were suffered great interference of the distrator at the fixation. In contrast, in the high perceptual load condition, hearing impaired adults were suffered more interference of the peripheral distractor, which suggested that they distributed more attention resources to the peripheral field when faced difficult tasks. Fourthly, both groups showed similar processing in the visual attention tasks. That is, they both searched the target with only the color feature in a parallel way, but in a serial way while processing orientation feature and the features with the combination of the color and orientation. Furthermore, the results indicated that two groups show similar ways in the attention controlling. In summary, the present study showed that visual attention development was dependent upon the integration of multimodal sensory information. Because of the interaction and integration of the input from various sensory, it has a negative impact on the intact sensory at the early stage of one sensory loss, however, it can better the functions of other intact sensory gradually with development and practice.

任职者工作分析评价结果影响因素的多水平探讨

As the foundation of other human resource practices, job analysis plays an essential role in HR management. Exploring sources of variance in job analysis ratings given by incumbents from the same job is of much significance to HRM practices. It can also shed lights on employee motivation in organizations. But previous studies in job analysis field have usually been conducted at individual level and take variance in job analysis ratings given by incumbents of the same job as error or bias. This dissertation takes the position that the variance may be meaningful based on role theory and other relevant theories. It first reviewed pervious studies on factors which may influence job analysis ratings provided by incumbents of the same job, and then investigated individual, interpersonal and organizational level variables which may exert impacts on these job analysis ratings, using multilevel data from 8 jobs of 1124 incumbents. The major findings are as follows: 1) Level of job performance and job attitudes affect incumbents’ job analysis ratings by incumbents of the same job at individual level. Specifically, incumbents with high level of job performance rated their job require higher levels of technical skills (power plant designers), and regarded information processing activities as more important to their job (book editors). Regarding the effects of job attitudes, incumbents of the four jobs with high level of job satisfaction gave higher importance and level ratings on organizational and cognitive skills, as well as higher level ratings on technical skills. Further, incumbents with higher affective commitment provided higher importance and level ratings of cognitive skills. Lastly, more involved job incumbents perceived organizational skills and cognitive skills as more important, and required at higher levels, for their job. 2) Leader-Member Exchange and goal structure also have effects on job analysis ratings by incumbents of the same job at interpersonal level. In good quality LMX relationship, news reporters rated decision-making activities and interpersonal activities as more important to their job. On the other side, when book editors structured their goals as cooperative with others’, they provided higher importance ratings on reasoning and interpersonal skills, and related personality requirements, as well as higher level ratings on reasoning abilities. 3) Worker requirements for the identical job are distinct from one organization to another. Specifically, there were between-organization differences in achievement orientation and conscientiousness related personality requirements. In addition, two dimensions of organizational culture, achievement-oriented culture and integrity-oriented culture in particular, were significantly associated with importance ratings of achievement orientation and conscientiousness related personality requirements respectively. Furthermore, achievement-oriented culture both directly and indirect (through job involvement) influenced achievement orientation related personality requirements. The results indicate that variation in job analysis ratings provided by incumbents of the same job may be meaningful. Future job analysis studies and practices should consider the impacts of these individual, interpersonal and organizational level factors on job analysis information. The results also have important implications for employee motivation concerning how organizational demands can be transformed into specific job and worker requirements.