Peer victimization is defined as repeated and purposeful aggression directed toward an individual by one or more peers who possess a greater degree of power. It has been recognized as a pervasive social issue affecting children and adolescents across diverse schools, cultures, and countries. Globally, approximately one third of students (32%) reported experiencing peer victimization in school settings. Results from numerous studies have indicated that peer victimization is a risk factor for various maladjustment problems among adolescents, including physical health problems (e.g., suicidal ideation and behaviors), psychological maladjustment (e.g., anxiety, depressive symptoms), and poor academic functioning (e.g., poor academic performance, school avoidance). One of the pervasive consequences of peer victimization is heightened feelings of loneliness. Although empirical evidence has consistently linked peer victimization to increased loneliness in children and adolescents, not all victimized youth experience loneliness to the same extent. This variability suggests the existence of protective factors that may buffer against the adverse emotional consequences of victimization. Previous studies have explored both individual (e.g., coping resolution strategies) and peer-level factors (e.g., peer support) that may moderate this relation. Little is known about how teachers’ victimization-related beliefs and strategies may influence the relation between peer victimization and loneliness. This may particularly be the case in Chinese schools, where head teachers serve as the sole authority and are responsible for setting the rules and regulating students’ behaviors. Gest et al. (2014) posited two types of teachers’ strategies for managing aggression: managing aggressive behavior strategies and promoting prosocial behavior strategies. Managing aggressive behavior strategies are teachers’ direct efforts to prevent and intervene students’ aggression, whereas promoting prosocial behavior strategies is a relatively indirect way of reducing aggression by creating positive roles for both bullies and victims or helping them develop alternative behaviors in classroom. Both managing aggressive behavior strategies and promoting prosocial behavior strategies are associated with declined victimization. An important question remains unaddressed: can these strategies buffer against levels of loneliness for bullied adolescents? To date, no study has been conducted to examine the effects of teachers’ strategies for managing aggression on the association between peer victimization and loneliness.
This study examined the moderating role of two types of teachers’ strategies for managing aggression (i.e., managing aggressive behavior strategies, promoting prosocial behavior strategies) in the association between peer victimization and loneliness among Chinese adolescents. Participants were 1,429 students (41% girls, M_age = 13.8 years, SD = .92) from 33 classes in a public school located in a rural region of mainland China. Teacher strategy data were collected from 33 head teachers (88% female teachers, M_age = 33.2 years, SD = 6.95). Students reported their peer victimization experience and loneliness.
Multilevel modeling revealed that teachers’ managing aggressive behavior strategies moderated the peer victimization and loneliness link. The magnitude of the link between peer victimization and loneliness declined for students with teachers using more managing aggressive behavior strategies (i.e., the buffering effect). Contrary to our expectations, teachers’ promoting prosocial behavior strategies did not significantly moderate the association between peer victimization and loneliness.
The findings highlighted the importance of identifying which type of teachers’ strategies in managing aggression are more helpful in alleviating loneliness of victimized youth. It appears that the loneliness of victimized youth declined for teachers who directly control students’ aggressive behaviors, but not for those who promoted more students’ prosocial behaviors. This strategy could protect victimized youth from loneliness by directly restricting the instances of bullying in classrooms, providing significant implications for future interventions on reducing peer victimization. Collectively, interventions aimed at reducing students’ aggression will require the development of a feasible and considerate strategy for reducing peer victimization and protecting students against its negative consequences.

Creativity can be categorized into two primary stages: the generation of creative ideas and the selection of creative ideas. The generation of creative ideas pertains to the intellectual quality of products that are novel, unique, and valuable. Conversely, the selection of creative ideas involves the process of choosing among potential creative ideas. The cultivation of creative thinking and the enhancement of performance in creative ideas generation have garnered increasing attention; equally important is the process of selecting creative ideas. Prior research indicates that various factors—such as environmental influences, personality traits, emotional states, and social-cultural contexts—significantly impact individuals' capabilities in making creative choices. Among these factors, peer pressure emerges as a critical social environmental influence with profound effects on individuals. It heightens the likelihood of adolescents engaging in smoking, drinking, and drug use while potentially affecting students' creativity levels as well. Furthermore, certain personality characteristics may also modulate the relationship between peer pressure identification, peer pressure environments, and the selection of creative ideas. The creative selection process is a decision-making process involving creativity, where risks are assessed, and the optimal solution is selected. When faced with multiple choices, decision-makers not only rely on their own judgments (personal reference points) but also consider the perspectives of others and society (social reference points). This suggests that when exploring the factors influencing creative selection, it is important to focus not only on individual factors but also on external social environmental factors. Therefore, this study aims to explore peer pressure from both the individual's perception of peer pressure and the actual peer environment.
This study investigates how peer pressure affects college students’ performance in selecting creative ideas through questionnaires (N = 299) and behavioral experiments (N = 70). Peer pressure was examined from two perspectives: perceived peer pressure by individuals—termed peer pressure identification—and actual behavioral responses within a peer-pressure environment. In the first study, we concentrated on exploring the correlation between peer pressure identification and college students’ performance in selecting creative ideas while assessing the role played by impulsive personality traits. Both peer pressure identification and impulsive personality were evaluated using questionnaires; meanwhile, performance in selecting creative ideas was assessed via a task titled “top 5 out of 18.” The second study aimed to determine whether participants' performances in selecting creative ideas differed when compared to those operating within a stress-free environment devoid of peers. An experimental control method was employed to evaluate how a peer-pressure context impacts college students’ performance in selecting creative ideas.
The results showed that peer pressure identification and peer environment significantly influenced college students' creative choice performance, and impulsivity played a moderating role in this process. For individuals with low impulsivity, a higher level of peer pressure identification was associated with a tendency toward more pragmatic creative choices. Conversely, high impulsivity buffered the influence of peer pressure identification. When manipulating the presence of real peers, individuals would avoid selecting high-novelty creative ideas, and high impulsivity personality would reduce this avoidance effect. Overall, this study found that both peer pressure identification and peer pressure environment significantly influence college students' creative choice performance, with impulsive personality playing a moderating role. When they perceived high peer pressure or in the presence of peers, individuals were more likely to favor highly appropriate ideas over highly novel ones when making creative choices. This effect is more pronounced in individuals with low impulsivity, while it diminishes in those with high impulsivity.
This study examines the interaction between peer pressure and individual cognitive styles on creative choices from the perspective of dual reference points in the decision-making cognitive process, which more closely reflects creative choices in real-world situations. Whether it’s leaders making innovative decisions in organizational management or consumers accepting innovative products in the economic field, they are inevitably influenced by a combination of individual styles and social environment factors. The introduction of dual reference points will help provide more theoretical evidence for understanding the creative choices of leaders and consumers. These findings provide theoretical evidence and inspiration for the influence of peer pressure on creative idea selection in school education contexts and organizational behavior and consumer behavior.

This study adopted a family systems perspective to examine adversity navigation and resilience mechanisms within floating populations. This constitutes a critical imperative for advancing psychosocial service frameworks. Employing a hybrid sampling strategy combining convenience and intensity approaches, this investigation conducted tripartite in-depth interviews with 13 high-resilience migrant families (including child-parent dyads) in Jiangsu and Zhejiang provinces and systematically examined: (a) family transition trajectories, (b) quotidian ecological niches, and (c) adversity-resilience dialectics. Through consensus qualitative research (CQR) methodology, we codified distinctive family resilience signatures using Hill's analytic protocols.
The results of the study showed that: (a) Dilemmas Faced by Migrant Families: The findings reveal that migrant families encounter four primary types of dilemmas throughout their life course: survival pressure, parenting burden, relationship challenges, and loss crises. Survival pressure refers to the inadequacy of social and economic resources available to the family, which often leads to significant stress and anxiety. This pressure can manifest in various forms, such as financial instability, inadequate housing conditions, and limited access to essential services. Parenting burden highlights the diminishing capacity of families to fulfill their parenting roles effectively, particularly in new and often challenging environments. Parents frequently struggle to provide adequate educational support and emotional guidance to their children, which can lead to feelings of inadequacy and frustration. Relationship challenges emerge from separations and conflicts within the family system, often exacerbated by the migration process. The physical distance created by migration can result in emotional disconnection and misunderstandings among family members. Lastly, loss crises pertain to traumatic events experienced during the family life cycle, such as the death of a loved one or the breakdown of familial relationships. Despite these numerous challenges, the concept of family resilience emerges as a critical factor facilitating the transition of migrant families from vulnerability to a state of resilience.
(b) Following characteristics of family resilience have been identified. The study identifies five key characteristics that define the family resilience of migrant families: firm belief, empathic interaction, flexible adjustment, support of examples, and multiple experiences. Firm belief stands out as the core feature, providing family members with the psychological motivation necessary to confront and overcome difficulties. This belief often manifests as a shared conviction that they can improve their circumstances, which fosters hope and determination. Empathic interaction fosters an environment of mutual understanding, support, and cooperation among family members, serving as a foundational aspect of resilience. This interaction is crucial for maintaining emotional bonds and ensuring that family members feel valued and understood. Flexible adjustment enables family members to adapt actively to the complexities of their circumstances, employing effective coping strategies tailored to their unique situations. This adaptability is essential for navigating the uncertainties that come with migration. Support of examples refers to the inspiration drawn from role models within the family, which helps members recognize their collective strength in the face of adversity. These role models can be parents, older siblings, or extended family members who have successfully navigated similar challenges. Lastly, multiple experiences represent the externalized aspect of resilience, where past experiences of overcoming challenges inform current coping mechanisms, allowing families to endure present hardships and grow from them. This characteristic emphasizes the importance of learning from previous adversities and leveraging those lessons to foster resilience in novel circumstances.
In practice, the resilience experience extracted from the interviews can be extended to other disadvantaged migrant families for prevention and intervention. This includes the following strategies: strengthening family beliefs based on collectivist values, mutual understanding and mutual support among members, flexible and active continuous adjustment and evaluation of coping and adaptation strategies, giving full play to and transmitting the strength of role models to deal with difficulties, and learning to learn from past hardship experiences.

Given the escalating prominence of public mental health issues, numerous researchers are focusing on enhancing mental health literacy among the public. While some studies affirm that improved mental health literacy can bolster an individual’s help-seeking behavior and mental health, others contradict this notion. They argue that mental health literacy, particularly the knowledge aspect, has minimal influence on resolving personal psychological issues and could potentially stigmatize patients, thereby adversely impacting their help-seeking behavior. This study posits that the primary cause of this discrepancy lies in the tendency of previous research to treat mental health literacy as a monolithic entity, thereby overlooking the possibility of intricate structural patterns within public mental health literacy. Indeed, established research points out that there is not always a positive correlation between the variables within mental health literacy, and that the relationship between knowledge, attitudes, and behaviors needs further investigation. Therefore, the present study used latent class analysis to identify the existence of different structural patterns of mental health literacy, so as to clarify the relationship among knowledge, attitude, and behavior in mental health literacy. On this basis, this study further examined the correlation between different structural patterns of mental health literacy and mental health.
This research was conducted through two studies. Study 1 involved 1050 Chinese citizens, aged between 18 and 59 years, who participated in a mental health literacy assessment using the Mental Health Literacy Questionnaire (MHLQ). A categorical model of mental health literacy was developed using latent class analysis, and its generalizability was evaluated using 10-fold cross-validation. The results show that the 4-category model is the best overall performer among all the tested models. On the one hand, the 4-category model fits the data well, with optimal performance on BIC and CAIC, and suboptimal performance on AIC and sample size-adjusted BIC, and the bootstrap likelihood ratio test results show that when the model reaches the 4-category level, the addition of new categories is no longer significant for the improvement of the model fit. On the other hand, the 10-fold cross-validation results show that the 4-category model exhibits superior performance in fitting the dataset compared to other models, implying that the 4-category model has excellent generalization ability. The latent classes identified by the 4-category model can be named based on the participants' response performance as “high knowledge, attitude and behavior type”, “low knowledge, attitude and behavior type”, “low knowledge, attitude and high behavior type”, and “high knowledge, attitude and low behavior type”.
Study 2 was conducted with the aim of exploring the relationship between the latent classes of mental health literacy and mental health, as well as the explanatory power and gain of these categories on mental health. A total of 728 Chinese citizens, aged between 18 and 55 years, were recruited as participants. This study used the MHLQ to measure the level of mental health literacy of the participants and the Chinese Psychological Health Inventory (CPHI) and the Brief Symptom Inventory-18 (BSI-18) to measure the level of mental health of the participants. ANCOVA was utilized to analyze the differences in mental health among individuals belonging to different latent classes of mental health literacy. Furthermore, regression and specification curve analysis were used to examine the explanatory power and gain of these latent classes on individuals’ mental health in various situations. The findings revealed significant differences in the mental health of individuals across different latent classes of mental health literacy. Additionally, the latent classes of mental health literacy demonstrated unique effects in explaining individuals’ mental health.
In summary, this study used latent category analysis to validate the category model for mental health literacy within the Chinese public. The research identifies four distinct categories of mental health literacy. Significant disparities were observed in the mental health of individuals across these different categories. Moreover, the latent classes of mental health literacy were found to exert a unique explanatory effect on individual mental health.

Problematic social media use (PSMU) is discussed as a potential additional type of disorders resulting from addictive behaviors. The I-PACE (Interaction of Person-Affect-Cognition Execution) model illustrates the mechanisms and processes thought to be relevant to the development and maintenance of addictive behaviors, potentially including problematic social media use. The interaction of affective and cognitive components (e.g., the confrontation with addiction-related cues leading to cue reactivity and craving and decision making) is assumed to result in a continuation of the behavior (e.g., use of social networks). Dysfunctional decision making, reflecting this imbalance, is considered as a risk factor for and a consequence of an addictive behavior. To investigate the specificity of the influence of social media-related information on the risk decision-making tendencies of college students with PSMU, we conducted two studies.
Experiment 1 employed the Wheel of Fortune task to examine the characteristics of risk decision-making tendencies among college students with problematic social media use, and used a 2 (participant type: PSMU group, control group) × 2 (risk level: low, high) mixed design with participant type as a between-subjects variable. First, we screened participants using three scales via Wenjuanxing, resulting in a problem group of 35 individuals and a healthy control group of 36 individuals. Subsequently, we utilized the Eyelink 1000 plus eye tracker, developed by SR Research in Canada, with a sampling rate of 1000Hz to collect participants' eye movement metrics during the experiment. Prior to the official start of the experiment, participants underwent eye-tracking calibration, followed by the presentation of instructions and confirmation of their understanding. The experiment consisted of a practice session and a formal session. The experimental procedure began with the presentation of a solid dot at the center of the screen, requiring participants to fixate on it. This was followed by a drift correction, which was accepted if the deviation was less than 0.8 degrees. After the fixation point disappeared, the task options were presented, and participants made their choice by pressing the F or J key. The results revealed that, compared to the control group, the problematic group had longer reaction times (F(1, 63) = 5.91, p = .018, η_p²= .08) and total fixation durations (F(1,63) = 4.51, p = .038, η_p² = .07). Additionally, they made fewer risky choices at high risk levels, demonstrating a risk-averse characteristic.
In Experiment 2, we incorporated social media-related information and neutral information to examine the specificity of the impact on risk decision making, using a 2 (participant type: PSMU, HC) × 2 (risk level: low, high) × 3(conditions: baseline, consistent,inconsistent) mixed design. Unlike Experiment 1, Experiment 2 added a cue screen before the choice screen. The results showed that, the interaction between participant type and condition was significant in terms of the number of times risk options were chosen, with F(2,128) = 3.37, p = .037, and η_p²= .05. Simple effect analysis revealed that there was no significant difference among the three levels of the condition in the control group. However, the problem group showed a higher frequency of choosing risk options at the consistent level compared to the inconsistent level. The interaction between participant type and condition was significant for first arrival time, with F(2,128) = 4.75, p = .010, and η_p² = .07. Simple effect analysis showed that at the consistent level, the first arrival time of the problem group was longer than that for the control group. Additionally, the problem group's first arrival time was significantly longer at the consistent level than at the baseline level, while there was no significant difference in the control group across the different levels of the condition.
This indicates that problematic social media use influences risk decision-making tendencies. The impact of social media-related information on the risk decisions of college students with problematic social media use is specific, making their risk decision-making tendencies more adventurous, manifesting as risk-seeking behavior.

Background and Aims: Empathy involves the communication and understanding of social information between individuals in specific contexts. Empirical evidence suggests that auditory information can affect one’s empathic ability more than visual information, but the differential effects of sensory modalities of information on empathic accuracy remain unclear. This study aimed to examine the effects of auditory and different visual modalities on empathic accuracy based on the Chinese version of the Empathic Accuracy Task (EAT). We hypothesized that (1) performance of cognitive empathy in avatar audio-video condition would be significantly lower than performance in the auditory-only and human audio-video condition. (2) There was significant interaction between emotional valence and Modality-Condition in Cognitive empathy. Specifically, cognitive empathy was significantly higher in the human audio-video condition compared to the audio-only conditions for positive-valenced videos, while there was no significant difference among the three experimental conditions for negative-valenced videos.
Method: We recruited 85 college students to complete the Chinese version of the EAT in three different conditions, i.e., (1) auditory-only condition, (2) avatar audio-video (visual information is less-than human audio-video condition) condition, and (3) human audio-video condition. The EAT had 12 video clips (6 positive and 6 negative) with a character describing his/her emotional autographical event in each video clip. Participants were asked to rate the character’s emotional states continuously and to respond to questions concerning perspective taking, emotional contagion, empathic concern, and willingness/effort to help.
Results: The 3 (Modality-Condition: auditory-only, avatar audio-video and human audio-video) x 2 (Valence: positive and negative) ANOVA model found significant Modality-Condition main effect on emotional contagion score (F(2, 168) = 3.08, p = .049), with the human audio-video condition (M = 7.01, SD = 1.26) eliciting higher degrees of emotional contagion than the avatar audio-video condition (M = 6.74, SD = 1.28). However, the Modality-Condition main effect on empathy accuracy and perspective taking scores were non-significant. The Valence main effects on empathic accuracy (F(1, 84) = 10.16, p < .01), emotional contagion (F(1, 84) = 6.45, p < .05) and perspective taking (F(1, 84) = 14.01, p < .001) were significant. Empathic responses were enhanced in videos depicting positive moods relative to those depicting negative moods. The Modality-Condition-by-Valence interaction on perspective taking (F(2, 168) =7.57, p < .01) and emotional contagion (F(2, 168) = 6.48, p < .01) were significant. Simple effect analysis found that, for positive-valenced videos, both perspective taking and emotional contagion scores were significantly lower in the Avatar audio-video condition (M = 7.15, SD = 1.36; M = 6.69, SD = 1.53) compared to the audio-only (M = 7.59, SD = 1.03; M = 7.14, SD = 1.30) and human audio-video (M=7.57, SD = 1.26; M = 7.17, SD = 1.51) conditions. In contrast, for negatively valenced videos, emotional contagion was higher in the human audio-video condition (M = 6.84, SD = 1.44) than the audio-only condition (M = 6.52, SD = 1.35). However, the Modality-Condition-by-Valence interaction was not significant for empathy accuracy.
Conclusions: This study investigated the impact of audio-visual information on empathy by comparing audio-only and human audio-video conditions, differentiating between positive and negative emotional valence. The findings highlighted that human facial expressions significantly enhance emotional empathy in negative emotional contexts when matched with auditory information. Additionally, by introducing human and avatar audio-video condition, the study manipulated different levels of visual information. Our findings suggested the impacts of visual information on empathy varied with emotional valence. The Avatar audio-video condition undermined empathy in positive-valenced scenarios. Together, our work elucidated the effects of emotional valence of visual information on empathy performance, implicating the role of human visual cues in empathy processing.

With the development of mobile Internet and the development of digital Internet technology, short video app as a new form of media with explosive speed has occupied people's daily life in large quantities, which also caused many adverse effects on individuals. Due to the characteristics of short videos such as rich information and strong stimulation, it is easy for users to forget time and indulge in them, which in turn triggers rich emotional experiences and high emotional arousal. However, in the long run, this state will affect their ability to maintain the goal in the continuous performance tasks. The core feature of short video content: fragmentation, can also have an impact on an individual's cognitive habits and learning style. Individuals use fractions of their time to receive information delivery from a large number of fragmented videos, which makes them also think in a more one-sided and isolated way, and over time they are reluctant to expend additional cognitive resources to maintain appropriate behavioral responses to the task that requires sustained attention. Although some scholars have already focused on the negative consequences of short video use on cognitive functioning, fewer empirical studies have been conducted to examine the effect of short video use on goal maintenance. Thus, this study focuses on whether and how excessive use of short video app affects individuals' goal maintenance. First, based on the core characteristics of short videos, the effect of excessive short video app use on goal maintenance ability is explored. Second, based on the scattered attention hypothesis and scan-and-shift hypothesis, the eye movement differences in distraction of excessive short video app users are explored in comparison with non-excessive users, Farhermove,we explore whether excessive short video users have increased difficulty in inhibiting distractors, and whether distraction potentially mediates the effects of excessive short video use on goal maintenance. Therefore, this paper examined the effects of excessive short video use on goal maintenance and the mediating role of distraction using an eye movement tracking method.
In Study 1, we recruited 88 participants (49 excessive short video app users, 46 girls, M_age = 20.14 years, SD_age = 1.68 years; 39 non-excessive users, 34 girls, M_age = 20.03 years, SD_age= 1.81 years) to complete a conjunctive continuous performance task (CCPT). Descriptive statistical analysis and independent samples t-tests were conducted. The results showed that the group had the main effect on mean response time for correct responses (M-RT) and standard deviation of response times (SD-RT), t = -4.07, p < .01; t = -2.04, p < .05. The M-RT of excessive short video app users was significantly longer than that of non-excessive users (455 ms vs.421 ms), and the SD-RT of the former was also significantly greater than that of the latter (70 ms vs. 62 ms).
In Study 2, we recruited 49 participants (29 excessive short video app users, 25 girls, Mage = 19.62 years, SDage = 1.27 years; 20 non-excessive users, 18 girls, Mage = 19.95 years, SDage= 2.09 years) to complete the CCPT. Eye movement tracking method was used to investigate potential mediating role of distraction (assessed by a modified stroop task) in the effect of excessive short video use on goal maintenance. Descriptive statistical analysis and repeated-measures ANOVA were conducted. The results showed that: (1) Stroop task. Two significant main effects of group and condition were also observed in response time, F(1,47) = 6.51, p < .05, η_p² = .12; F(1,47) = 35.40, p < .001, η_p² = .43. The RT of excessive short video App users was significantly longer than that of non-excessive users (1096 ms vs. 930 ms), and participants responded faster in the congruent condition than in the incongruent condition (988 ms vs. 1038 ms). (2) Eye movements on the distractor. There were significant group differences in first fixation duration, probability of first fixation, mean fixation duration and mean number of fixations, F(1,47) = 5.88, p < .05, η_p² = .02; F(1,47) = 7.65, p < .01, η_p² = .14; F(1,47) = 6.21, p < .05, η_p² = .12; F(1,47) = 6.97, p < .05, η_p² = .13, indicating that excessive users had a longer first fixation duration (267 ms vs. 238 ms), more frequent first focus on the distraction stimulation (22% vs. 14%), a longer mean fixation duration for distraction stimulation (270 ms vs. 240 ms), and more fixations on distraction stimulation (49.69 fixations vs. 27.65 fixations), as compared to the non-excessive users; (3) Mediation effect. Using the ratio of first fixation and mean number of fixations on distractors as indicators of attentional distraction, we observed significant effects of attentional distraction in mediating the effect of excessive short-video use on target maintenance. These findings support the scattered attention hypothesis and scan-and-shift hypothesis from the perspective of attention distraction in explaining the impairment of excessive short video app use on the function of goal maintenance.

Intolerance of uncertainty (IU) has emerged as a critical transdiagnostic vulnerability factor across various anxiety disorders. This review constructs an integrated theoretical framework encompassing IU, conditioned fear, and anxiety, and explores how IU may predispose individuals to anxiety by influencing conditioned fear processes. The synthesis of the current literature reveals a complex interplay between these constructs, offering new insights into the mechanisms underlying anxiety disorders. Extensive research consistently demonstrates a significant positive correlation between IU and anxiety disorder symptoms, with IU predicting treatment outcomes. Individuals with high IU exhibit distinctive patterns in conditioned fear tasks, including enhanced fear acquisition, persistent fear expression, slower extinction, and more extensive generalization.
The relation between IU and conditioned fear has been examined in a variety of paradigms. During fear acquisition, high IU individuals show heightened physiological responses and subjective ratings of fear to conditioned stimuli, particularly in ambiguous or unpredictable contexts. This hypersensitivity may lower the threshold for fear activation and increase false alarms, contributing to maladaptive anxiety responses. Fear extinction studies reveal persistent fear responses in high IU individuals even in the absence of threat, suggesting difficulties in learning safety cues. Moreover, fear generalization research indicates that high IU individuals tend to generalize fear responses to a broader range of stimuli resembling the original threat, potentially leading to overgeneralized anxiety and avoidance behaviors. Contextual conditioning studies further demonstrate that high IU is linked to enhanced contextual anxiety, underlying the pervasive apprehension characteristic of disorders such as generalized anxiety disorder.
Neuroimaging studies provide crucial support for the proposed integrated model and elucidate the neural mechanisms underlying the relationship between IU, conditioned fear, and anxiety. High IU individuals exhibit heightened amygdala and anterior cingulate cortex activation when facing uncertain threats, mirroring patterns observed in anxiety disorder patients. IU levels negatively correlate with prefrontal cortex activation during fear extinction, potentially explaining difficulties in fear inhibition. Altered connectivity between the amygdala and prefrontal regions suggests disrupted fear regulatory networks, providing a mechanistic basis for understanding how IU influences conditioned fear processes and contributes to anxiety vulnerability.
The proposed integrative model elucidates how IU may increase anxiety vulnerability by modulating conditioned fear processes. This modulation results in enhanced threat detection, impaired safety-threat discrimination, persistent fear expression, extinction resistance, and overgeneralization of fear responses. These alterations collectively contribute to the development and maintenance of anxiety symptoms, creating a self-reinforcing cycle of heightened fear and anxiety. Furthermore, the model suggests that individual differences in IU may explain variations in susceptibility to anxiety disorders and treatment responsiveness. These findings have significant implications for both theory and practice in anxiety research and treatment. Theoretically, it provides a comprehensive framework bridging cognitive and learning theories, offering a nuanced explanation for the development and maintenance of anxiety. Clinically, targeting IU may enhance treatment outcomes by addressing fundamental fear learning processes, potentially improving the efficacy of exposure-based therapies and informing personalized interventions for high IU individuals.
In conclusion, this review demonstrates the critical role of IU in modulating conditioned fear processes and influencing anxiety vulnerability. The proposed integrative model offers a new theoretical foundation for understanding anxiety disorders' pathogenesis and developing targeted interventions. Future research should focus on longitudinal studies to clarify causal relationships between IU, conditioned fear, and anxiety development. Additionally, investigating the impact of IU-focused interventions on conditioned fear responses could inform novel treatment approaches. Multimodal neuroimaging studies may further elucidate the neural network mechanisms by which IU influences conditioned fear and anxiety, and potentially identify new targets for intervention. These research directions will refine our understanding of the role of IU in anxiety disorders and pave the way for more effective, personalized treatment approaches. Ultimately, this integrative perspective on IU, conditioned fear, and anxiety promises to advance both our theoretical understanding and clinical management of anxiety disorders, offering hope for improved outcomes in this pervasive and debilitating class of mental health conditions.

Abstract Statistical learning (SL) refers to the ability to extract structured regularities unintentionally from the environment. SL is a powerful learning mechanism of great significance to children’s development. However, studies have not yet reached consistent conclusions on the developmental trajectory of SL in different modalities and domains during childhood. Exploring this problem requires a systematic investigation under the same research framework and the same experimental stimulus parameters. Children at 5~8 years of age are in the transition period from mastery of oral language to written language, providing a good window to investigate the development of VSL in the linguistic domain. Therefore, the present studies aim to systematically examine the developmental trajectory of SL in different modalities and domains, and to explore the nature of statistics learning mechanism that individuals possess in early childhood.
Children from the middle and senior grades of kindergarten, first and second grades of elementary school, aged 5~8 years, participated in the experiments. In Experiment 1, the participants were 96 typically developing children, with 24 children in each grade and gender being balanced. The materials contained 12 syllables and 12 environmental sounds, which were divided into 4 triplets (e.g., bà-pí-tū). During the familiarization phase, children were showed a stream of speech formed by the pseudo-random repetition of these meaningless triplets of syllables or sounds. The clue to identify the triplets from the speech stream is the transitional probabilities (TPs) (e.g., within the triplet bà-pí-tū of the speech, the TPs of bà-pí and pí-tū are both 1). During the testing phase, children were showed triplets (e.g., bà-pí-tū, TP = 1) and non-triplets (e.g., bà-pá-dā, TP = 0) that they had never heard before and asked to complete a two-alternative forced-choice task. In Experiment 2, the participants were another 96 children, with grade and gender being balanced. The materials and experiment procedures were almost the same as those of Experiment 1, except that the 12 syllables or 12 environmental sounds were replaced by 12 pictures of objects or 12 Chinese characters which were visually presented, e.g., 出-个-而. All the stimuli in two experiments were showed 500ms each, with a 250ms interval between the stimuli.
In Experiment 1, one-sample t-test showed that for linguistic materials, the accuracy of senior, first, and second grade was significantly higher than chance level .50 (ps < .001), while for non-linguistic materials, only the accuracy of first and second grades was significantly higher than .50 (p < .05. p < .001) (see Figure 1). Generalized linear mixed model (GLMM) showed that (see Table 2): The interaction between stimulus type and grade (senior vs. second) was significant. Simple effect analysis showed further that there was no significant difference in the accuracy of linguistic materials between senior and second grade (β < .001, SE = .16, z = .003, p > .05); while the accuracy for senior class of non-linguistic materials was significantly lower than the second grade (β = -.54, SE = .16, z = -.07, p < .01). In Experiment 2, for linguistic materials, only the accuracy of first and second grade were significantly higher than .50 (ps < .01). While for non-linguistic materials, the accuracy of senior, first and second grades were significantly higher than .50 (ps < .01) (see Figure 3). GLMM showed that (see Table 4): The accuracy of the second grade was significantly higher than the senior grade. None of the interactions were significant. Taken together, Children’s ASL of linguistic materials reached the same level of maturity at age 6 as at age 8. While ASL of non-linguistic materials, VSL of both materials continually developed with age.
In summary, the current study found that there is a developmental advantage of the linguistic domain in ASL within 5~8 year old children. The results help us to understand the domain-general and domain-specific nature of SL further and provide new evidence that SL may be a multi-component ability.

The role of police officers in safeguarding national security, maintaining social stability, and ensuring the well-being and peace of the populace is central to their career calling. Police cadets, who act as the reserve force of law enforcement, are tasked with maintaining an unwavering commitment to their career calling. Perceived career calling, which refers to an individual’s subjective experience of a calling in a particular domain, has been identified as an important construct in educational and occupational psychology. Recent empirical research has consistently demonstrated the positive impact of perceived career calling on students’ various domains, including the enhancement of quality of life, academic achievement, and career development. This has led to an increased focus on understanding the factors that contribute to the formation of perceived career calling.
Colleges serve as pivotal environments for fostering students’ career development and socialization. Teachers, as agents of academic institutions and influential figures in students’ lives, are integral to the social support system that significantly influences students’ career cognition, attitudes, and behaviors. While existing research has extensively explored the positive effects of actual perception of organizational support on employees’ and teachers’ perceived career calling within enterprise and educational settings, there is a notable gap in understanding the impact of expected organizational support. Particularly, the influence of the congruence between expected and perceived teacher support on cadets’ perceived career calling within the context of police higher education has been largely unexplored. This study, grounded in the self determination theory, the conservation of resources theory, and the career construction theory, aims to elucidate the mechanism of the “expected-perceived” teacher support fit on perceived career calling among cadets in police higher education institutions.
A three-year longitudinal questionnaire survey was conducted involving 364 cadets from a police college. Utilizing polynomial regression and response surface analysis, we examined the relationship between “expected-perceived” teacher support fit and cadets’ searching for and perceived career calling. Our results indicated that congruence in “expected-perceived” teacher support was associated with higher levels of searching for and perceived career calling compared to incongruence. Specifically, a “high-high” fit and a “low-high” fit in “expected-perceived” teacher support were more beneficial for cadets’ searching for and perceived career calling than the “low-low” fit and “high-low” fit, respectively. Additionally, searching for career calling was found to mediate the relationship between “expected-perceived” teacher support fit and perceived career calling. Career adaptability was identified as a moderator, strengthening the link between “expected-perceived” teacher support fit and searching for career calling under the condition of high career adaptability.
This study responds to the academic community’s call by employing a longitudinal research design to examine the impact of expected and perceived teacher support fit on individuals’ perceived career calling. Our findings enhance theoretical understanding of the relationship between teacher support and perceived career calling, thereby enriching the extant literature on this topic. The research delineates the internal pathway through which the congruence of “expected-perceived” teacher support is translated into perceived career calling, specifically within the context of police higher education. This contributes to the antecedent-cause and after-effect research on the search for career calling, broadens the theoretical framework of work as a calling, and offers novel avenues for future exploration of the formation and transformation mechanisms of the searching for and perceived career calling. Additionally, this study explores the moderating role of career adaptability and clarifies the boundary conditions under which the alignment of “expected-perceived” teacher support influences the search for career calling. It provides a valuable framework for examining the interplay between “expected-perceived” teacher support and various resources, such as emotional and motivational factors. Lastly, the study offers practical implications for educational institutions, educators, and police cadets and suggests strategies to facilitate the searching for and perceived career calling during college life, including providing of diverse teacher supports, motivating for cadets to engage in the search for career calling, and enhancing of career adaptability among cadets.

Chinese national identity serves as a critical foundation for maintaining national unity, promoting social harmony, and enhancing ethnic solidarity. According to the social identity theory, individuals’ identification with the social categories or groups to which they belong significantly influences their behavior. Social engagement refers to the process by which members of society engage, intervene, and get involved in the political, economic, social, and cultural life of the nation and in community affairs, thereby impacting social development. “Identity” functions as a crucial motivational mechanism driving public engagement in sustainable development. While there are different degrees, forms, and types of engagement, the psychological basis for people’s willingness to engage in social activities lies in the recognition that they belong to a specific group and they share common ideals, beliefs, and emotional bonds. Consequently, we think Chinese national identity can positively predict social engagement. The cognitive-affective-conative model posits that individuals undergo cognitive processing of knowledge and information, which elicits specific emotional responses, leading to deliberate and planned comprehensive decision-making. Therefore, we also investigate the sequential mediating role of subjective well-being and social trust between Chinese national identity and social engagement. Previous research has provided extensive insights through theoretical reflection, policy interpretation, and case analysis, reflecting the academic community’s concern with significant issues, such as strengthening the sense of community among the Chinese nation. However, there is a notable gap in empirical research on Chinese national identity and its impact, with a relatively limited number of participants. In response to this gap, the present study, grounded in the “cognitive-affective-conative” model and using data from the CSS2021 survey, examines the social-psychological mechanisms through which Chinese national identity influences social engagement, thereby expanding the research on Chinese national identity from a quantitative perspective.
The study investigates the following hypotheses: (1) Chinese national identity positively predicts social engagement; (2) subjective well-being mediates the relationship between Chinese national identity and social engagement; (3) social trust mediates the relationship between Chinese national identity and social engagement; (4) subjective well-being and social trust jointly serve as a chain mediation between Chinese national identity and social engagement. The CSS 2021 project surveyed a total of 10,136 individuals. After excluding incomplete and non-responses, 3,098 valid samples remained, with 1,512 males (48.8%) and 1,586 females (51.2%). The age range of the participants was between 18 and 70 years, with a mean age of 42.47 (SD = 14.57). The findings indicate that Chinese national identity positively predicts social engagement. Subjective well-being mediates the relationship between Chinese national identity and social engagement. Social trust mediates the relationship between Chinese national identity and social engagement. Subjective well-being and social trust function as a chain mediation between Chinese national identity and social engagement.
From the perspective of psychological and behavioral development, during the internalization phase, individuals integrate Chinese national identity into their own belief system and gradually form a profound understanding of the Chinese national community. In the externalization phase, individuals translate this internalized identity into conscious and habitual behaviors, actively engaging in and practicing the awareness of the Chinese national community. In this process of “internalizing in mind and externalizing in action”, individuals’ national consciousness is continuously strengthened, ultimately crystallizing into a firm sense of Chinese national community identity. In future practice, efforts can be made to engage schools, communities, businesses, and government institutions by organizing activities that are both appealing to the public and rich in national memory and cultural characteristics. These activities should help participants understand, learn about, and deeply appreciate Chinese national history. The goal is to internalize these experiences into profound situational memories, thereby strengthening participants’ sense of national identity and enhancing their social engagement. Future research could employ a variety of methods to collect data, ensuring the robustness of result analysis, including multiple respondent reports, field observations and interviews, and laboratory-based behavioral tasks. Additionally, the sequential mediation effect identified in this study represents a partial mediation, indicating that other underlying mechanisms may exist between Chinese national identity and social engagement. Future studies should continue to explore these additional mechanisms.

In the era of the digital economy, organizational members need to be more proactive in embracing change. As a change-oriented work behavior, taking charge is defined as “voluntary and constructive efforts by individual employees to effect organizationally functional change with respect to how work is executed” (Morrison & Phelps, 1999). Taking charge has received much attention because it benefits organizations in many ways, such as increasing work engagement and enhancing business performance. However, few studies have explored the impact of taking charge on leadership, particularly the potential negative effects. Compared to employees, leaders are a key force in organizational decision-making, and they have a deeper understanding of the importance of taking charge for the organization. Characterized by challenges and risks, taking charge can cause leaders to deplete both psychological and physiological resources. Continued depletion of these resources can result in a state of ego depletion, leading to a significant decline in self-control ability and subsequent negative behaviors, such as abusive supervision. Drawing on the theory of ego depletion, this study conducted a moderated mediation model to explore whether leader taking charge affected abusive supervision through ego depletion, as well as the moderating roles of perceived supervisor support and taking charge efficacy.
We conducted a multi-wave and multi-source field study to test the hypotheses. Data were collected from six companies located in Jiangsu, China, and the final sample consisted of 103 leaders and their 360 subordinates. At Time 1, subordinates were asked to rate leaders’ taking charge behavior, while leaders reported their perceived supervisor support and taking charge efficacy. At Time 2(one month later), leaders reported their ego depletion, while subordinates were asked to rate leaders’ abusive supervision. Leaders and their subordinates in both waves were required to report demographic information. Cronbach’s alpha coefficients indicated good measurement reliability. The results of the aggregation test showed that the variables of leader taking charge and abusive supervision, which were based on individual-level data collection could be aggregated into the group level. We conducted confirmatory factor analysis, regression analysis, and the bootstrap method via Mplus 7.4 to analyze the data.
The empirical results showed that: both perceived supervisor support and taking charge efficacy moderated the relationship between taking charge and ego depletion, as well as the mediated relationship between taking charge and abusive supervision via ego depletion. When perceived supervisor support or taking charge efficacy was low, leader taking charge not only had a positive impact on ego depletion, but also had a positive impact on abusive supervision through ego depletion. When perceived supervisor support or taking charge efficacy was high, the effect of leader taking charge on ego depletion and the mediating effect of ego depletion were not significant. To conclude, the dark side of leader taking charge was conditional, and lower levels of perceived supervisor support or taking charge efficacy were driving factors for ego depletion and the subsequent abusive supervision caused by leader taking charge.
This study made several contributions. First, it expanded the understanding of the consequences of taking charge, especially negative consequences, by examining the impact of leader taking charge on abusive supervision. Second, this study focused on the taking charge behavior of leaders, rather than employees or subordinates in the "leader-subordinate" dyadic roles, thereby effectively broadening the research perspective. Third, based on ego depletion theory, this study attempted to reveal the mediating role of ego depletion between leader taking charge and abusive supervision, thus providing a new theoretical mechanism for understanding the dark side of leader taking charge. The study also provided important practical implications. Organizations could reduce ego depletion and the risk of abusive supervision by taking some measures, such as rewarding leaders for their efforts and achievements during the process of taking charge and providing necessary resources. On the other hand, leaders themselves should perform self-affirmation, emotional regulation and conduct mindfulness training to effectively enhance their self-efficacy and reduce ego depletion.

Whether social exclusion reduces or enhances the cooperative behavior of outcasts remains controversial. Based on the social identity theory and the social categorization theory, numerous studies have shown that group identity (i.e., ingroup vs. outgroup) is one of the most prominent elicitors of interpersonal cooperation. Social exclusion from ingroup or outgroup members can pose different threats to individuals. Specifically, outgroup exclusion can strengthen individuals’ sense of ingroup identity and thus enhance cooperation with ingroup members. It can also activate individuals’ hostility to outgroup members and thus reduce cooperation with them. Meanwhile, ingroup exclusion might impair individuals’ ingroup expectations, reduce their identity with the ingroup and consequently encourage a shift toward cooperation with outgroup members. Alternatively, ingroup exclusion may serve as a reminder for outcasts to adhere to group norms. This study aims to explore the relationship between social exclusion and cooperative behavior among Chinese adults from an ingroup-outgroup perspective.
The Minimal Group Paradigm, developed by Henri Tajfel and his colleagues in 1971, was used to randomly assign participants to either the blue group or the yellow group. The Cyberball Game, developed by Kipling Williams and his colleagues in 2000, was used to establish conditions of exclusion or non-exclusion. The Public Goods Game, developed by Gerald Marwell and Roger Ames in 1981, was utilized to assess the level of cooperative behavior among ingroup and outgroup members. Study 1 involved 120 college students (N_female = 55, M_age = 20.86 ± 1.65 years) and focused on investigating the effect of social exclusion on individuals’ cooperative behavior with ingroup members compared to outgroup members. This study used a mixed experimental design with a 2 (condition: exclusion, non-exclusion) × 2 (cooperator identity: ingroup, outgroup) format. Study 2 further examined the effects of social exclusion from outgroup members (Study 2a) and from ingroup members (Study 2b) on individuals’ cooperative behavior with ingroup versus outgroup members. Study 2a included 113 college students (N_female = 56, M_age = 20.65 ± 1.74 years) and employed a mixed experimental design with a 2 (condition: social exclusion by outgroup, control) × 2 (cooperator identity: ingroup, outgroup) format. Study 2b included 133 college students (N_female = 64, M_age = 20.01 ± 1.60 years) and utilized a mixed experimental design with a 2 (condition: social exclusion by ingroup, control) × 2 (cooperator identity: ingroup, outgroup) format. All experiments were conducted using E-Prime.
The results indicated that there was no significant main effect of social exclusion on cooperative behavior toward individuals with no ingroup and outgroup identities. Instead, individuals who experienced social exclusion exhibited significantly more cooperative behavior toward ingroup members compared to those who were not excluded. Furthermore, individuals who were excluded by outgroup members (Study 2a) demonstrated significantly greater cooperative behavior with their ingroup members than those who were not excluded by outgroup members. However, ingroup exclusion did not significantly reduce individuals’ cooperation with ingroup members, nor did it significantly increase cooperation with outgroup members (Study 2b). This suggests that ingroup exclusion does not compel individuals to abandon their ingroup members in favor of establishing new cooperative relationships with outgroup members.
Based on ingroup and outgroup perspectives, this study provides preliminary insights into the different associations between social exclusion and cooperation. According to the ingroup favoritism hypothesis, individuals are more likely to cooperate with members of their ingroup. This study offers further evidence that social exclusion, particularly the exclusion of outgroup members, increases individuals' cooperation with ingroup members, thereby reinforcing the ingroup favoritism effect. However, individuals who are excluded by ingroup members still choose to cooperate with ingroup members rather than leaving the group to collaborate with outgroup members. This suggests that individuals experiencing social exclusion exhibit distinct patterns of cooperation with ingroup members compared to outgroup members, indicating that ingroup exclusion and outgroup exclusion have different effects on cooperation. This reveals a phenomenon referred to as the “ingroup-outgroup differential effect.”

Previous research on knowledge hiding has shed light on the antecedents and consequences of knowledge hiding behavior from the perspective of knowledge hiders, but has largely neglected to explore the influences of perceived knowledge hiding on knowledge seekers’ work attitudes and behaviors from the perspective of knowledge seeker. Only a few studies have explored its impact on seekers' work-related behaviors, such as performance and innovation. However, knowledge sharing is inherently an interpersonal interaction, particularly prevalent among colleagues. Perceived coworker knowledge hiding may be interpreted as a signal of interpersonal rejection, thereby influencing seekers' interpersonal behavior. For example, research has found that different types of perceived colleague knowledge hiding could induce different interpersonal retaliation in seekers (e.g., intentions to withhold knowledge in the future). However, previous research has not explored the psychological mechanisms underlying perceived knowledge hiding and interpersonal retaliatory behavior, nor has it investigated interpersonal deviance behavior--a more immediate and proximal form of interpersonal retaliation than future knowledge hiding. Drawing on the attribution theory, the present study aimed to investigate the potential mechanism by which the three types of perceived colleague knowledge hiding (i.e., perceived evasive hiding, perceived playing dumb, and perceived rationalized hiding) affect interpersonal deviance behavior and the moderating role of perspective taking.
To test the hypotheses, we conducted a two-wave field study with 261 participants from China. At Time 1, employees reported on perceived colleague knowledge hiding (i.e., perceived evasive hiding, perceived playing dumb, and perceived rationalized hiding), anger, forgiveness, perspective taking, and demographics. Approximately two weeks later (Time 2), the employees were asked to rate their interpersonal deviance behavior. The results showed that 1) perceived evasive hiding and perceived playing dumb are positively related to anger and negatively related to forgiveness, which in turn motivate seekers to engage in more interpersonal deviance behavior. 2) Perceived rationalized hiding is positively related to forgiveness and negatively related to anger, which in turn reduces the interpersonal deviance behavior of seekers. 3) Perspective taking moderates the positive relationship between perceived playing dumb and anger; the positive relationship between perceived rationalized hiding and forgiveness; the negative relationship between perceived rationalized hiding and anger. 4) Perspective taking weakens the indirect effect of perceived playing dumb on interpersonal deviance behavior via anger. Perspective taking strengthens the indirect effect of perceived rationalized hiding on interpersonal deviance behavior via forgiveness and anger.
Our theoretical contributions are threefold. First, we extend previous studies on perceived colleague knowledge hiding by demonstrating the impact of three types of perceived knowledge hiding on interpersonal deviance behavior. The current research suggested that, in response to perceived knowledge hiding, seekers are likely to engage in more immediate and direct interpersonal retaliatory behaviors, thereby revealing the higher interpersonal costs associated with perceived knowledge hiding. Second, our findings deepen the understanding of the underlying mechanism of perceived knowledge hiding and interpersonal retaliation by examining the mediating role of anger and forgiveness. Third, the significant moderating effect of perspective taking on the perceived knowledge hiding - anger/forgiveness offers valuable insights into how to alleviate the negative emotional response and ultimately reduce interpersonal deviance behavior. Practically, our research provides implications to buffer the effect of perceived colleague knowledge hiding on employee interpersonal deviance behavior through perspective taking. Managers thus should design some teamwork activities that promote social interaction among employees and increase their trust, so as to foster the ability of perspective taking. In addition, modern organizations necessitate the implementation of interventions in place to relieve employees’ negative experiences induced by perceived knowledge hiding. For example, organizations can advocate relaxation exercises and training programs for emotional regulation. In this way, employees can regulate their negative affect, which in turn reduces interpersonal deviance behavior.

Without outside assistance, people’s cognitive abilities are highly limited. However, accepting assistance can lead people to overestimate their ability to complete tasks independently. With the spread of the Internet, people have become increasingly dependent on Internet assistance to alleviate cognitive workload. No research has yet explored whether seeking human assistance after “asking for assistance” leads to the same level of overconfidence about future tasks as seeking assistance from the Internet. Additionally, methods suggested in previous studies to reduce overconfidence caused by external assistance tend to increase the time and cognitive cost of solving problems, making them less likely to be recognized and adopted by those assistance seekers. Therefore, we aim to address the following three questions: (1) whether proactively seeking assistance from the Internet leads to higher levels of overconfidence about future tasks than proactively seeking help from others; (2) whether a lack of reflection can lead to higher levels of overconfidence; and (3) whether a “thinking tip” can reduce the seekers’ overconfidence in their ability to complete tasks independently in the future after receiving assistance.
Study 1 used a single-factor between-subjects design to explore whether receiving human assistance leads to lower overconfidence than receiving Internet assistance after asking for assistance. One hundred and twenty-six college students were recruited online and randomly divided into three groups. In the first stage, participants were required to answer 10 general knowledge questions as correctly as possible. The Internet assistance group could use “Baidu search” for assistance, the human assistance group could ask the experimenter for answers, and the no-assistance group had to answer independently. In the second stage, participants estimated how many questions of similar difficulty to those in the first stage they could answer correctly on their own. In the third stage, participants in each group independently completed an additional 10 questions of similar difficulty to those in the first stage. Study 2 used a 2 (Internet assistance vs. human assistance) × 2 (thinking vs. no thinking) between-subjects design to explore the reasons for the difference in how various types of assistance lead to overconfidence in future tasks. It also tested whether a more feasible “thinking tip” could reduce the overconfidence caused by receiving assistance. One hundred and ninety-two college students were recruited online and randomly assigned to four groups. Participants in the no thinking groups sought help immediately after reading the questions, while participants in the thinking groups were asked to continue thinking about the question when they sought help. The other stages mirrored those in Study 1.
Study 1 showed that overconfidence in the Internet assistance group was significantly higher than in the human assistance and no-assistance groups. Study 2 showed that “thinking tip” could effectively reduce overconfidence in those who received Internet assistance, but had no effect on the overconfidence in those who received human assistance. In summary, (1) after seeking assistance from the Internet, people show higher confidence in their ability to complete tasks without assistance in the future, and are more overconfident than those who sought assistance from human. (2) The lack of thinking about problems during the process of “asking for help” by individuals who seek assistance from the Internet is an important reason why they have higher overconfidence after receiving Internet assistance than after receiving human assistance. (3) Providing individuals with the tip to think about problems before receiving assistance can reduce the overconfidence in those who receive Internet assistance in completing similar future tasks without assistance.

Team-level leader-member exchange relationship (TLMX) is the overall quality or central tendency of the leader-member exchange relationships (LMX) within a team, which defines the nature of interactions between leaders and the entire team and has a profound influence on both the teams and their individual members. Scholars have primarily explored the impact and underlying mechanisms of TLMX on teams process and effectiveness and paid less attention to subordinates' extra-role behaviors, such as innovative and helping behaviors, but neglected to investigate in-role behavior-job performance, which serves as the currency of social exchange between leaders and members and directly influences organizational effectiveness.
Drawing on the social information processing theory, this paper explores the direct effects of TLMX on job performance, its underlying mechanisms, and the boundary conditions. First, TLMX is positively correlated with the employee’s job performance. By fostering an equity rule of “high performance, high rewards” in resource allocation within the team, TLMX emphasizes the cues derived from high performance among coworkers, thereby motivating team members to elevate their own performance. Second, TLMX indirectly affects employees’ job performance through the mediation of Shared Mental Models (SMMs). SMMs refer to a common understanding among team members, developed through shared experiences, regarding expected collective behavior patterns during team actions. TLMX helps leaders in cultivating SMMs through sense-making and sense-giving processes. Furthermore, SMMs enable team members to effectively form a coherent knowledge structure of crucial elements such as team tasks and environments, minimizing the likelihood of directional errors in work and enhancing the level of implicit coordination among members. This, in turn, reduces communication costs and time, and improves the level of mutual cooperation, ultimately contributing to individuals' efficiency in completing their work tasks. Thus, TLMX enhances job performance through the mediation of SMMs. Lastly, task interdependence negatively moderates the relationship between TLMX and job performance. According to the social information processing theory, information about certain task environment features influences individual behavior. Task interdependence refers to the degree to which team members rely on each other to share resources, information, and expertise to complete their tasks, It is a representative variable reflecting team structure and task characteristics and affects the rules of resource allocation. As task interdependence increases, teams encourage members to cooperate more closely to achieve collective goals, making it more challenging to allocate resources based on equitable rules, thereby diminishing the effectiveness of TLMX in improving individual performance.
Data were collected from 550 employees across 96 teams in 13 organizations, with a minimum response rate of 80% required for inclusion in the analysis. After applying these criteria, 78 teams with 324 employees were included in the study. In addition, we distributed the questionnaires at three distinct time points. At time 1, the LMX Questionnaire was distributed to all employees in each department; at time 2, the Task Interdependence and Shared Mental Model Questionnaire was distributed to all employees in each department; at time 3, the Employee Job Performance Questionnaire was distributed to department managers. Because our theoretical model encompasses variables at both team and individual levels, we employed the Hierarchical Linear Modeling (HLM) with Mplus to analyze the data from 328 employees in 78 teams. Our findings indicate that: 1) TLMX has a positive effect on employees' shared mental model and job performance, respectively; 2) shared mental models mediate the relationship between TLMX and job performance; and 3) task interdependence negatively moderates the relationship between TLMX and job performance, such that higher interdependence weakens the positive effect of TLMX on job performance.
This study makes three key theoretical contributions: 1) it extends the research on TLMX by incorporating the social information processing theory and innovative measurement techniques, broadening the theoretical and methodological scope of TLMX research; 2) it enhances the understanding of job performance antecedents within the LMX framework by exploring the collective social exchange mechanisms at the team level; 3) it enriches the literature on shared mental models by introducing TLMX at the team level and investigating its antecedents from a leader-team relationship perspective.

In recent cultural psychology research, there has been an increased emphasis on culturally specific emotions. Wequ, a common emotional experience in the daily lives of Chinese people, is considered to be culturally specific. In Chinese culture, relational harmony and endurance are highly valued virtues. Consequently, individuals often choose to endure interpersonal conflicts, rather than express themselves straightforward. This tendency creates a cultural context conducive to the emergence of weiqu. Although weiqu has received increasing attention in Chinese counseling practice in recent years, empirical studies on its psychological underpinnings are still in the early stages. A comprehensive and empirically derived definition of weiqu is lacking, leading to difficulties in operationalizing and measuring this emotion. In the present research, we aimed to conduct a prototype analysis to explore the lay conception on weiqu. Prototype analysis has been proposed as a bottom-up approach that has been widely used to conceptualize emotion-related constructs (e.g., nostalgia, disillusionment, hope). It enables us to investigate the lay conception of weiqu by having laypeople generate features of weiqu and then assessing the centrality of each feature.
In Study 1 (N = 340), Chinese participants (170 college students and 170 participants recruited through an online platform called Credamo) were instructed to list as many characteristics that could describe weiqu as they could think of in an open-ended response format. Two coders then grouped these characteristics into higher-order exemplars. These exemplars were further categorized into a list of 34 distinct prototypical features of weiqu. Following the standard procedure of prototype analysis, Study 2 (N = 150) aimed to quantify the centrality of these prototypical features. Participants rated how closely each feature was related to weiqu. Ratings for each feature were averaged across participants, and the features were then rank-ordered accordingly, yielding 17 central features (e.g., being wronged, being misunderstood, speechlessness, unfairness) and 17 peripheral features (e.g., disheartened, repression, venting, disappointment).
Studies 3 and 4 tested the ecological validity, criterion validity, and discriminant validity of the prototype of weiqu. In Study 3 (N = 100), participants read nine short vignettes, each describing one target character’s autobiographical event that happened in the workplace. Specifically, three vignettes depicted events that were embedded with only central features, three highlighted peripheral features, and the rest include no prototypical features of weiqu. In addition, we randomized the gender of the characters across participants to control for any effect it might have. Participants rated the extent to which they thought the characters felt the emotion of weiqu. Results showed that even when the word weiqu was never used, target characters were perceived as having a stronger feeling of weiqu when vignettes were embedded with prototypical features (vs. no features). More importantly, participants rated target characters in vignettes embedded with central features, compared to peripheral features, to experience higher level of weiqu. No effect of the target character’s gender was found. Study 4 (N = 180) extended the ecological validity of the prototypic structure of weiqu in a more naturalistic context. Participants were first instructed to recall target emotional events (weiqu vs. anger vs. control) and then to rate how well each of the prototypical features relate to the events. Results indicated that participants’ own experiences of weiqu (vs. anger/ordinary events) were better characterized by central (vs. peripheral) features. Participants rated significantly higher levels of central features for weiqu recalls compared to anger and control events. Peripheral features were also scored higher in the weiqu condition compared to the control condition, while there were no differences in the ratings of peripheral features between weiqu and anger conditions.
In conclusion, four studies were conducted to identify the prototypic structure of the emotion of weiqu. Based on our findings, we present an evidence-based definition of weiqu as a negative emotion induced by unfair and undeserving events in which one lack in power and have no choice but to endure. Our research takes an important step into the scientific conceptualization of weiqu. Meanwhile, future research could benefit from scrutinizing the prototype of weiqu, which would provide initial insights into its consequences and associations with other related constructs.

Self-control is self-regulation under conditions of conflict and interference. The regulatory focus theory indicates that promotion and prevention focus are two relatively independent approaches in the process of pursuing goals. Studies have showed that promotion-focused individuals tend to exhibit better self-control than prevention-focused individuals. Some researchers equate self-control with inhibitory control. Based on this, it is assumed that more cognitive effort is needed to perform control tasks in the promotion focus than in the prevention focus. However, other studies have suggested that inhibitory control is one of the important components of self-control, and that better self-control does not necessarily require more cognitive effort.
In this study, two experimental tasks were used to investigate the influence of regulatory focus on conflict processing. Both experiments were designed with within-subjects. In Experiment 1, 77 college students (35 males), aged 18 - 28 years (M = 22.78, SD = 1.98), performed a cognitive processing response task in randomized prevention focus, promotion focus, and neutral conditions. The task requires participants to react to the color of the ring outside the color word (where the meaning and the color of the words are congruent). The color of the ring being congruent with the color of the word is the congruent stimulus, and the incongruent is the conflict stimulus. The results showed that compared to prevention focus, the accuracy rate of conflict stimulation under promotion focus was the same, but the response time was shorter; under prevention and promotion focus, the interference effect did not differ in both accuracy rate and reaction time.
In Experiment 2, 106 college students (42 males), aged 18 - 28 years (M = 22.85, SD = 1.87), performed a color-word Stroop dual task (which required the subjects to name the color or read the meaning of congruent or incongruent color-words according to task cues) under randomly arranged prevention and promotion focus conditions. The results showed that, compared to prevention focus, the reaction time to the conflict stimulus in promotion focus was shorter and the accuracy rate was higher; under the two conditions, the interference effect did not differ in accuracy rate and reaction time.
The above two studies found that, compared to prevention focus, although the responding speed was faster in Study 1 and the responding accuracy rate was higher in Study 2 when processing conflict information, the interfering effects of conflict were no different in either response accuracy rate or responding speed. These results suggest that inhibitory control is not the reason for the better self-control in promotion than in prevention focus. We propose that better cognitive monitoring of target information in promotion than in prevention focus may be an important reason for the improvement of self-control efficacy. The potential reasons are as follows: (1) promotion-focused individuals are more sensitive to target information than prevention-oriented individuals; (2) enhanced monitoring of target information does not need to consume control resources; and (3) enhanced monitoring of target information is conducive to reducing cognitive conflict and negative task execution experience.
This study has important implications for the development of effective control strategies. First, when performing tasks requiring self-control, the promotion strategy of "specifying what to do" will be more effective than the prevention strategy of "limiting what not to do". Second, when facing difficult tasks or suffering serious ego depletion, designing task situations with a promotion focus or utilizing incentives in promotion focus can still improve self-control to some extent.
This study has some limitations. First, we did not control the variable of trait regulatory focus when examining the influence of state regulatory focus on conflict processing. In addition, the proportion of male subjects is small, and there may be gender differences in trait regulatory focus, so the influence of trait regulatory focus on the experimental results cannot be excluded.

Unethical behavior pervades nearly every aspect of society, and moral disengagement may explain why otherwise ordinary individuals engage in unethical actions without apparent guilt or self-condemnation. When moral disengagement fails, individuals may decide to engage in unethical behavior. Moral disengagement refers to the diminishment or elimination of guilt and moral responsibility through cognitive strategies such as neglect or moral rationalization, allowing individuals to avoid moral remorse for unethical behavior. Self-deception is considered the central psychological mechanism underlying moral disengagement, enabling individuals to rationalize immoral behaviors while maintaining their moral self-image. Self-deception occurs when an individual deliberately distorts facts to uphold a belief, even when that belief is inconsistent with reality. Self-deception can facilitate the rationalization of unethical behavior, with potentially negative consequences at both the individual and societal levels.
This study included three experiments aimed at investigating the impact of unethical behavior on self-deception and the inhibitory effect of moral standards on self-deception. This study integrates paradigms of unethical behavior and self-deception to induce self-deception through participants' voluntary unethical actions and exposure to external information that may enhance their moral self-image. The results indicate a successful induction of self-deception. Experiment 1 explored the influence of active unethical behavior on self-deception. Participants engaged in a sender-receiver task in which they first made a decision to behave honestly or deceptively. When prizes were distributed based on the chosen scheme, the recipients' prizes were transformed into a lottery with unknown random probabilities. Participants were then asked to predict the probability values after each decision. Subsequently, a lottery task assessed participants' true beliefs about these random probability values. The results indicated that the predicted belief in the cheating condition was significantly lower than in the honest condition and also lower than the actual belief, suggesting the presence of false beliefs during unethical behavior. Regression analysis revealed that the individual deception rate significantly and negatively predicted the discrepancy between predicted and actual beliefs in the deception condition. Experiment 2 assessed the impact of passive unethical behavior on self-deception. The results indicated that no false beliefs were generated when participants passively deceived at the request and command of the host. Experiment 3 examined the influence of ethical concern on self-deception in the context of active unethical behavior. The results indicated that there was no significant difference between predicted and true beliefs in the deception condition, suggesting that no false beliefs were formed. In contrast, the control group showed a significant discrepancy between predicted and true beliefs, leading to false beliefs.
The results revealed that participants' beliefs about the values of random probability significantly deviated from their true beliefs when they engaged in immoral behavior, and they adopted more pessimistic beliefs in these contexts. This suggests that individuals developed false beliefs that contradicted reality in the context of unethical behavior, resulting in a psychological process of self-deception. The observed phenomenon of individuals predicting lower probabilities of unethical behavior was likely attributed to self-justification, exemplified by rationalizations such as “I cheated not because I am immoral, but because I believed you had a low probability of receiving a bonus” . By adopting more pessimistic beliefs about random probabilities, individuals rationalized their behavior and preserved their moral self-image, suggesting that individuals tended to obscure the attribution of their unethical behavior and actively rationalize it retrospectively. These findings suggest that in passive unethical behavior, in which individuals were instructed or ordered to act immorally, the alleviation of moral responsibility alleviated guilt and self-blame, diminishing the motivation to uphold their moral self-image. Conversely, those who engage in active unethical behavior are more likely to exhibit stronger motivations for self-deception, whereas heightened awareness of moral standards could inhibit self-deception in such behavior.

Meaning in life is described as the sense made of and significance one makes of the nature of one’s being and existence. Previous studies have suggested that meaning in life stimulates individual growth and helps individuals’ psychological adjustment. Adjustment or adaptation is defined as a process in which individuals adapt to a given environment and a process in which individuals seek to change their environment in order to satisfy their development and needs. Considering that college freshmen are in a special stage of transiting to the university study and life, it is certain that the majority of college freshmen who are about to enter university appear to approach this transition in their lives with feelings of anticipation and stress. In the context of university, some of college freshmen are exposed to adjustment problems (e.g., academic adjustment , social adjustment , and economical adjustment ). It is obviously that good adjustment to university life not only facilitates individual university study, but also has an important effect on one’s future adult life and work.
Although prior studies have preliminarily supported the relationship between meaning in life and adjustment to university, the causal mechanism between them is not completely clear. Specifically, some of the studies have indicated that the meaning in life could predict individual adaptation, whereas others have suggested that the individual adaptation was an important predictor of meaning in life. The current study, therefore, conducted a longitudinal research design and used a cross-lagged model to further clarify the causal relationship between meaning in life and the adjustment to university of college freshmen.
The subjects for the present investigation were recruited from two undergraduate normal universities in Guizhou, China. In this in-progress longitudinal research, we aimed to seek a more particular knowledge of the correlates and causes of heterogeneity in freshman adaptation to university and psychological health. The first survey was administered at the beginning of the first semester of the freshman year in October 2018, when 505 first-year students were recruited to complete the Chinese version of Meaning in Life Questionnaire (C-MLQ) and the Freshmen Adaptation Inventory Short Form (FAI-SF). Subsequently, the second assessment was conducted in the end of the second semester of the freshman year (June 2019), with 456 of the original first-year students attending the investigation. In the final sample, college freshmen were between 16 and 23 years of age (M=19.02, SD=1.00). Additionally, the statistics analysis was performed with SPSS 22.0 and Mplus 7.0. More specifically, SPSS 22.0 was responsible for the descriptive statistics and Pearson’s product correlation analysis, and Mplus 7.0 was used for the common method bias and cross-lagged analysis.
The results of correlation analysis showed that the presence of meaning was positively associated with adjustment to university of college freshmen, both concurrently and longitudinal; whereas there was not significant correlation between search for meaning in life and adaptation of college freshmen. Furthermore, the cross-lagged analysis indicated that there was a significantly cross-lagged effect between the meaning in life of college freshmen and their adjustment to university. More specifically, both the presence of meaning and the search for meaning in life at the beginning of the first semester have a positive predictive effect on college freshmen's adjustment to university in the end of the second semester, while the adjustment of college freshmen at the beginning of the first semester could not predict the presence of meaning and the search for meaning in life at the end of the second semester.
In summary, these findings suggest that there is a strong relationship between the meaning in life of college freshmen and their adjustment to university. Particularly, the meaning in life of first-year students plays a positive role in their adjustment to university. Overall, this study clarified the causal relationship between the meaning in life and adjustment to university among college freshmen, and demonstrated the effect of meaning in life on adjustment to university among college freshmen.

Anxiety and depression represent a substantial burden to modern society and severely affect the quality of life of individuals. This study aimed to investigate the dynamic nature of anxiety and depression using a longitudinal approach, and to analyze causal relationships and interaction mechanisms between symptoms at different stages of treatment. By combining causal-lagged path model (CLPM) and cross-lagged panel network analysis (CLPN), we sought to gain a comprehensive understanding of the causal relationships and evolution of symptoms, identifying key predictive symptoms, and suggest possible intervention strategies for different treatment stages. CLPM and CLPN may offer distinct perspectives for investigating the relationship between anxiety and depression. The CLPM adopts a syndrome-oriented approach and explores longitudinal relationships among two or more latent variables. Conversely, the CLPN integrates the strengths of latent variable modeling and network theory, assuming that relationships occur at the symptom level over time. It captures the longitudinal evolution of specific symptoms and their interactions through directed symptom networks, identifying symptoms that play predictive or influential roles in understanding cross-diagnostic processes.
Therefore, we recruited 399 outpatient patients (Mean age = 39.6 years; female = 374) diagnosed with severe anxiety and depression from a psychiatric hospital in Western China. Clinical interviews were conducted by two clinicians, which provided objective assessments of the patients’ conditions. CLPM and CLPN were employed to analyze three sets of data from the Self-rating Anxiety Scale (SAS) and the Self-rating Depression Scale (SDS), which were completed by the patients during the acute period (T1), continuation period (T2), and maintenance period (T3). The aim was to draw syndrome-oriented and symptom-oriented inferences regarding the mechanisms of complicated interactions and dynamic evolutionary processes of the disorder.
Results showed that there were high temporal correlations between anxiety and depression at all three time points, emphasizing their strong association. Panic and fatigue emerged as core symptoms across all periods, with emptiness identified as a shared core symptom at T2 and T3. Additionally, when comparing T2 and T3 to T1, anxiety and depression levels significantly decreased (p < .05). Notably, specific symptom relationships highlighted the importance of certain nodes. Depressive mood (i.e., depressed, sad, and blue), tachycardia, and fatigue acted as bridging symptoms, suggesting their role in activating opposing symptom clusters. This emphasizes the need to consider multiple dimensions of symptoms during interventions to disrupt the pathway of comorbidities. Moreover, the global strength of the three network structures did not differ significantly (p > .05), but T2 showed the highest one. It may indicate variations in treatment effects at different stages, with patients’ sensitivity to specific symptoms changing throughout the treatment process. Local strength analysis revealed specific changes in symptom sensitivity, emphasizing the importance of adjusting coping strategies for different symptoms during treatment. Additionally, the 95% confidence intervals of the bootstrapped edge weights of the network were relatively narrow, and there was no overlap with strongest edges, indicating the accuracy of the estimated network edges at each time point. The centrality stability coefficient (CS) estimated through bootstrapped subset procedures reveals that the CS of nodal strength, in-expected influence (iEI) and out-expected influence (oEI) were all greater than .25 at T1, T2, and T3. Specifically, in the T1→ T2 network and in the T2→ T3 network, the CS coefficients of iEI and oEI were also all greater than .25. Moreover, differences in nodal strength centrality indicated significant variations among several symptoms, suggesting stable and generalizable findings.
In conclusion, the present study sheds light on the nuanced interplay between anxiety and depression in outpatients. These findings have significant implications for the understanding and prevention of anxiety and depression, offering clinical recommendations and potential intervention targets for adjusting treatment strategies at different stages of treatment to mitigate symptom development. Thus, it is recommended that network analysis be intergrated into current diagnostic, treatment, and follow-up procedures to promote individualized interventions and improve patient recovery.

Background:Auditory stimulus (i.e. sounds) played a significant role in eliciting and recovering emotions. As research on the relation between sound and emotion continues to advance, the International Affective Digitized Sound-2 (IADS-2) was developed as a set of standardized sound stimuli to promote standardization and reproducibility of emotion research. However, there are several issues with research based on the IADS-2. First, previous researches have primarily focused on rating dimensional indicators such as valence, arousal, and dominance, which overlooks the qualitative differences of emotions. While emotion classification theory categorizes emotions into distinct basic emotions, it could refine our understanding of emotions induced by different sounds. The second issue is the lack of localization research on Chinese groups, which limited the generalization of previous findings to the Chinese population and the comparison of emotional responses with other cultural groups. Therefore, our study aimed to localize the IADS-2 in the Chinese population with a combination of emotional dimension indicators and basic emotion indicators to expand the use of the IADS-2.
Procedures: A total of 167 Chinese university students rated the emotional indicators of the sounds in the IADS-2 using a 9-point self-report rating scale. The average age of the participants was 21.04 years (SD = 1.879, range: 18-30 years), with 81 males (48.8%) and 85 females (51.2%). The emotional indicators included valence, arousal, dominance, happy, angry, sad, fear, surprise, and disgusting. Each participant rated 55-56 sounds, with each sound receiving ratings from at least 66 participants. During the experiment, each sound was presented for 6 seconds, and participants had up to 5 seconds to rate each emotional indicator. Before the formal experiment began, we first used three non-IADS-2 sounds to practice with the participants to ensure that they were familiar with the procedure before the formal experiment began. The entire experimental procedure took approximately 30-40 minutes. We then categorized these sounds according to these indicators and further analyzed the differences in emotional responses of different semantic categories of sounds , and explored the relation between valence, arousal, and dominance. Finally, we consulted publicly available databases of IADS-2 ratings from other countries (The United States of America, Portugal, Japan, South Korea) and compared the differences in emotional ratings of various types of sounds across cultures.
Results:Our study obtained the emotional ratings of Chinese university students for various sounds in IADS-2. The results recorded nine emotional indicators of each sound. We found a cross-cultural U-shaped relationship between valence and arousal, and a positive linear correlation between valence and dominance. Additionally, different semantic categories of sounds elicited different emotional response in Chinese population. Music and electric sounds could induce the highest valence, dominance and happy emotions, natural sounds could induce the lowest arousal, while the breaking sounds always induced the highest negative emotions and the lowest positive emotions. Finally, we found cross-cultural differences in emotional ratings of sports, video games, music, erotic sounds and threatening sounds. Compared to other cultures, the Chinese population exhibited higher arousal levels towards high valence sounds such as sports, video games, and music, and they exhibited lower arousal levels to threatening sounds such as fighting, screaming. Erotic sounds demonstrated pronounced cultural differences between East and West, with Eastern cultures (China, Japan, and South Korea) perceiving these sounds negatively and Western cultures (The United States of America and Portugal) perceiving them positively.
Conclusions:To sum up, our study localized the IADS-2 to Chinese culture, which not only expanded the applicability of the IADS-2 but also provided more refined materials for subsequent emotion research and interventions based on Chinese culture. We also drew some preliminary conclusions through our research and proposed some cross-cultural differences, which provided reference for further research.

Self-compassion research represents an emerging field in contemporary psychological science. This paper first proposes a broader and more detailed exploration of the context in which self-compassion emerged. Furthermore, this paper not only analyzes the positive significance of Buddhist compassion thought in terms of personal development and mental health, but also complements the prior discussions of healthy self-attitudes (e.g., self-esteem) by early researchers before the concept of self-compassion was introduced. Self-compassion has been shown to guide individuals toward a more positive and self-sufficient state.
Secondly, this paper elucidates the elements that make up this concept. Self-compassion is a healthy way for individuals to relate to themselves in the face of failure, inadequacy, or suffering, without involving an evaluation of self-worth. Self-compassion is a multidimensional concept that includes three overlapping yet distinct elements. Each includes a positive pole and a negative pole representing compassionate and uncompassionate behavior: (1) self-kindness vs. self-judgment; (2) common humanity vs. isolation; (3) mindfulness vs. over-identification.
Then, due to the conceptual proximity of self-compassion to self-esteem and self-pity, conceptual confusion often arises. Therefore, this paper elaborates on the similarities and differences between self-compassion and both self-esteem and self-pity, thereby facilitating a deeper understanding of the concept of self-compassion. Both self-compassion and self-esteem involve positive feelings about oneself. However, self-esteem is based on positive self-evaluation, emphasizing uniqueness and the successful achievement of goals, whereas self-compassion does not arise from self-judgment or evaluation processes, emphasizing the recognition of common humanity and the adoption of a kind and accepting attitude toward oneself. Although self-compassion and self-pity both respond to suffering, the former avoids over-identification with pain and allows space for kindness, while the latter originates from pain, and emphasizes separation, self-centeredness, and over-identification with negative emotions.
Meanwhile, this paper identifies common misconceptions about self-compassion. Specifically, self-compassion does not imply psychological vulnerability. Instead, it is a positive psychological resource that can significantly enhance individual psychological resilience; it does not imply selfishness and self-centeredness but can enhance social connectedness; self-compassion is often misunderstood as weakening the motivation for individual progress, in fact, self-compassion stems from self-care and the desire for happiness, rather than from the fear of inadequacy or avoidance of difficulty. Self-compassion provides a more positive, healthy, and sustainable pattern of motivation.
Furthermore, this paper reviews the development of self-compassion measurement tools and the two theories related to self-compassion. In China, psychological scholars have revised the Chinese version of the Self-Compassion Scale and validated its reliability and its validity among college students. The findings confirm its high reliability. Nowadays, the Chinese version of the SCS has been widely used in domestic psychological research and related fields, becoming one of the indispensable tools for assessing individuals’ levels of self-compassion. In particular, this paper provides a more systematic description of the research paradigm for state self-compassion and the corresponding measurement tools. This description is helpful for researchers to use more scientific tools to measure the components and effects of self-compassion in experimental studies.
Lastly, recognizing the positive contributions of self-compassion in fostering self-healing and enhancing human well-being, this paper focuses on reviewing the empirical research findings on self-compassion and mental health, as well as self-compassion and well-being. By learning and practicing self-compassion, individuals can gradually cultivate a non-judgmental acceptance of the present moment, approach painful experiences with kindness toward themselves, and gain a deep understanding that such experiences are universal among humans. This, in turn, fosters a more positive and healthy sense of social connectedness. This transformative process is particularly crucial for individuals in stressful environments, facing various challenges, struggling with feelings of inadequacy, and for special populations. It helps increase their psychological resilience and capacity for well-being.