Follow-up to a randomized controlled trial of the effect of self-affirmation on anxiety during the COVID-19 pandemic.

A recent study showed that a brief intervention involving reflection on personal values (T1: 2 February 2020) can buffer the anxiety response one week later (T2: Feb. 9) during the COVID-19 pandemic in China. The present study reported the results from a follow-up two weeks (T3: Feb. 16) and one-month later (T4: Mar. 1). Two hundred and twenty participants were recruited via convenience sampling and randomly assigned either to the value-affirmation condition or to a control condition, with 110 participants in each condition. The results revealed that similar to T2, participants who affirmed their values showed a lower anxiety response than those in the control group at T3, despite the pandemic continuing to increase rapidly during that time. Meanwhile, anxiety decreased in both groups at T4 as the pandemic eased. Findings suggest that self-affirmations can help reduce stress in the face of the COVID-19.

Rule-based or information-integration category: processing of the self-face.

This study investigated the differences between categorizing the self-face and other faces. Additionally, the study aimed to determine whether self-face categorization is consistent with dual-system categorization, such as in the competition between verbal and implicit systems (COVIS) model, or whether the self-face uses different categorizing methods than those used with other faces. The experiment adopted a dual-task paradigm to examine how participants complete rule-based/information-integration categorization tasks of the self-face/other faces and their method of processing when a numerical Stroop task was introduced. Results indicated that participants processed the self-face better than other faces in rule-based categorization, and there was no significant difference between categorization of the self-face and other faces during a single or dual task. This suggests there is a self-processing advantage in classification tasks; however, categorization based on face stimuli is not consistent with the COVIS model. Face categorization has a self-advantage effect, and categorization of human faces is distinctive from other types of categorization.

Longitudinal relations between non-suicidal self-injury and both depression and anxiety among senior high school adolescents: a cross-lagged panel network analysis.

Background: Comorbidity between non-suicidal self-injury (NSSI) and depression and anxiety was common. In the framework of network theory, the examination of directionality and gender differences in longitudinal relationships at the symptom level made a significant contribution to the understanding of comorbidity. Therefore, this study employed cross-lagged panel network analysis to investigate the longitudinal interrelations between NSSI and depression and anxiety in Chinese adolescents, with a focus on gender differences. Method: The study was conducted with a sample of 884 senior high school students (F/M: 481/403; mean age: 15.19 ± 0.48 years) from Jinchang City, Gansu Province, China. All respondents completed the Adolescent Non-Suicidal Self-Injury Assessment Questionnaire and the two subscales (depression and anxiety) of the Brief Symptom Inventory at two intervals. The data were estimated in R 4.2.0 to construct the cross-lagged panel network (CLPN). Results: The CLPN results uncovered the gender differences. For boys, self-hitting and feeling scared emerged as central symptoms. Cutting predicted subsequent feelings of sadness (ß =  - 0.57), tension (ß =  - 0.52) and indifference (ß =  - 0.49), potentially serving as a bridge connecting NSSI to depression and anxiety. For girls, biting themselves and feeling scared were central symptoms. Carving and skin rubbing predicted subsequent feelings of indifference (ß =  - 0.31, -0.21), bridging NSSI to depression and anxiety. In addition, feeling scared emerged as the key bridge symptom connecting depression and anxiety. Conclusion: The findings showed the gender-specific developmental characteristics of the directional relations between NSSI and depression and anxiety at the symptom level. They provided new insights into the comorbidity of NSSI and depression and anxiety, carrying important implications for the screening and intervention of adolescent NSSI.

Effect of Social Support on Career Decision-Making Difficulties: The Chain Mediating Roles of Psychological Capital and Career Decision-Making Self-Efficacy.

This present study explores the effect of social support on career decision-making difficulties, with the chain mediation of psychological capital and career decision-making self-efficacy. A total of 770 college students were recruited to complete the survey, which included a social support, career decision-making self-efficacy, psychological capital scale, and career decision-making difficulties scales. Significant correlations were found between social support, career decision-making difficulties, psychological capital, and career decision making self-efficacy. Path analysis indicated that the direct effect of social support on career decision-making difficulty was non-significant; social support affected career decision-making difficulties indirectly through not only the mediating effect of psychological capital but also through the chain mediation of psychological capital and career decision-making self-efficacy. Overall, the results show that social support could exert an effect on career decision-making difficulties through the mediational chains of career decision-making self-efficacy and psychological capital; the implications of this are discussed.

The impact of information presentation on self-other risk decision-making.

To explore the impact of social distance and information presentation types on self-other risk preferences in monetary tasks. Risk preferences were examined in decision-making tasks and experiential information tasks within different frameworks when participants made decisions for themselves and others. Experiment 1 employed experiential decision tasks and revealed individual differences in decision-making for oneself and others. In gain situations, participants exhibited more risk aversion when deciding for others compared to themselves. Experiment 2 presented both types of information simultaneously to investigate whether risk decisions for oneself and others are influenced by information types. Results indicated that experiential information led participants to make more conservative choices for others, while descriptive information eliminated this effect. This study discovered the influence of social distance on self-other risk decisions and the role of information presentation types in self and other risk decision-making. Future research could further explore self-other decision-making from the perspectives of decision-makers' traits and culture.

Family Socioeconomic Status and Adolescent Mental Health Problems during the COVID-19 Pandemic: The Mediating Roles of Trait Mindfulness and Perceived Stress.

The present study was conducted twice over one year during the COVID-19 pandemic with Chinese adolescents (n = 1582) to investigate the relationships among family socioeconomic status (SES), adolescent mental health problems, trait mindfulness, and perceived stress using self-reported measures. We administered the Mindful Attention Awareness Scale (MAAS), the Perceived Stress Scale (PPS), the Self-rating Anxiety Scale (SAS), the Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale (CES-D), and Conduct Problem Tendency Inventory (CPTDI) to a sample of Chinese adolescents. The results prove that (1) there were significant correlations among socioeconomic status, trait mindfulness, perceived stress, and adolescent mental health problems, and the (2) serial mediation analysis indicated that trait mindfulness and perceived stress performed as mediators on the path from SES to anxiety, depression, and externalizing problems. Our findings provide a contribution by showing the connection between socioeconomic position and adolescent mental health problems and by offering a reference for the treatment of psychological issues affecting adolescents.

Negative Parenting Styles and Psychological Crisis in Adolescents: Testing a Moderated Mediating Model of School Connectedness and Self-Esteem.

Little is known about how rejecting and controlling parenting styles may influence adolescent psychological crisis and what conditions may buffer the detrimental effects of psychological crisis. By integrating multiple theories, this study investigated self-esteem as an underlying mediator and school connectedness as a potential moderator to explain the link between negative parenting and the two psychological crises among Chinese adolescents. In this study, the questionnaire method is adopted to examine the combined mechanism of rejecting parenting style and controlling parenting style on the psychological crisis of adolescents. In total, 1863 adolescents were involved in this study, ranging from 13 to 17 years old. The results showed that both the rejecting parenting style and the controlling parenting style can significantly and positively predict the level of psychological crisis of adolescents, but the predictive power of the rejecting parenting style was stronger. Self-esteem partially mediates the relationship between rejecting parenting style, controlling parenting style, and psychological crisis. School connectedness moderates both the effects of rejecting parenting styles on self-esteem and the effects of self-esteem on the psychological crisis. This study identifies the internal mechanisms by which negative parenting styles affect adolescents' psychological crisis, and reveals the mediating and moderating roles of self-esteem and school connectedness, providing additional explanatory paths for the mechanisms of adolescents' psychological crisis.

Effect of body-related information on food attentional bias in women with body weight dissatisfaction.

Women with body weight dissatisfaction (BWD) have long-term negative assessments of their body weight, which are often associated with poor eating behavior. In this study, we investigated the effect of body-related information on the food cue processing and attention of women with BWD. Sixty-eight women were recruited and assigned to either a BWD (NPSS-F > 2) (n = 32) or a no body weight dissatisfaction (NBWD) group (NPSS-F < 1) (n = 36). We measured attentional bias to food cues (high- and low-calorie) with a food probe task after exposure to body-related information and recorded eye tracking data. Body-related images were presented prior to a pair of stimulus images (food-neutral or neutral-neutral). Body-related information and food type were repeated measure factors in our study. Our results showed that the first fixation duration bias for high-calorie foods was significantly longer than for low-calorie foods after exposure to overweight cues in the BWD group. Compared with the NBWD group, the BWD group showed longer first fixation duration bias for high-calorie foods after exposure to overweight cues. The direction for high-calorie foods was significantly more often than that for low-calorie foods in the BWD group after exposure to body-related information. Our findings suggest that compared to women with NBWD, women with BWD may be more susceptible to body-related information, resulting in increased attention to high-calorie foods.

Conflict Experience Regulates the Neural Encoding of Cognitive Conflict.

Cognitive control is adaptive in that it rapidly adjusts attention in response to changing contexts and shifting goals. Research provides evidence that cognitive control can rapidly adjust attention to focus on task-relevant information based on prior conflict experience. Neural encoding of goal-related information is critical for goal-directed behaviour; however, the empirical evidence on how conflict experience affects the encoding of cognitive conflict in the brain is rather weak. In the present fMRI study, a Stroop task with different proportions of incongruent trial was used to investigate the neural encoding of cognitive conflict in the environment with changing conflict experience. The results showed that the anterior cingulate cortex, dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, and intraparietal sulcus played a pivotal role in the neural encoding of cognitive conflict. The classification in anterior cingulate cortex was significantly above chance in the high-proportion, moderate-proportion, and low-proportion conflict conditions conducted separately, suggesting that neural encoding of cognitive conflict in this region was not altered based on proportion of conflict. The dorsolateral prefrontal cortex and intraparietal sulcus showed significant above-chance classification in the moderate-proportion and low-proportion conflict conditions, but not in the high-proportion conflict condition. These findings provide direct evidence that conflict experience modulates the neural encoding of cognitive conflict.

Effects of Long-Term Exposure to 2260 m Altitude on Working Memory and Resting-State Activity in the Prefrontal Cortex: A Large-Sample Cross-Sectional Study.

It has been well established that very-high-altitude (>4000 m) environments can affect human cognitive function and brain activity. However, the effects of long-term exposure to moderate altitudes (2000−3000 m) on cognitive function and brain activity are not well understood. In the present cross-sectional study, we utilized an N-back working memory task and resting-state functional near-infrared spectroscopy to examine the effects of two years of exposure to 2260 m altitude on working memory and resting-state brain activity in 208 college students, compared with a control group at the sea level. The results showed that there was no significant change in spatial working memory performance after two years of exposure to 2260 m altitude. In contrast, the analysis of resting-state brain activity revealed changes in functional connectivity patterns in the prefrontal cortex (PFC), with the global efficiency increased and the local efficiency decreased after two years of exposure to 2260 m altitude. These results suggest that long-term exposure to moderate altitudes has no observable effect on spatial working memory performance, while significant changes in functional connectivity and brain network properties could possibly occur to compensate for the effects of mild hypoxic environments. To our knowledge, this study is the first to examine the resting state activity in the PFC associated with working memory in people exposed to moderate altitudes.

Effects of ownership expressed by the first-person possessive pronoun.

The present study examined the behavioral effects of the first-person possessive pronoun. In each trial, a noun (e.g. cup or bread) was presented to participants after visual presentation of a possessive pronoun "wo de" (Chinese for "my") or "ta de" (Chinese for "his"), which formed ownership. Half participants were assigned to contextual encoding (CE) condition in which they were required to judge whether they liked the item expressed by a noun from the first or third-person perspective. The rest were assigned to perceptual encoding (PE) condition in which they were asked to judge what color the noun was. A subsequent recall test was performed. The results showed that there were significant memory and response advantages for nouns in "my" ownership under both conditions. The results were discussed with reference to self-specificity and other effects in the current study.

Detrimental Effects of Restricted Cage Size on Reproductive Performance, Exploration Ability, and Anxiety but Not Working Memory of Kunming Mice.

A suboptimal housing environment such as small cage size can adversely influence many aspects of the biology of laboratory animals including their response in behavioral tests. However, the effect of cage size on the mental and physical conditions of Kunming mice, which have been widely used to develop models of depression, anxiety, and many other diseases in China, are still far from clear. The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of cage size on reproductive ability, exploratory behavior, anxiety, and working memory of Kunming mice. Two cage sizes were used, including a standard cage (20 × 30 × 25 cm3) and a restricted cage (10 × 20 × 25 cm3). The results revealed that compared with mice in the standard cages, mice in the restricted cages showed: (I) a decreased delivery rate of dams (P < 0.05) and a lower survival rate of offspring (P < 0.05), specifically in females (P < 0.05); (II) a decreased exploratory behavior (P < 0.01) and an increased anxiety level (P < 0.01); and (III) higher working memory in the T-maze test (P < 0.05). These results indicated that a restricted cage size has detrimental effects on the reproductive ability and anxiety level, but its effect on cognitive ability is complex and warrants further study. In short, these results provide empirical evidence for better practices in caring for Kunming mice, with some cautions about the effects of cage size on behavioral tests.

Mental Health and Personality Traits during COVID-19 in China: A Latent Profile Analysis.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, mental health problems have increased and are likely to be influenced by personality traits. The present study investigated the association between personality traits and mental health problems (anxiety, depression, post-traumatic stress syndrome (PTSD) symptoms, and obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) symptoms) through the person-centered approach because this has some advantages over the variable-centered approach. The data were collected from a sample of 765 Chinese citizens who participated in an online survey in October 2020. Latent profile analysis identified three latent personality profiles-highly adaptive, adaptive, and maladaptive. Highly adaptive individuals had higher extroversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, openness, and lower neuroticism, while maladaptive individuals had lower extroversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, openness, and higher neuroticism. Multivariate analysis of variance results showed that individuals with highly adaptive profiles had lower anxiety, depression, and PTSD symptoms compared to individuals with adaptive and maladaptive profiles. The findings of the present study indicate mental health professionals would benefit from formulated intervention plans given the association between latent personality profiles and mental health problems.

Evidence for self-positivity bias in a subliminal self-cue: An event-related potential study.

Previous studies studies indicate that individuals tend to integrate positive information into their self-concept. However, whether such self-positivity bias would still be observed without an explicit self-related cue is unknown. In the present study, 29 participants were asked to evaluate a series of positive and negative trait adjectives, after the participants were presented with their own name or another name subliminally. During the task, their electroencephalograms were recorded. The results showed participants responded faster to positive traits than to negative traits in the self-name cue conditions. In addition, both the latencies and the amplitudes of the N400 showed significant interaction between name-cue and valence in N400 (240-440 ms) amplitudes. The earlier N400 latencies and smaller N400 amplitudes were associated with positive traits in the self-name cue. These results suggested that the self-positivity bias can also be observed in a subliminally presenting self-cue, indicating the robustness of self-positivity bias.

Altered Auditory Self-recognition in People with Schizophrenia.

Self-recognition is of great significance to our sense of self. To date, disturbances in the processing of visual self-recognition are well studied in people with schizophrenia, whereas relatively few studies have focused on the processing of self in other domains, such as auditory. An investigation of auditory self-recognition contributes to delineate changes related to self and the potential roots of the described psychopathological aspects connoting schizophrenia. By applying unimodal task and multisensory test, this study investigated auditory self-recognition in people with schizophrenia under unimodal and bimodal circumstances. Forty-six adults diagnosed with schizophrenia and thirty-two healthy controls were involved in this study. Results suggested that people with schizophrenia seemed to have significantly lower perceptual sensitivity in detecting self-voice, and also showed stricter judgment criteria in self-voice decision. Furthermore, in the presentation of stimuli that combined the stimulation of others' faces with one's own voice, people with schizophrenia mistakenly attributed the voices of others as their own. In conclusion, altered auditory self-recognition in people with schizophrenia was found.

Episodic context reinstatement promotes memory retention in older but not younger elementary schoolchildren.

Previous studies have shown that reinstatement of spatial and temporal background information during learning can promote memory retention in adults. However, the effect in children is unclear. In order to explore the effect of episodic context reinstatement on the memory retention of different age groups, first-grade students, third-grade students, and third-year college students studied two word lists. When the words were presented mixed together, the participants were told to either restudy the words under intentional learning conditions or make list discrimination judgements by indicating the list from which each word had originated. Results revealed that the retrieval practice based on the episodic context reinstatement paradigm showed a phased development trend in the participants compared to restudy. Episodic context reinstatement only promoted memory retention in the third-grade children and college students, but not in the first-grade children. During the early elementary school years, children do not have relatively mature episodic memory ability and cannot output memories according to context clues. Our finding suggests important guidance for the age-appropriate use of tests as instructional tools in basic education. Statement of contribution What is already known on this subject? One recent theory of retrieval-based learning is the episodic context account; it promotes memory retention by reinstate the context of a prior learning episode. Previous studies have confirmed in the adults that the episodic context reinstatement was the main reason for retrieval practice to promote memory retention through the list discrimination tasks What does this study add? This study revealed that the retrieval practice based on the episodic context reinstatement paradigm showed a phased development trend in the participants. Episodic context reinstatement only promoted memory retention in the third-grade children and college students, but not in the first-grade children, and the results support the episodic context assumption, namely that episodic context reinstatement is the key factor in memory retention. The results of this study can explain why most prior work has observed the effect of retrieval practice in the groups above grade three.

Visual aperiodic temporal prediction increases perceptual sensitivity and reduces response latencies.

As a predictive organ, the brain can predict upcoming events to guide perception and action in the process of adaptive behavior. The classical models of oscillatory entrainment explain the facilitating effects that occur after periodic stimulation in behavior but cannot explain aperiodic facilitating effects. In the present study, by comparing the behavior performance of participants in periodic predictable (PP), aperiodic predictable (AP) and aperiodic unpredictable (AU) stimulus streams, we investigated the effect of an aperiodic predictable stream on the perceptual sensitivity and response latencies in the visual modality. The results showed that there was no difference between PP and AP conditions in sensitivity (d') and reaction times (RTs), both of which were significantly different from those in the AU condition. Moreover, a significant correlation between d' and RTs was observed when predictability existed. These results indicate that the aperiodic predictable stimulus streams increases perceptual sensitivity and reduces response latencies in a top-down manner. Individuals proactively and flexibly predict upcoming events based on the temporal structure of visual stimuli in the service of adaptive behavior.

Retrieval Practice Promotes Pictorial Learning in Children Aged Six to Seven Years.

Little is known about "retrieval practice" learning strategies in early childhood, and very few studies have tracked them over long intervals. This study explored the promotion of retrieval practices in six- and seven-year-old children's memories of pictures at different time intervals. One hundred and four first-grade students were asked to remember the contents of 15 pictures in four retrieval practice conditions: with feedback, with elaboration, retrieval practice without feedback, and repetitive learning. Recognition was tested after 5-minute, one-week, and one-month intervals after completion of the study. The results indicate that retrieval with feedback promotes memory more effectively than elaboration. Scores in the retrieval practice with feedback group were higher than those in the elaboration group at all three delay intervals, and the advantage of retrieval without feedback may increase at longer intervals. For example, the hit rates in the retrieval practice without feedback group were higher than those in the repetitive learning group after one month, but no significant differences were found after 5 minutes or one week. The findings provide preliminary evidence that practicing retrieval strategies may be efficient in early elementary education.

When I Am Old: The Self-Face Recognition Advantage Disappears for Old Self-Faces.

The self-face is the unique representation of oneself, and it has a processing advantage over familiar faces and the faces of strangers. Generally, recognition of the self-face is significantly faster or more accurate in a variety of tasks compared with recognizing others' faces. While previous studies that used the present self-face as stimuli have found a processing advantage, what happens when the self-face turns old? To investigate whether an old self-face can still produce the processing advantage, we conducted two experiments. Experiment 1 used a standard visual search paradigm, and Experiment 2 used the implicit association test. In both experiments, the old self-face was compared with the present self-face or an old friend-face. We found that when the self-face turns old, the processing advantage disappears. This research demonstrates a new way to investigate the future self.

The Moderation Effect of Self-Enhancement on the Group-Reference Effect.

Previous studies have documented that people tend to respond faster and memorize better to the in-group traits. It may be particularly manifest for ethnic minorities, due to their salient ethnic identity. However, few studies have explored how the valence of traits modulates the in-group preference effect. The present study examined the impacts of ethnic identity salience and the valence of traits on the group-preference effect among 33 Han Chinese in a Tibetan-dominant area and 32 Tibetan participants in a Han-dominant area. Two weeks before the experiment, we measured the ethnic identity salience of participants in both groups. In the formal experiment, we used the group-reference effect (GRE) paradigm with three encoding tasks. The results showed that, regardless of whether ethnic identity was salient, both groups responded faster to positive traits than to negative traits when evaluating their own group, whereas there were no significant difference between the processing of positive traits and negative traits in the out-group evaluation and font judgment tasks. This suggested a pervasive processing advantage of the in-group positive characteristics. The results imply that self-enhancement motivation had a moderation effect on the GRE, as well as the ethnic identity salience may not be necessary for a GRE.