This study found that school bullying victimization was associated with increased risk for negative mental health outcomes among adolescents. Bullying has many forms, including physical, verbal, social, cyber, property-related, and sexual; however, little prior research has examined impacts of exposure to various bullying types among Chinese adolescents. This study explored associations between six types of bullying and mental health outcomes (i.e. depression and anxiety) through a cross-sectional survey of 397 adolescents enrolled in 8th grade in a middle school in Beijing, China. Youth reported on their bullying victimization experiences and mental health. Findings showed significant main effects of verbal, social, property-related, and sexual bullying on symptoms of depression and anxiety, whereas physical and cyberbullying predicted only depressive symptoms. Social bullying had the strongest association among all types with depression and anxiety. In addition, female adolescents who experienced physical and sexual bullying were more likely to report depressive symptoms than their male counterparts. Findings underscore negative effects of bullying on students' mental health, as well as the importance of screening all students to identify exposure to various types of bullying.

Adolescents' educational aspirations have substantial implications for their educational and psychological outcomes. However, little is known about the heterogeneity in trajectories of educational aspirations throughout adolescence, as well as their potential antecedents and impacts. Using data from a 5-wave longitudinal study lasting for 8 years of a nationally representative sample of 2553 adolescents (aged 10-15 years at baseline survey, Mage = 12.45, SDage = 1.73; 49.7% girls) recruited from 25 provinces in China, this study investigated distinct developmental patterns of educational aspirations from Time 1 to Time 5 and tested how they were related to educational and psychological outcomes at Time 5 when the participants were 18-23 years old. Growth mixture modeling identified three distinct trajectories of educational aspirations: low-increasing (35.8%), moderate-stable (55.1%), and high-decreasing (9.1%). After controlling for covariates, individuals who followed the low-increasing trajectory reported lower levels of actual educational attainment at Time 5 compared with the other two groups, as well as more depressive symptoms than the moderate-stable trajectory group. However, the three trajectory groups did not differ significantly from one another in terms of subjective well-being. Furthermore, age, gender, parental educational levels, residence, and perceived academic performance are significant predictors of distinct educational aspiration trajectories. These findings emphasize the value of considering heterogeneous developmental patterns among adolescents when examining the long-term effects of educational aspirations on educational attainment and psychological well-being.

Stress mindset-how individuals perceive stress as either enhancing or debilitating-shapes stress experiences and influences mental and physical health outcomes. Yet, its relationship with sleep health remains underexplored. This study examined the longitudinal association between stress mindset and sleep health among Chinese adolescents and tested whether stress mindset moderates the adverse effects of stress on sleep. We analyzed two-wave data from 4,897 adolescents (Mage = 13.34, SD = 0.64, range = 10-15 years; 50.6% girls) from two middle schools in Sichuan Province, China. At baseline and 1 year later, adolescents completed self-report measures of stress mindset, stress experience, sleep outcomes, and demographic information including age, gender, subjective socioeconomic status, parental education level, and boarding status. A stress-is-enhancing mindset, compared to a stress-is-debilitating mindset, predicted longer sleep duration and better sleep quality 1 year later, independent of baseline sleep outcomes, stress levels, and demographic factors. Additionally, stress mindset moderated the association between stress levels and sleep duration, with a stress-is-enhancing mindset buffering against the negative impact of stress levels on sleep duration. Findings underscore the protective role of a stress-is-enhancing mindset in improving sleep quantity and quality, particularly under high stress. Interventions fostering a stress-is-enhancing mindset may be a promising approach to improving adolescent sleep health.

The reciprocity and variation of values and beliefs are dynamic features of the parent-child relationship. Parents and adolescents may hold congruent or incongruent views regarding the malleability of socioeconomic status (mindset of SES), potentially influencing adolescents’ psychological and physiological stress outcomes, as reflected in stress perceptions and the hypothalamic–pituitary–adrenal (HPA) axis functioning. The current study investigated how patterns of parent-adolescent congruence and incongruence in mindset of SES were associated with adolescents’ perceived stress and diurnal cortisol patterns four months later. A total of 253 adolescents (Mage = 12.60, 46.2

OBJECTIVES:Shift-and-persist coping strategies have been demonstrated to be beneficial for physical health of individuals in low socioeconomic status (SES); however, their impacts on psychological well-being remain less clear. This study aimed to examine: (1) whether the protective effects of shift-and-persist with respect to psychological well-being (i.e., depressive symptoms and subjective well-being) only exist among adolescents with lower (vs. higher) subjective SES, and (2) what drives the potential benefits, shifting strategy or persisting strategy, or both of them? METHODS:This study recruited 686 middle school students (54.5% male; Mage = 12.57 years, SD = 0.65) from Guangdong Province, China, in January 2019, and they completed measures of subjective SES (i.e., perceived family social status), shift-and-persist strategies, depressive symptoms, subjective well-being, and demographic information. RESULTS:Adolescents who engaged in more shift-and-persist strategies reported fewer depressive symptoms and higher levels of subjective well-being, with stronger effects among those lower (vs. higher) in subjective SES. When further exploring what drove these effects, results showed that persisting strategy was associated with fewer depressive symptoms and higher levels of subjective well-being, with more pronounced effects for adolescents with lower (vs. higher) subjective SES. The shifting strategy was associated with fewer depressive symptoms only among those with lower subjective SES, while associated with higher levels of subjective well-being regardless of subjective SES levels. CONCLUSIONS:Findings support the applicability of the shift-and-persist model to both positive and negative indicators of psychological well-being and enrich the theory by providing preliminary evidence for the domain-specific roles of shifting strategy in buffering the negative psychological effects of low-SES contexts.

Peer victimization has been demonstrated to have a long-lasting negative impact on adolescents’ psychological well-being, yet its impact on school engagement is inconclusive, particularly during high school. In addition, research about the role of classroom-level victimization in the association between individual-level peer victimization and adolescents’ school engagement remains underexplored. Previous research has relied solely on self-report measures to assess peer victimization, potentially limiting the scope of understanding. This study investigated the moderating effects of both student-reported and teacher-reported classroom-level victimization on the association between individual-level peer victimization and school engagement among Chinese adolescents. A sample of 2,803 high school students (aged from 14–19 years, Mage = 15.43 years, SD = 0.56; 48.5

Tasked with a wide variety of duties, police officers often encounter stressful situations and suffer from sleep disturbance. Previous studies have found that police officers with sleep disturbance generally reported lower levels of job satisfaction; however, the psychological mechanisms by which sleep disturbance is associated with job satisfaction are still relatively underexplored. This study investigated how sleep disturbance was associated with job satisfaction via the mediation of job involvement and via the moderation of resilience among police officers. Data from a sample of 827 Chinese police officers (86.9% men) was analysed. Participants completed a written questionnaire assessing sleep disturbance, job satisfaction, job involvement, resilience, and demographic information. A moderated mediation model was conducted to examine the research questions. Sleep disturbance was negatively associated with job involvement, which, in turn, was positively associated with job satisfaction. Furthermore, both direct and indirect effects of sleep disturbance on job satisfaction were moderated by resilience. Specifically, the negative association between sleep disturbance and job satisfaction was significant only for those with low levels of resilience, but not for those with high levels of resilience. In addition, the positive association between job involvement and job satisfaction was stronger for those with higher resilience compared with those with lower resilience. The findings advance understanding of the psychological mechanisms underlying the association between sleep disturbance and job satisfaction among police officers.

Bullying is a growing concern in China, yet there are few validated scales designed to measure different types of bullying among Chinese children. In this present study, a bilingual team of researchers use a forward-backward translation process to adapt the Bullying, Harassment, and Aggression Receipt Measure (BullyHARM) for Chinese youth. BullyHARM has previously been shown to be a reliable scale for measuring six bullying domains (i.e., physical, verbal, social/relational, cyber, property, sexual) among children in the United States (US). After cultural and linguistic adaptation, we enrolled 397 middle school students from Beijing, China in a validation study to assess the psychometric properties of the new BullyHARM-China scale. Results of confirmatory factor analysis suggest the final 21-item scale displays strong internal consistency. Consistent with findings from the US, the first-order model of six factors (i.e., six bullying subscales) displays the best fit to the data. Our findings suggest that BullyHARM-China is a reliable tool for measuring bullying victimization among Chinese students.

Gender inequality is one of the main barriers to human well-being. In societies with higher levels of gender inequality, people have lower levels of life satisfaction and happiness. However, previous studies have found inconsistent results in terms of whether gender inequality affects men's and women's subjective well-being differently. Furthermore, the psychological mechanisms by which gender inequality is associated with subjective well-being are still relatively underexplored. This study aimed to examine the following: (1) whether gender inequality would be associated with adults' subjective well-being; (2) whether gender-role attitudes would mediate the effect of gender inequality on subjective well-being; and (3) whether the associations among gender inequality, gender-role attitudes, and subjective well-being would vary by gender. Drawing on data from 4,132 adults from 28 provinces in China (53.6% women; M-age = 50.95, SD = 16.92), multilevel analyses showed that adults in provinces with higher levels of gender inequality reported lower subjective well-being seven years later; moreover, this association was present not only among women, but also among men. Furthermore, multilevel mediation models indicated that less egalitarian gender-role attitudes accounted for the detrimental effects of gender inequality on subjective well-being. Our findings suggest the critical need to reduce socio-structural gender biases and stereotypical gender-role attitudes which hamper subjective well-being not only among women, but also among men.

Adolescent students' educational aspiration is a crucial predictor of both concurrent academic achievement and educational attainment later in life. Past studies on educational aspiration have mostly focused on the role of individual factors and the immediate context but have neglected the role of the broader societal environment. The current study examined (1) how gender inequality shaped adolescents' long-term educational aspiration and (2) whether gender inequality affected boys and girls differently. We used the longitudinal data of the China Family Panel Studies (2010–2014), which included a sample of 3,464 adolescents from 25 provinces in China (49.5% girls; Mage = 12.56, SD = 1.74). Multilevel analyses showed that adolescents in provinces with higher levels of gender inequality reported lower educational aspiration four years later. This association remained significant after adjusting for baseline educational aspiration and multiple provincial and sociodemographic covariates. The effects of gender inequality did not differ between boys and girls, suggesting that gender inequality was detrimental for both boys' and girls' long-term educational aspiration. The current study highlights the important role of gender inequality in education and underscores the importance of looking beyond individual factors and the proximal context in understanding adolescents' educational aspiration. Our findings suggest the importance of reducing socio-structural gender biases and institutional impediments (e.g., expectations to perform gendered role, women's underrepresentation) which constrain both girls' and boys' educational aspiration and development.

Child abuse is associated with alterations in the hypothalamic–pituitary–adrenal (HPA) axis functioning. However, the unique effects of psychological and physical abuse and protective factors against these effects remain largely unknown. To close these gaps, the present study examined the unique effects of psychological and physical abuse on cortisol stress response and explored the moderating role of psychosocial resources in these associations among a sample of Chinese preadolescent children (N = 150; aged 9–13 years; Mage = 10.69 years; 51% boys). The results showed that both psychological and physical abuse were associated with blunted cortisol reactivity slopes. Psychological abuse, but not physical abuse, was associated with lower peak cortisol values and flatter cortisol recovery slopes. Further, psychosocial resources moderated the association between abuse and hyporesponsiveness of the HPA axis. The association between psychological abuse and lower peak cortisol values and the association between physical abuse and steeper cortisol recovery slopes (faster cortisol recovery following the stressor) were observed only among children with low levels of psychosocial resources. These findings indicate the differential effects of psychological and physical abuse on various phases of cortisol stress response, and the protective role of psychosocial resources. This study also has practical implications, given that preadolescence serves as a critical period for maximizing benefit of interventions of adversity.

Parental bonding is a strong determinant of children's health. One of the proposed pathways through which parenting impacts children's health is by altering the functioning of stress response systems. The current study aims to investigate the associations between two types of parental bonding (care and overprotection) and functioning of hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis (i.e., diurnal cortisol secretion) in a sample of 255 healthy adolescents (46.3% girls; aged 11-14 years). Participants completed the Parental Bonding Instrument and provided eight cortisol samples across two consecutive days to assess patterns of diurnal cortisol secretion. Multilevel modeling and multiple linear regression were utilized to test the main effects and interactive effects of parental care and overprotection on adolescents' wakeup cortisol, cortisol awakening response, cortisol slope, and total cortisol secretion. Results showed that parental care was associated with higher cortisol levels at awakening, while parental overprotection was associated with lower cortisol levels at awakening. Parental overprotection, but not parental care, was associated with flatter cortisol slopes. No interactive effects between parental care and overprotection on cortisol parameters emerged. The current findings add to the existing literature on parenting behavior and HPA functioning by showing that parental care and overprotection differently regulated daily cortisol parameters implicated in health.

ABSTRACT Objective Subjective socioeconomic status (SES) is a well-established psychosocial determinant of adolescents’ self-report health. However, whether low subjective SES is associated with stress-related physiological risks (e.g., dysregulations in the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis activity) remains uncertain. This study examined the impact of subjective SES with different reference groups (i.e., perception of family SES relative to other students in the school versus other people in the city) on adolescents’ diurnal cortisol profiles. Methods A sample of 255 adolescents (aged 11–14 years; 53.7% boys) completed a battery of psychological scales, including school-referenced subjective SES and city-referenced subjective SES. Diurnal cortisol was assessed by collecting saliva samples four times a day across two consecutive days. Four cortisol parameters (cortisol at awakening, cortisol awakening response [CAR], cortisol slope, and total cortisol secretion [area under the curve with respect to ground {AUCg}]) were derived. Results Higher levels of school-referenced subjective SES were associated with higher cortisol levels at awakening (β = 0.0483, standard error [SE] = 0.0219, p = .028), steeper cortisol slopes (β = −0.0036, SE = 0.0017, p = .034), and higher cortisol AUCg (b = 0.50, SE = 0.24, p = .036), but not with CAR (p = .77), after adjusting for covariates. In contrast, city-referenced subjective SES was not associated with any of the cortisol parameters (cortisol at awakening [p = .90], CAR [p = .74], cortisol slope [p = .84], and cortisol AUCg [p = .68]). Conclusions Our findings highlight the importance of the reference group for subjective SES and provide a further understanding of socioeconomic disparities in adolescents’ stress physiology.

Socioeconomic status (SES) is one of the well-recognized determinants of individual academic achievement. Past studies have mostly focused on the effect of SES ranking but not on that of perceptions of the changeability of SES (mindset of SES). The current study addressed this gap by investigating the association between mindset of SES and academic achievement among adolescents. We also tested the roles of hopefulness and school engagement in explaining this association. Questionnaires were administered to 686 middle school students. Measures for mindset of SES, hopefulness, school engagement, and academic achievement were collected along with a set of sociodemographic variables. The results showed that growth mindset of SES was associated with higher academic achievement. An indirect pathway was found for this association through higher levels of hopefulness and school engagement. The findings highlight the importance of mindset of SES in shaping the academic achievement of adolescents. Future educational intervention programs might focus on growth mindset of SES, hopefulness, and school engagement to enhance adolescents' academic achievement.

ABSTRACT Several studies have highlighted that facilitators' attitudes toward interventions are crucial for implementing innovative psychosocial interventions. However, in the emerging implementation science field, little research has examined how organizational and individual factors may influence teachers' positive attitudes and readiness toward evidence-based interventions. The current study investigated the association between teachers' quality of work life and their attitudes toward an innovative psychosocial intervention for children affected by parental HIV/AIDS; the study also probed the potential indirect roles of self-efficacy and burnout. A total of 157 teachers with different levels of involvement in the intervention study were recruited from 47 schools. Our results revealed that teachers' quality of work life was positively associated with their attitudes toward the intervention directly and indirectly through enhanced self-efficacy and reduced burnout. The findings highlight the importance of organizational and individual factors in successfully implementing innovative psychosocial interventions for vulnerable children in organizations such as schools. Researchers should work with organizations to provide the necessary quality of work life and sufficient training to semi-professionals in order to boost their self-efficacy, reduce their burnout, and improve their attitudes toward innovative intervention programs to achieve the expected effectiveness of the interventions, particularly in resource-limited regions.

ABSTRACT Objective The current study aimed to examine the stress-buffering effect of children’s perceived social support on their hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenocortical axis and autonomic nervous system reactivity to an acute laboratory stressor. Methods A sample of 150 children (aged 9–13 years, mean [standard deviation] age = 10.69 [0.93] years, 74 girls) reported perceived social support, stressful life events, and underwent the Modified Trier Social Stress Test, during which six saliva samples were collected. A two-piece multilevel growth curve model with landmark registration was used to detect trajectory differences in the reactivity and recovery phases of the stress response and account for individual variation in the timing of poststressor peak hormone concentrations. Results The interaction between stressful life events and perceived social support significantly predicted poststressor peak cortisol levels (β = 0.0805, SE = 0.0328, p = .015) and cortisol recovery slope (β = −0.0011, SE = 0.0005, p = .040). Children with more life events and low social support exhibited the lowest poststressor peak cortisol levels and the flattest cortisol recovery slope. In contrast, children high in stressful life events and high in social support displayed cortisol response profiles more similar to those of children with low stressful life events. Conversely, there were no statistically significant two-way interactions of stressful life events and perceived social support on salivary α-amylase parameters (i.e., poststressor peak [p = .38], reactivity slope [p = .81], and recovery slope [p = .32]). Conclusions These results provide preliminary evidence for the buffering effect of children’s perceived social support on the association between life stress and hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenocortical axis response profiles.

研究以150名五、六年级的学生为被试,考察儿童版特里尔社会应激测试（TSST-C）对儿童客观生理反应（唾液皮质醇和唾液α-淀粉酶）和主观情绪反应的影响。结果发现,TSST-C引起了儿童显著的应激反应,包括皮质醇和唾液α-淀粉酶水平的升高,以及主观消极情绪（如焦虑和紧张）的增加,这表明TSST-C在中国儿童中的适用情况良好,能够有效诱发儿童的应激反应。同时,研究也发现,皮质醇反应和唾液α-淀粉酶反应不存在相关,生理反应和情绪反应之间也不存在相关。

本研究以北京115名五、六年级的学生为被试,采用儿童版特里尔社会应激测试(Trier Social Stress Test for Children,TSST-C),探究父子依恋、母子依恋与儿童应激下皮质醇反应的关系.研究分别在基线阶段、TSST-C开始前、TSST-C结束后、TSST-C结束后的10分钟、25分钟和50分钟收集儿童的唾液样本,并让儿童完成亲子依恋问卷.采用SPSS 20.0进行方差分析和回归分析.结果发现:(1)安全型父子依恋儿童的应激下皮质醇反应显著高于不安全型父子依恋儿童,反映在皮质醇值和皮质醇基于增加的曲线下面积(area under the curve with respect to increase,AUC1)两个指标上;(2)不同母子依恋类型儿童的应激下皮质醇反应(即皮质醇值和AUC1)不存在显著差异;(3)在控制了人口学变量之后,父子依恋依旧可以显著地正向预测儿童的皮质醇反应(皮质醇AUC1),但母子依恋对儿童皮质醇反应的预测作用不显著,且父子依恋对儿童皮质醇反应的预测作用边缘显著大于母子依恋对儿童皮质醇反应的预测作用.研究结果表明,安全型父子依恋与儿童应激下更高的皮质醇反应相关.