Psychology Research and Behavior Management最新文献

Introduction: Although mobility has been identified as a significant risk factor adversely affecting mental health and well-being, the mechanisms underlying this association remain insufficiently understood. Unlike traditional linear regression approaches, this study applies network analysis to systematically explore how multiple family risk factors collectively affect problem behaviors in migrant and urban preschoolers.

Methods: A total of 1,469 children (500 urban, 959 migrant) and their parents were recruited. Network analysis examined interrelationships among family risk factors and compared risk networks between migrant and urban children. Latent profile analysis identified general and high-risk migrant groups based on problem behaviors, and network analysis explored unique risk patterns in high-risk migrant children.

Results: Three key factors-household chaos, maternal punishment, and maternal executive function-proved central in shaping both internalizing and externalizing problems. Importantly, paternal influences played a more significant role within migrant families, while maternal influences were more salient in urban families. Furthermore, among migrant families, high-risk children exhibited risk networks that were densely clustered around mother- and father-centered "risk networks" independently, yet demonstrated lower overall network connectivity, suggesting a more fragmented pattern of family risk dynamics.

Discussion: These findings highlight the importance of parental roles, differing social contexts, and cumulative risk in understanding child subjective well-being.

Introduction: Methamphetamine use disorder is a major mental health issue worldwide. An implicit attitude is a potential way to understand the paradoxical behavior of substance use and has not been fully investigated for methamphetamine users. Depression is a common comorbidity for methamphetamine users. Little is known about the moderating effects of depression on the associations between implicit attitudes and addictive behavior in methamphetamine users. The aims of this study were to examine the associations of implicit attitudes with methamphetamine-dependent behavior and the moderation of depression in these associations.

Methods: One-hundred and fifty methamphetamine users were enrolled. Epidemiological data, methamphetamine dependence severity, and implicit attitudes were collected.

Results: The results showed that participants have positive implicit attitudes toward methamphetamine and that the implicit attitude is positively related to dependence severity. Depressive methamphetamine users have greater levels of positive implicit attitudes and dependence severity. Furthermore, depression positively moderates the relationships between implicit attitudes and use behavior.

Conclusion: These results highlight the importance of implicit attitudes and depression for methamphetamine dependence and indicate that depression can strengthen the relationship between implicit attitudes and methamphetamine-use behavior. Therefore, both implicit attitudes and depression are areas to be addressed in the treatment of methamphetamine use disorder.

Objective: Emotions are known to play a vital role in the lives of children; however, not all children possess an equal understanding of emotions. This suggests the influence of cognitive abilities and functions on the development of emotion understanding during different developmental phases. This study aims to explore the link between non-verbal intelligence and emotion understanding in children. Also, it examines a mediation model to assess the extent to which cognitive functions mediate this link. Finally, it aims to compare the strength of mediation paths between boys and girls through testing a moderated mediation model.

Methods: To test the research hypotheses, a sample of 272 children (M = 63.40 months, SD = 3.74) including 81 boys and 138 girls was recruited. The parents of the remaining 53 children chose not to specify their children's gender. Participants responded to scales on non-verbal intelligence, executive cognitive functions and emotion understanding.

Results: The results suggested that there is a statistically positive relationship between non-verbal intelligence and emotion understanding. Also, the executive cognitive functions were positively associated with both non-verbal intelligence and emotion understanding. The results of multiple mediation analysis revealed that only the inhibition mediated the link between non-verbal intelligence and emotion understanding.

Conclusion: These findings suggest that not all executive cognitive functions can explain the underlying mechanism between non-verbal intelligence and emotion understanding, however, inhibition emerged as the stronger mediator in this relationship.

Purpose: Parents of children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) often encounter multifaceted challenges when addressing their children's special needs. While existing studies have examined the relationship between parental resilience and mental health in this population, the underlying mechanisms governing this association remain poorly understood. The present study aims to investigate the association between parental resilience and affiliate stigma, examine the mediating role of life satisfaction in this relationship, and assess the moderating effect of ostracism on these pathways.

Methods: This study employed a cross-sectional design to examine the relationship between resilience and affiliate stigma among parents of children with ASD, as well as the underlying mechanism. A total of 380 caregivers were recruited from autism intervention centers in Jiangsu Province, mainland China. Participants voluntarily completed questionnaires including the Brief Resilience Scale, the Affiliate Stigma Scale, the Satisfaction With Life Scale, and the Ostracism Short Scale.

Results: (1) Resilience of parents of children with autism negatively predicted affiliate stigma; (2) Life satisfaction partially mediated the relationship between resilience and affiliate stigma; and (3) Ostracism significantly moderated the relationship between life satisfaction and affiliate stigma.

Conclusion: This study reveals the complex relationship between resilience, affiliate stigma, life satisfaction, and ostracism among parents of children with ASD. It highlights the significance of enhancing parental resilience, improving life satisfaction, and reducing ostracism in alleviating the stress of affiliate stigma in families of children with autism. In the family support system for children with ASD, it is necessary to build an inclusive social environment and provide resources for psychological interventions to enhance parents' resilience in the face of challenges.

Background: Recreational fear, voluntary exposure to frightening stimuli in safe contexts (eg, horror films), elicits both distress and pleasure. Although paradoxical enjoyment of fear has been documented in healthy populations, its neural and psychological mechanisms, and potential therapeutic value for depression, remain unclear.

Methods: In a mixed-methods design, Study 1 (N = 216) assessed psychological and physiological responses to standardized fear stimuli across a continuum of depressive symptoms, using heart rate variability, salivary cortisol, and validated self-report measures. Study 2 (N = 84) employed functional MRI to characterize brain activation during and after exposure to the same stimuli in individuals with mild-to-moderate depression.

Results: An inverted-U-shaped curve linked fear intensity to enjoyment, with depression severity significantly moderating this relationship (β = -0.42, p <0.001): higher symptom levels required stronger stimuli for peak pleasure. Depressed participants showed greater ventromedial prefrontal cortex activation and attenuated amygdala responses, suggesting enhanced engagement of regulatory circuits. fMRI analyses also revealed transient normalization of default-mode and salience-network connectivity following fear exposure (t(83) = 3.87, p <0.001, d = 0.84).

Conclusion: Controlled recreational fear may transiently engage emotion-regulatory networks and modify maladaptive connectivity patterns in depression, offering a novel adjunctive strategy. These findings are preliminary and correlational; future studies should examine causal effects and long-term clinical impact.

Purpose: To explore and illuminate the post-traumatic growth experience among family caregivers of people with dementia.

Patients and methods: Descriptive qualitative research was conducted using purposive sampling. Between June and October 2024, 19 family caregivers of dementia patients were selected from an outpatient clinic for memory disorders and a mental health center in Shanghai. The NVivo 20.0 software was used to organize and code the interview data, and the data were analyzed and thematically condensed using the directed content analysis method.

Results: Four themes were identified, along with eleven sub-themes associated with them: cognitive-behavioral shift (transitioning family roles, recognizing disease characteristics, focusing on health management, and responding positively and effectively); personal strength enhancement (enhancing coping capacity, increased psychological resilience and increased responsibility); improved relationships with others (harmonizing in family relations and benefiting from social interactions); and changes in life perceptions (reshaping of values, and reconstructing the meaning of life).

Conclusion: Family caregivers of people with dementia experience multifaceted post-traumatic growth after a traumatic event of disease diagnosis and patient caregiving. It is necessary to focus on positive psychological resources for family caregivers to improve the burden of caregiving. Future research should take measures to promote family caregivers' positive perceptions, explore their own potential and strengths, and help them make full use of family and social support to enhance their post-traumatic growth.

Background: Comorbidity between attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and depression in adults is frequently observed and is associated with more complex clinical presentations and poorer prognoses. Greater emphasis is therefore warranted on identifying the distinguishing clinical characteristics of this comorbid condition.

Objective: To examine the clinical differences between adults diagnosed with depression with and without comorbid ADHD.

Methods: A cross-sectional comparative analysis was conducted involving patients with MDD, with and without comorbid ADHD. Sociodemographic and clinical variables were collected. Multivariate logistic regression analysis was performed to identify factors independently associated with ADHD comorbidity.

Results: A total of 197 patients were included in the final analysis. Significant differences in both sociodemographic and clinical variables were observed between the two groups. Multivariate logistic regression revealed that earlier age of onset (OR = 1.86, 95% CI: 1.25-7.31), lower educational attainment (OR = 0.43, 95% CI: 0.22-0.86), higher PHQ-9 scores (OR = 2.31, 95% CI: 1.58-6.52), poor emotional impulsivity control (OR = 4.55, 95% CI: 2.58-8.01), and maladaptive emotion regulation strategies (OR = 3.24, 95% CI: 2.07-7.45) were significantly associated with the presence of ADHD in patients with depression.

Conclusion: Adults with comorbid depression and ADHD demonstrate distinct clinical features compared to those with depression alone. Key predictive factors include earlier onset of depression, lower levels of education, more severe depressive symptoms, greater difficulties in emotional impulsivity control, and the use of maladaptive emotion regulation strategies. These findings underscore the need for comprehensive assessment of emotion regulation in depressive patients, as such difficulties may signal the presence of comorbid ADHD. Interventions targeting emotional regulation may enhance diagnostic accuracy and improve treatment outcomes in this population.

Purpose: Depression is well-known to be transmitted across generations, whereas the focus has often been on mother-child dyads. Little is known about the role of fathers and some inherited temperaments of adolescents, especially in Chinese families. This study is the first to explore the moderated mediation transmission mechanism of depressive symptoms, in which (i) the role of fathers was compared to that of mothers, and (ii) how adolescent perceptual sensitivity worked was particularly elucidated.

Participants and methods: A total of 738 Chinese adolescents (M _age = 12.80 ± 1.58 years; 47.2% girls) who were companied with one of their primary caregivers (mothers or fathers) were recruited, constituting two subsamples of mother-child (N = 508) versus father-child dyads (N = 230), respectively. Path models and the regions of significance approach were used to analyze the moderated mediation mechanisms.

Results: Mothers and fathers both transmitted depressive symptoms to adolescents via their rejection parenting (indirect effect = 0.14, SE = 0.02, p < 0.001). However, adolescent perceptual sensitivity moderated the second half path of this mediation pathway among mother-child dyads (b = 0.09, SE = 0.04, p = 0.011), but not among father-child dyads (b = -0.05, SE = 0.06, p = 0.348), and worked in a manner of diathesis-stress. Adolescent sex did not moderate this transmission mechanism (χ² = 6.52, df = 3, p = 0.089).

Conclusion: These findings suggest similarities and differences in the roles of mothers and fathers in the transmission risk of depressive symptoms in contemporary Chinese families, and highlight a diathesis-stress like moderation effect of adolescent perceptual sensitivity.

This systematic review article considers the intertwinement of sense of coherence, self-esteem, and age stereotype among the heterogeneous aging population. Aging is multifaceted and complex, and older persons are a mosaic of values, experience, and psychological responses to society's perception of their age. Underpinning this portrayal is the understanding that aging is not unidimensional but rather a complex aggregate of processes, challenges, and psychological processes. The first half describes the interdependence between age stereotypes and age discrimination and calls for the struggle against ageism at the social, institutional, and individual levels. The second half explores the influence of negative aging stereotypes on the self-concept of the elderly in Poland. It is necessary to investigate these processes to develop interventions and support systems suitable for the specific needs of the aging population. The third part deals with the complex cluster of self-concepts of self-esteem. The variability of self-esteem of the elderly ranging from high self-worth and confidence to low self-esteem and doubtfulness and low self-worth. Intervention must be specialized in trying to construct self-esteem, considering the variability of values of the elderly. In the fourth part, we deal with resilience continuum and the connection with age. Sense of coherence, a construct of Antonovsky's psychology, is the centerpiece of resilience research on older individuals. Optimal sense of coherence enables individuals to manage old-age adversity and how lack of sense of coherence exposes them to the psychological impacts of stereotypes on old age. The dynamics of the aging population on the continuum, discussed in the problems of the fifth section, illustrate the response to age stereotypes and resilience and how these affect overall well-being.

Despite growing recognition of mental health as a global priority, a critical knowledge gap persists regarding how workforce availability aligns with the burden of mental disorders across income levels. This perspective addresses that gap by comparing mental health workforce indicators and disease burden metrics from the World Health Organization and United Nations datasets, stratified by country income level. The findings reveal a striking misalignment: low- and lower-middle-income countries report the highest disability-adjusted life years due to depression, bipolar disorder, and suicide, yet possess the lowest density of psychiatrists, psychologists, nurses, and social workers per 100,000 population. Conversely, high-income countries demonstrate stronger alignment between disease burden and workforce capacity, supported by greater policy readiness and financial allocation. Importantly, this analysis identifies not only a quantitative shortfall in human resources but also a qualitative gap in policy implementation, including limited enforcement, weak integration into primary care systems, and insufficient accountability mechanisms. Even where national mental health plans exist, compliance and execution remain limited, particularly in low-income settings. These inequities compromise efforts toward universal health coverage and Sustainable Development Goal 3.4 on mental well-being. These findings highlight urgent global priorities for mental health investment and system reform to close the persistent treatment gap and advance the Sustainable Development Goals. This evidence may guide investment decisions, inform global health diplomacy, and support policy reforms aimed at closing the persistent mental health treatment gap.