Not All Levels of Social Re-Inclusion Allow for Recovery from Negative Outcomes of Social Exclusion: The Moderating Role of Self-Esteem.

Previous studies on social exclusion have focused on its adverse effects, rarely exploring how social re-inclusion can aid recovery from exclusion-induced distress. The level of social re-inclusion that can help individuals recover from social exclusion, and whether the recovery effect is influenced by individual characteristics are unclear. The present experimental study extends the Cyberball paradigm, adding a re-inclusion stage to explore the recovery effects of four levels of social re-inclusion on affect; furthermore, it tests the moderating role of self-esteem in the recovery effect. A total of 154 Chinese college students participated in the experiment. Results showed that (1) recovery was effective when the level of re-inclusion was equal to (replica re-inclusion) or greater than (moderate and high over-re-inclusions) the pre-exclusion level of inclusion, but ineffective when it was below this level (token re-inclusion); (2) the re-inclusion level positively predicted recovery, and this was moderated by self-esteem-the prediction was effective for participants with middle and high self-esteem, but not for participants with low self-esteem. These results are discussed from a group process and self-psychology perspective.

An intermediary enhances out-group trust and in-group profit expectation of Chinese but not Australians.

In this research, we made a theoretical distinction between direct and intermediary-mediated trust situations, and conducted a cross-cultural (Chinese vs. Australians) investment trust game to test the overlooked effects of an intermediary on investors' trust decisions, with respect to how much to invest in and expect from trustees. Compared to situations of direct trust, a nominal intermediary increased the number of Chinese investors expecting in-group trustees to repay a profit on their investments (Hypothesis 1) and raised their level of investment in out-group trustees (Hypothesis 2). These results applied to Chinese, but not Australians in support of the proposal that a nominal intermediary would serve as a cue to activate different cultural stereotypes of the functions and meanings of an intermediary with respect to trust and expectation of reciprocity. Coexisting with these culture-specific effects of an intermediary, the minimal categorisation of people into in-group and out-group on trivial grounds leads to a highly significant in-group favouritism in investment levels of both Chinese and Australians (Hypothesis 3).

Using the Theory of Planned Behaviour to Explain Use of Traditional Chinese Medicine among Hong Kong Chinese in Britain.

The UK Chinese are known for their underutilisation of western healthcare services. Reasons for this underutilisation are complex. The Theory of Planned Behaviour (TPB) is a widely used model of social cognition, which in the present study is being applied to traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) utilisation and satisfaction with TCM services. Two hundred and seventy-two UK Chinese aged between 15 and 91 years (M = 46.55; SD = 18.53) enrolled in the study. TCM utilisation was associated with gender, age, cultural attachment, and subjective norms. TCM users were more likely to be female and older and have a strong attachment to Chinese culture, and be influenced by the views of important others. Findings highlight the potential of the TPB in exploring TCM utilisation, whilst also throwing light on other factors influential in the use of TCM and satisfaction with TCM service provision among Chinese in the UK.

Aging well socially through engagement with life: adapting Rowe and Kahn's model of successful aging to Chinese cultural context.

Although aging well socially (engagement with life) is as important as aging well personally (illness avoidance and functioning) (Rowe & Kahn, 1998), it has received less research attention. A caring (CE) and a productive (PE) form of engagement were derived from an analysis of Chinese cultural meanings of engagement, and combined with illness avoidance and functioning to form a 4-factor model. Confirmatory factor analysis based on 2970 Hong Kong Chinese (40 to 74 years) showed a good model fit that was replicated a year later with 2120 of the original sample. Further analysis led to a more parsimonious model where illness avoidance and functioning converged into a single second-order factor whereas CE and PE remained as distinct first-order factors. The results supported the differentiation of Rowe and Kahn's engagement with life component into caring and productive engagements.

Optimism, positive affectivity, and salivary cortisol.

OBJECTIVES: Research on stress and salivary cortisol has focused almost exclusively on the effects of negative psychological conditions or emotional states. Little attention has been drawn to the impact associated with positive psychological conditions, which have been shown recently to have significant influences on neuroendocrine regulation. The aim of this study is to examine the impact of optimism and positive affect on salivary cortisol with the effects of their negative counterparts controlled for. DESIGN: Optimism and pessimism, and positive and negative affectivity were studied in relation to the diurnal rhythm of salivary cortisol in a group of 80 Hong Kong Chinese, who provided six saliva samples over the course of a day on two consecutive days. The separate effects of optimism and positive affect on two dynamic components of cortisol secretion, awakening response, and diurnal decline were examined. METHODS: Optimism and pessimism were measured using the Chinese version of the revised Life Orientation Test while generalized affects and mood states were assessed by the Chinese Affect Scale. An enzyme-linked immunoabsorbent assay kit (EIA) developed for use in saliva was adopted for the biochemical analysis of cortisol. Testing of major group differences associated with positive psychological conditions was carried out using two-way (group by saliva collection time) ANOVAs for repeated measures with negative psychological conditions and mood states as covariates. RESULTS: Participants having higher optimism scores exhibited less cortisol secretion in the awakening period when the effect of pessimism and mood were controlled. This effect was more apparent in men than in women who had higher cortisol levels in the awakening period. Optimism did not have similar effect on cortisol levels during the underlying period of diurnal decline. On the other hand, higher generalized positive affect was associated with lower cortisol levels during the underlying period of diurnal decline after the effects of negative affect and mood states had been controlled. Generalized positive affect did not significantly influence cortisol secretion during the awakening period. CONCLUSIONS: These findings suggest that positive psychological resources including optimism and generalized positive affect had higher impact on cortisol secretion than their negative counterparts, and point to the need for increased attention to the potential contribution of positive mental states to well-being.

Tri-generational family conversations: communication accommodation and brokering.

Communication between grandparents and grandchildren can be superficial because of insufficient common ground between them. Among Chinese immigrant families in New Zealand, communication is complicated by linguistic mismatches, as grandparents may be proficient only in Chinese and grandchildren in English. To surmount these communication barriers, middle-aged parents (who know the cultures and languages of both grandparents and grandchildren) may play the role of a 'communication broker' to encourage and assist the two generations to conversationally move towards each other. We identified 35 cases (tokens) of brokering in 12 New Zealand Chinese families and found, as hypothesized, that brokering was significantly overrepresented in moderately (compared to high- or low-) acculturated families, and that brokers were mostly middle-aged parents. In the qualitative part of the study, detailed turn-by-turn analyses of brokering were conducted to reveal how brokering was occasioned, its subsequent enactment and eventual outcome. The results extend the understanding of unmediated communication accommodation in dyadic settings to mediated accommodation in group settings wherein a third (and sometimes a fourth) person brokers the accommodation. The resultant framework of brokered accommodation will be useful for research on other group conversations such as those involving a nurse brokering between a doctor and a patient.

Cultural stereotypes and social representations of elders from Chinese and European perspectives.

Hierarchical cluster analyses of a trait sorting task were used to investigate social representations (and cultural stereotypes) of elderly New Zealanders (NZers) of Chinese and European origin, held by young (mean age = 17) and middle-aged (mean age = 46) NZers from both ethnic groups. Consistent with cultural theories of aging in Chinese societies, organizational features for NZ Chinese were: evaluative simplicity, role-governed representations (e.g., division between socio-emotional and task-oriented elders), little differentiation as a consequence of the ethnicity of elders or age group of subject, and an overall structure dominated by good/bad. NZ Europeans' social representations were more evaluatively complex, had fewer subtypes and more differences as a consequence of target person ethnicity. The Curmudgeon and the Nurturant were the most consensual stereotypes across the 8 cluster analyses (2 subject ethnicity x 2 target ethnicity x 2 subject age group), with the most power to organize stereotypical perceptions of elders across cultural groups. Only the majority group, NZ Europeans, displayed out-group homogeneity effects by creating more categories of elderly Europeans than Chinese. Both ethnic groups held representations of elderly Europeans as higher status in society, and both had more contact with European than Chinese elders outside the family.

Intergenerational communication across cultures: young people's perceptions of conversations with family elders, non-family elders and same-age peers.

Young adults from three Western (Canada, U.S.A., and New Zealand) and three East Asian (The Philippines, South Korea and Japan) nations completed a questionnaire regarding their perceptions of interactions with family elders, non-family elders, and same-age peers. Results showed that East Asians perceived family elders to be as accommodating as same-age peers, whereas Westerners perceived family elders as more accommodating than their same-age peers. Participants in both cultural blocks indicated an obligation to be most deferential towards non-family elders, followed by family elders, followed by same-age peers. Whereas both groups perceived interactions with same-age peers more positively than with the two older groups, the Western group perceived the older age groups more positively than did East Asians. Intergenerational communication is reportedly be more problematic than intragenerational communication and, consistent with previous findings, this pattern is more evident in East Asian nations on some variables.