International Journal of Psychology最新文献

This study investigates the impact of family structure on adolescent loneliness in the context of China's one-child and two-child policies. Despite the known physical and mental health consequences of adolescent loneliness and the importance of family factors, research on the role of family structure remains limited. Participants (n = 3312, ages 10–19) were drawn from 32 schools in China using class-based cluster sampling. Network analysis was employed to compare loneliness between only children and non-only children, and multiple linear regression predicted loneliness based on family structure and its interactions with key demographic variables. Results indicate that loneliness differs between only children and non-only children, and being sensitive to withdrawal is a key source of loneliness for only children. However, this process can be moderated by factors such as gender, age, and socioeconomic status. The findings have implications for both academic research and practical interventions addressing adolescent loneliness.

Guilt as an important self-conscious emotion plays both constructive and destructive roles in affective and cognitive processes of empathy during social interactions. To reconcile these contrasting perspectives, we explored how two distinct guilt emotions—deontological guilt (DG) and altruistic guilt (AG)—affect affective and cognitive empathy, based on a dualistic thesis of guilt. We employed auditory stories to induce participants' DG, AG and neutral emotional states and used an empathy task adapted from the Multifaceted Empathy Test (MET) to measure two types of empathy. Results showed that the DG group demonstrated greater affective empathy towards angry, disgusted, fearful and sad faces, and the AG group exhibited more affective empathy towards fearful and sad facial expressions compared to those in the neutral group. Moreover, the DG group also experienced more affective empathy towards disgusted and fearful faces than the AG group. However, cognitive empathy for facial expressions did not differ among the three emotional state groups. Overall, these findings suggest that DG and AG emotions both have a constructive effect on affective empathic responses for specific emotions.

Several studies have shown that mindfulness positively correlates with people's prosocial behaviours. However, all of these studies were almost conducted in the context of a laboratory environment that required to be generalised to real-life situations. Thus, this study constructed an urban traffic scene through virtual reality technology to observe the effects of brief mindfulness meditation training on individuals' prosocial driving behaviour. We endeavoured to explore whether the effect of mindfulness on prosocial driving behaviour was real and occurred through the participants' responses. We found the improvement of mindfulness allows individuals to engage in more prosocial behaviours in the virtual driving environment, and this positive effect has been maintained throughout the process. This result demonstrates the effectiveness of brief mindfulness training and supports the claim that mindfulness promotes prosocial behaviour. Through this experiment, we extend the prosocial boosting effect of mindfulness to a more specific practical application scenario, where brief mindfulness training can make people friendlier while driving. This experiment sheds light on future research, observing responses in virtual reality to predict what might happen in real life to increase awareness of the positive effects of mindfulness.

Most political psychology theories demonstrate that Right-Wing Authoritarianism (RWA) and Social Dominance Orientation (SDO), as two fundamental ideological beliefs, are both positively related to individuals' militant and hostile attitudes. Meanwhile, macro-level political contexts also influence the functions of these ideological beliefs. In this article, we argue that China's state-sanctioned socialist political context—upholding authoritarianism while opposing social dominance—results in opposite functions for RWA and SDO in shaping the political attitudes of ordinary people. Using the 2023 Israeli–Palestinian conflict as a case study, we hypothesised that Chinese netizens' RWA and SDO have opposing effects in predicting their support for the war. We further explored the mediating effects of responsibility attribution to the U.S. as well as outgroup prejudices towards Jews and Muslims. Using a cross-sectional questionnaire with a nationwide online sample (N = 1089), we confirmed the contrasting effects of RWA and SDO on the war support of Chinese netizens. Additionally, the influence of ideological beliefs was mainly mediated by the perceived responsibility of the U.S., with prejudices against Muslims or Jews accounting for only a minor effect. These findings highlight the divergent functions of ideological beliefs outside of the political contexts dominated by the liberal-conservative dichotomy.

In five studies, integrating the Social Identity Model of Deindividuation Effects (SIDE) and the Constructivist Model of Wisdom, we examined the social phenomenon of ‘online breakup persuasion’ and explored its influencing factors and underlying mechanisms. In the pilot study (N = 22,093), to test whether this phenomenon exists, we analyzed the comment characteristics of posts with romantic issues by crawling online comment data. In Study 1 (N = 592), we examined the influence of perceived anonymity on online breakup persuasion, the mediating role of social distance, and wise reasoning. In Study 2, we further verified the results by manipulating perceived anonymity (study 2a; N = 228), social distance (study 2b; N = 259), and wise reasoning (study 2c; N = 251) respectively. Across the five studies, we found the phenomenon of ‘online breakup persuasion attempts’ is widespread, always accompanied by ridicule, sarcasm, and offensive expressions. The perceived anonymity positively predicted online breakup persuasion, and social distance and wise reasoning played a serial mediating role. However, in view of the limited research focus, future studies should further explore the influence of other factors such as the gender of the poster and the marital status of the advisor on breakup persuasion attempts.

As ecological crises intensify, promoting pro-environmental behaviour (PEB) has become increasingly urgent yet challenging, as individuals often prioritise self-interest over environmental considerations. While prior research confirms the influence of social norms on PEB, the differential effects of these norms (descriptive vs. injunctive) in contexts of conflicting personal, collective, and environmental interests remain insufficiently explored. This study utilised the Greater Good Game paradigm to simulate nested social dilemmas. Experiment 1 demonstrated that exposure to social norms substantially increased environmental choice. Experiment 2 indicated that descriptive norms outperformed injunctive norms, as evidenced by higher contributions to ecological sustainability. The overall findings suggest that PEB significantly increases under the influence of social norms, while self-interested behaviour diminishes, and cooperative behaviour remains consistent. Furthermore, the results revealed that descriptive norms are more effective in promoting PEB in complex, ecologically valid settings, as they can reduce behavioural uncertainty through social identity. This study incorporates normative cues within decision-making contexts involving competing interests and provides evidence-based guidelines for fostering sustainable behaviour.