Jian-Bin Li

Too exhausted to remember: Ego depletion undermines subsequent event-based prospective memory

Past research has consistently found that people are likely to do worse on high-level cognitive tasks after exerting self-control on previous actions. However, little has been unraveled about to what extent ego depletion affects subsequent prospective memory. Drawing upon the self-control strength model and the relationship between self-control resources and executive control, this study proposes that the initial actions of self-control may undermine subsequent event-based prospective memory (EBPM). Ego depletion was manipulated through watching a video requiring visual attention (Experiment 1) or completing an incongruent Stroop task (Experiment 2). Participants were then tested on EBPM embedded in an ongoing task. As predicted, the results showed that after ruling out possible intervening variables (e.g. mood, focal and nonfocal cues, and characteristics of ongoing task and ego depletion task), participants in the high-depletion condition performed significantly worse on EBPM than those in the low-depletion condition. The results suggested that the effect of ego depletion on EBPM was mainly due to an impaired prospective component rather than to a retrospective component.

From China to Italy: Validation of the adolescent self-consciousness questionnaire

This study aimed at validating a Chinese questionnaire on self-consciousness for Italian adolescents. Self-consciousness is a hierarchical construct of self which comprehends self-evaluation, self-experience and self-monitoring. 1138 Italian adolescents filled in the Adolescent Self-Consciousness questionnaire and the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale. A Confirmatory Factor Analysis with cross-validation procedure was adopted to strengthen the findings. Results confirmed the second-order factor structure proposed by the authors showed good psychometric properties and discrete criteria validity, suggesting that the ASC could be a reliable and suitable measure to assess self-consciousness in Italian youths.

Family allocentrism and its relation to adjustment among Chinese and Italian adolescents

Family allocentrism is a domain-specific collectivistic attribute referring to the family. This research tested the one-factor structure of the Family Allocentrism Scale (FAS), examined the association between family allocentrism and adjustment outcomes, and compared the factor means and the correlations with adjustment between Chinese and Italian adolescents. To this end, 484 Chinese and 480 Italian adolescents participated in the study by answering a battery of self-report measures. The results confirmed the one-factor structure of the FAS. Family allocentrism was related to a number of adjustment outcomes. More importantly, Chinese adolescents reported more family allocentrism than their Italian counterparts did, but the relations between family allocentrism and adjustment outcomes were equivalent in magnitude between the two samples. Collectively, these findings provide crucial evidence for the psychometric properties of the FAS and shed light on the importance of family allocentrism in promoting positive youth development from a cross-cultural perspective.

Early Evidence of the Italian Parent-Report Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ-P)

The parent-report Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ-P) is a widely used scale that assesses children’s and adolescents’ strengths and difficulties. The present study applied this scale to Italian adolescents and compared the current results with previous Chinese findings and the United Kingdom norm. Participants were 422 Italian parents and their adolescent children. Parents and adolescents answered the parent-report and the self-report SDQ, respectively. Results showed that the five-factor first-order model was better than other competing models. Cronbach’s alpha of emotional problems, conduct problems, hyperactivity, peer problems, prosocial behavior, and total difficulties was .63, .52, .69, .51, .59, and .77 respectively for mother-report measure, and .67, .48, .67, .46, .55, and .79 respectively for father-report measure. Parent–adolescent agreements ranged from low to medium, whereas mother–father agreements were large. Parents did not rate boys and girls as well as early-adolescence and mid-adolescence differently. Italian parents rated their adolescent children to have lower levels of hyperactivity, peer problems, total difficulties, and higher levels of prosocial behavior than Chinese parents; and Italian mothers rated their adolescent children to have lower levels of hyperactivity than United Kingdom parents. In conclusion, the current findings suggest both strengths and inadequacies of the SDQ-P for Italian adolescents.

How Do You Play? A Comparison among Children Aged 4–10

Pretend play has a central role for childrens development and psychological well-being. However, there is a paucity of standardized and valid measures specifically devoted to assess the core domains involved in play activities in preschool and primary school children. The Affect in Play Scale-Preschool (4–5 years) and the Affect in Play Scale-Preschool Extended Version (6–10 years) are semi-structured parallel tools designed to explore childs cognitive and affective processes using a standardized play task. The current study administered this 5-min play task to 538 Italian children aged 4–10. The purposes were to compare play abilities in boys vs. girls and in preschool vs. primary school children, to correlate pretend play with divergent thinking and to evaluate the structural validity of the measure along the considered age span. No differences, excepting for Organization, were found between boys and girls, whereas school age children reported higher play abilities then the younger ones. External validity was assessed using correlational analysis with the divergent thinking task (the Alternate Uses Test) for preschoolers and primary school-aged children, in line with findings from Manova. Construct validity, assessed through the Confirmatory Factor Analysis, showed good fits for the two-factor model with cognitive and affective factor for both the Affect in Play Scale-Preschool and its Extended Version. A multi-group factor analysis suggested a partial invariance of the two-factor model across preschool (4–5 years old) and primary school-aged (6–10 years old) children. Results supported the use of the Affect in Play Scale-Preschool and its Extended Version as adequate measures to assess the interplay of cognitive and affective skills in preschool and school age children. The discussion highlights clinical and research implications linked to the possibility to have a unique play task able to assess childs affective and cognitive abilities throughout a quite wide life span (from 4 to 10 years old).

Aggressive Perpetration and Victimization Among Polish Male and Female Adolescents: The Role of Attachment to Parents and Self-Control:

Aggressive perpetration and victimization are a salient problem among Polish adolescents. Based on the general theory of crime, this study explored the associations between attachment to parents and self-control with perpetration and victimization among Polish adolescents (N = 355, 146 boys and 209 girls). Results showed that (a) secure attachment to father related to less perpetration and victimization among boys and girls, whereas secure attachment to mother associated with less perpetration and victimization among girls; (b) secure attachment to father was related to better self-control for boys and girls; and (c) self-control related to reduced victimization and mediated the “attachment to father—victimization” association among girls. These findings suggest that generalizability of the general theory of crime in Polish adolescents is limited.

Perceiving high social mindfulness during interpersonal interaction promotes cooperative behaviours

Social mindfulness refers to individual’s respect and protection of others’ options in interpersonal interaction. The object-choosing task is a traditional paradigm to assess social mindfulness. Individuals with high social mindfulness would choose the nonunique object so that others would have more options; on the contrary, individuals with low social mindfulness would choose the unique object, which limits others’ choices. No prior study has examined whether perceiving people with different levels of social mindfulness affects one’s cooperation. Based on this background, two experiments were conducted to address this question. In both experiments, a confederate participant’s (Player A’s) social mindfulness was manipulated by setting the frequency that Player A chose the unique and the nonunique objects. Then, participants were asked to interact with Player A in the public goods game (Experiment 1) or in the centipede game (Experiment 2). Convergent results showed that compared to those interacting with a socially unmindful person, participants interacting with a person perceived as socially mindful contributed more resources in the public goods game and chose to pass on more rounds in the centipede game. These findings suggest that perception of others’ high social mindfulness enhances one’s own cooperative behaviour.

To bet or not to bet? The coding of bets modulates brain potentials in outcome evaluations.

Decisions made on the basis of risk often require rapid evaluation of feedback before follow-up actions and feedback-related negativity in brain potential is sensitive to the poor outcome. The current study investigated the effects of feedback from one’s own decision (Experiment 1) and feedback from observing others’ decisions (Experiment 2) on electroencephalograph responses to winning and losing money with and without betting. Irrespective of whether the betting is self-generated or simply observed, the cognitive evaluation of the outcome evoked feedback-related negativity, indicating that one’s own experience and vicarious experience give rise to the same neural response. These results indicate that participants were more sensitive to loss when it was personally relevant, irrespective of whether that loss was associated with betting. However, when observing others’ losses, participants showed stronger negative responses when the losses were associated with betting.