Perceived Social Support and Experiential Avoidance in Adolescents: A Moderated Mediation Model of Individual Relative Deprivation and Subjective Social Class.

Based on the integration of ecological systems theory and the risk and protective factor model, the current study tested whether individual relative deprivation mediated the association between perceived social support and adolescents' experiential avoidance and whether this mediation model was moderated by subjective social class. A sample of 582 senior high school students in China participated in the current survey. The results indicated that perceived social support was negatively related to the students' experiential avoidance. Mediation analysis showed a significant indirect effect of perceived social support on experiential avoidance, via individual relative deprivation. Moreover, the mediation effect of individual relative deprivation was moderated by subjective social class. Specifically, the negative relationship between perceived social support and individual relative deprivation, and the direct relationship between perceived social support and experiential avoidance were stronger for adolescents with low subjective social class. In contrast, the positive relationship between individual relative deprivation and experiential avoidance was stronger for adolescents with high subjective social class.

Effects of Positive and Negative Experiences on Cooperative Behavior: The Role of Sharedness.

Cooperation is a fundamental ingredient of society. However, research on the effects of positive and negative experiences on cooperation remain largely inconsistent. Therefore, through two experiments, the present study examined the effects of positive and negative experiences on cooperative behavior, and the moderation effect of sharedness on this relationship. In Study 1, we directly compared positive and negative experiences in the same context. Seventy-four students participated the experiment (Mage = 19.88, SDage = 2.21). Results showed that participants reported higher levels of cooperative behavior in negative experiences than in positive experiences. In Study 2, we examined the moderation effect of sharedness on the relationship between positive/negative experiences and cooperative behavior. The result of the experiments involving 126 participants (Mage = 19.53, SDage = 1.14) showed a significant interaction effect between positive/negative experiences and sharedness on cooperative behavior. Participants exhibited higher level of cooperative behavior in shared negative experiences than in shared positive experiences, while there were no significant differences in cooperative behavior between unshared negative and positive experiences. These results suggested that shared negative experiences could facilitate cooperative behavior.

Gain-loss situation modulates neural responses to self-other decision making under risk.

Although self-other behavioral differences in decision making under risk have been observed in some contexts, little is known about the neural mechanisms underlying such differences. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and the cups task, in which participants choose between risky and sure options for themselves and others in gain and loss situations, we found that people were more risk-taking when making decisions for themselves than for others in loss situations but were equally risk-averse in gain situations. Significantly stronger activations were observed in the dorsomedial prefrontal cortex (dmPFC) and anterior insula (AI) when making decisions for the self than for others in loss situations but not in gain situations. Furthermore, the activation in the dmPFC was stronger when people made sure choices for others than for themselves in gain situations but not when they made risky choices, and was both stronger when people made sure and risky choices for themselves than for others in loss situations. These findings suggest that gain-loss situation modulates self-other differences in decision making under risk, and people are highly likely to differentiate the self from others when making decisions in loss situations.