Ziqiang XinRenmin University of China | RUC · Department of Psychology
Ziqiang Xin
PhD, Professor
About
98
Publications
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Introduction
Dr. Ziqiang Xin is a professor of psychology now working in Renmin University of China. He has worked in Beijing Normal University (2002-2010) and Central University of Finance and Economics (2010-2021). He conducts research in social, economic and developmental psychology, e.g. trust, psychological changes, financial literacy and mathematical cognition. He has published more than 270 journal papers and 10 books in these areas.
https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9983-2322
Additional affiliations
May 2010 - May 2021
July 2002 - May 2010
Publications
Publications (98)
Financial well-being delineates the subjective feelings of individuals’ financial condition, which is a crucial part of their overall well-being. A growing number of studies have indicated that financial literacy is a determinant in successfully dealing with financial challenges, and then achieving individuals’ financial well-being. However, the no...
Objective
This study aimed to bridge the gap between occupational psychology and family psychology by exploring whether and how social connections in the workplace can lead to changes in family relations.
Background
Amid intensified competition, workplace ostracism has become prevalent. However, its negative impacts on children, a vulnerable group...
To examine the role of inequality in academic achievement, we analyse a cross-national dataset including data from three cycles from 2012 to 2018 from the PISA, an international assessment of 15-year-old students’ math, reading, and science performance. The Gini coefficient and gender inequality index (GII) were used as metrics for a country’s econ...
Moral disengagement refers to the cognitive tendency for an individual to break away from moral self-regulation. People who are morally disengaged often look for an excuse for their immoral behavior. Previous studies have mainly investigated the causes and consequences of moral disengagement at the individual level, whereas little attention has bee...
Previous research has found that business culture has a detrimental impact on interpersonal trust. To understand whether this impact extends to rapid, automatic, bottom–up judgments of facial trustworthiness, we conducted 4 experiments involving 244 participants from economic and non-economic backgrounds. We presented participants with both trustwo...
Life history theory assumes that people in harsh environments tend to choose a fast life history strategy and prefer present benefits. Although many studies have provided supporting evidence, few have provided causal inferences. The COVID-19 offered an opportunity to settle this problem. This study explores the causal relationship between COVID-19...
Financial literacy refers to the knowledge required for individuals to make financial decisions. When individuals’ subjective assessment of their financial literacy does not align with their actual level of financial knowledge (i.e., the discrepancy between subjective and objective financial literacy), it can result in a range of adverse decision-m...
Problem lottery gambling among lottery consumers has increased globally over the years, rendering it necessary to explore their financial literacy characteristics and to answer whether financial literacy inhibits problem lottery gambling. In the present research, a total of 316 Chinese lottery consumers, who constitute the culturally underrepresent...
Previous studies have mainly explored the impacts of social mindfulness on social behaviours (e.g., cooperation), little is known about crucial macro social environment factors that affect social mindfulness, like the market economy. With the development of the market economy, people typically acquire the self-centred and rational market mindset wh...
Background. In managing finances, people need to process various financial texts containing math (e.g., amount of money and mathematical concepts) and financial information (e.g., funds and bonds). Such information could trigger anxiety related to math and finance; however, previous literature has rarely investigated the prediction role of contextu...
In the past decades, China has experienced a process of marketization, but the levels of marketization in each province are imbalanced. The present research examines how provincial-level marketization predicts individual-level financial literacy in China by investigating a nationally representative sample with a set of standardized financial litera...
Previous research has shown that the locus of control among college students in the United States has become increasingly external. However, people's locus of control may not have the same change pattern in different cultural contexts. In this study, we investigated the changes of locus of control of Chinese college students by conducting two cross...
Studies have shown that debt pressure impairs people's subjective well‐being and social functioning, but few studies have examined its moral consequences. To explore the relationship between debt pressure and unethical behaviour intention, we conducted three studies and obtained aggregate‐level (Study 1) and individual‐level evidence (Studies 2 and...
Mental budgeting is a cognitive process that helps individuals control consumption expenditures. Previous literature has shown that mental budgeting is influenced by people's cognitive capabilities and emotions, which indicates a potential influence of thinking modes on mental budgeting. Under the view of lay rationalism, the present three studies...
Although it is well-known that money or income is related to happiness, little has been learned about the relationship between financial literacy and happiness. The present study used a new financial literacy measurement involving the index of homo economicus (the average of financial knowledge, financial capacity, and financial management values),...
Prior measures on rationality overlook the individual differences in the weight people place on social rationality versus individual rationality. The current research develops and validates an individual-collective dilemma task (ICDT) to distinguish different rationality types. It was translated from a reality that, at the beginning of the ongoing...
Prior studies have revealed that community identity promotes participation. However, it remains unclear whether heterogenous community identity profiles emerged and how they differed in coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19)-related community participation. Thus, the current study used a person-oriented approach to address these issues. A total of 1,0...
Precisely assessing the status and characteristics of Chinese citizens’ financial literacy is essential to design national economic policies and improve individual financial well-being. The assessment work must be based on a correct definition and operationalization of the construct. Since the beginning of economic research on financial literacy in...
Background:
The ongoing coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) outbreak has elicited concerns about public fear and economic fallout. The current study takes a person-oriented approach to identify the unique response patterns that underlie three risk perception components (likelihood, severity, and protection efficacy) of COVID-19, with information s...
Background
The influence of COVID-19 on mental health problems has received considerable attention. However, only a few studies have examined the relationship between exposure to COVID-19 and mental health problems, and no empirical study has tested the mechanisms between them.
Methods
We conducted a survey in 31 provinces of China during 3–13 Mar...
Two studies investigated the cross‐temporal and cross‐sectional associations between income inequality and interpersonal trust in China. In Study 1, a cross‐temporal meta‐analysis involving 141 studies (N = 64,853) found that Chinese college students’ scores on the Interpersonal Trust Scale (Rotter, 1967) decreased 0.54 SD from 1998 to 2016, and th...
The relationship between spatial and mathematical ability is controversial. Thus, the current study conducted a meta-analysis of 73 studies, with 263 effect sizes to explore the relationship between spatial and mathematical ability. Furthermore, we explored potential factors that moderate this relationship. Results showed that the relationship betw...
With the rapid growth of China's economy, work-family conflict (WFC) level of Chinese employees might have changed over time. The present research performed a cross-temporal meta-analysis of 71 papers using the Work-Family Conflict Scale (WFCS) from three Chinese academic databases and three databases in English to investigate changes in Chinese em...
In China, nursing is a profession with considerable stress, which may cause both physiological and psychological problems. The present study conducted a cross‐temporal meta‐analysis of 244 papers using the Symptom Checklist 90 (SCL‐90) to investigate the changes in the mental health level of Chinese nurses (N = 71,286) from 1998 to 2016. Results sh...
Individual risk preferences are one of the main concerns in the psychology of decision-making, and its difference is influenced both by individual factors and culture. Existing research mainly focuses on the cultural classification of collectivism-individualism to study the differences in individual risk preferences, ignoring the influence of mater...
The present study aimed to explore gender differences in, and the effects of, self-esteem on math anxiety. A total of 751 (450 young women) junior and senior high school students (12–18 years-old) from China were recruited and requested to report their math anxiety, self-esteem, control beliefs, test anxiety, and general anxiety. Results revealed t...
Previous research has found negative effects of “market” as a global concept on trust. The current research differentiated the effects of two market attributes on trust. Study 1 found a negative effect of market priming on interpersonal trust. Study 2 manipulated the representations of the two market attributes by rendering either impetus or rule a...
During the process of marketization in China, we have to face a clear fact that interpersonal trust has been declining year after year. Although previous literature has repeatedly revealed the positive effect of trust on economic development, it seldom concerned the role of market economy development in trust changing. By integrating recent micro a...
Objectives: This study aimed to explore whether experimentally induced younger subjective age can lead to better memory performance among Chinese older adults.
Method: A total of 203 participants aged 60–84 years were randomly assigned to three groups. In the positive and neutral feedback groups, participants were told that their memory performance...
Although many studies have focused on how trustees’ particular or single social identity affects their trustworthiness, only one study has revealed that trustees with multiple social identities are judged as more trustworthy than those with a single identity. However, the study could not show how trustworthiness systematically changes with an incre...
Two studies investigate the relationship between self-construal (SC), community identity, and community participation among Chinese urban residents. Study 1 (n = 261) measured SC, community identity, and community participation behavior. Using cluster analysis, 4 distinct subgroups emerged: those with (a) independent SC, (b) interdependent SC, (c)...
We conducted three studies to explore how trust is perceived, displayed or changed by participants in China, which as a country has undergone substantial cultural and historical transition. Traditionality showed a significant positive correlation with identification-based trust (IBT) and modernity was significantly associated with calculus-based tr...
Although previous literature has revealed the predictive effect of trust on economic development, whether the level of China’s market economy development predicts changes in trust across birth cohorts remains unknown. Study 1, a cross-temporal meta-analysis of 82 studies (N = 34,151), indicated that Chinese college students’ scores on the Interpers...
Prior research has shown that people place more trust in a counterpart referred to as “partner” than as “opponent” in a bargaining game. This is thought to be because the appellations “partner” or “opponent” serve as subtle cues activating a postulated friend-or-foe (FOF) mental module. However, no research has investigated the association between...
Recent studies have highlighted the fact that some tasks used to study symbolic number representations are confounded by judgments about physical similarity. Here, we investigated whether the contribution of physical similarity and numerical representation differed in the often-used symbolic same-different, numerical comparison, physical comparison...
Recent studies have highlighted the fact that some tasks used to study symbolic number representations are confounded by judgments about physical similarity. Here, we investigated whether the contribution of physical similarity and numerical representation differed in the often used symbolic same-different, numerical comparison, physical comparison...
The current study examined how time pressure and community identity affected urban residents' in-group emergency helping intention with a sample of 88 Chinese urban residents from a common community. Firstly, we instructed participants to fill out the Community Identity Scale. Following this, we set a hypothesized scenario, in which they met a fain...
Prosocial behavior refers to a broad category of actions that benefit other people or the society. Compared with other factors that affect prosocial performance, prosocial outcomes, consisting of prosocial gains and prosocial non-losses have received less attention up to now. In the current research, we explored the influences of different types of...
With the dramatic recent changes in Chinese society, Chinese college students’ average levels of loneliness and social support might also have changed across their birth cohorts. The present cross-temporal meta-analysis of 56 studies (N = 21,541) found that Chinese college students’ scores on the UCLA Loneliness Scale (Version 3) increased graduall...
In anonymous game tasks, individuals’ prosocial behaviour was shown to increase when those individuals were provided with social cues from a third party or bystander. It has been suggested that those social cues can be presented using a configuration suggestive of a face with ‘watching eyes’. This led us to question whether it was possible to provi...
Although previous literature has revealed the effect of a single social identity
on trust, only few studies have examined howmultiple social identities affect
trust in others. The present research examined the effects of trustors’ social
identity complexity on their level of trust toward another person (interpersonal
trust), outgroup members (outgr...
The current study examined how time pressure and community identity affected urban residents' in-group emergency helping intention with a sample of 88 Chinese urban residents from a common community. Firstly, we instructed participants to fill out the Community Identity Scale. Following this, we set a hypothesized scenario, in which they met a fain...
Based on the controversial results between online identity experiment and self-identity, this study constructed a moderated model and a mediation model to examine whether the relationship between online identity experiment and self-identity was moderated by the online social tendency and was mediated by the compulsive internet
use. Online Identity...
With regard to the concept of fractions being difficult for children, we plan to draw some inspirations from previous literature so as to provide feasible suggestions for future instructional practice and research. Therefore, in the chapter we address the following questions: (1) Chinese children’s understanding of fractions, and (2) their typical...
The present cross-temporal meta-analysis involving 68 studies (n = 35,499) found that Chinese adolescents' scores on the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale decreased substantially from 1996 to 2009. The decline of self-esteem across birth cohorts was associated with the slide of social connection level of Chinese adolescents. Correlations between self-est...
Which family had a child that was accepted at a key university? To investigate the relationship between family background and children obtaining higher education opportunities and developing trends, the authors analyze survey data from 2007 to 2012 at a key university in Beijing. The results show there is a clear trend of enlargement of the predict...
Cross-temporal meta-analysis is a newly developed but extensively applied method of quantitative literature review. This approach sorts a series of previous studies which are independent with each other but refer to the same issues in a chronological order, thus the hidden changing patterns of target variables
could be observed. This method has now...
On the basis of the findings of 227 surveys of Chinese fertility intentions over the years 1980-2011, this paper investigates the longitudinal changes in fertility intentions through cross-temporal meta-analysis. It is found that the ideal number of children for the Chinese trended downwards from 1980, but since 2000 the average number has remained...
Several studies have indicated that between-group competition is a key stimulator of trust and trustworthiness. Another important but neglected type of competition may also affect trust and trustworthiness: within-group competition, especially competition among acquaintances. The present study investigated the effects of both within- and between gr...
Negativity bias means that negative information is usually given more emphasis than comparable positive information. Under signal detection theory, recent research found that people more frequently and incorrectly identify negative task-related words as having been presented originally than positive words, even when they were not presented. That is...
Numerical understanding and arithmetic skills are easier to acquire for whole numbers than fractions. The integrated theory of numerical development posits that, in addition to these differences, whole numbers and fractions also have important commonalities. In both, students need to learn how to interpret number symbols in terms of the magnitudes...
As a foundational concept in economics, the homo economicus assumption regards humans as rational and self-interested actors. In contrast, trust requires individuals to believe partners' benevolence and unselfishness. Thus, the homo economicus belief may inhibit trust. The present three experiments demonstrated that the direct exposure to homo econ...
Researchers debate whether one represents the magnitude of a fraction according
to its real numerical value or just the discrete numerosity of its numerator or
denominator. The present study examined three effects based on the notion that
people possess a mental number line to explore how children represent fractions
when they compare fractions wit...
Development of class reasoning was investigated using configural frequency analysis (CFA). We administered class inclusion, vicariant inclusion, and law of duality tasks to a sample of 540 Chinese second through fifth graders. In each task, children were asked to compare two classes and make a choice from four alternative answers while the number o...
Research in both China and foreign countries used to neglect students with high math test proficiency.The existing study shows that these students have advantages in the cognitive process (e.g.the processing speed, the working memory, problem representation and meta-cognition)and knowledge structure.Moreover,
non-cognitive factors such as intrinsic...
In the games of trust, if the two agents are groups rather than individuals as usual, do they behave differently? The differentiation between interpersonal trust and intergroup trust remains one of the research focuses in the past two decades.Most previous studies have shown that intergroup trust significantly lowers than interpersonal trust by usi...
There are various controversies over the measurement of cognitive complexity and few studies concerning its development in adolescents, especially in China. Based on a sample of 234 Chinese adolescents from Grades 7 through 11, the present study first compared 2 instruments and 12 corresponding indices of cognitive complexity—11 traditional and new...
The purpose of the study was to explore how the size and composition of a trust circle discriminate in both positive and negative personal/social information-domains in Canada and China. A total of 202 Canadians (102) and Chinese (100, living in China) participated in the study. A set of self-developed questionnaires was used in the survey. The res...
Routines is programmed behavior or strategy that gets formed while solving the same problems repeatedly,
which can be investigated from individual and group perspectives. In the field of psychology, research for routines
originated from the studies of einstellung (mental set) and implicit learning. Under the promotion of contemporary
cognitive psyc...
The purpose of the present study was to investigate fifth to eighth grade Chinese students' understanding of the concept of fractions. One hundred and ninety nine students were tested using a questionnaire that required them to make judgments about fraction size and to order a set of given fractions. The participants were also asked to justify thei...