Experimental Social Psychology · Organizations & Behavior

Bole Xuan

Master's Student in Basic Psychology | Minnan Normal University

I study how people interpret and respond to goal setbacks, social norms, and organizational layoffs. My work examines how social cues, individual motivation, and cognitive appraisal influence attitudes and behavior.

  • Experimental Social Psychology
  • Organizations & Behavior
  • Motivation & Goal Pursuit
  • Moral Behavior
Academic portrait of Bole Xuan
Bole Xuan · Basic Psychology

Core Question

When circumstances change how people pursue their goals, how do they interpret the situation and adjust their actions?

Goal commitment after reassignment, rule compliance under moral reminders, and employee responses to AI-driven layoffs.

Research

Research Program

Across these projects, I examine how motivation and cognitive appraisal influence judgment, attitudes, and behavior when people encounter social norms, setbacks, constrained choices, or organizational change.

01

Setbacks, Persuasion & Goal Pursuit

Under Review

When an original goal can no longer be pursued, how do people recommit to an alternative goal they did not initially choose?

This work compares self-persuasion with other-persuasion to examine how people rebuild goal commitment, confidence, and sustained effort after reassignment-related setbacks.

Research Design & Current Focus

  • Three preregistered experiments
  • Student-organization role reassignment scenario
  • Hamlet theater-role reassignment scenario
  • Behavioral measures using the Charging Task and Slider Task

Research Logic

  1. Reassignment-related setback
  2. Self-persuasion
  3. Endorsement of self-generated reasons
  4. Confidence and hope
  5. Goal commitment and sustained effort

Three preregistered experiments; the manuscript is under review.

View the preregistration and materials on OSF

02

Social Norms & Moral Decision-Making

In Preparation

Why does the same moral reminder affect people differently?

This research examines how moral-rule primes and achievement-motivation orientations jointly influence cheating and rule compliance.

Research Design & Current Focus

  • 2 × 2 between-subjects experimental design
  • {"Achievement-motivation orientation"=>"MAF vs. MAS"}
  • {"Priming condition"=>"moral-rule prime vs. blank-screen control"}
  • University student sample, N = 213

Research Logic

  1. Moral-rule reminder
  2. × Achievement-motivation orientation
  3. Cheating and rule compliance

The manuscript is in preparation.

03

AI, Organizational Change & Employee Behavior

Ongoing Research

Do employees interpret replacement by AI and layoffs caused by conventional organizational factors as fundamentally different events?

This project compares AI-driven and conventional layoffs, focusing on how layoff survivors reassess knowledge, job security, organizational relationships, and subsequent work behavior.

Research Design & Current Focus

  • AI-driven layoffs vs. conventional layoffs
  • Knowledge hiding and work attitudes
  • Perceived value of one's knowledge and job-security perceptions
  • The theoretical model and variable structure will be refined as the project progresses

Conceptual Pathway

  1. AI-driven vs. conventional layoffs
  2. Survivors' interpretation of the event
  3. Reappraisal of knowledge, job, and organizational relationships
  4. Knowledge hiding and work attitudes

Conceptual and ongoing. No public data, statistical results, formal hypotheses, or submission status are available yet.

Publications & Manuscripts

Selected Work

Papers and manuscripts are grouped by current status, with links to related open materials below the entries.

Manuscripts Under Review

Manuscripts in Preparation

Who Ignores the Rules? Exploring Individual Differences in Cheating Behavior Under Moral Reminders

B. Xuan, Y. Yang, and H. Yang

Published Work

How Emergency Industry Management at Universities During Special Periods Shapes Students' School Identification: A Grounded-Theory Interview Study

Bole Xuan et al.

Liaoning Youth, 2023, No. 8, pp. 27–28

First author

Featured Open-Source Project

paper-to-paradigm

A research toolkit for reading papers, understanding studies, and reconstructing experiments.

Starting with what participants experience, the toolkit maps a paper's theory, variables, and experimental procedures. It then checks how materials, data, and analyses fit together to support study reconstruction.

Use paper-anatomy to understand a study's design and evidential limits, then paper-reconstruction to work through its procedures, materials, and data structure.

  • Experimental Research
  • Behavioral Science
  • Open Science
  • AI for Research
01

paper-anatomy

Read & Audit: Dissect theories and concepts, variables, experimental procedures, participant experience, and evidential boundaries.

02

paper-reconstruction

Reconstruct & Replicate: Rebuild sources, detailed procedures, materials, data structures, and reproducible workflows.

Research Methods

Methods & Tools

Research Design

Experimental design, questionnaire design, interview research, and grounded theory

Quantitative Methods

ANOVA, regression, mediation and moderation analysis, and structural equation modeling

Research Tools

R, SPSS, E-Prime, MATLAB, Mplus, AMOS, MAXQDA, NVivo, and Excel

Curriculum Vitae

Academic & Professional Profile

Master's student in basic psychology working across experimental social psychology and organizational behavior, with interests in social norms, goal setbacks, organizational change, and the motivational and cognitive processes that shape subsequent attitudes and behavior.

Education

M.S. Student in Basic Psychology

  • MATLAB programming, multifactor experimental design, psychometric modeling, and statistical methods
  • Cognitive neuroscience, contemporary psychological research methods, visual perception, and virtual reality
  • {"Master's thesis"=>"Why is self-persuasion more effective after setbacks? The role of argument quality"}

B.M. in Human Resource Management

  • Interdisciplinary training in management and psychology
  • Undergraduate thesis on the effects of Balint groups on secondary-school teachers' job satisfaction

Professional Experience

Director, Planning Department

Planned and delivered university-wide mental-health activities, managed budgets and materials, and participated in group-counseling activities.

Director, Supervision Department

Coordinated activity review and on-site supervision, cross-department communication, event operations, and standardized documentation.

Psychology Administrative Assistant

Assisted with student mental-health services, psychology salons, peer-support training, activity coordination, and documentation.

Peer Counselor

Provide peer psychological support for common student concerns, including emotional distress, self-development and exploration, family concerns, career planning, stress and adjustment, interpersonal relationships, and romantic relationships.

  • Coursework and training in cognitive behavioral therapy, psychodynamic approaches, short-term dynamic therapy (CCRT), counseling practice, sandplay therapy, expressive therapies, Balint groups, and group counseling
  • Practical experience in individual support and group facilitation

Psychological Support Hotline Counselor, Fujian 12355

Trained in psychological-support hotline practice, confidentiality, and crisis identification; provide attentive listening, problem clarification, emotional support, preliminary risk screening, and referrals for adolescents and parents.

Research Projects

Hunan Provincial Undergraduate Innovation and Entrepreneurship Training Project (2022)

Led the design and implementation of a study on how emergency industry management at universities shaped students' school identification; related findings were published in Liaoning Youth.

Fujian Provincial Social Science Planning Project (General Program): How Shared Interests Foster Goal Commitment to Peers—The Mediating Role of Trust

Contribute to research on how shared interests promote commitment to peers' goals through trust.

Publications & Manuscripts

Reassignment-Related Setback: Why Self-Persuasion Works Better Because of Greater Conviction in One's Own Reasons

Who Ignores the Rules? Exploring Individual Differences in Cheating Behavior Under Moral Reminders

How Emergency Industry Management at Universities During Special Periods Shapes Students' School Identification: A Grounded-Theory Interview Study

Research Methods & Skills

Research Design

Experimental design, questionnaire design, interview research, and grounded theory

Quantitative Methods

ANOVA, regression, mediation, moderation, and structural equation modeling

Research & Data Tools

R, SPSS, E-Prime, MATLAB, Mplus, AMOS, MAXQDA, NVivo, and Excel

Additional Skills

Vibe coding, reference management, research-material organization, academic presentations, and AI-assisted research

Open-Source Projects

paper-to-paradigm

paper-anatomy · Read & Audit; paper-reconstruction · Reconstruct & Replicate

View on GitHub

Honors & Awards

2026

First Prize, 4th Youth Mental Health Science Communication Micro-Video Competition

2025

Second-Class Graduate Scholarship

2025

Outstanding Student

2025

Third Prize, Regional Final, 1st University Student Psychology and Cognitive Intelligence Assessment Challenge

2025

Second Prize, University Round, 3rd University Student Online Psychology and Behavior Experiment Competition

2025

Second Prize, University Preliminary, Fujian Psychological Counseling Skills Competition

2025

Second Prize, 23rd Psychodrama Competition

2025

Excellence Award, 1st Anti-Fraud Creative Competition

2025

Excellence Award, Social Research Competition

2024

Third Prize for Outstanding Paper, Academic Annual Conference

2022

First Prize, University Round, Challenge Cup Competition

2021

Grand Prize, University Round, Challenge Cup Competition

2021

Second Prize, E-Commerce Three Innovations Challenge

2021

Second Prize, Human Resource Management Knowledge Competition

2021

Outstanding Livestream Team and Outstanding Host, Consumer Assistance Competition

Languages

English: CET-6; able to read academic literature and draft English abstracts and initial manuscript versions

Korean: Basic proficiency