This study aims to examine the associations of work–family conflict, perceived social support, and meaning in work with well-being, engagement, and performance among employees returning from parental leave. The study is grounded in the Job Demands–Resources model and uses cross-sectional survey data from 1199 Romanian employees returning from parental leave. Structural equation modeling (SEM) was employed to test a comprehensive model linking job demands and resources to individual and organizational outcomes. Results indicate that both work-to-family and family-to-work conflict are negatively associated with employee well-being, whereas perceived social support and meaning in work are positively associated with well-being. Moreover, perceived social support and meaning in work are also positively associated with engagement, whereas well-being is not significantly associated with engagement. Both engagement and well-being are positively associated with self-reported performance. These findings highlight the relevance of social and psychological resources for employee functioning during the transition back to work after parental leave. The study contributes to the literature by integrating work–family dynamics and several dimensions of positive functioning within a comprehensive model of post-parental-leave reintegration.
Psychopathy is a multidimensional personality construct associated with substantial personal, familial, and societal burden. Among the various forms of psychopathology that co-occur with psychopathy, substance misuse represents one of its most prominent comorbidities. Despite growing interest in the psychopathy–substance misuse association, most facet-level studies have been cross-sectional or have relied on lifetime indices of substance involvement, limiting understanding of whether distinct psychopathy facets uniquely predict subsequent substance-related problem severity. The present study prospectively examined whether the four psychopathy facets uniquely predicted six-month drug- and alcohol-related problem severity among adults recovering from a violent injury. Participants (N = 106) completed baseline assessments of the four psychopathy facets using the Self-Report Psychopathy Scale–Short Form (SRP-SF) and drug- and alcohol-related problem severity using the Drug Abuse Screening Test (DAST-10) and Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test (AUDIT), with drug- and alcohol-related problem severity reassessed six months later. Separate multiple regression models examined whether the interpersonal, affective, lifestyle, and antisocial psychopathy facets uniquely predicted six-month drug- and alcohol-related problem severity after controlling for baseline drug and alcohol use severity, age, sex, race, posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), history of head injury, and the substantial covariance among psychopathy facets. Affective psychopathic traits uniquely predicted greater six-month drug-related problem severity, whereas antisocial psychopathic traits uniquely predicted greater six-month alcohol-related problem severity. The remaining psychopathy facets were not uniquely associated with either outcome. These findings suggest that the psychopathy facets most strongly associated with substance misuse in cross-sectional research may differ from those that uniquely predict the persistence of drug- and alcohol-related problems over time, underscoring the importance of prospective facet-level research to inform etiological models, risk assessment, and targeted prevention and intervention.
Sleep facilitates memory consolidation across the lifespan, but few studies have investigated underlying mechanisms in early development. The present study assessed the role of sleep timing after a social learning situation for action memory in seventy-six 4-year-old children and tested if source monitoring errors explain potential sleep effects (preregistration doi: 10.17605/OSF.IO/QSD2E). We employed a mixed-design combining an experimental within-subject manipulation of social interaction (high-vs.-low-collaboration condition) with an observational component measuring latency to nighttime sleep onset at T1. At T1, children participated in a social learning task scheduled at different times across the day to vary the interval between encoding and nighttime onset. Immediately following the task at T1, and again two weeks later, children’s memory for which actions had been performed (action memory) and who had performed them (agent memory, as an indicator of source memory) was assessed behaviorally. Sleeping behavior and the latency to nighttime sleep was assessed using actigraphy. Contrary to expectations, both action and agent memory were unrelated to latency to nighttime sleep onset after social learning and, in exploratory analyses, to sleep efficiency and sleep duration in the night following learning. Methodological aspects including the retention interval and task difficulty might have contributed to the unexpected results.
Background: In recent decades, doctoral education has undergone a profound transformation. As a result, PhD students have become an increasingly vulnerable population, facing greater risk of mental health problems than the general population. A particularly important subgroup comprises PhD students in medicine and health sciences, who often combine doctoral training with clinical work. Their dual roles expose them to additional pressures, with an increased risk of burnout. Given that their context differs considerably from the typical university environment, in this systematic review, we aim to synthesize the current evidence on burnout, impostor syndrome, and research engagement, along with related indicators of psychological distress, among PhD students in medicine and health sciences, as well as identify key risk and protective factors and highlight gaps for future research. Methods: A systematic literature search was conducted in March 2026 across the Web of Science, Scopus, and Ovid MEDLINE databases. Following a screening process based on PRISMA guidelines, 27 studies were included; due to substantial heterogeneity, findings were synthesized narratively. Results: Psychological difficulties appeared to be more strongly associated with institutional factors rather than personal traits. Burnout was highly prevalent and linked to professional isolation and poor relationships with supervisors. Impostor syndrome emerged as a recurrent theme in qualitative accounts, though it was formally assessed with a validated instrument in only one study. Moreover, research engagement did not appear to protect students from burnout. Conclusion: Burnout and psychological distress are widespread among PhD students in medicine and health sciences, and impostor feelings emerged as a recurrent theme, although formally measured in only one study. These findings highlight the need for structural and institutional changes rather than relying solely on individual psychological support.
Informal video platforms support self-directed learning, yet the determinants of learners’ continuance intention to use YouTube for informal learning remain insufficiently integrated. This study addressed two questions: how the hypothesized structural relationships in an extended expectation–confirmation model explain Thai learners’ continuance intention and which determinants are necessary for high continuance intention. A sequential exploratory mixed-methods design was employed. Fuzzy e-Delphi with 23 experts retained 33 measurement items; survey data from 797 Thai learners were analyzed using covariance-based structural equation modeling, bootstrapped specific indirect effects, and Necessary Condition Analysis (NCA). The model explained 74% of the variance in continuance intention. Satisfaction was the strongest direct predictor (β = 0.559), followed by perceived enjoyment and trust. All 12 hypothesized structural relationships and eight indirect effects were statistically significant, revealing interconnected roles for confirmation, content quality, subjective norm, perceived enjoyment, perceived usefulness, satisfaction, and trust. NCA identified satisfaction and content quality as the principal necessary conditions, with smaller supporting roles for perceived usefulness and perceived enjoyment. Theoretically, the findings extend the expectation–confirmation model to voluntary informal video learning and distinguish contributing relationships from necessary constraints. Practically, they support prioritizing high-quality content and satisfactory learning experiences while strengthening perceived usefulness and perceived enjoyment.
Generative AI is increasingly embedded in knowledge work, yet employees may interpret the same technology either as a resource that extends their capabilities or as a threat involving replacement or monitoring. The psychological pathways linking this interpretation to job engagement and job embeddedness remain underexplored. Drawing on job demands–resources theory, this study positions perceived generative AI complementarity as a technology-based job resource and examines whether it is associated with job engagement and embeddedness through psychological empowerment and psychological safety. Data were collected through a cross-sectional online survey of 428 employees of digital platform service organizations in South Korea. A latent-variable structural equation model was used to evaluate the measurement model and all hypothesized associations, and path-specific indirect associations were tested using bias-corrected bootstrap resampling. Perceived generative AI complementarity was positively associated with both psychological resources, and both resources were positively associated with job engagement and job embeddedness. All four indirect associations were supported, whereas neither residual direct association was distinguishable from zero once measurement error was modeled; the two pathways did not differ significantly in magnitude. Because the data are cross-sectional, single-source, and self-reported, the findings describe associations consistent with the proposed model rather than causal effects.
University-wide suicide risk screening is essential but difficult to implement at scale because professional counselling resources are limited and conventional tools often show low predictive value in low-prevalence populations. To support transparent and clinically interpretable campus mental health workflows, this study introduces and validates the Composite Key Conditions (CKC) method, an interpretable, computationally efficient screening approach for identifying students who match counsellor-defined suicide risk categories. A multi-phase, multi-site study involving 8819 students from two universities in the development and cross-site validation phases was conducted, followed by independent external validation at a third university. In the initial wave, students completed self-report questionnaires in November 2023, after which approximately 20% were selected and invited for centralized counsellor evaluation; the assessments were conducted in December 2023. From January to June 2024, 320 students who subsequently attended psychological services (103 at University A and 217 at University B) were assessed through the cohort pathway. CKC was further evaluated in October 2025 using an independent sample of 22,205 students from a third university. The CKC method, developed from the initial phase, correctly classified all students assigned to the suicide risk category during centralized assessment (sensitivity = 1.000, specificity = 0.901). When applied across both centralized and cohort assessments (yielding 89 counsellor-defined suicide risk cases), the method maintained high performance (sensitivity = 0.888, specificity = 0.904, PPV = 0.086). In the independent validation sample, the method correctly classified 17 of the 22 students identified by the internal reporting system as meeting its high-risk criteria, with a specificity of 0.923. CKC provides an interpretable and efficient approach to suicide risk screening that is suitable for large-scale implementation in university settings. By producing transparent, auditable risk rules rather than opaque predictions, CKC is positioned to complement (not replace) counsellor judgement and to support timely triage and referral within campus mental health service systems.
Children with complex communication needs, including approximately one-third of children with autism, use augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) to meet their daily communication needs. AAC includes gestures, sign language, picture symbols, and computerized systems to augment or replace speech. Family support and training are essential for effective AAC implementation, but few interventions exist. We describe the iterative development of the FamTAM Intervention—an aided language modeling training and coaching intervention designed to support caregiver implementation and their school-based speech language pathologists (SLPs) preparedness to provide family coaching. We detail the iterative process, including refining the training content and delivery, expert reviews, and interviews with SLPs and caregivers. We also conducted interviews with participants to assess the clarity, feasibility, acceptability, and usability of the intervention. Our findings indicate that participants viewed the FamTAM Intervention as engaging, practical, and aligned with evidence-based AAC practices, while also identifying areas for further refinement.
Depressive symptoms are a prevalent mental health concern among older adults. This study examined whether the frequency of receptive arts engagement was associated with depressive symptom scores through leisure-related relaxation and subjective well-being in a specified serial mediation model. Using cross-sectional data from the 2023 Chinese General Social Survey (CGSS), we analyzed 2332 adults aged 60 years or older. Hierarchical regression and bias-corrected bootstrap mediation analyses with 5000 resamples were conducted to examine the proposed model. We found that more frequent art activities were significantly associated with fewer depressive symptoms. Three indirect associations were examined. The indirect association through leisure and relaxation alone was not significant, whereas the association through subjective well-being was the largest of the three tested pathways. A small serial indirect association through leisure and relaxation and subjective well-being was also identified. This model-specific pathway should not be interpreted as causal or as the primary mechanism of arts engagement. These findings describe one possible pathway linking receptive arts engagement to depressive symptoms among older adults. Further research should examine this pathway alongside other psychological, biological, social, and behavioral processes.
Incarcerated women face elevated suicide risk at the intersection of chronic loss, cumulative trauma, and constrained environments. In prison, the death of a child constitutes a profound and overlooked traumatic bereavement. This conceptual manuscript examines how carceral environments restrict privacy, autonomy, family contact, mourning rituals, and social and clinical support, thereby adversely reshaping grief. The Dual Process Model of Coping and meaning-making frameworks are integrated to explain how incarceration may constrain oscillation between loss-oriented and restoration-oriented coping. Institutional functioning may resemble restoration-oriented behavior while lacking critical adaptive factors that define restorative coping. Restricted information, exclusion from rituals and relational validation, and punishment for grief-related behavior may obstruct narrative reconstruction, continuing bonds, and maternal identity reorganization. The model further considers how acute grief interacts with chronic stress, sustained threat responsivity, sleep disruption, and cumulative allostatic burden to intensify psychological and somatic distress without assuming a uniform neurobiological pathway. Social determinants of health, histories of victimization, substance use, and facility-level conditions are important sources of variation. Protective pathways are also specified, including family connection, peer support, cultural and spiritual practices, and clinical care. The paper concludes with testable propositions, a research agenda, and a framework for notification, stabilization, and continuing bereavement support.
The relationship between social media use and adolescent well-being remains complex, and the psychological processes involved in this association require further investigation. Using data from 2085 Chinese adolescents aged 10–19 years, this study identified three social media use intensity profiles through latent profile analysis and examined whether upward social comparison and body appreciation formed a sequential mediating pathway linking social media use intensity and subjective well-being. Three profiles were identified: low social media use intensity (25.2%), moderate social media use intensity (59.0%), and high social media use intensity (15.8%) profiles. In the overall sample, the sequential indirect effect from social media use intensity through upward social comparison and body appreciation to subjective well-being was significant. Furthermore, subgroup-specific analyses showed that the total effect, direct effect, and total indirect effect were not significant in any of the three profiles. A specific sequential indirect pathway through upward social comparison and body appreciation was significant only in the high social media use intensity profile. Moreover, the negative association between upward social comparison and body appreciation was significantly stronger in the high social media use intensity profile than in both the low and moderate social media use intensity profiles.
Adolescence is a critical developmental period in which epilepsy can affect both health behaviors and psychological well-being. However, clinical indicators alone do not fully capture adolescents’ lived experience. Grounded in Self-Determination Theory, this study examined the cross-sectional associations among autonomy-supportive healthcare (ASH) environments, medication adherence, and life satisfaction in adolescents with epilepsy. A cross-sectional design was used with 1219 Italian adolescents with epilepsy (M age = 15.58, SD = 1.72), recruited through pediatric neurology clinics and national patient support organizations. Participants completed validated self-report measures: the Health Care Climate Questionnaire (HCCQ) for ASH, the Medication Adherence Report Scale (MARS) for medication adherence, and the Satisfaction With Life Scale (SWLS) for life satisfaction. A mediation model was tested to evaluate the indirectly associated paths among the variables. The mediation model showed a good fit to the data (χ2/df = 2.45, CFI = 0.994, RMSEA = 0.034, SRMR = 0.029). ASH was positively associated with both medication adherence (β = 0.40, p < 0.001) and life satisfaction (β = 0.23, p < 0.001), while medication adherence was positively associated with life satisfaction (β = 0.35, p < 0.001). The indirect statistical path from ASH to life satisfaction through medication adherence was also significant (β = 0.08, p < 0.001), indicating partial mediation. Overall, these findings highlight positive cross-sectional links between ASH environments, medication adherence, and psychological well-being in adolescents with epilepsy, underscoring the potential relevance of relational aspects of care in chronic disease management.
Entrepreneurship education (EE) is often linked to entrepreneurial intention (EI) through entrepreneurial self-efficacy (ESE), but resource-rich vocational settings may also shape whether students perceive resources and opportunities as accessible. Using survey data from 322 vocational students in Yiwu, China, this cross-sectional single-institution study estimates a partial Social Cognitive Career Theory (SCCT)-informed composite model. The model distinguishes an education-related entrepreneurial competence core (EE-core), a competence-based resource-opportunity accessibility (ROA) proxy, ESE, and EI. EE-core was positively associated with ESE (β = 0.257, p < 0.001), and ESE with EI (β = 0.257, p < 0.001). The bootstrapped EE-core-ESE-EI indirect association was positive but small (β = 0.066, 95% CI [0.025, 0.121]). ROA was also positively associated with EI after accounting for EE-core and ESE (β = 0.150, p = 0.028) and remained positive after controlling for gender and grade (β = 0.143, p = 0.039). An exploratory bootstrap contrast showed no clear difference between the direct ROA estimate and the EE-core-ESE-EI indirect estimate. The EI model explained 12.9% of variance. Findings should be interpreted cautiously because ROA is a competence-based proxy and the data are cross-sectional, self-reported, and drawn from one institution.
Ugly–cute memes, which blend visual incongruity with cuteness, have become a prominent form of nonconventional online esthetics on social media, yet little is known about who prefers them and why. The present research examined how perfectionistic discrepancy and stress-related states relate to ugly–cute meme preference across two studies. In Study 1, 356 Chinese adults completed the Discrepancy subscale of the Almost Perfect Scale–Revised, together with measures of perceived stress, state anxiety, and preference for a pretested ugly–cute meme. The mediation model yielded a negative direct association between perfectionistic discrepancy and ugly–cute meme preference, as well as positive indirect associations through state anxiety and through the serial path from perceived stress to state anxiety. Study 2 used a randomized recall-based stress induction with 393 valid participants. Compared with participants in the neutral-recall control condition, those in the stress-recall condition reported higher state anxiety, rated ugly–cute images more favorably, and were more likely to choose an ugly–cute image in the forced-choice task. The estimated indirect effect of the stress manipulation on ugly–cute image preference through state anxiety was statistically significant. Overall, stress-related states appear to increase the appeal of ugly–cute content. Perfectionistic discrepancy, in turn, relates to this preference through opposing direct and indirect routes.
As health services shift to digital delivery, older adults face practical online risks, including operational errors, difficulty interpreting clinical information, unclear privacy consent procedures, and telecommunications fraud. Existing empirical work mostly adopts questionnaire and interview designs to document older adults’ real-world digital usage, yet few studies systematically analyze policy documents as an external intervention system and assess how they address four core usage barriers: limited digital proficiency, constrained service access, weak sustained participation, and individualized online safety threats. This paper analyzes 1008 policy records extracted from the Peking University Legal Database covering 2007–2025, and develops a four-dimensional analytical framework split into B1 (Digital Capacity and Age-Friendly Support), B2 (Digital Health Management Support), B3 (Home- and Community-Based Care Support), and B4 (Institutional Care and Risk Governance). The analytical toolkit combines a Capability–Opportunity–Motivation–Behavior (COM-B) diagnostic model, an M1–M4 intervention-mechanism coding protocol, Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA) topic modeling, and two indices: the Digital Adaptation Policy Orientation Index (DAPOI) and the Behavioral Intervention Diversity Index (BIDI). Coding outputs reveal a pronounced structural imbalance in policy allocation for older adults’ digital health in China: community and institutional governance clauses (B3, B4) dominate the corpus, while person-centred support including one-on-one operational coaching, clinical data interpretation guidance and offline manual backup channels accounts for a marginal share of all coded entries (B1, B2). Age-friendly digital policies issued circa 2020 serve primarily short-term emergency adjustments instead of permanent institutional arrangements. Built on full-text policy coding outputs, this work defines policy-supported digital resilience as a holistic protective system formed by coordinated institutional clauses. Every result reported is sourced exclusively from supply-side policy records, which provides policy-level evidence for subsequent behavioral research on older adults’ digital risk management and digital welfare construction.
With the increasing embeddedness of social media in everyday life, digital platforms have become important spaces for interpersonal connection, self-presentation, and emotional experience. However, continuous social media engagement does not necessarily enhance users’ happiness; instead, it may coincide with psychological strain and lower subjective well-being (SWB), forming what this study refers to as the social media happiness paradox. In this study, the paradox is positioned as the focal phenomenon to be explained rather than as a standalone empirical construct. Drawing on social comparison theory and the stress-strain-outcome framework, this study examines the associations of social overload (SO), fear of missing out (FOMO), and upward social comparison tendency (USCT) with social media fatigue (SMF) and SWB, including statistical indirect associations through SMF. Based on 748 valid questionnaire responses, this study constructs an integrated conceptual model to examine the relationships among social media-related stressors, fatigue, and well-being. The findings show that SO, FOMO, and USCT are significantly and positively associated with SMF, while all three variables are significantly and negatively associated with SWB. In addition, significant statistical indirect associations between each stressor and SWB were observed through SMF. Taken together, the observed pattern is consistent with an integrated stressor–strain account of the social media happiness paradox and suggests directions for future digital well-being research and intervention design.
Language mixing is a common feature of bilingual environments, yet its effects on bilingual children’s word learning remain inconsistent across studies. The present study examined how language mixing affects novel word learning in 3- to 4-year-old Korean–English bilinguals, extending previous work to an understudied language pair with a greater language distance than those studied previously. Following an established experimental paradigm, children were taught novel words embedded in either single-language or mixed-language sentences during a looking-while-listening task. For half the children, carrier sentences introduced the novel words in their dominant language; for the other half, they were introduced in their non-dominant language. Overall, children successfully mapped the novel word to referents in the single-language context but showed difficulty doing so in the intra-sentence code-switched language context. However, learning patterns diverged by the dominance of the carrier language; when carrier phrases were presented in a non-dominant language, language mixing significantly affected children’s novel word learning, supporting learning only in a single-language context. No difference in language mixing was observed when the carrier language was dominant. These findings partially replicate and extend prior work on the effects of language mixing on young bilingual learners’ word learning, suggesting that the costs of language mixing vary across learning contexts, depending on the specific switching directionality between two distant languages.
As pets increasingly function as family members, emotional companions and resources for identity expression, pet-related fashion consumption has expanded from pet clothing to human–pet co-fashion, in which owners and pets present a coordinated style relationship. Yet the mechanism linking pet attachment to co-fashion purchase intention, and the boundary condition shaping this link remain unclear. Drawing on survey data from 565 consumers with current or prior pet ownership experience, this study examines pet attachment, human–pet relational identity, fashion involvement, pet fashion product purchase intention and human–pet co-fashion purchase intention through mediation and moderation analyses. Pet attachment was positively associated with both purchase intentions, and human–pet relational identity partially mediated these associations. Pet attachment and relational identity were more strongly associated with co-fashion purchase intention than with pet fashion product purchase intention. Fashion involvement negatively moderated the relationship between relational identity and both purchase intentions, indicating that the positive association weakened as fashion involvement increased. By conceptualising human–pet co-fashion as co-consumption that externalises relational identity, this study clarifies how human–pet relationships are expressed through fashion consumption.
Research has documented the various effects of internet use on adolescent well-being. However, few studies have integrated the Displacement Hypothesis and the Stimulation Hypothesis to compare the effects of online and offline communication on the quality of interpersonal relationships among adolescents. Moreover, limited research has examined the role of age cohort in these relationships. The present study addresses these gaps by investigating the age-related differences in these associations. Specifically, we examined the influence of both online and offline communication on the quality of adolescents’ interpersonal relationships and explored the moderating role of age cohort. Data were drawn from the China Family Panel Studies, a nationally representative survey. A cross-sectional sample of 1486 adolescents aged 10 to 15 years (54.4% boys and 45.6% girls) was analyzed using correlation, hierarchical regression, and bootstrap-based mediation analyses. The results indicated that adolescents who engaged in more online communication also tended to engage in more offline communication. Furthermore, both online and offline communication are jointly related to the quality of interpersonal relationships among adolescents. Importantly, age cohort was found to moderate the effects of both online and offline communication on the quality of interpersonal relationships. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.
Background: Early Maladaptive Schemas (EMSs) have been associated with violent and antisocial behavior, but little is known about current EMS profiles among individuals convicted of homicide or whether forensic community differences vary according to sex. This study examined the independent and interactive associations of incarceration status and sex with EMSs. Methods: This cross-sectional, postdictive study included 492 participants: 246 incarcerated individuals convicted of homicide and 246 community participants. EMSs were assessed using the Young Schema Questionnaire–Short Form 3 (YSQ-S3). A 2 × 2 factorial multivariate analysis of covariance examined the effects of incarceration status, sex, and their interaction across 18 EMSs while controlling for age and educational attainment. Results: Significant multivariate effects were found for incarceration status, Pillai’s Trace = 0.417, F(18, 469) = 18.65, p < 0.001; sex, Pillai’s Trace = 0.446, F(18, 469) = 20.94, p < 0.001; and their interaction, Pillai’s Trace = 0.411, F(18, 469) = 18.21, p < 0.001. After Bonferroni correction across the 18 outcomes, incarcerated participants reported higher Emotional Deprivation and Abandonment, whereas community participants scored higher on several schemas involving impaired autonomy, negative self-evaluation, emotional overcontrol, impaired limits, and self-regulation. Mistrust/Abuse did not remain a robust aggregate status effect. These marginal patterns were qualified by the interaction: forensic community differences varied substantially by sex, particularly for Failure, Entitlement/Grandiosity, and Insufficient Self-Control/Self-Discipline. Conclusions: Current EMS profiles were selective and sex-contingent rather than globally elevated among individuals convicted of homicide. Because EMSs were assessed after the offense, conviction, and incarceration, the findings are postdictive and do not establish that the identified schemas predicted or caused homicidal behavior. Schema-informed assessment may complement broader multimethod forensic formulation, but the findings do not establish treatment effectiveness.
