28th International Congress of Psychology August 8 ... - U-netSURF

performance of 57 pregnant and 50 matched non-pregnant women on a cognitive test battery at
weeks 14, 17, 29, and 36 of pregnancy and at 32 weeks postpartum. Early pregnancy (week 14)
was characterized by impairments in all memory functions measured, while none of the speed
functions were affected. During the second and third trimesters of pregnancy (weeks 17-36)
encoding and semantic memory remained worse in the pregnant group than in the control group.
Unexpectedly "early motherhood" was characterized by worse performance on tasks of speed of
information processing.
5119.2 Consumption value and behavior of freshman, Yijie Guan 1 , Yong Wang 2 , 1 School of
Psychology, Beijing Normal University, China, 2 Institute of Psychology, Chinese Academy of
Sciences, China
Young adult’s consumption value is broadly concerned in China. Parents are worrying about their
children’s squandering in universities. This survey study investigated 330 freshmen’s consumption
value, including their quality and price awareness, coupon proneness, sale proneness, price-quality
schema, prestige sensitivity, impulsive purchase, and their actual consuming behavior. More than
95% of them get family financial support and less than one fourth get school financial aid
meanwhile. However, only one third or even less of them got detailed instructions about
consumption from their parents. And, about half of these fresh undergraduates are also lack of
control on their own consumption.
5119.3 Sending memorable health messages to the old: Preference, memory and persuasiveness
of emotionally meaningful health messages among young and old adults, Boby Ho-hong Ching,
Helene Hoi-lam Fung, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, China
Socioemotional selectivity theory postulates that emotionally-meaningful goals gain in importance
for older adults as they perceive time as increasingly limited. Because goals affect cognition and
behaviors, this study investigated the influence of health messages emphasizing different goals on
adults’ memory and preference of the messages. Younger (N=112) and older adults (N=104) (age
range 18-86) were randomly assigned to read pamphlets with identical factual information
emphasizing different goals. Findings showed that emotionally-meaningful health messages, but
not for knowledge-related and neutral messages, were more persuasive, evaluated more positively
and better remembered by older adults, whereas younger adults did not show this bias.
5119.4 The dance of Life: A non-linear theory of adult development, T.L. Brink, Crafton Hills
College, USA
Erikson's lock-step developmental model may fit the first third of life, but fails to comprehend the
complexities of modern adult development. An optimal theory of adult development must account
for cultural differences, cohort variations, individual idiosyncracies, and free will. Adult
development should focus on individual decisions made about social roles which may be
overlapping, competing, and inconsistent. The clinical relevance of this is the identification of
points in life in which the individual is at maximum susceptibility to mental disorders, due to rapid
role transition, role overload, and role underload.
5119.5 Personality change for the life span, Jianhua Zhu, University of Pittsburgh, China
Does personality change or does it remain stable over the lifetime? The answer depends on how
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