With the rapid growth of e-commerce, online shopping has become a major channel for consumption. However, the wide range of available options often creates psychological pressure for certain consumer groups. This study examines the mechanisms associated with choice deferral, shifting the focus from external environmental factors to intrinsic personality traits. Based on a sample of 611 participants, we employed a moderated mediation model to explore the relationships among perfectionism, Fear of Missing Out (FoMO), and upward social comparison. The results suggest that: (1) perfectionism is positively associated with choice deferral in online shopping; (2) FoMO functions as a key mediating variable in the relationship between perfectionism and choice deferral; and (3) upward social comparison not only strengthens the relationship between perfectionism and FoMO but is also associated with a stronger indirect relationship between perfectionism and choice deferral. These findings shed light on the psychological antecedents of decision paralysis and provide theoretical insights into personality-related consumer behavior, as well as practical implications for e-commerce platforms seeking to optimize marketing strategies and support consumer self-regulation.

This study examined whether social adaptability mediates the relationship between grandparent involvement and children’s emotional and behavioral problems, and whether family functioning moderates the link between grandparent involvement and social adaptability. Data were collected from 759 parents of children aged 3–6 years in China across three time points. Participants completed measures of grandparent involvement, family functioning, social adaptability, and emotional and behavioral problems. Moderated mediation analysis revealed that grandparent involvement was positively associated with children’s emotional and behavioral problems, and this relationship was partially mediated by social adaptability. Moreover, family functioning moderated the negative effect of grandparent involvement on social adaptability: the negative association was weaker when family functioning was high and stronger when family functioning was low. These findings suggest that improving family functioning and enhancing children’s social adaptability may mitigate the potential negative impact of grandparent involvement on child development.

INTRODUCTION:Affect labeling, which entails identifying the emotional content of an event, is a critical strategy for implicit emotion regulation. Previous studies have shown that affect labeling influences the encoding memory stage of negative events. However, it remains unclear whether affect labeling during encoding of negative events affects subsequent memory stages related to these events, such as retrieval. METHODS:The current behavioral and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) study aimed to investigate whether affect labeling during encoding of emotional pictures influenced behavioral performance and neural responses during recognition memory of these pictures. To address this issue, 37 participants in the present study were instructed to label the emotional content of negative or neutral pictures, label the person-related content, or simply view the pictures. Participants were then re-exposed to the pictures along with several new ones and were asked to indicate whether they had previously seen each prompted picture. RESULTS:Behavioral results showed that affect labeling during pictorial encoding subsequently increased recognition performance across all pictures. fMRI results revealed that during the encoding phase, negative pictures in the affect labeling condition elicited greater amygdala activation compared to the person labeling and viewing conditions, with this effect being even more pronounced relative to neutral pictures. More importantly, during the recognition phase, prior affect labeling reduced amygdalar responses specifically to negative pictures, which made comparable the responses observed for neutral pictures. CONCLUSION:These findings suggest that affect labeling during encoding of negative events modulates their memory formation, thereby influencing subsequent retrieval of those events.

The abilities of memorizing others' faces are critical in social interactions. Previous event-related potential (ERP) studies have shown that neural responses during face memory (e.g., face encoding and recognition) are affected by emotional contexts that do not involve social interactions. Only a few studies have investigated the effects of social interaction-related contexts on neural responses during face memory. Here, we aimed to extend this investigation by exploring whether fairness-relevant contexts during resource allocations influence ERP responses during face encoding and recognition. To address the issue, 41 participants were required to view resource allocations between the participants themselves and a partner. The allocations were either fair or unfair to the participants. To understand the influence of allocation motivation, resources were proposed by either the partner or the computer. Participants were then presented with the face of the partner. After all the faces had been encoded, participants were required to recognize relevant faces. ERP results showed that fair compared to unfair allocations resulted in larger N170 responses to faces when resources were allocated by computers, whereas this effect was weakened for partner proposers. For both partner and computer proposers, fair-relevant compared to unfair-relevant faces evoked stronger late positive potential (LPP) responses. In the subsequent recognition phase, partner proposers reduced the differences between fair-relevant and unfair-relevant faces on N170 and LPP responses that were evident for computer proposers. These findings might suggest that social interaction-related contexts involving fairness affect neural responses during face memory, which, to some extent, rely on allocation motivation.

Behavioural studies have shown that social comparison between oneself and opponents influences certain prosocial behaviours such as helping and cooperation behaviours towards opponents. However, it is uncertain whether social comparison affects other prosocial behaviours. More importantly, no studies have directly investigated whether social comparison affects antisocial behaviours towards opponents or neural mechanisms underlying both prosocial and antisocial behaviours. The present study addresses these issues by investigating the effects of social comparison on spreading positive and negative information about an opponent and the corresponding neural activity. To this end, thirty participants in the present study completed a card-drawing task, and compared their outcome with those of an opponent, obtaining better, worse or equal outcomes. Subsequently, they viewed positive or negative information about the opponent and indicated the proportion of other opponents to whom they would spread this information. Behavioural results showed that, compared to participants in the better and equal conditions, those in the worse condition were less likely to spread positive information and more likely to spread negative information. Event-related potential results showed that the worse condition enhanced early frontal late positive potential (LPP) responses to positive information compared to the better and equal conditions, and middle and late LPP responses compared to the better condition. Furthermore, both the worse and better conditions increased late central LPP responses to negative information compared to the equal condition. The findings suggest that social comparison influences the spreads of positive and negative information about opponents and relevant neural responses.

Little is known about the effect of prior social performance feedback on face processing. Our previous study explored how equal and unequal social comparison-related outcomes modulate event-related potential (ERP) responses to subsequently presented faces, where interests between oneself and others were independent (noncompetitive situations). Here, we aimed to extend this investigation by assessing how different unequal social comparison-related outcomes affect face processing under noncompetitive and competitive situations (i.e. a conflict of interest exists between the self and others). To address this issue, 39 participants were exposed to self-related and social comparison-related outcomes, categorized as positive or negative, after performing an attentional task with peers. Rewards and punishments depended on social comparison-related outcomes in the competition condition and on self-related outcomes in the noncompetition condition. ERP results showed that social comparison-related outcomes influenced P100 responses to faces in the self-positive condition. More notably, the effects on N170 responses observed in the noncompetition condition were absent in the competition condition. There was an effect on late positive potential responses only in the competition and self-negative condition. These findings suggest that social comparison-related outcomes influence early face processing irrespective of competition, while competition subsequently disrupts this processing but, later, enhances depending on self-related outcomes.

Previous studies have investigated whether event-related potential (ERP) responses to negative and positive facial expressions are modulated by perceptual and working memory loads of face-irrelevant tasks, but results have been mixed. These studies typically employed traditional analysis methods that focus on a limited number of electrodes and timepoints, which increases the risk of statistical errors. Moreover, no studies have investigated these issues for emotionally ambiguous facial expressions. Therefore, the current study aimed to investigate whether working memory loads influence ERP effects of positive, negative and importantly, emotionally ambiguous (e.g., surprised) facial expressions by using robust Mass Univariate Analysis (MUA). To address these issues, thirty-three participants were presented with angry, happy, surprised or neutral faces. Participants were required to memorize a letter (low working memory loads) or 5 letters (high loads) before face presentations and to recognize them afterwards. ERP results showed that working memory loads and facial expressions independently affected ERP responses, with no significant interaction. Working memory loads influenced ERP responses starting after the P100 peak. Regarding the effect of facial expressions, surprised facial expressions generally weakened late positive potential (LPP) responses compared to other facial expressions, and happy facial expressions weakened the responses at early time ranges, while angry facial expressions enhanced LPP responses at distinct electrode sites depending on the comparison. These findings underscore the value of employing MUA for comprehensive ERP analysis in face processing research.

In daily life, faces are often memorized within contexts involving interpersonal interactions. However, little is known about whether interpersonal interaction-related contexts influence face memory. The present study aimed to understand this question by investigating how social comparison-related context affects face encoding and recognition. To address this issue, 40 participants were informed that they and another player each played a monetary game and were then presented with both of their outcomes (either monetary gain or loss). Subsequently, participants were shown the face of the player whom they were just paired with. After all the faces had been encoded, participants were asked to perform a sudden old/new recognition task involving these faces. The results showed that, during the encoding phase, another player's monetary gain, compared to loss, resulted in more negative responses in the N170 and early posterior negativity (EPN)/N250 to relevant players’ faces when participants encountered monetary loss and a smaller late positive potential (LPP) response irrespective of self-related outcomes. In the subsequent recognition phase, preceding another player's monetary gain as compared to loss led to better recognition performance and stronger EPN/N250 and LPP responses to the faces of relevant players when participants had lost some amount of money. These findings suggest that the social comparison-related context, particularly self-disadvantageous outcomes in the context, influences the memory of comparators’ faces.

Individuals frequently expect consequences-in particular emotional consequences-based on nonemotional or emotional information conveyed by environmental cues. However, in an everchanging world, (emotional) consequences are sometimes incongruent with expectations. Past event-related potential (ERP) studies have revealed effects of anticipation violation on facial expression processing when consequence anticipation is based on nonemotional cues (NEC). However, it is unknown whether anticipation violation influences ERP responses to emotional facial expressions when the anticipation is based on emotional cues (EC). To understand this question, anticipatory cues were presented before fearful and happy facial expressions. Most often, the cues correctly suggested the emotional content of the facial expression but sometimes, another emotional category of facial expression was shown. Moreover, in the EC condition, emotional pictures were used as anticipatory cues, while scrambled pictures outlined in different colors were used as cues in the NEC condition. The ERP results showed stronger responses in early posterior negativity (EPN) and late positive potential (LPP) to facial expressions under the violated condition than under the nonviolated condition in the NEC condition, whereas these effects were absent in the EC condition. The findings might suggest that EC reduces the influences of anticipation violation on attention toward emotional facial expressions.

Faces can acquire emotional meaning by learning to associate individuals with specific behaviors. Here, we investigated emotional evaluation and brain activations toward faces of persons who had given negative or positive evaluations to others. Furthermore, we investigated how emotional evaluations and brain activation generalize to perceptually similar faces. Valence ratings indicated learning and generalization effects for both positive and negative faces. Brain activation, measured with functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), showed significantly increased activation in the fusiform gyrus (FG) to negatively associated faces but not positively associated ones. Remarkably, brain activation in FG to faces to which emotional meaning (negative and positive) was successfully generalized was decreased compared to neutral faces. This suggests that the emotional relevance of faces is not simply associated with increased brain activation in visual areas. While, at least for negative conditions, faces paired with negative feedback behavior are related to potentiated brain responses, the opposite is seen for perceptually very similar faces despite generalized emotional responses.

Intolerance of uncertainty (IU) has been suggested to be associated with emotional perceptions and evaluations. Several studies have also revealed that IU is related to cognitive preferences, in particular gain-relevant risk preference. Nevertheless, it is still unclear whether both prospective and inhibitory IU, two dimensions of IU, predict gain-related and moreover, loss-relevant risky preference. More importantly, it is unknown whether the associations between IU and risk preference are modulated by biological factors (e.g., genes). Therefore, the current study investigated whether prospective and inhibitory IU were associated with gain-/loss-related risk preference and whether the associations were modulated by an impulsivity control-related gene, tryptophan hydroxylase 1 (TPH1) gene (A779C, rs1799913) through recruiting 222 healthy Chinese participants. Results showed that prospective IU was correlated with gain-relevant risk averse. There was not a significant association between IU and loss-relevant risk preference. Nevertheless, further analysis revealed that the association was modulated by the TPH1 genotype. Prospective and inhibitory IU predicted loss-relevant risk averse specifically for TPH1 AC genotype carriers but not for other genotype carriers (i.e., AA or CC). The findings emphasize the associations between IU and risk preference depending on frame and genetic variance.

Previous studies have shown that high-arousal positive and negative facial expressions influence event-related potential (ERP) and time-frequency responses depending on attentional focuses. However, little is known about how relevant neural responses are influenced by surprised facial expressions, which are also high in arousal but ambiguous in valence. To address the issue, 38 participants were presented with surprised, happy, angry and neutral facial expressions. Attention was manipulated to focus on facial emotional attributes, facial non-emotional attributes, non-facial attributes, or was free to the participants. ERP results showed larger N170 responses to surprised compared to neutral facial expressions when attention focused on facial attributes and to surprised compared to angry and neutral facial expressions when attention focused on facial non-emotional attributes. Time-frequency analyses revealed reduced power of early occipital theta to surprised compared to happy and angry expressions when attention focused on facial emotions and to surprised compared to angry expressions when attention focused on non-facial stimuli. Parietal delta power was smaller for surprised facial expressions than for angry facial expressions when attention focused on facial emotions and for surprised facial expressions than for angry and neutral facial expressions when attention was directed to non-facial stimuli. These findings might suggest that neural responses to surprised facial expressions are modulated by attentional focus.

Negative experience; Gender; Memory; Positive events; Love

INTRODUCTION:Social anxiety disorder (SAD) is characterized by abnormal processing of performance-related social stimuli. Previous studies have shown altered emotional experiences and activations of different sub-regions of the striatum during processing of social stimuli in patients with SAD. However, whether and to what extent social comparisons affect behavioural and neural responses to feedback stimuli in patients with SAD is unknown.MATERIALS AND METHODS:To address this issue, emotional ratings and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) responses were assessed while patients suffering from SAD and healthy controls (HC) were required to perform a choice task and received performance feedback (correct, incorrect, non-informative) that varied in relation to the performance of fictitious other participants (a few, half, or most of others had the same outcome).RESULTS:Across all performance feedback conditions, fMRI analyses revealed reduced activations in bilateral putamen when feedback was assumed to be received by only a few compared to half of the other participants in patients with SAD. Nevertheless, analysis of rating data showed a similar modulation of valence and arousal ratings in patients with SAD and HC depending on social comparison-related feedback.CONCLUSIONS:This suggests altered neural processing of performance feedback depending on social comparisons in patients with SAD.

In a complicated social context, outcome evaluation involves not only oneself but also others in relation to the self (i.e., social comparison). Previous event-related potential (ERP) studies have investigated the processing of social comparison-related outcomes when one's interests are independent of the interests of others (i.e., noncompetition circumstances). However, it is unclear how social comparison-related outcomes are processed in the brain when there are conflicts of interest between oneself and others (i.e., competition circumstances). To address this issue, participants in the current study were asked to perform an attentional task with several peers and were subsequently presented with self-related outcomes (i.e., the performance difference between the current trial and several preceding trials) and social comparison-related outcomes (i.e., the performance difference between oneself and their peer). Importantly, rewards and punishments were based on social comparison-related outcomes in the competition condition and on self-related outcomes in the noncompetition condition. ERP results revealed that in the competition condition, positive outcomes involving social comparison elicited a greater P300 response than negative outcomes, whereas this effect was not observed in the noncompetition condition. Additionally, there was generally a larger late positive potential (LPP) response to negative outcomes involving social comparison than to positive outcomes only when one obtained a self-related positive outcome in the competition condition. These findings suggest that competition might strengthen outcome processing involving social comparison at late time ranges relying on self-related outcomes to some extent.

Objective:To investigate the characteristics of emotional face perception in college students with non-suicidal self-injury（NSSI） behavior.Methods:NSSI behavior was determined with the Ottawa Self-injury Inventory（at least once in a month） and Adolescents Self-Harm Scale（at least once in half a year）.Finally, 23 college students with NSSI behavior（NSSI group）and 24 students without NSSI（control group） were recruited.A mixed experimental design of 2（group: NSSI group, control group） × 4（emotional faces: angry, happy, neutral, surprised） was used to explore the differences in the accuracy and reaction time between the two groups when judging the face valence（positive or negative facial expression）.Results:Compared with the control group, the NSSI group judged the valence of emotional faces faster[（757±43）ms vs.（959±41）ms, P＜0.01],while there was no significant difference in accuracy between the two groups（P＞0.05）.In both groups, the response time to judge the valence of happy expression was the shortest, while the response time to judge the valence of surprised expression was the longest（P＜0.001）.Conclusion:It suggest that college students with non-suicidal self-injury behavior are more sensitive to emotional face valences.

INTRODUCTION:Labeling the emotional aspect of self-unrelated stimuli (i.e., affect labeling) is a crucial strategy for implicit emotion regulation. However, it is uncertain whether affect labeling influences event-related potential (ERP) responses (e.g., the late positive potential, LPP) to negative stimuli in comparison with control conditions in which attention is shifted to the emotional content of the stimuli (e.g., affect matching). Additionally, it is unknown whether affect labeling has a lasting effect on the processing of negative stimuli.METHODS:Participants were required to label the emotion (negative or neutral) of target pictures with two words, to match the emotion with alternative pictures or to merely view the target pictures. Target pictures were presented again immediately after the regulation task. After all the target pictures had been labeled, matched and viewed, the pictures were re-exposed for the third time.RESULTS:The results showed that negative pictures elicited larger late LPP responses during the affect labeling task than during other tasks. However, the LPP responses were smaller for negative pictures in the affect labeling condition than in the other conditions when target pictures were re-exposed immediately after the task. When target pictures were re-presented again long after the regulation tasks, the LPP responses were smaller for negative stimuli with a history of affect labeling than viewing, whereas this effect did not differ between the affect labeling and matching conditions.CONCLUSION:The current findings suggest that affect labeling has current effects and, to some extent, has lasting effects on negative stimulus processing.

Childhood emotional neglect (CEN) refers to a failure to meet the basic emotional needs of a child, which can seriously impact interpersonal communication and psychological health in young adults. Emotional face processing is critical in interpersonal communication; however, whether CEN affects this processing in young adults has not been investigated. Therefore, the current study aimed to explore the effects of CEN on emotional face processing in young adults. Using the Child Trauma Questionnaire, an online survey was conducted with 5010 students from four universities in Tianjin, China. After online interviews and diagnosis by professional doctors, we obtained 20 participants with CEN (CEN group) and 20 without CEN (control group). None of the participants had any mental diseases. A 2 × 4 mixed design was used to investigate the differences in accuracy and response time when identifying the valence of the emotional faces. Compared to the control group, the CEN group identified the valence of all emotional faces more slowly, but there was no significant difference between the two groups in terms of accuracy. CEN caused delayed emotional face processing in young adults, which may be related to unresponsive, unavailable, and limited emotional interaction patterns between parents and their children.