To explore the relationship between core self-evaluation, perceived stress, short video addiction and perceived time poverty, this study used the Core Self-Evaluation Scale, Perceived Stress Scale, Short Video Addiction Scale and Perceived Time Poverty Scale to conduct a questionnaire survey on 810 college students in China. The results showed that: 1) core self-evaluation significantly negatively predicted time poverty; 2) perceived stress played a mediating role in core self-evaluation and perceived time poverty; 3) perceived stress and short video addiction played a chain mediating role in core self-evaluation and perceived time poverty. This study suggests that improving core self-evaluation may be an effective way to reduce perceived time poverty.
This study explored the impact of emotional neglect on short video addiction in rural adolescents and the mediating role of negative emotions, examining differences between left-behind and non-left-behind groups. By using a three-month longitudinal survey of 417 rural adolescents, the results showed that: 1) Emotional neglect significantly predicted short video addiction after three months. 2) Negative emotions mediated the relationship between emotional neglect and short video addiction. 3) The relationship varied significantly between left-behind and non-left-behind situations. Specifically, negative emotions fully mediated the relationship in left-behind children, while partially mediating it in non-left-behind children.
Research indicates that a prolonged period of time is needed for a new word to become integrated with the existing lexicon and generate stable and long-lasting memory representations, with sleep playing an important role in the offline consolidation of this process (known as sleep-associated memory consolidation). This study explored the effects of immediate and delayed sleep on the semantic learning of new Chinese words using rare, real ancient Chinese animal names. Forty-one university students were divided into two groups: a sleep-wake group that learned at night and a wake-sleep group that learned in the morning. Participants were tested immediately after learning, and again after 12 and 24 hours. Results showed that in the explicit word representation tasks, the sleep-wake group had greater performance improvement at the 12-hour mark (compared to immediately after learning) than the wake-sleep group, indicating that immediate sleep aids memory consolidation, with the advantage persisting for 24 hours in the definition task. However, the wake-sleep group showed greater improvement at 24 hours (compared to 12 hours), indicating that delayed sleep can also effectively consolidate memory, performing comparably to immediate sleep in the picture-naming task. In the implicit size judgment task, both immediate and delayed sleep promoted the semantic integration of new words, though in different ways. These findings support the dual role of sleep in both active consolidation and passive protection of memory.
This study investigated the home literacy environment, word reading, and reading motivation of 18,420 children across grades 1~6, aiming to explore their current status and the relationship. The results showed that: 1) the frequency of parent-child reading activities decreased and home literacy resources increased as the grade level increased, while the urban home literacy environment was significantly better than that in the county; 2) children’s word reading and reading motivation increased significantly during elementary school, and the difference in word reading between urban and county students disappeared in grade 6, but the difference in reading motivation persisted; 3) the home literacy environment was correlated with both word reading and reading motivation, with a stronger association observed for reading motivation. This relationship remained stable across urban and rural settings. These findings contribute to a deeper understanding of home literacy environments and their role in reading development among Chinese children, providing recommendations for family education to promote children’s reading growth.
Based on an individual centered perspective, this study employed latent profile analysis to examine the heterogeneity of adolescent mindsets and motivational frameworks, as well as their relationship with academic adaptation. The results showed that the motivational framework of adolescent mindsets could be divided into growth-competitive type, growth-oriented type, fixed-oriented type, and fixed-disengaged type, with the fixed-oriented adolescents accounting for the highest proportion and the fixed-disengaged adolescents accounting for the lowest proportion. Both growth-competitive and growth-oriented adolescents exhibited good academic adaptation, but the former had higher levels of test anxiety and academic burnout. Fixed-disengaged adolescents had a prominent negative motivation framework, exhibiting a low motivation and high anxiety state of alienation. The study reveals the multiple differentiation patterns of motivation frameworks among Chinese adolescents and their impact on academic adaptation, which enlightening for personalized interventions in academic adaptation.
To explore the longitudinal mediating role of self-control and smartphone addiction between father love absence and non-suicidal self-injury(NSSI), a total of 1252 students from a middle school in Hunan province, China, were selected for a 2-way longitudinal follow-up over a six-month period. The results showed that father love absence was a significant predictor of self-control and smartphone addiction; self-control was also a good predictor of smartphone addiction and NSSI. The results also supported the longitudinal mediating effect of self-control and the chain mediator “self-control→smartphone addiction” between father love absence and NSSI. These results not only expand the research on the effects of father love absence, but also increase the understanding of the underlying mechanisms of the relationship between father love absence and NSSI, thus providing more theoretical support for the prevention and reduction of adolescents’ NSSI behaviors and the reduction of the risk of suicide.
Based on the cognitive appraisal theory of stress, this study explored the mediating mechanism of problem solving demands on work engagement and attempted to reveal the moderating mechanism from the aspects of individual coping strategies and leadership behaviors. The staff of a state-owned enterprise were tested at two time points using the scales of problem solving demands, stress cognitive appraisal, selection, optimization, and compensation strategy, coaching leadership and work engagement. There were 227 samples that were effectively matched. The results showed that: 1) Problem-solving demands had a positive indirect effect on work engagement through challenge appraisal and a negative indirect effect through hindrance appraisal. 2) The SOC strategies enhanced the positive indirect effect of problem-solving demands on work engagement through challenge appraisal. When the level of SOC strategies was high, it increased employees’ challenge appraisals of problem-solving demands, thereby enhanced the positive impact on work engagement. 3) Coaching leadership alleviated the negative indirect effect of problem-solving demands on work engagement through hindrance appraisal. When the level of coaching leadership was high, it alleviated employees’ hindrance appraisals of problem-solving demands, thereby reduced the negative impact on work engagement.
This study aimed to clarify the causal relationship between meaning in life and depression symptoms, and to explore the evolutionary patterns of meaning in life, and assess its impact on the incidence of depressive symptoms. A two-wave longitudinal study with a 12-month interval was conducted among 896 university students recruited from one university. The Meaning in Life Questionnaire and the Depression Symptom Screening Questionnaire were administered. The findings showed that: 1) Meaning in life at T1 negatively predicted depression symptoms at T2. Conversely, depression symptoms at T1 did not significantly predict meaning in life at T2. 2) The evolutionary patterns of meaning in life from T1 to T2 could be categorized into four groups: sustained low meaning, meaning improvement, meaning reduction, and sustained high meaning. The incidence of depressive symptoms in these four groups was 13.00%, 5.00%, 12.00%, and 4.00%, respectively. 3) The evolutionary patterns of meaning in life significantly impacted the incidence of depressive symptoms. Compared to the sustained high meaning group, both the sustained low meaning group and the meaning reduction group exhibited significantly higher rates of depression symptoms. The results suggest that psychological health education in universities should focus on individuals with sustained low meaning or meaning reduction, and that enhancing meaning in life serves as an effective intervention approach to reducing the incidence of depression symptoms among university students.
This study integrated experimental and questionnaire methods to investigate the effects of short-term exclusion experiences and long-term perceived exclusion on interpersonal trust. Study 1 manipulated the exclusion experiences of 126 participants using experimental paradigms; Study 2 conducted a questionnaire survey of 610 participants using relevant scales. The results showed that: 1) short-term exclusion experiences reduced the interpersonal trust response by decreasing immediate feelings of control; 2) long-term perceptions of exclusion decreased real-life interpersonal trust tendencies and increased online interpersonal trust tendencies by diminishing trait-like feelings of control; 3) individual variations in interpersonal trust response were observed across distinct social exclusion paradigms.
A survey of 199 older couples was conducted to explore the effect of cognitive emotion regulation strategies on marital satisfaction and the moderating role of general cognitive ability. The results showed that: 1) Couples differed in how cognitive emotion regulation strategies related to marital satisfaction. For husbands, their strategies consistently predicted both partners’ satisfaction. For wives, adaptive strategies significantly influenced their husbands’ satisfaction, while non-adaptive strategies had a stronger impact on their own. 2) General cognitive ability moderated this relationship. When wives had low fluid intelligence, their husbands’ adaptive strategies significantly positively predicted their satisfaction; this effect disappeared when wives had high fluid intelligence. For husbands with low crystallized intelligence, non-adaptive strategies negatively affected their own satisfaction, and this effect was stronger for those with high crystallized intelligence.
To investigate the relationship and differences by grade and gender between academic comparison and learning intrinsic motivation among middle school students, Social Comparison Scale and Learning Motivation Scale were used to investigate 2330 middle school students through a two-stage longitudinal follow-up questionnaire with a six-month interval. The data were analyzed using binary cross-lagged regression analysis. The results showed that: 1) there was a significant correlation between academic comparison and learning intrinsic motivation among middle school students; 2) learning intrinsic motivation significantly predicted upward comparison, while downward comparison and learning intrinsic motivation negatively predicted each other over time; 3) the relationship between academic comparison and learning intrinsic motivation was more pronounced among junior students compared to senior students, and more significant in girls than in boys.
This study aimed to investigate the adverse effects of left-behind experience on the flourishing of junior high school students, as well as the compensatory and moderating role of the sense of control. The research data was obtained from basic education quality monitoring data in a northeastern city. Left-behind children in this study referred to junior high school students whose parents had been working outside the home for three years or more, residing in four agriculturally dominant areas. A matched comparison group of regular junior high school students was selected based on five criteria: family social-economic status, family place of residence, family structure, ways to go to school, and gender. The final sample size consisted of 141 pairs of participants. The findings revealed that: 1) left-behind experience significantly and negatively impacted the flourishing of junior high school students; 2) the sense of control played significant compensatory and moderating roles between left-behind experience and the flourishing of these students; 3) left-behind children with a strong sense of control exhibited higher flourishing compared to non-left-behind children with a weak sense of control, highlighting the importance of nurturing the sense of control in care interventions for left-behind children; 4) non-left-behind children with a strong sense of control demonstrated the highest level of flourishing, indicating the presence of both favorable environment and external psychological resources that are beneficial for youth development.
The present study investigated whether the perceiver imitated the dynamic facial expressions of the sender consciously evoke emotional contagion and physiological synchrony between partners during emotional interaction. Our results revealed that in the mimicry task, the emotional states of the perceiver were more similar to those of the sender’s as a result of imitating the sender’s dynamic facial expressions compared to in the control task. Importantly, both heart rate (HR) synchrony and heart rate variability (HRV) synchrony between the senders and the perceivers in the mimicry task were significantly higher than those in the control task. These findings indicated that imitating the sender’s dynamic facial expressions made by the perceiver induced emotional contagion, and led to physiological synchrony between emotional senders and perceivers.
This study investigated the relationships between the effort-reward imbalance level, self-control ability, and job burnout among vocational college teachers. A total of 1192 vocational college teachers from 37 cities across the country were surveyed by using the Effort-Reward Imbalance Scale, the Job Burnout Scale, and the Self-Control Scale. The results showed that: 1) In both effort-reward balanced (0 < ERR < 1) and imbalanced (ERR > 1) states, the effort-reward ratio (ERR) significantly and positively predicted job burnout. 2) Self-control ability served as a moderator in the relationship between the effort-reward imbalance level and job burnout among higher vocational college teachers. Specifically, under effort-reward balanced conditions (0 < ERR < 1), self-control ability showed a positive moderating effect; whereas under imbalanced conditions (ERR > 1), it demonstrated a negative moderating effect. This study elucidates the impact and underlying mechanisms of the effort-reward imbalance on job burnout among teachers in higher vocational colleges, providing practical implications for mitigating job burnout in this population.
The theory of inhibitory devaluation posits that interfering stimuli in selective attention undergo emotional devaluation due to inhibition. However, directed forgetting only involves target stimuli matching different cues. It is still unclear whether the emotional devaluation in directed forgetting stems from inhibiting forgotten items or from the cue’s differential effects. Experiment 1 examined the mechanism of emotional devaluation using the item-method directed forgetting paradigm. In Experiment 1a, there was no significant difference between the evaluation of new items and forgetting items. The evaluation of new items under the forgetting cues was lower than that under the memory cues, indicating that emotional devaluation is not caused by inhibition, but depends on different processing contexts induced by two cues. Experiment 1b found that the evaluation of no-cue items was lower than that of memory items and higher than that of forgetting items. This result indicated that memory and forgetting cues led to positive and negative emotional encoding of items, respectively. Experiment 2 found that the devaluation effect of mixed cues was greater than that of single cues in selective directed forgetting. This indicated that selective attention promoted emotional devaluation in directed forgetting. In brief, emotional devaluation in directed forgetting arises due to memory cues and forgetting cues assigning distinct emotional connotations to neutral information, a process amplified by selective attention.
A sample of 1083 adolescents took part in a longitudinal study for six months which was measured twice. We employed longitudinal network analysis to identify central symptoms of anxiety and depression in adolescents. Besides, the relationship between adolescents’ bystander behaviors in school bullying and the symptoms of anxiety and depression was also examined. Finally, we tested the cross-time stability of this network structure. The results showed that: 1) the central symptom of adolescents’ anxiety and depression at Time 1 was “I am overly afraid or worried”, and at Time 2 was “I am deeply worried”; 2) the bridge between adolescents’ bystander behaviors and anxiety-depression network was “outsider behaviors”; 3) the structures of the networks were relatively stable across two waves. These results reveal the network structure between adolescents’ bystander behaviors in school bullying and their anxiety-depression symptoms, providing novel intervention perspectives for the psychological adaptation of bystanders.
This study investigated effects of L2 proficiency and musical experience on the inhibitory control abilities of Chinese English learners through a bilingual (Chinese-English) Stroop color-word task. The findings indicated that: 1) Learners with higher L2 proficiency exhibited a stronger Stroop effect compared to their lower proficiency counterparts, suggesting that an increase in L2 proficiency does not necessarily correlate with an enhanced ability to reduce informational interference. Instead, enhanced bilingual experience increases sensitivity to basic vocabulary and heightens the degree of semantic automatic activation, thereby increasing interference effects. 2) No significant benefits of musical experience on inhibitory control were observed, potentially due to discrepancies in processing channels, types of musical training, and experimental methodologies employed. Overall, this study highlights the need for employing more refined methodologies in future research to explore the specific effects of L2 proficiency and musical experience on inhibitory control, and illuminates the intricate relationships among language, music, and cognitive abilities.
A survey was conducted on the development status of mental health education in 812 universities nationwide using self-developed survey criteria, aiming to reveal the development characteristics and practical challenges of mental health education in universities in the new era, and to put forward some suggestions for its development. Study 1 established a set of survey criteria for university mental health education work, comprising 8 first-level indicators, 19 second-level indicators, and 53 third-level indicators. Study 2 revealed that the construction goals of “the 2011 standards” were generally well achieved, and the main tasks proposed in “the 2018 guidelines” were also largely completed. The results indicate that the construction of mental health education systems in Chinese universities has been highly effective, particularly in terms of education and teaching, practical activities, and curriculum development, showcasing Chinese characteristics. However, significant shortcomings remain in the construction of counseling systems, collaboration between schools, medical professionals, families, and communities in crisis intervention, as well as funding and facility investments, which require improvement and enhancement.
To investigate the mechanism by which implementation intention encoding improves prospective memory in patients with depression, a visual search task was employed. The study included 29 patients with depression (Group A) who completed the task using implementation intention encoding, while another 21 patients with depression (Group B) and 21 healthy controls (Group C) used standard encoding. The results showed that in terms of reaction time for the prospective memory task, Group B was significantly slower than Group C, whereas the difference between Group A and Group C was not significant. In the time interval from cue presentation to the first fixation, there was no significant difference among the three groups. However, in the time from the first fixation to the response, Group B was significantly slower than Group C, while Group A and Group C showed no significant difference. No significant differences were observed in accuracy rates among the three groups. These findings suggest that implementation intention encoding facilitates the execution of intentions in the prospective memory of patients with depression.
To examine the temporal relationship between basic psychological need frustration and depressive symptoms in adolescents, as well as the protective role of psychological suzhi in this relationship, a six-month longitudinal study was conducted with 2816 middle school students by using the Basic Psychological Need Frustration Scale, the Patient Health Questionnaire-9, and a simplified version of the Middle School Students’ Psychological Suzhi Scale. The results showed that there were significant concurrent and lagged correlations between psychological need frustration and adolescents’ depressive symptoms. Psychological need frustration at Time 1 (T1) significantly positively predicted depressive symptoms at Time 2 (T2), and depressive symptoms at T1 significantly predicted psychological need frustration at T2. T1 psychological suzhi negatively moderated the prediction of T2 depressive symptoms by T1 psychological need frustration. The results of this study reveal a bidirectional predictive relationship between basic psychological needs frustration and depressive symptoms, and indicate that psychological suzhi can buffer the negative impact of needs frustration on depressive symptoms, which provides guidance for the prevention and intervention of adolescent depressive symptoms.
