Min Zhu

Are risk-takers more likely to engage in unethical behaviors? We examined the relationship between risk-taking propensity and cheating in two experimental studies. In Study 1, we examined the relationship between subjects’ risk-taking propensity and their actual self-serving dishonesty using a gambling-like task. The results suggested that risk-taking propensity, measured using a behavioral approach, was positively correlated with actual self-serving dishonest behavior. In Study 2, we measured participants’ performances using a matrices test and found that the positive correlation still held. We found that participants with high risk-taking propensity reported a lower perceived probability of being detected, which might drive their dishonest behavior.

Self-concept differentiation is a sign of fragmentation of the self rather than specialization of role identities for its robust relationship with psychological adjustment. However, little is known about the mechanisms underlying the relationship between SCD and psychological adjustment. The aim of this study was to examine the mediating role of self-consistency and congruence in the association between SCD and psychological adjustment, and the moderating role of age in the relationship between SCD and SCC. This moderated mediation model was examined among 158 Chinese retirees, who completed measurements regarding SCD, SCC, psychological well-being, anxiety, and depression. The results showed that SCC partially mediated the links between SCD and the indices of psychological adjustment. Furthermore, age moderated this mediation effect, which was found in mean and high-age participants, but not in low-age ones. Our findings indicate that, at different age stages, the internal mechanisms of SCD affecting psychological adaptation are not the same, and a low differentiated or highly integrated self can serve as an adaptive resource to maintain high subjective well-being of the elderly and protect them from anxiety and depression.

Halliday’s theory of grammatical metaphor has been quite influential among scholars who study structural approaches to language but has received little attention among researchers in cognitive linguistics. In this paper we summarize the aspects of Halliday’s approach that are most relevant to cognitive linguists, and show how key aspects of grammatical metaphor are related to the analysis of lexical and conceptual metaphors. Using an example of scientific writing analyzed by Halliday as well as examples from discourse previously subjected to conceptual metaphor analysis, we show how the two approaches might usefully be combined to yield new insights in the analysis of naturally occurring discourse