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

Behavior Awareness Scale were given to each participant to complete. Preliminary findings show
that this group of African Americans are functioning at a slighly optimal level, and are more
internal than external. Other findings will be discussed related to age, income, education, marital
status, religion, and gender.
3106.2 Testing the sex facilitation hypothesis: Does sex of audience really influence task
performance? Zhaoxu Li 1 , Lei Mo 2 , Wenlu Feng 3 , 1 Department of Psychology, East China
Normal University, China, 2 Department of Psychology, South China Normal University, China,
3
School of Business, Centennial College, Ontario, Canada
The Sex Facilitation Hypothesis (Jin & Zhang, 1995) indicates an opposite-sex person has more
facilitation effect than a same-sex one. Two experiments were conducted. In one study, students
were employed to have a BAH examination under 4 conditions. Results indicate presence of an
attractive opposite-sex audience can facilitate a male's task performance, while presence of the
unattractive can impair his performance. In the two-hand coordination experiment, male
self-monitors' performance were facilitated and female self-monitors' were impaired in the
presence of opposite-sex audience, while low self-monitors showed no audience effect.
Self-monitoring of Ss plays a moderating role in sex facilitation effect.
3106.3 To have or to be: Quality of life as a new social representation in transitional China, Li
Liu, School of Psychology, Beijing Normal University, China
This research re-conceptualises quality of life as a system of symbols and meanings dialogically
bound up with the context which it emerges and circulates. The data were collected from
interviews, focus groups and mass media. The research shows that quality of life as a social
representation in China is organized around a central thema of “having”/”being”. This thema has
overarching generative and normative power over discourses about quality of life. It is through the
hybrid of “economic logic” and “existential logic” that this thema spills over, permeates and
underpins the critical domains of life: health, family, work, social relations, environment.
3106.4 Labor unions, authoritarianism and respect for democratic civility, Ian Grant Hansen,
Peter Suedfeld, Takeshi Hamamura, University of British Columbia, Canada
The study examined the relationship between Right Wing Authoritarianism (RWA) (Altemeyer
1996), support for labor unions, and support for democratic civility over group cohesiveness. A
questionnaire asked undergraduates affected by a university strike to indicate their support for
unions in general as well as for the striking university unions. Preference for democratic civility
over group cohesiveness correlated positively with support for unions in general and negatively
with RWA. However, specific support for the university unions was orthogonal to all measures.
Implications for the ideological scope of RWA and the political psychology of union support are
discussed.
3106.5 The relationship between emotional suppression and mental health among adolescents,
Pooja Sawrikar, Caroline Hunt, University of Sydney, Australia
Suppression is conceptualized as a coping strategy composed of two relatively independent factors:
behavioural and cognitive. The first study reports the development of a scale which assesses these
factors. The second study investigated the relationship between suppression and mental health
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