ISSN 1671-3710
CN 11-4766/R
主办:中国科学院心理研究所
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    The influence of emotion on eating behavior
    ZHOU Aibao, XIE Pei, TIAN Zhe, PAN Chaochao
    Advances in Psychological Science    2021, 29 (11): 2013-2023.   DOI: 10.3724/SP.J.1042.2021.02013
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    Eating behavior is not only regulated by the biological needs of people, but is also affected by emotional states, motivations, diseases, and more. There is a complex relationship between emotion and eating behavior. Consuming food can influence people's emotion. On the other hand, food attention, subjective appetite, and food intake can be influenced by emotion. Many studies have focused on emotional eating due to negative emotions. However, fewer studies focus on the effect that positive emotion has on eating behavior. The relationship between positive emotion and eating behavior is still controversial, as the relationship is underrepresented in research. The present study analyzed the eating behavior of clinical and non-clinical individuals who were affected by negative or positive emotions, and further explored the neurophysiology of eating behaviors and the various theories of the effect that emotions have on eating behaviors. The results showed that negative emotion increased attentional bias and intake for food and subjective appetite in the general population. This process was also affected by other factors; for example, modest women may restrict their food intake while experiencing negative emotions, so they may regain a sense of control which would offset the unpleasant feelings they were experiencing. In this study, there were two results regarding the effect that positive emotion has on eating behaviors. One theory was that positive emotions broaden momentary thought-action repertoires of people, which in turn builds their endurance. This leads us to believe that people resist food intake after positive emotion is induced. However, contrarily, positive emotion could increase hedonistic behavior in people, thus increasing food intake to maintain the experience of pleasure. Negative emotion increased both attention bias for food cues and subsequent intake in people with bulimia nervosa and binge eating disorders. Negative emotion causes decreased food intake in people suffering from anorexia nervosa. Positive emotion decreased binge eating in people with bulimia nervosa and binge eating disorders and relieved restrictive eating behaviors in people with anorexia nervosa. According to the reward theory, negative emotion can enhance reward sensitivity toward food. Following increased food intake, this process may show a synergy effect in the amygdala, insula, orbitofrontal cortex, striatum, and ventromedial prefrontal cortex. Negative emotion ruins the inhibitory control of individuals, meaning that they may begin to overeat, in association with the activation of the anterior cingulate cortex. According to self-related theory, negative emotion induces negative self-awareness. People can show attention bias due to immediate environmental stimulus, as overeating is meant to help people escape from their own negative self-awareness. Placing their attention on binge eating allows people with bulimia or other binge eating disorders to avoid dealing with information or environmental stimulus that may be hurtful. From the perspective of social culture, most eating behaviors with positive emotion have some special or celebratory meaning which increases the hedonic-oriented eating behavior of the individual. In general, the association between emotion and eating behavior has a certain regularity to follow. In the study, during a negative emotion, an individual’s eating behavior manifested in an extreme, unhealthy pattern, whether that meant an increased or decreased food intake. This study found a direct association between emotion and eating behavior; However, social culture, symbolism and connotation of certain foods, and an individual’s default eating styles (disinhibited and restrained eating) should be considered alongside the influence that emotion has on eating behaviors. In addition, most past studies self-reported food intake and subjective appetite as recorded by the individuals as the measurement. Future studies should adopt neuro-physiological methods to explore the effect of emotion on eating behavior and study a small set of neurons in the hypothalamus which regulates appetite, for example.

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    Emoji image symbol’s social function and application
    JIN Yuchang, DENG Chenglong, WU Ping, LIN Xi, ZHENG Peixuan, AN Junxiu
    Advances in Psychological Science    2022, 30 (5): 1062-1077.   DOI: 10.3724/SP.J.1042.2022.01062
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    Nowadays, with the rapid development of the Internet, online communication has become increasingly popular and popular. However, due to the lack of nonverbal cues in face-to-face communication, it is difficult for people to detect the emotional state of each other, which hinders normal communication. Emoji, which compensate for nonverbal cues in online communication, have been introduced into cyberspace to compensate for the absence of gestures and facial attributes in online communication, and have been developing constantly. The development of Emojis has gone through Emoticon composed of ASCII characters, Emoji of pictographic icons and now emerging more vivid and interesting stickers. This paper will mainly comb, analyze and summarize the functions, influencing factors and interaction mechanisms of Emoji in network communication, as well as the current application of Emoji in different fields, and put forward the future research direction of Emoji based on the current research status of Emoji.
    At the beginning, Emoji is borrowed from Japanese animation symbols, and gradually developed into a widely used image symbol system. Since the creation of Emoji by Shigetaka Kurita in 1999, it has been enriched and developed continuously At present, Emoji has become a tool commonly used around the world to replace non-verbal cues such as body gestures and facial expressions in digital communication. In the process of continuous use in Internet communication, Emoji has been equipped with many functions, including expressing emotions, enhancing expression, changing tone, maintaining or enhancing interpersonal relationship, etc. At the same time, the use of Emoji is also affected by many factors, including age, gender, culture, context and platform. In addition, we also explore the interactive mechanism of Emoji in online communication from the perspective of symbol interaction theory, so as to clearly reveal the specific interaction process of people in online communication through Emoji.
    At present, with the continuous development and widespread use of Emoji, its application scope has been extended to many other fields besides Internet communication. In the field of sentiment analysis, Emoji has become an important object of sentiment analysis due to its rich emotions. In psychometrics, Emoji has been developed into a nonverbal tool for evaluating personality and depression which has the same reliability and validity as text items. In the field of commercial marketing, Emoji has begun to play a role in advertising marketing and attracting consumers, and can measure consumers' food-related emotions in the form of questionnaires. In the field of legal judgment, Emoji has gradually become a powerful evidence in judicial trials due to its widespread use. Through the above analysis and summary, we put forward the future research direction of Emoji from the following aspects: (1) explore the application and future development trend of Emoji in online communication; (2) study on the application of Emoji in other fields; (3) further explore the neurophysiological mechanism of Emoji; (4) discuss the positive effect of Emoji in online communication from the perspective of cognitive processing.

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    Prevalence of mental health problems among senior high school students in mainland of China from 2010 to 2020: A meta-analysis
    YU Xiaoqi, ZHANG Yali, YU Guoliang
    Advances in Psychological Science    2022, 30 (5): 978-990.   DOI: 10.3724/SP.J.1042.2022.00978
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    High school is the key period of psychological development, and it is also the frequent period of a variety of psychological problems. The mental health problems of senior high school students not only come from adolescents themselves, but also should attract extensive attention from families, schools and society. In order to improve the mental health of senior high school students and ensure the effective development of follow-up mental health work, it is necessary to understand the detection rate of mental health problems of senior high school students in China, so as to master the basic situation of mental health of senior high school students. Although many previous studies have involved the detection rate of mental health problems of senior high school students, there is no consistent conclusion on the detection rate of mental health problems of senior high school students in China in recent ten years. In order to clarify the detection rates and influencing factors of mental health problems of senior high school students in China in recent ten years, this study makes a comprehensive and systematic meta-analysis of the relevant detection rate articles of senior high school students (including higher vocational students) in recent ten years, so as to form a clearer understanding of the general situation of their mental health. Because there are too many indicators involved in mental health problems, this study focuses on the detection rate of two common problems in senior high school students: internalizing problems (including anxiety, depression, sleep problems, somatization, suicidal ideation, and suicide plan) and externalizing problems (including self injury and suicide attempt. In addition, this study also investigated the regulatory effects of publishing age, relevant factors of measurement tools (measurement tools, detection standards, detection time), and demographic variables (grade, region, gender, only child or not, birthplace) on the detection rate of mental health problems.
    By searching the Chinese National Knowledge Infrastructure database and Web of Science core collection database from 2010 to 2020, 252 effective literatures were finally obtained, including 48 articles on anxiety, 99 articles on depression, 21 articles on sleep problems, 14 articles on somatization, 29 articles on self injury, and 41 articles on suicide. The results of meta-analysis showed that (1) The prevalence from high to low were depression (28.0%), anxiety (26.3%), sleep problems (23.0%), self-injury (22.8%), suicidal ideation (17.1%), somatization (9.8%), suicide plan (6.9%), and suicide attempt (2.9%); (2) In the past ten years, the mental health problems of senior high school students in China have deteriorated with the passage of time, especially anxiety; (3) The detection rate of mental health problems of senior high school students is affected by the relevant factors of measurement tools (measurement tools, detection standards and detection time); (4) The mental health problems of senior high school students increased with the increase of grade, especially sleep problems; (5) The mental health problems of senior high school students were affected by regions, especially in economically underdeveloped areas. It can be seen that the prevalence of mental health problems of senior high school students in China was affected by the year of publication, measurement tools, detection standards, detection time, grade and region. In the future, efforts should be made to prepare standardized evaluation tools, build a long-term mechanism of mental health education, and focus on the mental health problems of senior class and underdeveloped area senior high school students.

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    Less is more: A theoretical interpretation of minimalism in consumption
    CHEN Siyun, WEI Haiying, XIONG Jiwei, RAN Yaxuan
    Advances in Psychological Science    2021, 29 (11): 2043-2061.   DOI: 10.3724/SP.J.1042.2021.02043
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    Minimalism refers to a lifestyle that seeks satisfaction in a non-material world by reducing consumption. Given the increasing popularity of minimalistic consumption (i.e., voluntary simplicity), it is necessary to understand minimalism more comprehensively. First, we provide a categorization scheme related voluntary simplicity, including its conception, dimensions, and measurements. Characterized by a minimal, simple, and responsible lifestyle, minimalism can be defined as the degree to which consumers select a lifestyle to minimalize their consumption and to take control of their life. The practice of simplified living typically entails minimizing possessions, consuming less, and valuing personal growth.
    Then, factors that influence minimalistic consumption are presented. The reasons for individuals to adopt simplifying behaviors are manifold. That is, motivations for engaging minimalistic consumption are multifaceted and complicated, including both internal (i.e., personal, financial, lifestyle) and external (i.e., economic, social, environmental) motivations. In addition to consumers who curtail their consumption due to financial restraints, there are consumers who consciously consume, although they are financially well off. The rejection of the concept that one’s success is determined by his/her material goods (i.e., materialism) has prompted interest in minimalistic consumption. In addition, some simplifiers (i.e., minimalistic consumers) are driven by motives of environmental sustainability. That is, when consumers give greater consideration to the natural environment and ecological system, they may engage in voluntary simplicity to live both well and sustainably. Furthermore, people can lead an independent and self-determined life through minimalistic consumption; therefore, a desire to achieve an autonomous life is an important antecedent of minimalistic consumption. Moreover, philosophical motivation (i.e., religious belief) is another factor driving minimalism in consumption.
    Moving forward, the potential impacts of minimalistic behavior are shown. Minimalism has a positive influence on individual, societal and environmental wellbeing. Adopting low consumption helps expand mental space, resulting in a feeling of lightness, relaxation, and clarity. A minimalistic lifestyle facilitates individuals’ positive emotions while reducing their negative emotions such as depression. Consumers can also reduce their dependence on the market offerings by curtailing the overall consumption, in search of a simpler but happier life. Additionally, minimalistic practices offer several wellbeing benefits such as meaning and happiness. In addition, a minimalistic lifestyle can improve harmony in communities, as it can help build more connections with others in society. By sharing skills, donating to charities or giving back to the community, simplifiers can experience a sense of community and closeness to others, thus enhancing communal well-being. More importantly, most literature notes that this lifestyle is positively associated with environmental and ecological wellbeing. With a strong ecological awareness, consumers tend to protect the environment through a variety of practices, such as decreasing carbon emissions, avoiding excess packaging, and preserving resources and habitats. Collectively, we categorize antecedents of minimalistic consumption into four types (i.e., demographic, psychological, situational, religious factors). We also summarize the effects of minimalistic consumption in the previous research, such as enhancing happiness and sense of meaning.
    In order to understand voluntary simplicity, four theories (i.e., theory of basic values, self-determination theory; hierarchical theory of needs; self-regulation theory) were introduced. By combining these theories, we shed a novel light on understanding the forming process of minimalistic consumption. Specifically, in self-observation stages, individuals generate self-directed values. Based on these values, consumers make judgments whether their needs are satisfied. Lastly, in the self-reaction phase, consumers adopt the results of these judgments, and they evaluate achieve autonomy, competence and relevance from the self-determination theory. Given the important role of minimalistic consumption in the contemporary marketplace, it is essential for both marketers and scholars to know more details in simplifying practices. Several directions (e.g., developing valid measurements, taking cultural differences into account, identifying boundary conditions) for future research are discussed.

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    Effects of ambient light on mood and its mechanism
    LI Yun, RU Taotao, LI Siyu, CHEN Hanyu, XIE Shuya, ZHOU Guofu
    Advances in Psychological Science    2022, 30 (2): 389-405.   DOI: 10.3724/SP.J.1042.2022.00389
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    As an essential timing factor, ambient light plays a vital role in synchronizing internal biological rhythms with external lighting and dark environments. Meanwhile, ambient light is also a critical mood regulator; its non-image-forming (NIF) effects on mood are especially concerned by researchers. Previous studies have demonstrated that illuminance, correlated color temperature (CCT), and wavelength of ambient illuminance are key physical factors affecting mood. Moreover, unusual lighting patterns such as short lighting periods, artificial lighting during the night, and constant lighting/darkness have destructive effects on emotion and mood that may induce affective disorders such as depression and anxiety.

    To date, the conclusion that short-time light affects emotion is not quite consistent. Studies have found that the NIF effects of short-term light on mood was not only affected by the intensity and spectrum of light, but also modulated by exposure duration, timing, individual characteristics, subjective preferences, and gene types. In a period of time, the longer the subjects received bright light exposure and the earlier they received morning light exposure, the lower their depression score. However, in the short-term lighting experiment of simulating office lighting, prolonged exposure of bright light was not conducive to individuals’ subjective emotional experience; while the positive effect of CCT on emotion may depend on prolonged exposure. It is worth noting that receiving light exposure at different time in a day can advance or delay the circadian rhythms; thus, the timing could also regulate light’s emotional function. In addition, women were found to prefer higher illuminance and lower CCT than men; while young subjects were more sensitive to polychromatic light with shorter wavelength than older subjects. Compared with individuals with PER34/4 genotype, individuals with PER35/5 genotype were more sensitive to light exposure and had a higher risk of depression; the 5-HTTLPR polymorphism was also proved to regulate the effect of light on the functional connectivity of the prefrontal cortex in healthy subjects. Lastly, the mechanisms by which light affects mood are shown from two aspects. On the one hand, the intrinsically photosensitive retinal ganglion cells may project light signals to the brain areas responsible for emotion regulation. On the other hand, ambient light may affect mood by altering circadian rhythms, regulating hormone secretion, neurotransmission, and sleep.

    Future research can employ neuroscience technology to simultaneously examine the changes of subjective emotional experience and objective neural activity under multi-levels of illuminance and CCT; and combine multimodal data such as subjective rating, behavioral measurement, physiological response, and neural activity to track the effects of ambient light on mood. Besides, except for the NIF of light, ambient light may convey specific emotional meanings via the visual system, thus leading to various visual experiences transmitted by illuminance or wavelength, or lighting mode (direct or indirect lighting). Therefore, whether the visual perception of light, dominated by rods and cones, also potentially contributes to light's emotional function and how to separate it from the non-visual effects could be a promising direction in future research.

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    The effect of attachment on the process of emotional regulation
    HUANG Yufei, SHI Pan, CHEN Xu
    Advances in Psychological Science    2022, 30 (1): 77-84.   DOI: 10.3724/SP.J.1042.2022.00077
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    Previous studies based on attachment theory have proved the influence of attachment on emotion regulation. These influences can be manifested in many aspects, such as the choice of emotion regulation strategies, the effect of emotion regulation, and some cognitive processing related to emotion regulation. However, these studies ignore the complexity and diversity of emotion regulation as a process, and therefore cannot answer how attachment can affect emotion regulation. The extended process model divides emotion regulation into three stages, and clearly describes the process of emotion regulation and the relationship between various factors in the process. Combining the extended process model and the attachment theory to look back to previous studies is helpful to find out the relationship among these studies and expand new research directions. From the perspective of the extended process model, it can be found that there are individual differences related to attachment in all the three stages of emotional regulation. Specifically, in the recognition stage, the influence of attachment on emotion regulation is mainly reflected in the cognitive processing related to emotions. Both higher attachment anxiety and attachment avoidance are related to lower emotion recognition ability. At the same time, higher attachment avoidance is related to lower emotion recognition ability, and higher attachment anxiety is related to lower emotion regulation self-efficacy. In the selection stage, individuals with different attachment styles have different preferences for the choice of emotion regulation strategies. Most studies have found that individuals with secure attachment prefer to use highly adaptable and efficient strategies (such as cognitive reappraisal), and individuals with insecure attachment styles prefer to use strategies which are less adaptable and efficient(such as hypo-regulation or hyper-regulation). In the implementation stage, most studies have found that both attachment anxiety and attachment avoidance are significantly positively correlated with emotion regulation difficulties or disorders, but in some studies, high attachment avoidance individuals may not have problem with emotion regulation. In general, many factors are influenced by attachment in the process of emotion regulation, and the extended process model provides a theoretical framework for describing the sequence and causal relationship between these factors. However, there are still many key issues that have not yet been resolved. Future research can be expanded from the following aspects: The influence of attachment on emotional regulation should be explored while paying attention to the impact of environmental factors; New experimental paradigms need to be designed to confirm the continuity of the three stages and explore the reasons why attachment could affect emotional regulation. It is necessary to explore the influence of attachment on the emotion regulation flexibility. In addition, future intervention studies should design more targeted interventions to improve the emotion regulation of insecurely attached individuals.

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    Conservation of resources theory in the organizational behavior context: Theoretical evolution and challenges
    LIAO Huahua, HUANG Lei, HU Bin
    Advances in Psychological Science    2022, 30 (2): 449-463.   DOI: 10.3724/SP.J.1042.2022.00449
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    Over the past three decades, the conservation of resources theory (COR) has become one of the most widely applied theories in organizational behavior (OB).

    Hobfoll (1989) proposed COR as a new attempt at conceptualizing the stressor-strain relationship. It highlights that stress is not construed by individual perception but a reaction to objective stressful circumstances; coping in reaction to stress is a dynamic process of exchanging resources between individuals and the environment. Imprinted by Hobfoll’s background as a clinical psychologist studying stress disorder, COR is recognized as a resource-oriented stress model with environmental roots After several major revisions, COR has developed from a stressor-strain model into a motivational theory and built a theoretical framework with several extensions. The dynamic process regarding how people strive to acquire, protect, and build resources helps to explain individual behaviors in reactions to stressors across many organizational contexts. COR also shed light upon how organizations cope with stress.

    From 1989 to 2020, OB literature has accounted for most citations of the 1989 paper that initially introduced COR theory. A great number of empirical studies in the OB field, covering a variety of themes such as job stress, work engagement, creativity, and leadership, investigated the major propositions in COR. These propositions include resource loss and gain spirals, salience of resource gain in the process of resource loss, and more. As a result, COR has become one of the most influential theories for understanding employees’ psychological processes and behavioral motivation. However, OB scholars share concerns about COR that the concept of resource is fuzzily defined and therefore that nearly anything good can be considered a resource. We acknowledge the substantive value of COR in OB literature though it may not sound novel, but we also recommend OB scholars be conscious with its conceptualization while applying COR and not take the value of applying it by granted because of its high citations.

    Applying COR in OB research also faces challenges from other theoretical perspectives. For example, the stress-appraisal theory and the adaption theory provide some contrasting viewpoints on stress. Its origin in clinical psychology also invites problems for OB scholars that they tend to ignore the integrative perspective of COR regarding how the sources of stress and the structure of individual resources evolve in a dynamic process.

    We propose that OB researchers should avoid tailoring COR’s propositions to OB research questions, which often means neglecting its overarching perspective and purposely selecting isolated viewpoints to serve their own research questions, but try to seek balance between the integrative perspective in COR theory and the behavior-focused tradition in OB research in the future.

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    Concepts and evaluation of saturation in qualitative research
    YANG Liping, QI Lidong, ZHANG Bo
    Advances in Psychological Science    2022, 30 (3): 511-521.   DOI: 10.3724/SP.J.1042.2022.00511
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    With the methodological changes in psychology, more and more researchers tend to accept qualitative research as an effective way to solve psychological problems and serve the public. In a qualitative study, sufficient sample is the guarantee of research validity, and saturation is an indicator used to assess the adequacy of research data. Saturation means that on the basis of the currently collected and analyzed data, further data collection will not help researchers develop a deeper understanding of the story or theory, so there is no need to continue to collect data. The concept of theoretical saturation was first proposed in grounded theory. Then with the development of qualitative research methods, researchers have further created more saturation concepts, including data saturation, code or thematic saturation, meaning saturation, etc. Due to the diversity of saturation and its judgment standards, the relationship between different kinds of saturation are complicated and ambiguous. In addition, previous studies lack operational description and practical guidance for the evaluation of saturation, which leads to the vagueness of the concept of saturation and many difficulties in evaluation. In order to solve these problems, this study clarified the concepts and evaluation methods of four levels of saturation, and provided suggestions for researchers' operations based on comparison and analysis. The four types of saturation occur at different stages of the research process, and each has its own specific connotations. Data saturation, code or thematic saturation focuses on the breadth of collected data, while meaning saturation and theoretical saturation focus on the depth of research data. In terms of evaluation methods and criteria, researchers usually judge data saturation based on the repeatability of initial data; code or thematic saturation is determined based on empirical research results, the emergence of new codes or themes, or saturation coefficients; the results of retrospective empirical analysis or tables of meaning unit are normally used to evaluate meaning saturation; while the assessment of theoretical saturation relies on a process called "continuous comparison" in grounded theory, which focuses on the continuous improvement of the theory. Some problems are discussed in this study. 1) The sample size standard for reaching saturation should be embedded in the specific research process instead of being uniformly set in advance. Because each study has its own uniqueness in terms of questions, purposes, methods, etc., which saturation is extremely sensitive to, the evaluation of saturation should be based on the characteristics of the current research to select an appropriate level of saturation. 2) Due to the logical uncertainty of saturation, a little oversampling would be helpful. The logical uncertainty here means that researchers can only predict the necessity of continuing data collection based on the information that has been collected, which relies on the subjective judgment of researchers, and its accuracy can never be further proved. Oversampling may be an effective way to solve this problem, which means that even if saturation has been achieved, the researcher is recommended to add 2 to 3 personal interviews or 1 to 2 focus group interviews to further confirm. 3) As an important index to evaluate the quality of qualitative research, saturation is not suitable for all qualitative research, such as psychobiography, narrative analysis, etc., which focus on single or a few cases and pay more attention to the integrity of individual stories. In the future, researchers should further focus on the evaluation and testing of saturation in different kinds of qualitative research.

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    Prevalence of mental health problems among college students in mainland China from 2010 to 2020: A meta-analysis
    CHEN Yumeng, ZHANG Yali, YU Guoliang
    Advances in Psychological Science    2022, 30 (5): 991-1004.   DOI: 10.3724/SP.J.1042.2022.00991
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    College students are a huge part and an important member of the young people. Their physical and mental health not only directly affects their own long-term development, but also has a significant influence on the future of the nation. Therefore, the mental health of college students has become the focus of families, schools and even the whole society. In recent years, some studies have conducted meta-analyses on the prevalence of a certain mental health problem (such as depression and sleep problem) among college students in China, but such studies cannot reflect the mental health status of college students comprehensively. And some of the previous studies cannot reflect the current status of contemporary college students’ mental health. Furthermore, the selection of moderator variables was not comprehensive enough to reveal the key factors affecting the prevalence. Therefore, we employed a meta-analysis in this study to estimate the prevalence of typical mental health problems among college students in mainland China from 2010 to 2020, and the moderating effects of publication year, measurement tools and detection standards, detection time, region, birthplace, only child or not were further analyzed. For the selection of indicators, mental health problems were divided into two categories: internalizing problems and externalizing problems. The indicators of internalizing problems include anxiety, depression, sleep problem, somatization, and suicidal ideation, while the indicators of externalizing problems include nonsuicidal self-injury and suicide attempt.
    Through the process of literature search and selection, 128 studies (136 effect sizes) of anxiety, 237 studies (244 effect sizes) of depression, 56 studies (58 effect sizes) of sleep problem, 49 studies (49 effect sizes) of somatization, 31 studies (31 effect sizes) of nonsuicidal self-injury, 51 studies (51 effect sizes) of suicide ideation, and 8 studies (8 effect sizes) of suicide attempt were included in this study. Homogeneity test indicated that random effects model was appropriate for the meta-analysis. The p-curve analysis illustrated no publication bias. Ultimately, the results of the main effect test showed that the prevalence rates of sleep problem, depression, nonsuicidal self-injury, anxiety, suicidal ideation, somatization, and suicide attempt were 23.5%, 20.8%, 16.2%, 13.7%, 10.8%, 4.5%, and 2.7%, respectively. The results indicate that internalizing problems, especially sleep problem and emotional problem, are more serious among Chinese college students compared to externalizing problems.
    The results of the moderating effect indicated that (1) The prevalence of anxiety, depression, sleep problem and suicide attempt among college students has increased significantly in the last decade, while the prevalence of self-harm has declined significantly; (2) The prevalence of anxiety, depression, sleep problem, and somatization varied significantly between measurement tools and detection standards, and the prevalence of suicidal ideation differed to a significant extent depending on the detection time. Therefore, the fluctuation of prevalence was accounted by measurement tools, detection standards and detection time. (3) There existed obvious regional differences in the prevalence of sleep problem and suicidal ideation, with the feature of the worst mental health among college students in western China and better mental health among college students in northeastern and central China. (4) The prevalence of mental health problems among demographical variables including gender, only child or not, and birthplace showed no significant difference, which indicated that gender, only child or not, urban or rural areas were not the critical factors influencing college students’ mental health.
    In summary, by employing the method of meta-analysis, this study is the first study to systematically investigate the prevalence of the typical mental health problems of college students in mainland China from 2010 to 2020. The results clarified the controversy over the inconsistent prevalence in previous studies and explored the main reasons for the inconsistent findings. Thus, this meta-analysis is conducive to promoting subsequent studies and educational practice.

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    The impact of social media on executive functions: Beneficial or harmful?
    MA Yajie, ZHAO Xin, HE Xiangchun, REN Liping
    Advances in Psychological Science    2022, 30 (2): 406-413.   DOI: 10.3724/SP.J.1042.2022.00406
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    The effect of social media on executive functions remain controversial. Some studies have shown that the use of social media promotes an individual’s executive functions, and some studies have found that social media use has a negative impact on executive functions. Recent studies have shown that, there may be an inverted U-shaped relationship between social media use and individual's executive function, and that social media use does not necessarily impair or promote executive function, but there is an optimal tipping point between the two. Moderate-intensity use of social media is the best level to promote executive functions. This is related to the moderating role played by the intensity of use. The paper first introduces the behavioral evidence that the effect of social media on executive functions, including three parts: positive effects, negative effects, and inverted U-shaped relationships. Secondly, it analyzes the moderating effect of intensity of use in the inverted U-shaped relationship between social media use and executive functions, and attempt to reveal the debate over the pros and cons of social media use on executive functions. Moderate-intensity use of social media will produce a social media flow experience, allowing individuals to filter out various distracting information when faced with various complex information stimuli in social media, focusing on useful information, and target information is constantly being affected. With storage and update, the individual's executive functions (especially the shifting function) get long-term and repeated exercise under such requirements, and finally improve. In addition, the flow experience generated by the use of social media can be used as an intrinsic motivation to increase the interaction of social networks to make positive changes in interpersonal relationships. This provides individuals with continuous social rewards and emotional support. To a certain extent, it buffers the negative impact of excessive use of social media on cognitive function, and slows down the decline of age-related executive functions. However, high-intensity use of social media causes individuals to worry about their performance in the task, which tends to maintain a wider range of attention and is more susceptible to interference from irrelevant information, while low-intensity use of social media causes individuals to be in a state of lack of proactiveness, the psychological effort process of information processing is reduced or even disappeared, which has a negative impact on executive functions.

    Future research in this area should examine the dose-effect of social media use affecting executive functions. The positive impact of social media use on the executive function may require a relatively long and continuous process of using social media. Whether an optimal social media can be determined the level of media usage maximizes individual's executive functions? In addition, previous research mainly focuses on the impact of social media usage frequency on individual's executive functions in daily life, but lacks a single sub-component of the type of social media usage on the executive function investigation of development and changes. In the future, the relationship between different types of social media usage and sub-components of executive function should be further clarified. Finally, the lifting effect of social media may be more significant in groups whose brain structure is in a period of change. Most previous studies only show that the use of social media can change individual's neural pathways or brain response patterns (and little is known about whether changes in the physiological structure of executive function have an impact on the cognitive level of social media users. Future research should combine behavioral and cognitive neurological methods to examine the brain regions of social media users with different cognitive levels in performing specific tasks. The difference in activation makes the neural mechanism of social media use affecting executive function more precise and comprehensive.

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    The theory and application of the Emotions as Social Information (EASI) Model
    LIU Xiaoyu, FU Jingyu
    Advances in Psychological Science    2022, 30 (1): 188-205.   DOI: 10.3724/SP.J.1042.2022.00188
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    The Emotions as Social Information (EASI) model posits that emotional expressions exert interpersonal effects by triggering affective reactions and/or inferential processes in observers, depending on the observer’s information processing and the perceived appropriateness of the emotional expression. Since the EASI model was proposed, it has attracted extensive attention from researchers. Unfortunately, as a rising theory in recent ten years, the EASI model is still less studied in China. What are the unique theoretical contributions of the EASI model compared with other emotion theories? What progress has the EASI model made in recent ten years? What problems have been solved in various fields by using the EASI model? What other issues about the EASI model deserve further attention? To answer the above research questions, this paper discriminates the EASI model with other related theories, such as feelings-as-information theory, the dual-process model, the dual threshold model of anger, emotional contagion theory and affective event theory, to clarify the unique contributions of the EASI model in explaining emotion and related phenomena. Then, we searched and screened the empirical papers which clearly stated that they are based on the EASI model on Google Scholar, and found 63 papers in total. We review the application of the EASI model in the fields of leadership, team, customer service, negotiation and persuasion, and summarize the factors influencing the boundary conditions of the EASI model—the degree of information processing and perceived appropriateness based on the analysis of the 63 empirical papers using the EASI model. Overall, the inferential processes and affective reactions mechanism of the EASI model have been extensively verified in various fields. Among them, there are 33 studies in the field of leadership, 9 studies in the field of teamwork, 8 studies in the field of customer service, 8 studies in the field of negotiation, and 5 studies in the field of persuasion. There are mainly three factors influencing the degree of information processing: epistemic motivation (e.g., need for cognitive closure, personal need for structure, cognitive load), observer’s personality (e.g., implicit personality theory, conscientiousness, moral orientation, regulatory orientation, proactive personality) and employee’s efficiency. There are mainly four factors influencing perceived appropriateness: situational factors (e.g., emotional expression rules, culture, the relationship between the expressor and the observer), emotional expression content (e.g., intensity of the expression, authenticity of the expression, the target of the expression), expressor’s characteristics (e.g., leadership style, gender, race, power, status) and observer’s characteristics (e.g., agreeableness, regulatory orientation, power distance orientation, perceived leadership power). Based on the EASI model, we further integrate the existing research findings of the content structure, mediating mechanisms and boundary conditions of the social function of emotions into an integrated framework. Following our review, we identify avenues for future investigations. Future research should (1) strengthen the systematic verification of the EASI model, such as investigate both of the inferential processes and affective reactions as well as the observer’s information processing and perceived appropriateness at the same time, consider both of the reciprocal emotions and complementary emotions when investigate observer’s affective reactions; (2) enhance the integration of the EASI model with other theories (e.g., the dual threshold model of anger, emotion regulation theory, the adapted elaboration likelihood model); (3) extend the application context of the EASI model, specifically, future study can explore the mixed emotional expressions of one individual in multiple natural interaction situations, investigate the effect when the observer perceives different emotional expressions from different individuals at the same time, explore the possible effect when the observer perceives multiple emotional expressions changes of the same individual on related events at different time points, track the long-term social effect of emotional expressions, and explore the bystander effect of emotional expressions and the application of EASI in new organizational contexts; and (4) improve the measurement methods of inferential processes and affective reactions.

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    The relationship between socioeconomic status and depression: A systematic review and meta-analysis
    ZHANG Yali, ZHANG Jiangen, LI Hongxia, JIANG Yongzhi
    Advances in Psychological Science    2022, 30 (12): 2650-2665.   DOI: 10.3724/SP.J.1042.2022.02650
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    Socioeconomic status is an important topic concerned by social class psychology. With the transformation of social development, its influence on individual psychological development has been paid increasing attention. In recent years, scholars in different fields have carried out a series of discussions on the relation between socioeconomic status and mental health, especially depression, but results remain mixed. Some have reported negative correlations between socio-economic status and depression, and others have found weak to nonsignificant correlations. In general, the reported correlation coefficients ranged from -0.45 to 0. At present, no studies have systematically generalized the scattered results on this topic, nor have they dissected the reasons for the inconsistent results. Therefore, it is necessary to gain better insight into the relation between socioeconomic status and depression, and the factors that affect this relation. At the same time, China is in the deep-water area of reform and development. The rapid economic development has made the gap between the rich and the poor increasingly intensified, and it has also made class mobility more difficult. Therefore, exploring the relation between socio-economic status and depression can provide a more detailed basis for the formulation of the current social mental health service system in China.
    In Chinese database (China National Knowledge Infrastructure database), the keywords “社会地位” or “经济地位” were respectively matched with “抑郁”, and the literatures with such keywords in the abstract were searched. In foreign databases (Web of Science Core Collection, Elsevier SD, PsycINFO, PsycArticles, and ProQuest Dissertations and Theses), the keywords “socioeconomic status”, “socio-economic status”, “social class”, and “social status” were matched with “depress*” respectively, and the literatures with such keywords in the abstract were searched. In addition, to avoid omissions, literature supplementation was performed through citations during literature reading and Google Scholar. Finally, a total of 11110 studies were obtained. After literature screening, a total of 58 studies (including 65 effect sizes and 76,715 participants) were finally included, with a time span from 1973 to 2022. The correlation coefficient r was used as the effect size, and the random effects model in software Comprehensive Meta-Analysis Version 3.0 was used to conduct the meta-analysis.
    The main effect analysis indicated a small significant negative correlation between socio-economic status and depression (r = -0.15). Further sensitivity analysis showed that the estimated effect size fluctuated between-0.158 and -0.147, indicating that the estimated result was stable. The moderating effect analysis showed that: (a) The moderating effect of the sampling year was significant (b=-0.008, 95%CI [-0.015, -0.001]), and the relationship between socioeconomic status and depression became stronger with the development of the times; (b) The moderating effect of SES measurement tool is significant, and the correlation measured by SSS is the strongest, while the correlation measured by FISS or principal component analysis was the weakest; (c) The moderating effect of SES measurement type was significant, and the correlation between subjective socioeconomic status and depression was higher than that of objective socioeconomic status;. (d) The moderating effect of SES measurement form was significant, and the correlation between family socioeconomic status and depression was lower than that of one's own socioeconomic status; (e) The moderating effect of depression measurement tool was marginally significant, the correlation measured by SCL was not significant, and the correlation measured by CDI or CESD was higher than other tools; (f) Gender, age, individualism index and design form (cross-sectional design vs longitudinal design) had no significant moderating effects on the relationship between socioeconomic status and depression.
    This is the first study to analyze the overall strength of the association between socioeconomic status and depression. The results showed that there was a significant negative correlation between them, indicating that relevant public policies should be formulated and supporting schemes should be provided to care for the socio-economic disadvantaged groups, especially to improve their education and income levels, so as to prevent the occurrence of group depression. In addition, the present study also found that the effect size was affected by many operational characteristics (i.e., socio-economic status measurement type and depression measurement), suggesting that future researchers should pay more attention to the choice of scales when conducting research. Specifically, for socioeconomic status, objective and subjective indicators should be combined as far as possible, and it is best to directly measure the socioeconomic status of the individual rather than the family. For depression, scales that measure too few depressive symptoms should be avoided as far as possible. This study also found that the effect size is affected by the development of the times, suggesting that China should vigorously promote the policy of common prosperity in the new era, promote class mobility, prevent class solidification and the further expansion of the gap between the rich and the poor, so as to reduce the occurrence of depression from the social level. Finally, although age and research design failed to moderate the relation between socioeconomic status and depression, both essentially reflect the long-term effect of socioeconomic status on individual's depression. This suggests that public services and public policies should pay attention to long-term effectiveness in the implementation.

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    Moderation analysis for longitudinal data
    FANG Jie, WEN Zhonglin
    Advances in Psychological Science    2022, 30 (11): 2461-2472.   DOI: 10.3724/SP.J.1042.2022.02461
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    At present, the analysis of moderating effect is mainly based on cross sectional data. This article discusses how to analyze the moderating effect with longitudinal data. If the independent variable X and the dependent variable Y are longitudinal data, longitudinal moderation models can be divided into three categories according to the type of moderator: time-invariant moderator, time-variant moderator, and moderator generated from X or Y. For example, Xtj is divided into two parts, time-varying intra-individual differences $X_{t j}-\bar{X}_{\bullet} j$ and time-invariant inter-individual differences$\bar{X}_{\boldsymbol{\bullet} j}$, and then the moderating effect of $\bar{X}_{\boldsymbol{\bullet} j}$ on the relationship between $(X_{t j}-\bar{X}_{\bullet} j)$ and Ytj can be analyzed. In that case, there will be no new moderator Z, which is characteristic of moderation research on longitudinal data in contrast to research on cross-sectional data.

    Four types of longitudinal moderation analysis approaches are summarized: 1) Multilevel model (MLM); 2) Multilevel structural equation model (MSEM); 3) Cross-lagged model (CLM); 4) Latent growth model (LGM). It is found that the decomposition of the moderating effect and the use of the latent moderating structural equation (LMS) method are the two characteristics of the moderation analysis for longitudinal data. Specifically, MLM, MSEM, and CLM divide the moderating effect of longitudinal data into three parts: the time-varying intra-individual part, time-invariant inter-individual part, and the cross-level part. In addition, the moderating effect of longitudinal data can be decomposed into the moderating effect of initial level and rate of change by LGM.

    In the present study, we propose a procedure to analyze longitudinal mediation analysis. The first step is to decide whether it is necessary to make a causal inference. If the aim of research is to make a causal inference, CLM should be adopted to analyze longitudinal moderation. Otherwise, proceed with the second step. The second step is to decide whether it is necessary to treat longitudinal data as multilevel data. If longitudinal data is treated as multilevel data, MSEM should be adopted to analyze longitudinal moderation, because MSEM and MLM are more suitable for describing individual differences. Otherwise, LGM should be adopted to analyze longitudinal moderation, because only an LGM can simultaneously examine the effect of some variables on change and how the change affects other variables. The third step is to decide whether MSEM converges. If MSEM converges, the result of MSEM should be reported. Otherwise, MLM should be adopted to analyze longitudinal moderation. Compared with MLM, MSEM takes sampling error into account when the group mean is calculated, but the convergence of the MSEM is more difficult. Therefore, the MSEM with sampling error taken into account is preferred. If convergence fails, MLM will be considered.

    This paper exemplifies how to conduct the proposed procedure by using Mplus. Directions for future research on moderation analysis of longitudinal data are discussed, such as the moderation analysis for intensive longitudinal data based on the dynamic structural equation model.

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    Why musical emotion can be induced by harmony? The effect and cognitive mechanism of musical consonance
    ZHANG Hang, MENG Le, ZHANG Jijia
    Advances in Psychological Science    2022, 30 (4): 817-833.   DOI: 10.3724/SP.J.1042.2022.00817
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    Music has a significant and far-reaching impact on human society. Archaeological evidence shows that music first emerged at least 3.5 billion years (Paleolithic Period) ago. Such evidence is an important indication that humans have the advanced capacity to process complex auditory information. Musicology has gradually formed a relatively complete theoretical system. However, it still has several fundamental problems in the theory and practice of modern music, such as the rationale for simultaneous consonance. The core of this problem is how our brain possesses musical chords composed of several tones and why some tone combinations sound relatively pleasant (consonance) while others sound unpleasant (dissonance). This question has fascinated scholars since the ancient Greeks. Physicists have been trying to find answers to the differences between acoustic features of consonance and dissonance harmony. Biologists argue that consonance perception is the basic emotional experience evoked by sound events in the auditory system. Psychologists are more inclined to examine whether musical consonance perception is nature or nurture. Such different content of disciplines can be summarized from three perspectives: 1) Emphasize the physical acoustics of musical stimulation. It is considered that certain acoustic characteristics cause a particular chord to be perceived as consonant, for instance, the simplicity of the fundamental frequency ratios of combined tones. Therefore, many theoretical explanations of musical consonance in mathematical physics had been advocated. 2) Emphasize the physiological or psychological basis of music processing, holding the sense of consonance is the basic emotional experience. For example, Hermann von Helmholtz proposed that the roughness (dissonant experience) is often generated by the dissonant intervals which contain frequency components that are too closely spaced to be resolved by the auditory system. Therefore, many biologists advocate for using physiological acoustics and psychoacoustics methods to reveal this universal processing mechanism. Both of the two theories consider the perception of music consonance is an innate ability of human being. 3) Emphasize the roles of culture aspects, arguing the musical cultural exposure and music training significantly affect consonance perception. This article reviews these empirical researches from various disciplines to analyze the basis of musical consonance and to systematically sorts out the theoretical debates going on for centuries. We also proposed that nature and nurture interact to shape how we experience musical consonance.

    Although musical consonance has been researched mainly using western theoretical perspectives, studying musical consonance in Chinese traditional music culture is urgently needed. Music is an advanced activity of human cognition and one of the universal ways of emotional expression in life. As the core element connecting music and emotion, the rationale for simultaneous consonance is still unsolved. We hope our work will facilitate further empirical research on musical consonance, especially in Chinese traditional music culture.

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    Identifying people based on physiognomy: Explanations from cognitive perspective
    ZHANG Chao, WEI Xuhua, LI Yingming
    Advances in Psychological Science    2022, 30 (2): 308-323.   DOI: 10.3724/SP.J.1042.2022.00308
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    Physiognomy is an important factor in identifying and inferring the individual traits and behaviors. However, its internal mechanism still needs to be further explored. Physiognomy usually refers to individual facial features, mainly including partial features and overall features. The partial features of facial features include the size and shape of the five sense organs, and the thickness of hair, while the overall features of facial features include objective facial width-to-height ratio and subjective facial attractiveness. Based on general cognitive perspective and evolutionary cognitive perspective, then combined with the local and overall features of physiognomy, this paper expounds the process and effect of judging people by physiognomy.

    The general cognitive perspective emphasizes that people study the process of cognition from the perspective of information processing, which emphasizes the process of perception. The individual’s response to physiognomy is mainly a by-product of the brain’s processing of information, which is the processing mechanism for general information. Based on stereotypes, halo effects, status generalization theory, and social information processing theory, scholars use different cognitive processing systems to illustrate the process of getting to know people and their effects. Specifically, local features such as the size and shape of the five sense organs, the thickness of the hair, and overall features such as the facial width-to-height ratio and facial attractiveness can affect individual recognition of traits such as empathy, friendliness, extroversion, self-confidence, narcissism, aggression, dominance and criminological inheritance through different cognitive processing systems. Observers’ subsequent behaviors is based on the individual traits’ information recognized by the physiognomy. On the one hand, people will judge their income, ability, and social level based on the identified individual traits. On the other hand, these individual traits play an important role in the trust decision-making, the recruitment and promotion decision-making process. All in all, physiognomy affects the recognition of individual traits through various cognitive processing systems, and these traits play important roles in judgment (ability, income, social hierarchy) and decision-making (trust, recruitment, promotion).

    Compared with the general cognitive perspective, the evolutionary cognitive perspective emphasizes that in the process of processing information, people will identify which cues are related to health, survival, propagation and adaptation to the environment according to the evolutionary needs. Based on evolutionary theory, evolutionary intrasexual competition theory and the good genes theory, scholars have discussed how to know people and its effect through two different evolutionary selection mechanisms: natural selection and sexual selection. The observer uses the gene as the driving force to identify the observed physiognomy. Observers assessed marital satisfaction, life satisfaction and happiness based on the health and genetic status they identified. In order to meet the needs of evolution and survival, people will choose a mate according to the health and genetic status of the individual identified when observing facial features, combined with the evolutionary law of "survival of the fittest". In conclusion, physiognomy plays an important role in evaluating individual health and genetic status through various evolutionary selection mechanisms, and thus has an important influence on judgment (marriage satisfaction, happiness, life satisfaction) and mate selection decision.

    In addition, the effect of physiognomy on individual life depends on the situations and individual traits. The decision situation of the face viewer, the cultural context of the face owner, and the individual traits of the face viewer and the face owner all influence the effect of physiognomy’s identification. Future research should investigate the interaction among different physiognomy features, and explore the boundary conditions that influence the effect of facial recognition. Furthermore, it is necessary to improve the external validity of the research through big data analysis, and pay more attention to physiognomy features modified by epigenetics on individuals. It is also important to conduct research within the domestic context. In doing so, it will help enrich physiognomy-related research and build a more systematic physiognomy theory.

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    Moral injury: A review from the perspective of psychology
    AI Pan, DAI Yan
    Advances in Psychological Science    2022, 30 (1): 168-178.   DOI: 10.3724/SP.J.1042.2022.00168
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    Moral injury refers to the long-lasting psychological, biological, spiritual, behavioral and social impact on an individual after the exposure to morally injurious events, which entail “perpetrating, failing to prevent, bearing witness to, or learning about acts that transgress deeply held moral beliefs and expectations” (Litz et al., 2009). Since Litz et al. (2009) redefined this concept from the perspective of psychology, moral injury has attracted extensive attention in the fields of psychology, ethics, psychiatry, and sociology. The present article reviews and summarizes the concept, relevant mechanisms, measurements, and interventions of moral injury and offer recommendations for future research. We first review the background of moral injury. Moral injury can be traced back to survivor guilt, which has long been regarded as one of the symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder. However, Litz et al.(2009) pointed out that moral injury and post-traumatic stress disorder are two different concepts, and Shay(2014) listed the five differences between moral injury and post-traumatic stress disorder in detail. Next, we review the mechanisms of moral injury. Under the influence of individual and social factors, potentially morally injurious events that severely violate an individual's moral code can lead to cognitive dissonance and intrapsychic conflict, and eventually produce lasting shame, guilt, and anxiety. In addition, different types of potentially morally injurious events may lead to different types of moral injury, but the specific mechanism is still unclear. Self-oriented events (e.g., committing a crime, failing to prevent a crime, etc.) are more likely to result in negative internal emotions and cognitions (e.g., guilt, shame, inability to forgive oneself), whereas other-oriented events (e.g., witnessing an act of violence, betrayal by a trusted person) are more likely to lead to negative external emotions and cognitions (e.g., anger, loss of trust, inability to forgive).Third, we summarizes the existing moral injury scales, with a focus on the scope of application and each scale’s advantages and disadvantages. These scales can be divided into two categories according to their contents, with one group assessing moral injury symptoms alone, and another assessing both the moral injury events and symptoms. Researchers or clinicians can choose these scales according to their practical needs. Moreover, current interventions for moral injury include Cognitive Behavior Therapy, CBT-based Adaptive Disclosure Therapy, CPT-based Spiritually Integrated Cognitive Processing Therapy, etc. While being commonly used in the treatment of PTSD, those therapies are equally effective in treating the core symptoms of moral injury. We concluded this article with limitations of existing research and suggestions for future research. Moral injury events and moral injury outcomes need to be further distinguished, moral injury mechanisms need to be further studied, and the diagnostic criteria of moral injury need to be established. Researchers also need to pay attention to the differences of moral standards in different cultures, expand research on moral injury to more groups, and widen the application of research on moral injury.

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    The influence of extrinsic and intrinsic motivation on memory in adolescents and the underlying neural mechanisms
    ZHANG Mingxia, LI Yuxin, LI Jin, LIU Xun
    Advances in Psychological Science    2023, 31 (1): 1-9.   DOI: 10.3724/SP.J.1042.2023.00001
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    Motivation is the core of all behaviors. Motivation can be classified as the extrinsic and intrinsic motivation. The processing of the extrinsic and intrinsic motivation involves the reward, value, and control systems that would interact with the hippocampal memory system to facilitate memory performance. During adolescence, the brain develops rapidly, making it a critical period for memory development. Meanwhile, the subsystems of motivation develop unbalanced during adolescence (i.e., the reward system is sensible and the control system is immature), making it a special period for the motivation development. However, so far, the investigation of how extrinsic and intrinsic motivation impact teenage memory is on the start stage. There is a lack of systematic exploration and comparison of the behavioral rules and neural mechanisms of the extrinsic and intrinsic motivation’s impact on memory during adolescence. It remains unclear whether the rules and mechanisms of the extrinsic and intrinsic motivation’s impact on memory are common or specific and how the extrinsic and intrinsic motivation interacts with each other to affect memory during adolescence.

    As the monetary reward is easy to operate and quantify, previous research always used monetary reward to manipulate extrinsic motivation. In addition, intrinsic motivation is a hotspot in recent neuroscience research. Autonomy is the core concept of intrinsic motivation, which is often induced by self-determined choice. The current research will focus on monetary reward (extrinsic motivation) and self-determined choice (intrinsic motivation). We will integrate psychological and neuroscience methods and conduct a series of experiments to systematically reveal the impact of the extrinsic and intrinsic motivation on memory during adolescence on multiple levels (cognitive level, neural activity level and neural network level). Specifically, the current research will directly compare the mechanisms via which the extrinsic and intrinsic motivation affects memory and we will also examine how the extrinsic and intrinsic motivation interacts with each other to affect memory, so as to reveal the unique behavioral rules and neural mechanisms via which the two types of motivation (the extrinsic and intrinsic motivation) affect memory during adolescence. This research will greatly enrich the theory and improve the level of the field of motivation and memory. It has important theoretical significance for us to understand the nature of motivation, the underlying mechanisms of how motivation affects memory and the brain development during a very critical period in our life, the adolescence. It also has important practical significance for promoting adolescents’ motivation and learning.

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    Cognitive mechanism and neural basis of shyness
    LI Liang, LI Hong
    Advances in Psychological Science    2022, 30 (5): 1038-1049.   DOI: 10.3724/SP.J.1042.2022.01038
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    Shyness refers to individuals’ inhibition in a social situation; it can be an obstacle to participation in social interactions. In recent years, there has been an increase in cognitive neuroscience research on shyness. Within the frameworks of the metacognition model of shyness, the social fitness model of shyness, the lateralized brain-body emotion model of shyness, and the differential susceptibility to environmental influences model of shyness, researchers have explored the brain function differences, related brain networks, and cognitive processes underlying shyness. However, current cognitive neuroscience research on shyness is still in its infancy. For example: (1) researchers have mainly defined shyness from the perspective of personality; (2) the theoretical models of shyness are far from perfect; (3) the results of relevant empirical research have been unsystematic and inconsistent.
    Based on the above, this study proposes a psychological development model of shyness, which includes the following four perspectives. (1) Timeline of human evolution: the interaction of genetic factors (susceptibility genes), the internal environment (brain), and the external environment (such as school, family, and culture) affects the development of shyness. In the process of human evolution, human beings and their offspring showed different reactivity to the external environment, resulting in the survival of the fittest. The result of this process is that some individuals carry shyness susceptibility genes, which will not only determine their internal environment (brain) but also be affected by their internal environment (brain) and shape their metacognition and cognitive processes under the influences of school, family, culture, and other aspects of the external environment. The brain environment responsible for shyness is an expression of the interaction between the cognitive control system (centered in the prefrontal lobe) and the emotional system (centered in the amygdala-hypothalamus). Specifically, the cognitive bias/emotional arousal of shy individuals is the result of an imbalance in the regulation of the limbic system (centered in the amygdala-hypothalamus) by the prefrontal cortex. In other words, when facing an external stimulus, the amygdala of highly shy individuals is highly activated, which results in a highly emotional interpretation of low-level external stimuli, which is then projected to a wide range of brain regions including the hypothalamus. The hypothalamus then activates emotional expression by regulating the autonomic nervous system. In this process, the prefrontal cortex plays a top-down regulatory role, in which the strong activation of the right prefrontal lobe and the weak activation of the left prefrontal lobe of highly shy individuals leads to the disinhibition of the activated amygdala, hypothalamus, and other brain regions. Thus, the individual’s ability to regulate their emotions becomes weak and they cannot behave in an adaptive manner. The aspects of the internal environment that influence shyness include the differentiation of brain structure, the lateralization of brain function, and the uniqueness of the brain network. Moreover, in specific brain cognitive processing tasks, individuals with different levels of shyness have significant differences in the activity of different frequency bands and different cognitive components. (2) Timeline of individual development: the critical period of individual development affects the development of shyness. Specifically, the key development period of shyness is largely affected by the development of self-consciousness. With the maturity of self-consciousness, the externalized performance of individuals with different levels of shyness can be clearly distinguished. (3) Social situations: in specific social situations, the metacognition of shy individuals guides their cognitive processes, making them show differences in their physical, emotional, and behavioral performance. At the same time, different kinds of social situations will awaken individuals’ shyness to different degrees.
    Future research can be carried out from the following perspectives based on the psychological development model: (1) in terms of personality, clarify whether shyness describes a small number of extreme individuals or is instead a dimension that can sort the whole population; (2) explore the internal process of the emotional experience of shyness; (3) develop experimental research paradigms of shyness; (4) with the help of new brain technology, deeply explore the brain mechanism of shyness; (5) verify, expand, and improve the theoretical model related to shyness in the field of cognitive neuroscience.

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    Conceptualization of time poverty and its impact on well-being: From the perspective of scarcity theory
    SUN Xiaomin, YANG Shuting, KONG Xiaoshan, LIU Zhenzhen, MA Rongzi, YUAN Yue, ZHANG Nan, JIANG Xinying, CAO Peiling, BAO Ruiji, LIN Yiqin, LI Ning, LI Zhihang
    Advances in Psychological Science    2024, 32 (1): 27-38.   DOI: 10.3724/SP.J.1042.2024.00027
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    In today’s fast-paced world, increasing numbers of individuals are facing time poverty, i.e., having too much to do and not enough time. It can impact people's cognitive processes and behaviors by affecting their attention. However, the extant literature provides only a limited understanding of the influence of time poverty and its effects on individual multi-faceted well-being. Therefore, a comprehensive investigation of the concept of time poverty and its impact on well-being is of great importance theoretically and practically. The current study intends to present a three-dimensional theoretical model for the construct of time poverty from an integrated perspective, aiming to explore its effects on multi-faceted subjective well-being and investigate the potential mechanisms by which time poverty reduces well-being based on scarcity theory.

    Specifically, the current study proposes a three-dimensional structure for the concept of time poverty, which includes length, intensity, and quality. Most researchers agree that spending an excessive amount of time on paid work or unpaid domestic work and having an insufficient amount of free time leads to time poverty. Moreover, the number of tasks to be completed per unit of time may be an independent source of pressure resulting in the perception of time poverty. The stressful pace caused by over-rapid task completion and too short intervals could increase the sense of time poverty. Lastly, the quality dimension of time poverty comprises time integrity, time autonomy, and time synchronization. Low time quality could worsen the perception of time poverty. Based on the three-dimensional model of time poverty, the current study aims to develop a time poverty scale and construct a large-scale Chinese time poverty database. This database is designed to collect demographic information as well as the level of time poverty of representative samples, aiming to explore the dominant type of time poverty for different demographic groups and trace the dynamic changes in time poverty over time.

    Furthermore, the current study proposes that time poverty can have a significant impact on people’s well-being. Time poverty can develop a scarcity mindset, leading people to focus on the scarcity of time. Consequently, they overemphasize productivity, resulting in a strong inclination of completing more tasks in a shorter amount of time. Such a mindset shifts people’s attention from the activity’s process to its results, reducing intrinsic motivation and, as a result, ruining people’s well-being. An excessive focus on productivity can also harm interpersonal and family well-being by underestimating the importance of investing time and energy in nurturing relationships, thereby lowering the quality of relationship-oriented interactions. Therefore, we argue that by promoting the over-productivity orientation, time poverty can adversely affect individual, interpersonal, and family well-being. Furthermore, time poverty in one spouse's workplace produces an over-productivity tendency which then spills over to the family environment and is conveyed to the other spouse in their daily interactions. Such processes are likely to negatively influence both parties’ well-being.

    Overall, the current project develops a three-dimensional time poverty theoretical model, based on which a time poverty scale will be developed. With the new scale, a large-scale database will be constructed. The project will explore the experiences of different groups of people with distinct characteristics in Chinese society, and how such experiences influence personal, interpersonal, and family well-being. The results of the current project are of great importance for not only the successful coping of time poverty for individuals but also for societies aiming to improve the well-being of their people.

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    Cognitive reappraisal inventiveness in emotion regulation
    YAO Haijuan, WANG Qi, LI Zhaoqing
    Advances in Psychological Science    2022, 30 (3): 601-612.   DOI: 10.3724/SP.J.1042.2022.00601
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    Emotion regulation is an essential ability to maintain individual mental health and life happiness. Cognitive reappraisal is one of the most effective emotion regulation strategies. Cognitive reappraisal inventiveness is a central component of the generation process in the context of cognitive reappraisal. It is the ability to create multiple and different reappraisals for negative situations. The total number and diversity of cognitive reappraisal strategies produced by individuals in cognitive reappraisal (i.e., the fluency and flexibility of cognitive reappraisal strategies) are taken as indicators of cognitive reappraisal inventiveness. A high creative cognitive reappraisal is an effective premise for ensuring individual emotional regulation.

    Here, we review recent studies on cognitive reappraisal inventiveness. A large body of research demonstrates that inventiveness in cognitive reappraisal is positively correlated with divergent thinking and openness, but not with neuroticism and trait anger. Creative cognitive reappraisal strategies, or high-level cognitive reconstruction using metaphor and analogy, are more conducive to the regulation of negative emotions, and the superior regulatory effect of creative cognitive reappraisal can be mediated by amygdala-based salient emotional arousal, hippocampus-based new association formation, and striatum-based mental rewarding to produce to a novel and positive experience that can be kept in long-term memory. These results are consistent with the creative reconstruction theory of cognitive reappraisal. The theory holds that an individual’s response to negative situations comes not from the event itself, but from their view of the event. Emotional situations are viewed as problems that can be solved by a variety of reappraisal styles. To regulate negative emotions, it is necessary to produce a novel and effective psychological representation of the emotional situation or event, modifying the initial maladaptive representation. Creative individuals may be more likely to find effective reappraisals. However, other studies claim that there is no correlation between cognitive reappraisal inventiveness and reappraisal effectiveness. Thus, no consistent conclusion about the relationship between cognitive reappraisal inventiveness and reappraisal effectiveness has yet been reached.

    By comparing the neural mechanisms of cognitive reappraisal inventiveness (using the Reappraisal Inventiveness Test, RIT) and traditional creativity (using the Alternative Use Test, AUT), it was found that both, the RIT and AUT, exhibited a comparatively strong increase in alpha power at prefrontal sites, indicating that they have similar brain activation patterns; however, the activation degree of cognitive reappraisal inventiveness is higher in the middle region of the prefrontal cortex, whereas the activation degree of traditional creativity is higher in the ventral prefrontal apex region. The regions of brain activation of the two forms of creativity overlap primarily in the right cerebellum, central anterior gyrus, central posterior gyrus, and anterior cingulate cortex, especially in the left prefrontal network. Cognitive reappraisal inventiveness activates the right superior frontal gyrus, middle frontal gyrus, right middle temporal gyrus, and left and right angular gyrus. Traditional creativity tasks primarily activate the left superior frontal gyrus, left inferior temporal gyrus, and left inferior frontal gyrus. This shows that traditional creativity and cognitive reappraisal inventiveness have common cognitive processing needs, including inhibiting strong responses, switching between different perspectives, and controlling memory retrieval; however, the process of cognitive reappraisal inventiveness requires the specific executive function of emotional representation.

    Future research may expand the group of participants by selecting participants with emotional disorders (e.g., depression and anxiety disorders), improve the measurement methods of cognitive reappraisal inventiveness, explore the situational and internal factors that affect cognitive reappraisal inventiveness (e.g., positive metaphor, trait anxiety, self-efficacy, and humorous personality), and further reveal how the neural mechanisms of the special process, or reaction mechanism of cognitive reappraisal inventiveness, differ from traditional creativity.

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