Yuanyuan Shi

Disowning the self: The cultural value of modesty can attenuate self-positivity

Western participants endorse a higher number of positive traits as self-descriptive, but endorse a lower number of negative traits as self-descriptive. They also respond quicker to categorize positive traits as self-descriptive, but respond slower to categorize negative traits as self-descriptive. Is this self-positivity bias qualified by the cultural value of modesty? We induced modesty (vs. punctuality) and assessed self-descriptiveness judgments and response times among Chinese participants. We replicated the self-positivity bias in regards to both self-descriptiveness judgments and response times. In the case of self-descriptiveness judgments, however, the bias was partially qualified by modesty. Relative to control participants, those in the modesty condition endorsed fewer positive traits as self-descriptive and manifested a tendency toward endorsing more negative traits as self-descriptive. In the case of response times, the self-positivity bias was unqualified by modesty. Within both conditions, participants were quicker to categorize positive traits as self-descriptive and were slower to categorize negative traits as self-descriptive. The results speak to the relation between the self-positivity bias and the self-reference effect and illustrate the malleability of self-processing.

Narcissism predicts impulsive buying: phenotypic and genetic evidence.

Impulsive buying makes billions of dollars for retail businesses every year, particularly in an era of thriving e-commerce. Narcissism, characterized by impulsivity and materialism, may serve as a potential antecedent to impulsive buying. To test this hypothesis, two studies examined the relationship between narcissism and impulsive buying. In Study 1, we surveyed an online sample and found that while adaptive narcissism was not correlated with impulsive buying, maladaptive narcissism was significantly predictive of the impulsive buying tendency. By investigating 304 twin pairs, Study 2 showed that global narcissism and its two components, adaptive and maladaptive narcissism, as well as the impulsive buying tendency were heritable. The study found, moreover, that the connections between global narcissism and impulsive buying, and between maladaptive narcissism and impulsive buying were genetically based. These findings not only establish a link between narcissism and impulsive buying but also help to identify the origins of the link. The present studies deepen our understanding of narcissism, impulsive buying, and their interrelationship.

Male = Science, Female = Humanities Both Implicit and Explicit Gender-Science Stereotypes Are Heritable

The gender-science stereotype of associating males, rather than females, with science is pervasive and influential. The present study challenged the common-sense assumption that it is environment that leads to the gender-science stereotype by conducting a genetically informative study. A total of 304 pairs of twins (152 monozygotic [MZ] and 152 dizygotic [DZ]) completed explicit and implicit gender-science stereotype measures twice across 2 years. Results showed that both explicit and implicit gender-science stereotypes were heritable, with significant nonshared environmental influence. Moreover, genetic and nonshared environmental factors influencing the explicit gender-science stereotype also affected the implicit gender-science stereotype to some extent. These findings have important implications for understanding the nature of the gender-science stereotype and implicit social cognition.

Self-Enhancement among Westerners and Easterners: A Cultural Neuroscience Approach

We adopted a cultural neuroscience approach to the investigation of self-enhancement. Western and Eastern participants made self-referent judgments on positive and negative traits while we recorded their electroencephalography signals. At the judgmental level, we assessed trait endorsement (judgments of traits self-descriptiveness) and reaction times (speed of such judgments). Participants endorsed more positive traits as self-descriptive and more negative traits as non-self-descriptive, although the magnitude of this effect (level of self-positivity) was higher in the Western than Eastern sample. Moreover, all participants responded faster to positive self-descriptive traits and to negative non-self-descriptive traits, indicating that the self-enhancement motive is equally potent across cultures. At the neurophysiological level, we assessed N170 and LPP. Negative traits elicited larger N170 among Easterners, indicating initial allocation of attentional resources to the processing of negative information. However, negative compared to positive self-descriptive traits elicited a larger LPP, whereas negative and positive non-self-descriptive traits did not differ in the LPP they elicited. This pattern generalized across samples, pointing to a pancultural physiological correlate of the self-enhancement motive.

Understanding Exclusionary Reactions Toward a Foreign Culture: The Influence of Intrusive Cultural Mixing on Implicit Intergroup Bias

Recent research has begun to examine the impact of cultural mixing on human psychology. We conducted four experiments to examine the influence of intrusive cultural mixing on implicit intergroup attitudes. Our results indicated that (a) intrusive cultural mixing augmented implicit prejudice toward the intruding foreign cultural group (Study 1), (b) heightened implicit prejudice partially mediated boycotting behavior provoked by intrusive cultural mixing (Study 2), and (c) both cultural identification (Study 3) and multicultural orientation (Study 4) moderated the influence of intrusive cultural mixing on implicit prejudice so that only individuals who highly identified with their heritage culture or those who exhibited a weak multicultural orientation manifested enhanced implicit prejudice. These findings extend our understanding of the influence of cultural mixing.

Neural manifestations of implicit self-esteem: an ERP study.

Behavioral research has established that humans implicitly tend to hold a positive view toward themselves. In this study, we employed the event-related potential (ERP) technique to explore neural manifestations of positive implicit self-esteem using the Go/Nogo association task (GNAT). Participants generated a response (Go) or withheld a response (Nogo) to self or others words and good or bad attributes. Behavioral data showed that participants responded faster to the self paired with good than the self paired with bad, whereas the opposite proved true for others, reflecting the positive nature of implicit self-esteem. ERP results showed an augmented N200 over the frontal areas in Nogo responses relative to Go responses. Moreover, the positive implicit self-positivity bias delayed the onset time of the N200 wave difference between Nogo and Go trials, suggesting that positive implicit self-esteem is manifested on neural activity about 270 ms after the presentation of self-relevant stimuli. These findings provide neural evidence for the positivity and automaticity of implicit self-esteem.

The Development and Validation of the Social Network Sites SNSs Usage Questionnaire

Surfing Social network sites SNSs has become one of the most popular activity for ordinary people. To date, there has been no satisfactory measure to understand the role of SNSs in daily life. Considering this, we developed a self-report instrument, the Social Network Sites SNSs Usage Questionnaire, which included two subscales for featured usage and affective experience, respectively. Factor analysis suggested 3 factors for the subscale of featured usage and 2 factors for the subscale of affective experience. We referred to the Big Five Personality Inventory and a revised version of the Internet Motivation Questionnaire as external criteria to validate our questionnaire. The results indicated that the newly developed questionnaire is of good psychometric characteristics.

Affective Experience on Social Networking Sites Predicts Psychological Well-Being Off-Line

Previous studies have pondered the relevance of social networking sites (SNSs) to psychological well-being, but few have taken online affective experience into consideration. To extend previous research on the relationship between SNSs and psychological well-being, we opted to target emotions experienced while visiting SNSs as a means to predict off-line well-being. In our two studies, we surveyed affective experience on SNSs, overall life satisfaction, and general emotional well-being of young adults who access SNSs regularly. The results consistently demonstrated a positive association between SNS affective experience and off-line well-being. This finding held with SNS activities (Studies 1 and 2) and relevant personality traits (i.e., the Big Five factors, self-esteem; Study 2) considered in simultaneity. Our research highlights the important role of affective experience on SNSs in predicting off-line well-being as well as helps clarify the relationship between SNSs and well-being.

How to Set Focal Categories for Brief Implicit Association Test? “Good” Is Good, “Bad” Is Not So Good

Three studies were conducted to examine the validity of the four versions of BIATs that are supposed to measure the same construct but differ in shared focal category. Study 1 investigated the criterion validity of four BIATs measuring attitudes toward flower versus insect. Study 2 examined the experimental sensitivity of four BIATs by considering attitudes toward induced ingroup versus outgroup. Study 3 examined the predictive power of the four BIATs by investigating attitudes toward the commercial beverages Coke versus Sprite. The findings suggested that for the two attributes “good” and “bad,” “good” rather than “bad” proved to be good as a shared focal category; for two targets, so long as they clearly differed in goodness or valence, the “good” rather than “bad” target emerged as good for a shared focal category. Beyond this case, either target worked well. These findings may facilitate the understanding of the BIAT and its future applications.