Publications by authors named "Virginia Kwan"

Psychologists and philosophers have argued that a consistent self-concept is essential for mental health and well-being. Differences in individuals' backgrounds-specifically, their financial resources-may be instrumental to understanding these relationships. This research: (1) tested the continuity of self-perceptions, (2) investigated if perceptions of the past and future self predicted depression and well-being, and (3) explored whether continuity and its relationship to psychological outcomes varied across SES.

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Social media were designed to connect people and support interpersonal relationships. However, whether social media use is linked to the connection between the self and others is unknown. The present research reviewed findings across psychology to address whether social media use is linked to defining and expressing the self as connected to others (i.

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This research followed students over their first 2 years of college. During this time, many students lose sight of their goals, leading to poor academic performance and leaving STEM and business majors. This research was the first to examine longitudinal changes in future vividness, how those changes impact academic success, and identify sex differences in those relationships.

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  • * The study looked at how people see and connect with their future selves, focusing on three main parts: how similar they feel to their future self, how vividly they can imagine that self, and their feelings towards their future self.
  • * Researchers tested their ideas with college students and found that the three parts of future self-identification are related but separate, and each part impacts different areas like self-esteem, imagination, self-control, and school performance.
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Background: Identification of molecular markers for early detection or prediction of metastasis is crucial for both management of HCC patient postoperative treatment and identify new therapeutic targets to inhibit HCC progression and metastasis. In the current study, we investigated the clinical correlation between Pin1, RhoA and RhoC and their association with HCC metastasis.

Methods: Using a randomized study design of primary HCC samples from 139 patients, we determined messenger RNA expression of Pin1, RhoA and RhoC and their prognostic value.

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Background: It is essential to understand the mechanisms responsible for hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) progression and chemoresistance in order to identify prognostic biomarkers as well as potential therapeutic avenues. Recent findings have shown that SLIT3 appears to function as a novel tumor suppressor gene in various types of cancers, yet its clinical correlation and role in HCC has not been understood clearly.

Methods: We determined the transcript levels of Slit3 in tumor and adjacent normal tissues within two cohorts (N = 40 and 25) of HCC patients, and correlated the gene expression with the clinicopathological data.

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As technology's presence grows increasingly concrete in global societies, so too do our relationships with the devices we keep close at hand from day to day. Whereas research has, in the past, framed smartphone addiction in terms of possessional attachment, the present research hypothesizes that anxious smartphone attachment stems from human attachment, in which Anxiously attached individuals may be more likely to generalize their anxious attachment style to communication devices. In the present study, we found support for this hypothesis and showed that anxious smartphone attachment predicts (1) anthropomorphic beliefs, (2) reliance on-or "clinginess" toward-smartphones, and (3) a seemingly compulsive urge to answer one's phone, even in dangerous situations (e.

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The current study examines hacktivism (i.e., hacking to convey a moral, ethical, or social justice message) through a general game theoretic framework-that is, as a product of costs and benefits.

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  • This special issue talks about how groups of people can affect each other's health and well-being.
  • It includes eight research papers that explore why some groups have worse health and how this can change.
  • The goal is to encourage more researchers to think about ways to help improve health for everyone, especially those who face unfair challenges.
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This research examined the function of future self-continuity and its potential downstream consequences for academic performance through relations with other temporal psychological factors and self-control. We also addressed the influence of cultural factors by testing whether these relations differed by college generation status. Undergraduate students enrolled at a large public university participated in two studies (Study 1: N = 119, M  = 20.

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The issue of Americans' levels of narcissism is subject to lively debate. The focus of the present research is on the perception of national character (PNC) of Americans as a group. In Study 1, American adults (N = 100) rated Americans as significantly more narcissistic than they perceived themselves and acquaintances.

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While expert groups often make recommendations on a range of non-controversial as well as controversial issues, little is known about how the level of expert consensus-the level of expert agreement-influences perceptions of the recommendations. This research illustrates that for non-controversial issues expert groups that exhibit high levels of agreement are more persuasive than expert groups that exhibit low levels of agreement. This effect is mediated by the perceived entitativity-the perceived cohesiveness or unification of the group-of the expert group.

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  • The studies looked at why Latino Americans think they are more at risk for diabetes than European Americans.
  • They found that Latino Americans had a higher sense of vulnerability to diabetes and that feeling connected to their culture affected how they view this risk.
  • The results can help improve health education and campaigns specifically aimed at different ethnic groups to better inform them about diabetes.
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People are quick to perceive meaningful patterns in the co-occurrence of events. We report two studies exploring the effects of streaks in symptom checklists on perceived personal disease risk. In the context of these studies, a streak is a sequence of consecutive items on a list that share the characteristic of being either general or specific.

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  • Cancer treatment can make some cancer cells stronger, which is like how animals adapt and evolve over time.
  • Researchers looked at a lot of papers (6,228!) about cancer treatment and found that only about 1% mention evolution since the 1980s.
  • Even though cancer resistance is linked to evolution, most studies don’t use this idea, which means there’s a big chance for scientists to learn more and improve treatments.
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  • Some people often say they know more than they really do, but scientists haven't studied much about why this happens in our brains.
  • Researchers used a method called TMS to target a specific part of the brain while people thought they were taking a test with real and made-up words.
  • After using TMS on the brain area called the MPFC, participants were less likely to claim they knew the fake words and acted more quickly, showing they didn’t think about their answers as much.
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  • The authors looked at how being around different cultures and symbols affects how European Americans make decisions.
  • They found that when European Americans were reminded of East Asian cultures, they expected more changes to happen compared to when they thought normally.
  • This influence was especially strong in predicting stocks and weather, especially if they knew more about East Asian culture or had spent time in other countries.
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  • The stereotype content model (SCM) looks at how people think about different groups in society and helps explain these thoughts in different cultures.
  • The study found that in many countries, people often see groups as having either high warmth or high competence, but not both at the same time.
  • It also discovered that in collectivist cultures (like some in East Asia), groups may not be viewed as positively as in individualist cultures (like most of Europe), meaning they judge out-groups more harshly without praising their own groups.
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Four studies implemented a componential approach to assessing self-enhancement and contrasted this approach with 2 earlier ones: social comparison (comparing self-ratings with ratings of others) and self-insight (comparing self-ratings with ratings by others). In Study 1, the authors varied the traits being rated to identify conditions that lead to more or less similarity between approaches. In Study 2, the authors examined the effects of acquaintance on the conditions identified in Study 1.

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Self-enhancement is the biasing of one's view of oneself in a positive direction. The brain correlates of self-enhancement remain unclear though it has been reported that the medial prefrontal cortex (MPFC) may be important for producing self-enhancing responses. Previous studies have not examined whether the neural correlates of self-enhancement depend on the particular domain in which individuals are enhancing themselves.

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Considerable research has focused on overly positive self-perceptions (self-enhancement), and yet little is known about the underlying neural mechanisms. The present study sought to assess the neural correlates of self-enhancement by applying Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS) to three brain regions. Twelve participants rated their best friend, as well as the self on a set of desirable or undesirable traits while TMS pulses were delivered in a virtual lesion manner.

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The Stereotype Content Model hypothesizes anti-Asian American stereotypes differentiating two dimensions: (excessive) competence and (deficient) sociability. The Scale of Anti-Asian American Stereotypes (SAAAS) shows this envious mixed prejudice in six studies. Study 1 began with 131 racial attitude items.

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  • A study looked at how MBA students work in diverse teams and how they understand each other.
  • When the students had a positive view of their teammates, having more diversity helped them see each person as unique.
  • On the other hand, if they felt neutral about their teammates, more diversity made them see everyone more the same. The study suggests that helping people feel unique can make the group work better together and be more creative!
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Two studies examined consistency and agreement in behavior ratings and causal attributions. In Study 1, participants (N = 280) engaged in a series of getting-acquainted conversations in one of 3 communication media (face-to-face, telephone, computer mediated); in Study 2, participants (N = 120) engaged in a competitive group task. In both studies, participants rated themselves and their interaction partners on a set of behaviors and then made attributions about the causes of those behaviors.

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  • Self-enhancement bias is when people think they are better than they actually are, and it's been studied in two main ways: comparing themselves to others and how others see them.
  • Researchers have found two different theories that explain this bias, which has caused some confusion and arguments in the past.
  • A new approach breaks down how people see themselves into three parts, helping to clarify the issue and showing that self-enhancement can be both good and bad depending on the situation.
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