To investigate the relationship between childhood emotional abuse and neglect, insecure attachments, self-blame, blaming others, and depression in adolescents, a self-report questionnaire survey was conducted with 4933 adolescents. The results showed that childhood emotional abuse and neglect directly and positively predicted depression. Emotional abuse indirectly predicted depression through insecure attachments, self-blame, and blaming others, and also through multiple mediators of anxious attachment via self-blame and blaming others, and through multiple mediators of avoidant attachment via blaming others. Emotional neglect predicted depression indirectly through avoidant attachment and self-blame, or through multiple mediators of avoidant attachment via blaming others. More importantly, the indirect effects of emotional abuse predicting depression through anxious attachment and avoidant attachment were significantly greater than the indirect effects of emotional neglect predicting depression through two dimensions of attachment. The results indicated that insecure attachments, self-blame, or blaming others mediate the impact of childhood emotional abuse and neglect on depression in adolescents. Compared to emotional neglect, emotional abuse has a closer relationship with depressive symptoms in adolescents.
To clarify the basic situation and influencing factors of the prevalence of mental health problems among secondary school teachers in China, and to provide reliable data for strengthening the construction of social psychological service system and implementing teacher mental health maintenance and healthcare work, a meta-analysis was conducted on the retrieved research from 2000 to 2022. The results showed that: 1) the prevalence of mental health problems among secondary school teachers ranked from high to low, including sleep disorders (36.4%), compulsion (23.0%), depression (20.1%), anxiety (18.9%), paranoia (17.4%), hostility (16.7%), and somatization (16.6%); 2) school category, the year of publication, measurement tools, detection standards, and detection time were key factors that lead to varying levels of prevalence for mental health problems among secondary school teachers. In the future, more attention should be focused on the mental health problems of secondary school teachers. In specific, it is necessary to develop measurement tools that are suitable for the mental health status of secondary school teachers in China, as well as to unify screening standards; also, it is important to promote the normalization of screening, diagnosis, and intervention for secondary school teachers’ mental health problems.
This study employed a longitudinal study design to survey 1507 middle school students after the implementation of the “double reduction” policy, aiming to investigate the relationship between parental autonomy support and psychological control with academic engagement, as well as its potential mechanisms. The results showed that: 1) Parental autonomy support was significantly positively predicted with middle school students’ academic engagement. 2) During the middle school stage, father-child cohesion negatively predicted mother-child cohesion. 3) Mother-child cohesion and father-child cohesion mediated the relationship between parental autonomy support and psychological control: the mediating effect of mother-child cohesion alone; the mediating effect of father-child cohesion alone; the chain mediating effect of father-child cohesion and mother-child cohesion. The findings of this study expand the relevant theories and have implications for adolescent family education.
The study investigated the combined influence of perceived interparental conflict and parent-child relationship interactions on adolescent psychological crises, also considering the mediating role of cognitive flexibility. The results showed that: 1) The combination of perceived interparental conflict and parent-child relationship significantly predicted adolescent depression and non-suicidal self-injury. 2) If the perceived interparental conflict and parent-child relationship were congruent, compared to adolescents with low parent-child relationship and high perceived interparental conflict, those with high parent-child relationship and low perceived interparental conflict demonstrated higher levels of cognitive flexibility, thereby reducing the risk of depression and non-suicidal self-injury. 3) If the perceived interparental conflict and parent-child relationship were incongruent, compared to adolescents with a low parent-child relationship and low perceived interparental conflict, individuals with high parent-child relationship and high perceived interparental conflict showed lower levels of cognitive flexibility, thus elevating the risk of depression and non-suicidal self-injury.
To map out the basic situation of mental health problems among university teachers in China, a meta-analytic approach was used to synthesize and analyze the studies about the prevalence of mental health problems published from 2000 to 2022. The results found that: 1) the prevalence of mental health problems among university teachers was, in descending order, sleep problems (22.6%), obsessive-compulsive (22.3%), depression (21.3%), anxiety (18.6%), somatization (15.3%), paranoia (14.1%), and hostility (14.0%). 2) Publication age, measurement tools, school type, and economic region were significant factors influencing mental health problems among university teachers. Specifically, the anxiety of university teachers tended to deteriorate over the years. The prevalence of teachers’ anxiety, depression and sleep problems was closely related to the measurement tools. The mental health problems of teachers in general universities were higher than those of teachers in vocational universities. Teachers in the eastern region had more serious anxiety and depression than those in the central and western regions. In the future, in order to achieve the overall improvement of teachers’ mental health, more attention should be paid to teachers in general universities and in eastern region of China; also, it is necessary to develop the measurement tools specifically for teachers’ mental health problems, and to curb the spread of teachers’ anxiety.
To explore the relationship between parental helicopter parenting and subjective well-being of college students and the mediating role of self-control and depression in it, a sample of 948 college students were enrolled in the present study to fill out the Helicopter Parenting Scale, The Self-Control Scale, the Depression Self-Rating Scale, and the Subjective Well-Being Scale. The results showed that: 1) Parental helicopter parenting significantly and negatively predicted college students’ subjective well-being. 2) Depression played an independent mediating role between parental helicopter parenting and college students’ subjective well-being. 3) Self-control and depression had a chain-mediated effect on parental helicopter parenting and college students’ subjective well-being. This study reveals the effect of parental helicopter parenting on college students’ subjective well-being, which provides implications for improvement of college students’ subjective well-being.
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.
The present research employed a longitudinal, five-wave design to examine the developmental trajectories of future occupation planning. Furthermore, the current research examined the influence of just world belief. The sample comprised 1646 high school students, who were followed up for two years from their first to third year of high school. The just world belief was initially assessed at Time 1, and future occupation planning was evaluated from Time 1 to Time 5. The results of the unconditional latent growth model indicated that the high school student’s future occupation commitment was heterogeneous, with both decline and rise groups. Furthermore, the future occupation exploration among high school students exhibited a piecewise trend. A significant decline was observed during the first and second years of high school, while a significant increase was observed during the second and third years of high school. The results of the conditional latent growth model demonstrated that: 1) personal just world belief could predict the subgroup of future occupation commitment development trajectories among high school students; 2) general just world belief could both predict the initial levels and the rates of development of future occupation exploration among high school students. The present study has revealed the developmental trajectories of future occupation planning among high school students. The findings indicate that the just world belief plays an important role in the development of future occupation planning among high school students, which support the just world theory.
Based on the family system theory and interdependent theory, this study examined the parental interdependence and the moderating effect of child’s gender on the intergenerational transmission of harsh discipline. A questionnaire survey was conducted on 388 pairs of school age pupils’ mothers and fathers. Actor-partner interdependence modeling analyses revealed that: 1) The actor associations were significant, that is, mothers and fathers who had more experiences of being harsh disciplined in childhood engaged in more harsh disciplinary behaviors towards their own children. 2) Only fathers’ partner association was significant, that is, mothers’ experiences of being harsh disciplined in childhood predicted fathers’ harsh disciplinary behaviors. 3) The combination effects were also significant, that is, mothers’ and fathers’ actor associations were intensified by his or her partners’ experiences of being harsh disciplined in childhood. 4) Several associations above were moderated by child’s gender. Mothers’ actor association was stronger when their children were boys rather than girls, while mothers’ combination effect was significant only when their children were girls rather than boys. The findings suggest that the intergenerational transmission of harsh discipline within parents is non-independent and is moderated by child’s gender.
The present article introduced a recategorization model based on cognitive consistency to explore how new identities were assimilated into the self-concept, along with its attendant consequences on intergroup attitudes. The model specified four key concepts (self, attributes, old group, new group) as interconnected components, which explained how groups with self and shared attributes were connected through the principle of cognitive consistency, thereby forming self-concept, group stereotypes, and group identity. When group identity shifted, the degree of identification with the new group identity and the intergroup attitude depended on the (in)compatibility of the different social groups. This model expanded the scope of research on multiple identities. In addition to single recategorization and dual recategorization, there was a new way to recategorization which was transformed recategorization. And it played an important role in facilitating identity integration and thus contributed to reducing intergroup bias. Future research should provide more empirical evidence of the effectiveness of recategorization to enrich the boundary conditions of the recategorization.
Stressful life events have harmful effects on adolescents’ adaptive development. The current study focused on school burnout, to further investigate the association of stressful life events with school burnout, and whether psychological resilience served as a buffer. On a large sample of 3309 adolescents, we demonstrated that there existed a curvilinear relationship between stressful life events and school burnout. Rather, as stressful life events accumulated, the rate of elevation of school burnout shifted from fast to slow. The pattern of change was characterized by saturation model. Psychological resilience could buffer the implications of stressful life events for school burnout. In specific, the relationship between stressful life events and school burnout was weaker for adolescents with low level of psychological resilience than for the adolescents with high level of psychological resilience. Also, psychological resilience could become more protective against school burnout as adolescents are exposed to more stressful life events. However, psychological resilience could not moderate the curvilinear relationship between stressful life events and academic efficacy. These findings support the saturation model rather than the thresh model, and provide evidences for the framework of positive and negative adaptive indicators.
Utilizing a comprehensive data survey involving 511 adolescents, this study explored the pivotal symptoms of adolescents’ interpersonal distress. Also, we examined the influence of parent-child attachment and psychological boundaries on adolescents’ interpersonal distress by using network analysis method. The results showed that: 1) The core symptoms of adolescents’ interpersonal distress were “ostracism and indifference from others”, “highly susceptible to embarrassment”, “having no one to confide in one’s worries”, and “not knowing how to stop at the right boundaries with the opposite sex”. 2) No significant gender differences were observed in the network structure, global strength and centrality of adolescents’ interpersonal distress. However, significant gender differences existed in the intensity of symptom d23. 3) Interpersonal communication distress was the center node of the network; parent-child alienation and psychological boundaries were the important bridging nodes connecting parent-child attachment and interpersonal distress. This study reveals the influence of parent-child attachment and psychological boundaries on adolescents’ interpersonal distress.
To examine the association between parental autonomy support and learning engagement, as well as the underlying mechanism among senior high school students, 977 students were recruited to complete a set of scales measuring parental autonomy support, intentional self-regulation, school connectedness and learning engagement. The results showed that: 1) parental autonomy support could positively predict high school students’ learning engagement; 2) the mediating role of intentional self-regulation in parental autonomy support and learning engagement was significant; 3) both the direct relation between parental autonomy support and learning engagement, and the mediating effect of intentional self-regulation (the association between parental autonomy support and intentional self-regulation) were moderated by school connectedness. These findings not only highlight the important role of family and school coordination in promoting students’ adaptation and the underlying mechanism, but also have practical implications to promote family education and students’ adaptation.
This study aimed to develop and validate an instrument for measuring failure mindset in Chinese college students. Based on literature analysis and semi-structured interviews, the initial items of the Failure Mindset Scale (FMS) were developed. The factor structure of the FMS was examined by exploratory factor analysis (n=699) and confirmatory factor analysis (n=684). Then the scale validity was verified again by examining the relationship between failure mentality and mental health (n=2922). The results showed that the final formal scale contains two relatively independent dimensions, that is, the negative failure mindset and the positive failure mindset. The internal consistency reliability, test-retest reliability, construct validity and criterion validity of FMS all met the requirements of psychometric characteristics. Both dimensions of failure mindset predicted subjective well-being and general psychological problems significantly. In conclusion, the FMS can be used as an effective tool to measure the level of failure mindset among Chinese college students.
The rapid development of artificial intelligence (AI) has underscored the necessity of human-agent collaboration. However, collaboration between humans and intelligent agents in the domain of innovation continues to encounter numerous challenges. AI exhibiting narcissistic traits may offer a solution to this dilemma. Two simulation experiments were conducted to manipulate AI with high/low narcissism and to examine how it influences individuals’ perceived creativity, perceived emotional capacity, and human-agent collaborative innovation willingness to AI. The results showed that: 1) AI narcissism enhanced individuals’ perceived creativity, perceived emotional capacity, and human-agent collaborative innovation willingness to AI. 2) Individuals’ perceived creativity and perceived emotional capacity parallelly mediated the relationship between AI narcissism and human-agent collaborative innovation willingness. The findings demonstrate the positive role of AI narcissism, which provides empirical support for the sub-component structure of human-agent inner compatibility theory, as well as offers practical guidance for utilizing AI narcissistic traits to promote human-agent collaborative innovation.
