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Full-Text Articles in Social and Behavioral Sciences

Beyond Personal Control: When And How Executives' Beliefs In Negotiable Fate Foster Entrepreneurial Orientation And Firm Performance, Evelyn W. M. Au, Xin Qin, Zhi-Xue Zhang Nov 2017

Beyond Personal Control: When And How Executives' Beliefs In Negotiable Fate Foster Entrepreneurial Orientation And Firm Performance, Evelyn W. M. Au, Xin Qin, Zhi-Xue Zhang

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Negotiable fate, the belief that fate imposes boundaries within which personal actions can shape outcomes, is rooted in Chinese collective wisdom. This belief is hypothesized to prompt executives to use of available resources to create opportunities by directing their attention to controllable aspects of unpredictable environments. Thus, executives' endorsement of negotiable fate beliefs is expected not only to enhance firm-level entrepreneurial orientation, but also to positively predict firm innovation and financial performance. We further expect these mediation effects to be stronger under dynamic environments. Studies of top executives in China support the theorized moderated-mediation model. By providing evidence for its …


Above, On, Or Shang (上)? Language And Spatial Representations Among English–Mandarin Bilinguals, Wei Xing Toh, Lidia Suãrez Nov 2017

Above, On, Or Shang (上)? Language And Spatial Representations Among English–Mandarin Bilinguals, Wei Xing Toh, Lidia Suãrez

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

This study investigated if exposure to spatial language could affect spatial cognition in English-Mandarin bilinguals by focusing on contact/noncontact distinctions, an area that has been a source of contention in the language-and-thought literature. Sixty-three participants were first primed with sentences containing spatial terms (e.g., above, on) before performing a spatial decision task. Approximately half of the participants (n = 33) were primed in English; for the remaining participants (n = 30), primes comprising Mandarin spatial terms―which mark spatial distinctions differently than in English (e.g., shang in Mandarin signifies both above and on in English)―were employed instead. Our findings revealed that …


Angry Faces Are More Resistant To Forgetting Than Are Happy Faces: Directed Forgetting Effects On The Identity Of Emotional Faces, Peter Kay Chai Tay, Hwajin Yang Oct 2017

Angry Faces Are More Resistant To Forgetting Than Are Happy Faces: Directed Forgetting Effects On The Identity Of Emotional Faces, Peter Kay Chai Tay, Hwajin Yang

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Using the item-method directed forgetting paradigm (i.e. intentionally forgetting specified information), we examined directed forgetting of facial identity as a function of facial expression and the sex of the expresser and perceiver. Participants were presented with happy and angry male and female faces cued for either forgetting or remembering, and were then asked to recognise previously studied faces from among a series of neutral faces. For each recognised test face, participants also recalled the face’s previously displayed emotional expression. We found that angry faces were more resistant to forgetting than were happy faces. Furthermore, angry expressions on male faces and …


Sexual Conflict In Mating Strategies, Norman P. Li, Jin Chuan Yong Sep 2017

Sexual Conflict In Mating Strategies, Norman P. Li, Jin Chuan Yong

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Why do men and women come into conflict over mating and sex? This chapter examines the adaptive reasons, which trace back to key differences in minimum obligatory parental investment (Trivers 1972). Reflecting these differences, men tend to be relatively eager for casual sex, whereas women are relatively more cautious, requiring their sexual partners to be of higher quality or committed for a longer duration. As each side strives for its own reproductive interests, the other side’s strategy is often interfered with, resulting in conflict.


Being Smart About Using Smartphones, Andree Hartanto, Hwajin Yang Jul 2017

Being Smart About Using Smartphones, Andree Hartanto, Hwajin Yang

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

In recent years, smartphones have become a ubiquitous part of our lives. Their multi-functionality and portability have made our lives more convenient and efficient.


Signs Of Social Class: The Experience Of Economic Inequality In Everyday Life, Michael W. Kraus, Jun Won Park, Jacinth J. X. Tan May 2017

Signs Of Social Class: The Experience Of Economic Inequality In Everyday Life, Michael W. Kraus, Jun Won Park, Jacinth J. X. Tan

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

By some accounts, global economic inequality is at its highest point on record. The pernicious effects of this broad societal trend are striking: Rising inequality is linked to poorer health and well-being across countries, continents, and cultures. The economic and psychological forces that perpetuate inequality continue to be studied, and in this theoretical review, we examine the role of daily experiences of economic inequality—the communication of social class signals between interaction partners—in this process. We theorize that social class signals activate social comparison processes that strengthen group boundaries between the haves and have nots in society. In particular, we argue …


Attention To Context During Evaluative Learning And Context-Dependent Automatic Evaluation: A Cross-Cultural Analysis, Yang Ye, Yuk-Yue Tong, Chi-Yue Chiu, Bertram Gawronski May 2017

Attention To Context During Evaluative Learning And Context-Dependent Automatic Evaluation: A Cross-Cultural Analysis, Yang Ye, Yuk-Yue Tong, Chi-Yue Chiu, Bertram Gawronski

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Previous research has shown that changes in automatic evaluations can be limited to the context in which counterattitudinal information was acquired. This effect has been attributed to enhanced attention to context cues during the encoding of expectancy-violating counterattitudinal information. Drawing on previous evidence for cultural differences in attention to context and tolerance for inconsistency, the present research examined cultural differences in responses to conflicting evaluative information and the resulting context-effects on automatic evaluation. Study 1 revealed that both Canadian and Singaporean participants showed enhanced attention to context during exposure to counterattitudinal information. In a reanalysis of studies with Singaporean participants, …