As the internet has become deeply embedded in adolescents' everyday lives, Internet Addiction (IA) has emerged as a significant psychosocial concern. Previous studies have predominantly relied on undifferentiated measures, such as total scores of self-controls or negative life events, thereby obscuring the distinct roles of heterogeneous components within addiction-related processes. Grounded in the Compensatory Internet Use Model, the present study integrates mediation analysis with network analysis to systematically examine both macro-level pathways and micro-level structural characteristics associated with multidimensional self-control (self-regulation and impulse inhibition) and multidimensional negative life events in relation to IA. Based on a large-scale survey of 4305 high school students, the results indicate that self-control is significantly and negatively associated with IA, with negative life events partially mediating this relationship. Importantly, notable heterogeneity was observed across distinct stressor domains. Interpersonal stress and learning stress showed relatively stronger indirect associations linking self-control deficits to IA compared with other domains. Network analysis further revealed that learning stress occupied a central position within the network structure, while bridge expected influence analysis identified punishment-related events and health-related events as important nodes connecting different communities. Notably, a non-linear association pattern was observed within the punishment domain, where higher self-control was associated with higher IA under specific punitive stress contexts. Overall, these findings suggest differentiated association patterns across stressor domains and highlight the value of integrating network and mediation approaches to capture multi-level structural relationships in adolescent internet use behaviors.
In the context of Curriculum-based Ideological and Political Education (CIPE) reform in China, EFL (English as a Foreign Language) teachers in higher education sector face tensions when integrating ideological content into language instruction, yet their specific challenges remain under-explored. Grounded in activity theory, this qualitative study draws on in-depth interviews with seven tertiary EFL teachers from different institutions to examine the contradictions they experience in implementing CIPE, with a focus on teacher agency. The analysis identifies four levels of contradictions across individual, institutional, and systemic dimensions, among which secondary contradictions are the most prominent. The study uncovers two previously understudied contradictions: the absence of a CIPE resource repository tailored to students' disciplinary and generational profiles, and the tension between conventional and CIPE-oriented curriculum objective. The participating teachers actively mitigated these contradictions and exercised diverse forms of agency, with the practical-evaluative dimension being the most salient. This study further reveals that the teachers adopted divergent strategies even when facing identical contradictions, and that the same teacher may employ varying responses - from proactive engagement to denial or withdrawal - across different contradiction levels. Their strategies, however, remain accommodative rather than transformative. The findings suggest that sustainable CIPE implementation requires a multi-actor ecosystem involving policymakers, teacher-educators, front-line teachers, publishers, and administrators to make joint efforts. This paper contributes theoretical and pedagogical insights on the multi-level contradictions that tertiary EFL teachers navigate, and offers transferable implications for similar curriculum reforms.
Although Goffin's cockatoos (Cacatua goffiniana) can innovate the use of two tools in a sequence, it is unknown whether they have the capacity to use two tools concurrently, which supposes a higher level of complexity in order to manage the spatial relations between objects. According to tooling theory, such a high degree of spatial management is beyond the capacity of nonhuman animals. In this experiment, we set out to test this prediction with a species that has exhibited some of the most complex tool use in the animal kingdom, the Goffin's cockatoo. We used a concurrent tool use task previously designed for primary school children (the “sticker slide”), which was found to be challenging even for nine-year-old children. Despite none of the cockatoos successfully innovating the “seed slide” task, they still exhibited several innovative and explorative combinatory behaviours. Their failure appears to be due more to the apparatus design, which was not compatible with their morphology and ecological predispositions, as well as possible fixedness leading them to primarily focus on the top of the two possible tool openings, a bias also observed in some of the young children on the same task.
An agile organization, as an integrated, efficient, and adaptable system, responds to the needs of a rapidly evolving business landscape. Because organizational culture shapes behavior and enhances capabilities, this research examines whether different cultural types and ambitions for agility can equally develop an agile culture. Specifically, it examines how a functional agile culture affects employees with agile and non-agile mindsets across adhocracy, clan, market, and hierarchy cultures to facilitate an agile organization's growth. The study employs structural equation modeling (SEM) to analyze data from 3871 knowledge workers: 1871 from 2025 (initial phase) and 2000 from 2026 (replication), representing a 50/50 mix of the IT sector and other industries. Results indicate that employees with an agile mindset respond well to an agile culture and help foster an agile organization in all cultural contexts. Non-agile mindsets tend to underperform agile mindsets at building agility in adhocracies, clans, and markets, but excel at fostering agility within hierarchies. Additionally, the replication showed that the AI era significantly empowered an agile culture. In summary, the study proposes the Seven Pillars Framework (SPF) to support agile organization design and development.
As opposed to past literature in which racial dissimilarity has been largely examined through a negative lens, this study fills an important gap by revealing that racial dissimilarity between supervisor and subordinate can lead to a knowledge advantage. Based on the Ability-Motivation-Opportunity (AMO) framework, we conducted a field study of 151 subordinate-supervisor dyads to examine how dyadic racial dissimilarity impacts Elaboration of Task-Relevant Information (ETRI) and subordinate job performance when jointly moderated by subordinate cultural values and communication media. Data were analyzed using hierarchical regression and mediation analysis. We found that ETRI was higher under conditions of dyad racial dissimilarity and when subordinates were high in collectivistic values and met with their supervisor more face-to-face than virtually but lower when subordinates were high in individualistic values and met with their supervisor more virtually than face-to-face. The findings also supported a mediated moderation model whereby the three-way interaction effect of the three independent variables on subordinate job performance was mediated by ETRI. Theoretically, through synthesizing an overlooked perspective of the relational demography literature together with AMO framework, we elucidate how racially dissimilar vertical dyads exchange knowledge. Practically, managers can align vertical racially dissimilar dyads by paying particular attention to subordinates' cultural values as well as communication media to enhance subordinate's performance.
