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Full-Text Articles in Social and Behavioral Sciences

Detecting Well-Being Via Computerized Content Analysis Of Brief Diary Entries, William Tov, Kok Leong Ng, Han Lin, Lin Qiu Dec 2013

Detecting Well-Being Via Computerized Content Analysis Of Brief Diary Entries, William Tov, Kok Leong Ng, Han Lin, Lin Qiu

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Two studies evaluated the correspondence between self-reported well-being and codings of emotion and life content by the Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count (LIWC; Pennebaker, Booth, & Francis, 2011). Open-ended diary responses were collected from 206 participants daily for 3 weeks (Study 1) and from 139 participants twice a week for 8 weeks (Study 2). LIWC negative emotion consistently correlated with self-reported negative emotion. LIWC positive emotion correlated with self-reported positive emotion in Study 1 but not in Study 2. No correlations were observed with global life satisfaction. Using a co-occurrence coding method to combine LIWC emotion codings with life-content codings, …


Mate Preferences Do Predict Attraction And Choices In The Early Stages Of Mate Selection, Norman P. Li, Jose C. Yong, William Tov, Oliver Sng, Garth J. O. Fletcher, Katherine A. Valentine, Yun F. Jiang, Daniel Balliet Nov 2013

Mate Preferences Do Predict Attraction And Choices In The Early Stages Of Mate Selection, Norman P. Li, Jose C. Yong, William Tov, Oliver Sng, Garth J. O. Fletcher, Katherine A. Valentine, Yun F. Jiang, Daniel Balliet

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Although mate preference research has firmly established that men value physical attractiveness more than women do and women value social status more than men do, recent speed-dating studies have indicated mixed evidence (at best) for whether people’s sex-differentiated mate preferences predict actual mate choices. According to an evolutionary, mate preference priority model (Li, Bailey, Kenrick, & Linsenmeier, 2002; Li & KENRICK, 2006; Li, Valentine, & Patel, 2011), the sexes are largely similar in what they ideally like, but for long-term mates, they should differ on what they most want to avoid in early selection contexts. Following this model, we conducted …


Does Bilingual Fluency Moderate The Disruption Effect Of Cultural Cues On Second-Language Processing?, Sujin Yang, Hwajin Yang Nov 2013

Does Bilingual Fluency Moderate The Disruption Effect Of Cultural Cues On Second-Language Processing?, Sujin Yang, Hwajin Yang

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Zhang et al. (1) argue that cultural priming disrupts bilinguals’ second-language (L2) processing because of interference from first-language (L1) structures that are activated by heritage-culture images. Although these findings are compelling, we have some concerns about the study. First, Zhang et al. (1) measured English fluency by words spoken per minute after extraneous words (e.g., repetitions and self-corrections) were pruned. Despite the assumed effectiveness of this technique, speech-rate analysis that focuses solely on temporal qualities cannot adequately capture the multifaceted nature of fluency (2), which entails not only speed fluency (i.e., speech rate) but also breakdown fluency (e.g., mean length …


The Malleability Of Bicultural Identity Integration (Bii), Chi-Ying Cheng, Fiona Lee Nov 2013

The Malleability Of Bicultural Identity Integration (Bii), Chi-Ying Cheng, Fiona Lee

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Bicultural Identity Integration (BII), or biculturals’ perceived compatibility between their two cultural identities, has been found to predict a variety of psychological processes and behavioral outcomes. However, it is not clear why biculturals differ in their levels of BII. We suggest that the valence of bicultural experiences influences BII. Furthermore, we predict that biculturals’ level of BII can be changed momentarily by recalling valenced bicultural experiences. An experimental study manipulating recall of positive or negative bicultural experiences found that recalling positive bicultural experiences increased BII, whereas recalling negative bicultural experiences decreased BII. However, recalling experiences irrelevant to bicultural experiences did …


Development And Initial Validation Of The Willingness To Compromise Scale, Serena Wee Nov 2013

Development And Initial Validation Of The Willingness To Compromise Scale, Serena Wee

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

This study introduced an individual difference construct of willingness to compromise and examined its implications for understanding and predicting career-related decisions in work settings. In Study 1 (N = 53), critical incidents of career decisions were analyzed to identify commonalities across different types of career-related compromises. In Study 2 (N = 171), an initial 17-item scale was developed and revised. In Study 3 (N = 201), the convergent and criterion-related validity of the scale was examined in relation to specific personality traits, regret, dealing with uncertainty, career adaptability, and a situational dilemma task. Willingness to compromise was negatively related to …


Playing Hard-To-Get: Manipulating One's Perceived Availability As A Mate, Peter K. Jonason, Norman P. Li Sep 2013

Playing Hard-To-Get: Manipulating One's Perceived Availability As A Mate, Peter K. Jonason, Norman P. Li

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

‘Playing hard-to-get’ is a mating tactic in which people give the impression that they are ostensibly uninterested to get others to desire them more. This topic has received little attention because of theoretical and methodological limitations of prior work. We present four studies drawn from four different American universities that examined playing hard-to-get as part of a supply-side economics model of dating. In Studies 1a (N = 100) and 1b (N = 491), we identified the tactics that characterize playing hard-to-get and how often men and women enact them. In Study 2 (N = 290), we assessed reasons why men …


Satisfaction Pursuing Approach And Avoidance Goals: Effects Of Regulatory Fit And Individual Temperaments, Guihyun Grace Park, Linn Van Dyne, Daniel R. Ilgen Sep 2013

Satisfaction Pursuing Approach And Avoidance Goals: Effects Of Regulatory Fit And Individual Temperaments, Guihyun Grace Park, Linn Van Dyne, Daniel R. Ilgen

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Going beyond previous studies on satisfaction in pursuing approach versus avoidance goals, the current study is the first to examine individual satisfaction in pursuing approach and avoidance goals as determined by regulatory fit between type of goal and type of strategy. Specifically, the present study shows that people with approach goals have greater satisfaction when they use an approach strategy rather than an avoidance strategy. People with avoidance goals have greater satisfaction when they use an avoidance strategy rather than an approach strategy. In addition, we explored how individual differences in the Behavioral Activation System and the Behavioral Inhibition System …


Opening The Creative Mind Of High Need For Cognitive Closure Individuals Through Activation Of Uncreative Ideas, Lay See Ong, Angela K. Y. Leung Aug 2013

Opening The Creative Mind Of High Need For Cognitive Closure Individuals Through Activation Of Uncreative Ideas, Lay See Ong, Angela K. Y. Leung

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Drawing on the integrative system theory of creativity combining the person, process, and press perspectives, this research offers the first evidence of how high-need-for-cognitive-closure (NFC) individuals’ creative mind can be opened up, by making them become more cognizant of uncreative ideas as consensually invalid solutions to creative problems. A validation study was conducted to first establish the utility of a newly developed chocolate design task. In the second study, half of the participants were made aware of conventional chocolate designs by drawing these designs before generating a revolutionized design of chocolate; the other half did not have to draw out …


Meta-Knowledge Of Culture Promotes Cultural Competence, Angela K.-Y. Leung, Sau-Lai Lee, Chi-Yue Chiu Aug 2013

Meta-Knowledge Of Culture Promotes Cultural Competence, Angela K.-Y. Leung, Sau-Lai Lee, Chi-Yue Chiu

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

A behavioral signature of cross-cultural competence is discriminative use of culturally appropriate behavioral strategies in different cultural contexts. Given the central role communication plays in cross-cultural adjustment and adaptation, the present investigation examines how meta-knowledge of culture—defined as knowledge of what members of a certain culture know—affects culturally competent cross-cultural communication. We reported two studies that examined display of discriminative, culturally sensitive use of cross-cultural communication strategies by bicultural Hong Kong Chinese (Study 1), Chinese students in the United States and European Americans (Study 2). Results showed that individuals formulating a communicative message for a member of a certain culture …


Advancing Our Understanding Of Team Motivation: Integrating Conceptual Approaches And Content Areas, Guihyun Grace Park, Matthias Spitzmuller, Richard P. Deshon Jul 2013

Advancing Our Understanding Of Team Motivation: Integrating Conceptual Approaches And Content Areas, Guihyun Grace Park, Matthias Spitzmuller, Richard P. Deshon

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Although research on team motivation has been one of the fastest growing research domains in organizational science, progress in this domain has been hampered by a lack of integrative reviews. Thus, we develop a theoretical framework in this article to summarize and discuss different conceptual approaches to team motivation for the following six content areas: team design, team needs, team goals, team self-regulation, team efficacy, and team affect. Our framework organizes previous research according to two dimensions. First, we assess the degree of interdependence between team members’ motivational states, differentiating between models that conceptualize team motivation as functionally equivalent to …


Heritage-Culture Images Disrupt Immigrants’ Second-Language Processing Through Triggering First-Language Interference, Shu Zhang, Michael W. Morris, Chi-Ying Cheng, Andy J. Yap Jul 2013

Heritage-Culture Images Disrupt Immigrants’ Second-Language Processing Through Triggering First-Language Interference, Shu Zhang, Michael W. Morris, Chi-Ying Cheng, Andy J. Yap

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

For bicultural individuals, visual cues of a setting’s cultural expectations can activate associated representations, switching the frames that guide their judgments. Research suggests that cultural cues may affect judgments through automatic priming, but has yet to investigate consequences for linguistic performance. The present studies investigate the proposal that heritage-culture cues hinder immigrants’ second-language processing by priming first-language structures. For Chinese immigrants in the United States, speaking to a Chinese (vs. Caucasian) face reduced their English fluency, but at the same time increased their social comfort, effects that did not occur for a comparison group of European Americans (study 1). Similarly, …


Kiasu (怕輸) And Its Moderating Effects On Multicultural Experiences On Creativity And Persistence Tasks, Lay See Ong, Chi-Ying Cheng, Ying-Yi Hong Jul 2013

Kiasu (怕輸) And Its Moderating Effects On Multicultural Experiences On Creativity And Persistence Tasks, Lay See Ong, Chi-Ying Cheng, Ying-Yi Hong

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Question: Can a cultural norm exert both positive and negative influence on its subscribers? Method: Three experimental studies explored this question in creativity and persistence tasks. Findings: The answer is YES. Kiasu (a Singaporean cultural norm) can either impair creativity performance or help boost persistency.


Revisiting The Multicultural Experience-Creativity Link: The Effects Of Cultural Distance And Comparison Mindset, Chi-Ying Cheng, Angela K. Y. Leung Jul 2013

Revisiting The Multicultural Experience-Creativity Link: The Effects Of Cultural Distance And Comparison Mindset, Chi-Ying Cheng, Angela K. Y. Leung

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

A growing literature provides evidence for the multicultural experience-creativity link such that exposure to the juxtaposition of two cultures facilitates individual creativity. The underlying mechanisms for this relationship, however, are still far from being well explored. Drawing upon the novel perspective of motivated cognition, we hypothesize that two factors interact to affect creative outcomes: (a) perceived cultural distance between the two juxtaposed cultures, and (b) comparison mind-sets. Specifically, we argue that individuals’ creative performance will be increased only when a difference mind-set is employed to process the cultural stimuli that are sufficiently different from each other. In two studies, individuals …


A Note-Restructuring Intervention Increases Students’ Exam Scores, Dov Cohen, Emily Kim, Jacinth J. X. Tan, Mary-Ann Winkelmes Jun 2013

A Note-Restructuring Intervention Increases Students’ Exam Scores, Dov Cohen, Emily Kim, Jacinth J. X. Tan, Mary-Ann Winkelmes

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

It was hypothesized that students’ learning would be enhanced by an intervention getting them to elaborate on and restructure the notes they had taken in lecture. Students in a research methods course were randomly assigned to weeks in which they would turn in a copy of their restructured lecture notes along with a very brief summary of the class. This intervention required students to spend quality time-on-task. Subsequently, results of exam questions from weeks in which students completed the intervention were compared to weeks they did not do so. The intervention improved student performance by a full class grade (11 …


Locating The Social Ladder Across Cultures And Identities, Michael W. Kraus, Jacinth J. X. Tan, Melanie B. Tannenbaum Jun 2013

Locating The Social Ladder Across Cultures And Identities, Michael W. Kraus, Jacinth J. X. Tan, Melanie B. Tannenbaum

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

It is rare to have the opportunity to write a theory paper on a topic that, we believe at least, will become a very important part of psychological research in the future. That this target article has sparked such a high level of sophistication in the commentaries is indicative of this possibility; psychologists have truly arrived at the forefront of the social class discussion, and we are very excited to be a part of it! In the spirit of moving forward this discussion, each of the commentaries raises a number of important points that intersect with our own theory. Engaging …


The Social Ladder: A Rank-Based Perspective On Social Class, Michael W. Kraus, Jacinth J. X. Tan, Melanie B. Tannenbaum Jun 2013

The Social Ladder: A Rank-Based Perspective On Social Class, Michael W. Kraus, Jacinth J. X. Tan, Melanie B. Tannenbaum

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Scholars across the social sciences have studied social class for centuries. In this review, we suggest that social class is a fundamental means by which individuals are ranked on the social ladder of society. A rank-based perspective on social class shines light on several future areas of research: Specifically, understanding how social class ranks individuals vis-à-vis others leads to predictions about how class is signaled in interactions, influences social cognition and health, is shaped by global economic inequality trends, and changes across the life course. Importantly, our theory highlights the potential of experimental manipulations of social class rank for testing …


Break The Negative Spiral Over The Haze, David Chan Jun 2013

Break The Negative Spiral Over The Haze, David Chan

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

No abstract provided.


The Role Of Instrumental Emotion Regulation In The Emotions-Creativity Link: How Worries Render Neurotic Individuals More Creative, Angela K.-Y. Leung, Letty Kwan, Shyhnan Liou, Chi-Yue Chiu, Lin Qiu, Jose C. Yong Jun 2013

The Role Of Instrumental Emotion Regulation In The Emotions-Creativity Link: How Worries Render Neurotic Individuals More Creative, Angela K.-Y. Leung, Letty Kwan, Shyhnan Liou, Chi-Yue Chiu, Lin Qiu, Jose C. Yong

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Based on the instrumental account of emotion regulation, the current research seeks to offer a novel perspective to the emotions-creativity debate by investigating the instrumental value of trait-consistent emotions in creativity. We hypothesize that emotions such as worry (vs. happy) are some trait-consistent experiences for neurotic individuals and experiencing these emotions can facilitate performance in a creativity task. In two studies, we found support for our hypothesis. First, individuals higher in neuroticism had a greater preference for recalling worrisome (vs. happy) events in anticipation of performing a creativity task (Study 1). Moreover, when induced to recall a worrisome (vs. happy) …


Her Voice Lingers On And Her Memory Is Strategic: Effects Of Gender On Directed Forgetting, Hwajin Yang, Sujin Yang, Giho Park May 2013

Her Voice Lingers On And Her Memory Is Strategic: Effects Of Gender On Directed Forgetting, Hwajin Yang, Sujin Yang, Giho Park

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

The literature on directed forgetting has employed exclusively visual words. Thus, the potentially interesting aspects of a spoken utterance, which include not only vocal cues (e.g., prosody) but also the speaker and the listener, have been neglected. This study demonstrates that prosody alone does not influence directed-forgetting effects, while the sex of the speaker and the listener significantly modulate directed-forgetting effects for spoken utterances. Specifically, forgetting costs were attenuated for female-spoken items compared to male-spoken items, and forgetting benefits were eliminated among female listeners but not among male listeners. These results suggest that information conveyed in a female …


Positive Affect Improves Working Memory: Implications For Controlled Cognitive Processing, Hwajin Yang, Sujin Yang, Alice M. Isen Apr 2013

Positive Affect Improves Working Memory: Implications For Controlled Cognitive Processing, Hwajin Yang, Sujin Yang, Alice M. Isen

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

This study examined the effects of positive affect on working memory (WM) and short-term memory (STM). Given that WM involves both storage and controlled processing and that STM primarily involves storage processing, we hypothesised that if positive affect facilitates controlled processing, it should improve WM more than STM. The results demonstrated that positive affect, compared with neutral affect, significantly enhanced WM, as measured by the operation span task. The influence of positive affect on STM, however, was weaker. These results suggest that positive affect enhances WM, a task that involves controlled processing, not just storage processing. Additional analyses of recall …


Social Relations, Health Behaviors, And Health Outcomes: A Survey And Synthesis, Louis Tay, Kenneth Tan, Ed Diener, Elizabeth Gonzalez Mar 2013

Social Relations, Health Behaviors, And Health Outcomes: A Survey And Synthesis, Louis Tay, Kenneth Tan, Ed Diener, Elizabeth Gonzalez

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

The primary goal of this paper is to summarise current evidence on social relations and health, specifically how social integration and social support are related to health behaviors and health outcomes, using results from published reviews. Our analysis revealed that social relations are beneficial for health behaviors such as chronic illness self-management and decreased suicidal tendency. The salutary effects of general measures of social relations (e.g. being validated, being cared for, etc.) on health behaviors (e.g. healthy diet, physical activity, smoking, alcohol abuse) are weaker, but specific measures of social relations targeting corresponding health behaviors are more predictive. There is …


Population Priorities And Perceptions, David Chan Feb 2013

Population Priorities And Perceptions, David Chan

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

No abstract provided.


Rising Income And The Subjective Well-Being Of Nations, Ed Diener, Louis Tay, Shigehiro Oishi Feb 2013

Rising Income And The Subjective Well-Being Of Nations, Ed Diener, Louis Tay, Shigehiro Oishi

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

We explored whether rising income in nations is associated with increasing subjective well-being (SWB), with several advances over earlier work. Our methods are improved in that across time, the same well-being questions were asked in the same order, and we employed broad and equivalent representative samples over time from a large number of nations. We also assessed psychosocial factors that might mediate the relation of income and SWB. We found that changes in household income were associated with concomitant changes in life evaluations, positive feelings, and negative feelings. The effects of gross domestic product (GDP) change were weaker and significant …


Deactivation By Unpriming: Does Decrease Of Influence Mean Lowering Of Activation Level?, Lay See Ong, Jennifer Yuk-Yue Tong, Jolene H. Tan Jan 2013

Deactivation By Unpriming: Does Decrease Of Influence Mean Lowering Of Activation Level?, Lay See Ong, Jennifer Yuk-Yue Tong, Jolene H. Tan

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Question: Unpriming means a decrease in the influence of primed knowledge, but does it also mean a lowered activation level? Method: Measuring the effect of unpriming with Lexical Decision Task instead of random answering. Findings: The answer is NO. Reaction times were faster after individuals first acted upon the primed concept (unpriming).


Cultural Differences And Switching Of In-Group Sharing Behavior Between An American (Facebook) And A Chinese (Renren) Social Networking Site, Lin Qiu, Han Lin, Angela K. Y. Leung Jan 2013

Cultural Differences And Switching Of In-Group Sharing Behavior Between An American (Facebook) And A Chinese (Renren) Social Networking Site, Lin Qiu, Han Lin, Angela K. Y. Leung

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Prior research has documented cultural dimensions that broadly characterize between-culture variations in Western and East Asian societies and that bicultural individuals can flexibly change their behaviors in response to different cultural contexts. In this article, we studied cultural differences and behavioral switching in the context of the fast emerging, naturally occurring online social networking, using both self-report measures and content analyses of online activities on two highly popular platforms, Facebook and Renren (the “Facebook of China”). Results showed that while Renren and Facebook are two technically similar platforms, the Renren culture is perceived as more collectivistic than the Facebook culture. …


Comparing Well-Being Across Nations: Conceptual And Empirical Issues, William Tov, Evelyn Wing-Mun Au Jan 2013

Comparing Well-Being Across Nations: Conceptual And Empirical Issues, William Tov, Evelyn Wing-Mun Au

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

In this chapter, we review cross-national survey studies of subjective well-being. We begin with a short history of the concept of subjective well-being and examine how it has been measured in national surveys. We then review some findings on well-being at the level of societies and individuals. The former concerns how the economic and social conditions of countries are related to their average level of happiness and life satisfaction. The latter considers how the characteristics of happy and unhappy individuals may differ across cultures. Next we discuss important issues in research design and analysis of cross-national data, and in the …


Subjective Well-Being, William Tov, Ed Diener Jan 2013

Subjective Well-Being, William Tov, Ed Diener

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

The cross-cultural importance of happiness and contentment can be inferred from their emergence in philosophical discussions across many cultural traditions. We begin by focusing on similarities, noting what has been found to correlate with the components of SWB across most cultures. Subjective well being (SWB) involves the various ways that people evaluate and experience their lives. In many ways, the term is synonymous with the everyday notion of happiness – positive feelings are an important aspect of well being. Cross-cultural similarities are important because they highlight our common humanity and hint at which factors may be fundamental to wellbeing. Next, …


Quick And Dirty: Some Psychosocial Costs Associated With The Dark Triad In Three Countries, Peter K. Jonason, Norman P. Li, Anna Z. Czarna Jan 2013

Quick And Dirty: Some Psychosocial Costs Associated With The Dark Triad In Three Countries, Peter K. Jonason, Norman P. Li, Anna Z. Czarna

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

The current study provides the first examination of the relationship between life history indicators and the Dark Triad traits in an international sample drawn from the U.S. (n = 264), Singapore (n = 185), and Poland (n = 177). In all three samples, the Dark Triad traits were associated with psychosocial costs, although there were more links in the Singaporean and Polish samples than in the American sample. In the U.S., the quality of one’s romantic relationships and psychopathy were negatively correlated. Narcissism was higher in the Polish and American samples than in the Singaporean sample. Men scored higher than …