We examined whether undergraduates’ achievement goal orientations could be represented as profiles and whether profiles were linked to self-reported motivation, epistemic beliefs and academic achievement. Data collected during an undergraduate course were analyzed using a clustering technique. Using the 2 × 2 goal model (Elliot & McGregor, 2001), we identified five achievement goal profiles. Our findings suggest the interaction of goal orientations supports varying interpretations of students’ motivation and learning beliefs. Although no statistically significant differences in achievement were found across clusters, a High-Approach-Low-Avoidance cluster displayed an adaptive profile that was most positive towards learning and self but least anxious about exams. In contrast, a Performance-Avoidance-Dominant cluster demonstrated a maladaptive pattern of lowest self-efficacy and task value, and higher anxiety. Further, High-Approach-Low-Avoidance and Low-Performance-Avoidance clusters recognized that knowledge is not simple and authority could be questioned, compared to the other groups.

This study applied a bifactor approach to investigate the structures and simultaneously compare the psychometric properties of three popular self-report internet addiction (IA) instruments. A bifactor confirmatory factor analysis was used to address the structures of the three scales, while the bifactor multidimensional item response model was employed to compare the psychometric properties of the three scales. Results of bifactor confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) showed that the bifactor structures were suitable for the three scales. These corresponding bifactor structures were used in the subsequent bifactor multidimensional item response theory (MIRT) analysis. Results of the bifactor MIRT showed that: three instruments of IA performed well as a whole; the Generalised Problematic Internet Use Scale (GPIUS) and Internet Addiction Test (IAT) provided more test information and had less standard error of measurement, which ranged from −3 to −1 standard deviations of theta or IA severity; the Game Addiction Scale (GAS) performed better than the other two scales in that it can provide more test information in the large area of IA severity (from −1 to +3 SDs). These suggest that the GPIUS and IAT may be the best choice for epidemiological IA studies and for measuring those with lower IA severity. Meanwhile, the GAS may be a good choice when we recruit those with various levels of IA severity.

Discounting rate refers to people’s tendency to reduce the rate of subjective value from delayed benefit over time. The current study investigates the relationship among belief in a just world (BJW), sense of control, and discounting rate, especially the mediating effect of sense of control between BJW and discounting rate. The study recruited 412 undergraduates to complete a BJW scale, Sense of Control scale, and the Monetary Choice Questionnaire. The results show that (1) BJW positively predicted sense of control, (2) BJW and sense of control were negatively correlated with discounting rate, and (3) sense of control completely mediated the associations between BJW and discounting rate. These findings extend those of prior studies and indicate that a sense of control underlies the association between BJW and discounting rate.

Sophisticated medical technologies can prolong a stroke patient’s life but not always their quality of life (QoL) due to poor functional outcomes. Social support can theoretically assist a patient’s adaptation to life after stroke and improve their QoL, but existing findings are inconclusive. This inconclusiveness is especially found in large cities where family and social bonding can be scarce. We conducted a hospital-based, cross-sectional study among 358 stroke patients to identify the effects of social support and functional outcome on QoL and its domains. The study took place in Bangkok, Thailand between July and December 2016. Data were collected by personal interview using a structured questionnaire that included the Short-Form WHO Quality of Life Instrument (WHOQOL-BREF) and by review of medical records. A hierarchical linear regression method was used to analyze data. The mean age of stroke respondents was 66.0 years (SD 13.5 years), and half were male. The mean total QoL score for patients was 68.6 (SD 15.2). Hierarchical multiple regression analysis found emotional support significantly impacted QoL in every domain (ps < .05) when all included variables were controlled for. To improve the quality of life among stroke survivors, health personnel and family members should provide not only physical assistance but also psychological support.

Expressive writing can enhance cognitive processing and improve stress regulation. Particularly, the use of cognitive words (i.e., insightful and causal words) in writing may be associated with the process of meaning making and promotion of post-traumatic growth (PTG). The aim of the present study was to determine how expressive writing and the use of causal and insightful cognitive words influenced meaning making and PTG during writing. In total, 52 traumatized university students were recruited and randomly assigned to one of two writing conditions involving either an expressive writing task or a neutral writing task. The results showed that participants who engaged in expressive (vs. neutral) writing showed higher scores on the presence of meaning and PTG in the post-writing, self-report questionnaires. Moreover, writing task (expressive or neutral) and frequency of causal and insightful cognitive words were both significant predictors of meaning, which in turn led to high levels of PTG. In conclusion, the use of causal and insightful words might be a fundamental cognitive process for developing meaning in writing, which is essential for our further understanding of meaning making and PTG.

This article aimed at developing an adaptive version of the subjective well-being (SWB) scale to measure a comprehensive concept of SWB among Chinese university students. Item response theory was employed to formulate the item bank of the SWB scale and computerized adaptive testing (CAT) for SWB (CAT-SWB), based on several commonly used SWB scales, after unidimensionality testing, model selection, local dependence testing, parameter estimation, item fit test and differential item functioning (DIF) analysis were performed. Finally, two CAT simulations using simulated-data and real-data were carried out to verify and evaluate the CAT-SWB. Results indicated that the proposed CAT-SWB had an excellent performance in that it largely reduces the number of test items and the length of test time without losing measurement precision.

Research suggests people try to protect their social self-esteem from threats from the ingroup or the outgroup. However, how members react to a threat to social self-esteem from a third party remains unclear. Three studies were conducted to examine the influence of a threat to social self-esteem from an authoritative third party on ingroup favoritism. We explored the effect of negative (versus positive) evaluation from the testing system on explicit and implicit ingroup favoritism in Study 1 and Study 2 respectively. We compared the effect of negative evaluation posed by the testing system or the competitive outgroup on ingroup favoritism in Study 3. Results suggested that individuals experiencing a threat to social self-esteem from an authoritative third party manifested less ingroup favoritism than those experiencing no threat or outgroup threat. The theoretical implications of this research on social identity theory and the practical implications of reducing intergroup bias are discussed.

The 16-item Filial Piety Scale (FPS) has been used in different cultural groups to measure individuals’ loyalty to their family and traditions. Nevertheless, the language could be a barrier for Malay-speaking populations to fully comprehend the items. Thus, the present study translated the FPS into the Malay language (FPS-M) and examined psychometric qualities of the scale in a sample of 621 secondary school students in Malaysia, which was randomly split into an exploration sample and a validation sample. Traditional confirmatory factor analysis and exploratory structural equation modeling were applied to the exploration sample to identify the best-fit model. Results indicated that the hypothetical two-correlated-factor model was superior to the single-factor model. The model was then verified using the validation sample. The FPS-M reported good internal consistency and positive correlation with self-reported life satisfaction. However, the measurement invariance test revealed that the factor structure of the FPS-M was not equivalent across gender groups. In contrast, the factor loadings, but not intercepts, were found equivalent across the Chinese and Indian students. Overall, the results support that the FPS-M is a useful tool for measuring filial piety attitude in Malaysian adolescents. More studies are needed to identify cultural differences and modify the items to ensure that the FPS-M is applicable for all ethnicity groups.

Part of a larger research project aimed at performing the meta-theoretical analysis of the worldwide literature published on social representations theory (SRT), this article explores the state of art of the theory in the geocultural context of Asia, spatially and temporally, as well as from a conceptual, disciplinary, theoretical, empirical and thematic point of view. The Grid for MetaTheoretical Analysis was used on 194 sources, extracted from the So.Re.Com “A.S. de Rosa”@-library. Multi-step strategies of data analyses offer a diversified picture of findings: (a) descriptive statistics and geomapping with Tableau Desktop the bibliometric impact country by country; (b) structural multidimensional view of significant intersections between “meta-data” performing hierarchical clustering on the top of the multiple correspondence analysis. The three clusters detected reveal a shift from a more generic and applied tradition of research on SRT in 2002–2011 to a more theoretically oriented empirical research trend starting from 2011, identifying the scientific production anchored into different Asian regions (Indonesia, China and Israel) and mainly differentiated by the methodology employed. Results revealed that SRT was adopted due to its epistemological and empirical compatibilities with the purpose of creating an original Asian social psychology, interested in indigenous social phenomena specific to cultural backgrounds.

Choices between options represented in a multidimensional space, in which each dimension signifies a distinct attribute describing the objects, are presumably guided by the principle of value maximization. However, the current study assumes that in a real-world setting, those who are able to imagine things that do not actually exist could modify the multidimensional space by self-generating an unoffered but fictional dimension. We define the utility (Uv) assigned by the decision makers to the options on the offered/given dimension as value (v[x]) and the utility (Uw) on the self-generated/fictional dimension as worth (w[xc]). Our series of experiments demonstrated that an option with a greater value established strictly on that given set of dimensions might not necessarily be chosen (which contradicted the principle of value maximization). Choosing an option with less value (i.e. giving away the bigger pear) behavior can be described and explained by the “worth-based choice” approach, as people behave to select the option with the highest worth rather than that with the highest value. We are optimistic that the resulting findings will facilitate our understanding of the beauty of such a “one step further” choice and assist us in understanding the following: the ability to further generate a fictional dimension and to assign a delayed utility (worth) to the options on the fictional dimension, and to make a worth-based choice, which could eventually be taken as the operational definition to measure the degree of “fiction-generating ability”, as proposed by Harari (2014).

This special thematic section is the first in a series of special sections that the Asian Association of Social Psychology (AASP) is developing for the Journal of Pacific Rim Psychology. Over the last four years, the AASP has guest edited one special issue each year on applied social psychology research in the journal in an attempt to encourage Asian social psychologists to engage in research that address real world problems in Asian societies. The special issues have featured a variety of research approaches (action research, program development, experiments, and so on) on a range of important social concerns (see Bernardo & Liu, 2018, for a retrospective view of these special issues). As part of its continuing cooperative relationship with the journal, every year for the next five years, the AASP will guest edit smaller special thematic issues, each with a more well-defined focus, in the hope of making stronger incremental contributions to research and theory on important areas of social psychology.

Indonesia has seen recent expansions of fundamentalist movements mobilising members in support a change to the current constitution. Against this background, two studies were conducted. In Study 1, we explored the intersection of religious and national identity among Indonesian Muslims quantitatively, and in Study 2, we qualitatively examined religious and national identification among members of moderate and fundamentalist religious organisations. Specifically, Study 1 (N = 178) assessed whether the association of religious and national identity was moderated by religious fundamentalism. Results showed that strength of religious identification was positively associated with strength of national identification for both those high and low in fundamentalism. Using structured interviews and focus group discussions, Study 2 (N = 35) examined the way that self-alignment with religious and national groups develops among activists of religious movements in Indonesia. We found that while more fundamentalist activists attached greater importance to their religious identity than to any other identity (e.g., national and ethnic), more moderate activists represented their religious and national identities as more integrated and compatible. We conclude that for Indonesian Muslims higher in religious fundamentalism, religious and national identities appear to be less integrated and this is consequential for the way in which collective agendas are pursued.

This research examines the anger and collective action intentions among different social classes in China. Based on social cognition theory with respect to social class, we proposed that the relationship between group-based anger and collective action intentions would be moderated by social class. To test this hypothesis, two studies were conducted. First, using data collected from a sample of 100 residents of Hubei Province, China, Study 1 found that the relationship between group-based anger and collective action intentions was moderated by social class: group-based anger can predict collective action intentions among the upper social class but not among the lower social class. Then, Study 2 employed a 2 × 2 completely randomised design. Its 118 participants were manipulated to experience a momentary change in their subjective social class and the level of their group-based anger before measuring their collective action intentions. The results were consistent with Study 1. Taken together, the findings suggest that social class does moderate the relationship between group-based anger and collective action intentions.

Men have an important role as allies in reducing discrimination against women. Following the Social Identity Model of Collective Action (SIMCA), we examined whether men's identification with women would predict their allied collective action, alongside moral convictions, efficacy, and anger. We also examined whether identification with their own ingroup would decrease their willingness to improve women's situation. We tested the SIMCA, extended to consider ingroup identification among men, in Japan (N = 103) and the Philippines (N = 131). Consistent with the SIMCA, moral convictions and group efficacy predicted men's willingness to engage in collective action to fight discrimination against women. However, anger was not significant, and identification with the advantaged and disadvantaged groups played different roles in the two countries. We discuss the possible role of norms and legitimacy in society in explaining the pattern of results.

I review the interesting contributions to this special thematic section in light of what has been referred to as the four core motivations for collective action (i.e. moral conviction, and group identification, anger and efficacy beliefs). Specifically, I relate the key findings and insights from these articles — based on intriguing data from participant samples in the Philippines, Japan, Indonesia and China — to these core motivations for collective action, after which I raise the question of just how “core” these motivations are, with an eye to an abundance of cultural variance. I answer this question by suggesting a number of conceptual bridges to move the field forward toward a proper cultural psychology of collective action. Such a cultural psychology, in my view, does justice not only to the notion of core motivations for collective action but also to the abundance of cultural variance. Specifically, I suggest to think about culture in terms of guiding when collective action is more or less likely to occur, within which the core motivations reflect the psychological processes that facilitate it.

The aim of the study was to examine racism and the Pinkerton syndrome in Singapore. Specifically, the study examined the effects of race on hiring decisions in a simulated hiring decision task. Participants were 171 (61% males) Singaporean Chinese undergraduates from a private university in Singapore. They were randomly assigned into one of nine groups and asked to review a resume of a job applicant. The study used a 3 (Academic qualifications: strong, moderate, or weak) × 3 (Race: White, Chinese, or Malay) between-subjects design with perceived warmth, competence, applicant suitability and recommended salary as the dependent variables. The results showed that while Chinese participants discriminated against Malay applicants (racism), they discriminated in favor of White applicants (the Pinkerton syndrome). The results provided a potential explanation to the economic disparities between Malays and the other races, and first experimental evidence for racism and the Pinkerton syndrome in Singapore.

The aim of this article is to examine the causal relationship between inclusive leadership and employees’ organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) of Vietnam service workers. This article also examines the mediating roles of organizational justice and organizational learning culture in this causal relationship. We collected data via a questionnaire survey of a sample of 268 employees from four service firms in Vietnam. The results showed that inclusive leadership is positively related to OCB. Moreover, both organizational justice and organizational learning culture played partial mediating roles in the inclusive leadership–OCB relationship. The findings advance the literature on leadership by studying an underexplored type of leadership in relation to employee OCB. They also extend our knowledge of organizational justice and learning culture by specifying these as mediators in the mechanisms of employee inclusive leadership–OCB relations. The article thus adds to a body of work in which OCB is connected with leaders’ behavior and organizational level predictors.

A company’s emphasis on corporate social responsibility (CSR) signals its concern with benefits for society, whereas a company’s emphasis on corporate ability (CA) signals its expertise in delivering good quality products. Product-harm crises often put companies at serious risk. Would a company’s prior emphasis on CSR versus CA mitigate the potential reputation damage of a product-harm crisis? In an experiment, we found that when a product-harm crisis occurred, having a CSR focus softened the public’s negative evaluation of the focal company, but this protective function of CSR was found only among people who had the lay theory that CSR and CA are compatible. The joint effect of CSR focus and the lay theory was mediated by the tendency to exonerate the focal company for the causal responsibility of the crisis.

The main aim of this study was to explore the mediating role of learning engagement on the relationship between social networking site (SNS) addiction and academic achievement among 406 university students. The Social Networking Site Addiction Scale, Utrecht Work Engagement Scale for Students, and Chinese Students Academic Achievement Scale were used to evaluate students’ SNS addiction, learning engagement, and academic achievement. Correlation analysis indicated that SNS addiction, learning engagement, and academic achievement were significantly correlated with each other. The causal steps regression and bootstrap analysis show that learning engagement mediated the relationship between SNS addiction and academic achievement. Implications for research and instructions for how to improve university students’ academic achievement are discussed.

The status-legitimacy hypothesis proposes that low-status groups are more inclined to justify the status quo as fair and legitimate than high-status groups. Although there are some research evidences for this hypothesis, many studies have found the opposite result, that disadvantaged groups are more dissatisfied with the social system. To resolve this disagreement, this article integrates relevant ideas and empirical research in three aspects. First, the conceptual approach emphasises that the controversy is a result of different operational definitions of social status and system justification in previous studies. The second approach, focusing on moderator variables, proposes that the disputes over past studies are probably due to moderator variables, which can influence the relationship between status and system justification. The third approach, based on psychological mechanisms, proposes that system justification theory cannot completely explain the psychological underpinnings of status differences in system justification, and in order to clarify this, it is necessary to explore other psychological processes. Future studies should continue to examine the mediation mechanisms and boundary conditions of the status-legitimacy hypothesis and may try to establish a nonlinear hypothesis. Moreover, researchers should also pay attention to the application of experimental methods and big-data methods.