Asian Journal of Social Psychology最新文献

Urgent action is required to develop effective interventions for the prevention of littering with the increase in the severity of marine plastic pollution. This study employs action research and conducted a field experiment along a riverside to evaluate the impact of interventions on littering. Action research, which involves collaboration with stakeholders, is essential for effective interventions due to the valuable local knowledge of stakeholders tailored to regional contexts. Prior to the experiment, the stakeholders were engaged in the selection of intervention measures. Across 5 months of dialogue and collaboration, relationships were cultivated with stakeholders. We then identified the Naebo River as the site and selected two interventions, namely, setting flowers and illumination. A block design was used to establish experimental and control conditions. The experiment followed a before–after design. The results indicated significant reductions in littering in both the flower-present and illumination-present blocks during the intervention period, and these effects persisted after the removal of the interventions. The study underscored the importance of action research in which hypotheses are collaboratively developed with stakeholders to suit local contexts. Enhanced cleaning and maintenance efforts during the study contributed to the reduction of littering, which highlights their potential impact on litter prevention strategies.

Tackling global challenges such as climate change and pandemics requires fostering a cosmopolitan orientation, which facilitates international cooperation. We examined the conditions under which multicultural experience translates into cosmopolitan orientation, defined as the attitudinal and value orientations of individuals who see themselves as citizens of the world. Drawing on cultural attachment theory, we hypothesized that a secure bond with one's home culture is essential for this translation. Two cross-sectional studies with American citizens tested whether indicators of such a bond moderate the relationship between multicultural experience and cosmopolitan orientation. Study 1 (N = 317) examined lifetime residence as a potential proxy of such a bond, finding that the positive relationship was stronger among individuals who had spent a higher proportion of their lifetime in the home country. Study 2 (N = 330) did not replicate this result but found that psychological attachment security to the home culture was a significant moderator, with the relationship significantly positive only at higher levels of attachment security. This inconsistency suggests that the role of lifetime residence in capturing a secure cultural bond may be more complex than initially theorized and warrants further investigation. These findings have implications for promoting cosmopolitan orientation and global cooperation.

Previous work has examined the patterns of change in trait-positive affect across childhood and adolescence transitions, yet relatively little is known regarding temporal patterns of change in employees' state positive affect across working days. This article addressed this gap by adopting the latent class growth analysis to explore (a) whether distinct growth trajectories of daily positive affect emerged among Chinese employees and (b) how the positive affect trajectories differ from each other with regard to work engagement and fatigue at the start and end of the working week. Using an experience sampling design, 169 Chinese employees completed online questionnaires across five consecutive workdays, reporting their positive affect each morning and their work engagement and fatigue on Monday and Friday afternoons. A three-class solution yielded the following profiles: a moderate-stable positive affect trajectory and two trajectories with changing positive affect levels (high-increasing and low-decreasing positive affect trajectories). Furthermore, the trajectories exhibited class-specific differences in work engagement and fatigue on Monday and Friday afternoons. Our findings demonstrated that the temporal patterns of short-term change in daily positive affect across one working week matter for employees' work-related outcomes. Theoretical and practical implications as well as directions for future research are discussed.

Amidst growing polarization and nationalism across societies, global consciousness (GC) provides an important construct for addressing the political challenges of our era. GC is a holistic and complex psychological orientation constituted by the distinct components of awareness, identity and morality. The current studies investigated whether measures of individual privilege (income, education, subjective status, frequent travel and multilingual capacity), group identification (national, religious and political) and societal perceptions positively predict these distinct components of GC. This was examined across a cross-cultural sample including two global superpowers (China and the United States) and other Asian societies (Hong Kong, Malaysia, Singapore, Taiwan) that vary in their positioning toward globalization (N = 1449 in Study 1, N = 1615 in Study 2). The findings supported the replication tests of individual privilege as predictors of GC to varying extents across cultural contexts, while measures of identification with meaningful groups showed high cross-cultural consistency as predictors of GC and its underlying components. Finally, the studies found considerable cultural variation in the influence of societal perceptions on GC between the United States and China. The importance of building upon knowledge that incorporates cultural, contextual and geopolitical dynamics in our endeavour to understand and cultivate GC is discussed.

The Big Five personality model, as a representative example of personality theory, has been extensively employed to anticipate employee behaviour in organisational management contexts. However, the current Big Five personality scales comprise an excessive number of items, which often act as a deterrent for empirical researchers. For this reason, a brief measure of the Big Five personality based on the International Personality Item Pool (IPIP) was developed and validated. Study 1 employed exploratory factor analysis to develop a 15-item IPIP-NEO (IPIP-NEO-15), which demonstrated robust convergent correlation with the original scale. Confirmatory factor analysis further confirmed that the IPIP-NEO-15 had a good five-factor structure with good internal consistency. Study 2 sought to elucidate the mechanisms through which the Big Five personality traits influence employee guanxi. The results of the predictive validity analysis indicated that conscientiousness, extraversion and openness were significantly and positively correlated with employee guanxi, whereas agreeableness and neuroticism exhibited no significant correlation with this construct. The appraisal of emotion in others mediated the relationships between conscientiousness, extraversion, openness and employee guanxi. This study presents a reliable, valid and concise instrument for personality assessment in organisational settings, offering practical implications for organisational management.

The prevention and reduction of packaging waste through behavioural and systemic change has been set as a global goal. To understand the underlying processes that may explain behavioural change toward precycling, we used a multi-method approach that sheds light on the group processes unfolding during a living lab in private homes (called HomeLabs) aimed at promoting domestic precycling behaviour. First, we analysed data from questionnaires (n = 69 participants) and from packaging diaries (n = 38 households) to identify relationships between group processes and precycling. We show that overall Household Social Cohesion (HSC), and especially the cooperation dimension, plays a significant role in precycling. On this basis, we analysed qualitative interviews from 16 households, showing that the three HSC dimensions, namely cooperation, champion and disagreement, are closely inter-related. Furthermore, we identified five types of precycling champions who influence precycling in household groups by actively stimulating social dynamics, such as through incentives, and by playing a mitigating role in conflict situations. Our results illustrate that cooperating toward a group goal and having group members take on responsibility impact the success of precycling initiatives. Given our findings, we delineate practical implications for addressing group-level processes in interventions for transitioning to a low-waste society.

Previous research has demonstrated that attributing wealth and poverty to controllable factors reduces redistribution preferences, but often conflated controllability with internal attributions. This study addresses this limitation by explicitly distinguishing between controllability and internal attributions, clarifying that attributing economic outcomes specifically to controllable rather than internal factors decreases redistribution preferences. It further reveals that perceptions of distributive fairness mediate this effect, with subjective social class moderating the relationship. Study 1 (N = 227) revealed that attributing wealth and poverty to internal and controllable (vs. internal and uncontrollable) factors significantly reduced redistributive preferences by increasing the perceptions of distributive justice. Subjective socio-economic status (SES) moderated the positive effect of attributing wealth and poverty to controllable factors on perceptions of distributive justice. The magnitude of this predictive effect decreased with an increase in an individual's subjective SES. In Study 2 (N = 129), attributions of wealth and poverty were manipulated by changing the allocation principle of rewards (effort vs. extraversion), and the findings of Study 1 were replicated. The findings of our research enhance the understanding of the effects of controllability attributions on redistribution preferences. These findings also offer valuable insights and recommendations for the future development of interventions aimed at promoting individual preferences for redistribution.

Debt is a global issue. The high household leverage ratio in China indicates that Chinese people may face significant debt pressure. Previous studies have found that heavy debt has a detrimental effect on individuals' cognition, emotion and behaviour. This study examines the impact of debt on policy attitudes and preferences, specifically redistribution preferences, as well as its mediation mechanism. In Study 1, self-reported data on the amount of debt, debt pressure, wealth attribution and redistribution preferences of 10,058 Chinese citizens were obtained through the questionnaire survey. The results showed that debt pressure was positively correlated with redistribution preferences, and the external attribution of wealth played a mediation role. Study 2 recruited full-time employees as participants and manipulated their debt pressure to obtain causal evidence. The results showed that compared with the control group, participants in the debt pressure group were more inclined to attribute wealth status externally and had stronger redistribution preferences. This study contributes to understanding indebted people's political attitudes and preferences from the perspective of social fairness.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, the implementation of prolonged quarantine measures has rendered individuals, particularly children, vulnerable to various negative psychological effects, such as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). The current study aimed to examine the protective association of family resilience on PTSD over time, and to explore the potential mediating effects of social support and coping style. The sample of the current study consisted of 421 primary school students (227 males, M_age = 11.44, SD = 1.64) from Nanjing, China, and the measurements were conducted at three time periods during the COVID-19 outbreak. Results indicated that family resilience negatively predicted PTSD over time, with social support mediating this relationship. Furthermore, the serial mediating effects of positive cognitive coping style and avoidant coping style on this relationship were also significant. To effectively reduce children's PTSD symptoms and protect their mental health, it is imperative to prioritise the enhancement of family resilience during such stressful circumstances.

Enhancing residential garbage classification is critical to promoting waste reuse and recycling. This study integrated event-related potential (ERP) experiments, a cognitive neuroscience method measuring brain activity via electroencephalography (EEG), into a questionnaire survey to assess residential decision-making processes in garbage classification and facilitate environmental education optimization. The results indicated that subjects exhibited significant ERP components during classification tasks, including the P300 and late positive potential (LPP). Significant differences in judgement accuracy were observed across demographic groups and garbage categories. Young adult males (18–40 years) with tertiary education demonstrated higher accuracy, accompanied by amplified P300 and LPP amplitudes. Both survey and ERP results aligned on classification proficiency: recyclable waste > kitchen waste > hazardous waste. Higher classification proficiency correlated with larger P300/LPP peaks and shorter LPP latency. These findings uncover the neurocognitive mechanisms underlying garbage-sorting decisions and provide insights into developing targeted interventions for environmental education.