Everyday cognitive control requires the regulation of speed and accuracy, particularly when people encounter response conflict or make errors. Perfectionism is relevant to this regulatory context because it combines standards for performance with individual differences in mistake significance, self-evaluation, and tolerance of failure. However, findings linking perfectionism to conflict processing, error monitoring, post-error adjustment, and cognitive flexibility remain inconsistent. This article offers a theory-driven narrative synthesis and develops a conditional integrative framework rather than a systematic review or a validated mechanistic theory. The framework does not replace conflict-monitoring theory, reinforcement-learning accounts of error processing, or multidimensional models of perfectionism. Instead, it specifies how perfectionistic concerns and perfectionistic strivings may conditionally modulate three components of a monitoring-control loop: monitoring sensitivity, response criterion, and flexible versus rigid implementation of control. I argue that perfectionistic concerns may increase the subjective significance of conflict and errors and, under specific task conditions, bias performance toward costly caution or rigid control. Perfectionistic strivings, when separated from concerns, may be more closely related to goal engagement and performance quality than to error reactivity. The framework is deliberately conditional: its predictions depend on task difficulty, error frequency, instructional emphasis, sample characteristics, measurement reliability, and control of sequential artifacts. The article concludes by outlining core propositions and concise methodological considerations for future empirical tests, emphasizing that methodological precision improves testability but does not substitute forempirical validation.
Previous studies on associative memory's effect on short-term memory (STM) have yielded inconsistent findings (facilitation vs. interference). This inconsistency is particularly pronounced under high memory load conditions that exceed STM capacity. To address this gap, we investigated whether systematically manipulated associative activation (via repetition) and retention interval jointly affect STM under high load. Using a 3 & times; 3 (activation level [none, low, high] & times; retention interval [1000, 1500, 3000 ms]) mixed design, participants learned Emoji pairs with 0/8/18 repetitions (training phase) and completed a visual STM recognition task via change detection (8 simultaneous items, test phase). Results showed that high associative activation significantly improved STM performance, reflected by higher capacity (K), discriminability (d'), and accuracy. Critically, this facilitative effect did not interact with retention interval, indicating a robust benefit under high load. These findings advance LTM-STM interplay understanding: highly activated associative LTM representations supplement STM capacity and guide attentional allocation. Future research could explore diverse materials, neurophysiological measures (e.g., EEG), and longer retention intervals to clarify temporal dynamics.
Background: The aim of the study was to identify psychological predictors of particular patterns of playing pay-to-win games: coping strategies and motivation to play. Methods: The article presents the results of the online cross-sectional study conducted among online pay-to-win gamers (n = 868), defined as those who have made payments in online games in order to gain an advantage over gamers who refuse to pay. Results: The patterns of P2W gaming differed in their predictors; the pattern of larger contributions is associated with self-enhancement motivation, and the pattern of small frequent contributions is associated with social motivation and coping directed to escape from problems. Conclusions: Behavioral patterns of gaming are associated with different gaming motivations and strategies. The social factor seemed to differentiate between the most distinct types of players. Recognition of these specific patterns can be an essential factor in the adequate understanding of P2W gaming behavior.
Physical environmental order has a profound impact on human psychological behavior; however, how ordered and disordered perception impacts conformity behavior remains unclear. By adopting the judge-advisor system (JAS) paradigm and event-related potentials (EPRs) method, three experiments systematically investigated the influence of physical environmental order on conformity behavior. In Study 1, compared to the ordered environmental pictures priming group, conformity rating in facial attractiveness decreased significantly in the disordered environmental pictures priming group. Study 2 revealed amplitudes of feedback-related negativity (FRN), P300, and late positive potential (LPP) components of the valuation judgment processing. Study 3 further demonstrated that individuals with low trait self-control exhibited a more pronounced reduction in conformity rating in the disordered environmental pictures priming condition compared to those with high trait self-control individuals. Physical environmental order perception could influence conformity, in which compared to the disordered priming, the ordered priming could make low self-control trait individuals more conformity.
Empathy for pain is a multidimensional process determined by both affective and cognitive factors.The present study investigated whether priming faces of varying physical attractiveness modulates early empathic responses to pain, as measured by event-related potentials (ERPs). To explore these dynamics, the sandwich-masked faces paradigm was used. Fifty-three healthy adults viewed photographs of faces rated as highly attractive or unattractive (prime), followed by target images depicting either painful or nonpainful situations. Findings showed that attractive facial primes, when paired with painful target stimuli, elicited enhanced N2 amplitudes, indicative of affective conflict during early empathic processing. Additionally, P3 amplitude was higher in response to painful stimuli following unattractive primes, suggesting facilitated categorization and increased cognitive engagement. Behavioral data showed that pain intensity ratings were generally higher for unattractive models, especially when prime and target valence were congruent.These findings show that facial attractiveness and affective priming modulate both early and late stages of neural empathic processing, highlighting the complex role of unconscious affective cues in empathic processing of pain.
