This study examined whether metacognitive prompting for responsible generative AI (GenAI) use improves students' learning anxiety and academic self-efficacy. A face-to-face classroom experiment (N = 148) compared a prompting condition with a control condition. Prompting increased metacognitive engagement (d = 1.23), reduced learning anxiety (b = -0.68, SE = 0.18, d = -0.63), and increased academic self-efficacy (b = 0.40, SE = 0.15, d = 0.44). Learning anxiety was negatively associated with self-efficacy (b = -0.42, SE = 0.06; r = -0.55), with an observed indirect pathway through anxiety (ab = 0.26). These findings suggest that brief metacognitive prompts can support responsible GenAI use while preserving learner agency, confidence, and psychological well-being.
The ubiquity of social media platforms has revolutionized interpersonal communication, paradoxically aligning with escalating global loneliness rates. This paper synthesizes recent empirical research on the non-linear association between social media usage and loneliness, moderated by individual and contextual variables. Active engagement bolsters social networks, mitigating loneliness, whereas passive consumption exacerbates it through mechanisms such as social comparison and fear of missing out (FOMO). The analysis delineates contextual contingencies under which digital platforms attenuate or intensify loneliness, alongside pivotal moderators and mediators, including personality traits, usage patterns, social comparison, and social support. Ultimately, social media usage correlates with loneliness, albeit within a complex, often contradictory empirical landscape.
Freshmen entering vocational high schools face psychological stress and adaptation challenges when shifting from general junior high education, making them vulnerable to depression. This three-wave cross-lagged longitudinal study recruited 671 first-year vocational students to explore the mediating role of school adaptation in the relationship between perceived social support and depressive symptoms. Results showed stable auto-regressive effects across variables. The positive influence of perceived social support on school adaptation weakened over time, while the negative influence of school adaptation on depression remained stable. T1 perceived social support positively influenced T2 school adaptation, which in turn reduced T3 depression. The findings clarify the mediating mechanism and provide implications for supporting students' mental health.
Focusing on a Chinese adolescent sample, this study investigated how winners' expressions of authentic versus hubristic pride in competitive contexts were associated with observers' emotional and behavioral responses to the winners' misfortunes and examined the mediating role of benign and malicious envy. A total of 428 subjects participated in three progressive experiments (scenario-based vignettes, live games, and remote competition tasks). The results showed that: (1) Winners displaying authentic pride elicited more sympathy and less schadenfreude than winners displaying hubristic pride; (2) Malicious envy was associated with the link between hubristic pride and schadenfreude, whereas benign envy was associated with the link between authentic pride and sympathy; and (3) Winners displaying authentic pride received more practical help after experiencing misfortune. These findings clarify the social functions of the two-facet structure of pride and the envy-related mechanisms underlying observers' responses, and they suggest potential directions for adolescent moral education and prosocial-behavior interventions.
