Behav. Sci., Volume 13, Issue 1 (January 2023) – 77 articles

This study aimed to explore what factors affect teachers’ acceptance and instructional use of ICT in Chinese higher vocational colleges. Grounded in the modified UTAUT model, the current study investigated the direct and indirect effects of teachers’ performance expectancy, effort expectancy, external conditions, and behavioral intentions on using ICT in teaching. A total of 6087 teachers from 219 vocational colleges in 28 provinces in China participated in a large-scale survey. Structural equation modeling revealed that the teachers’ psychological perceptions (including performance expectancy, effort expectancy, and intention to use ICT technology) and the external support conditions (including professional development support, infrastructures, the climate of organizational reform and innovation, and teacher performance assessment mechanisms) significantly directly affect the use of ICT in Chinese higher vocational college teachers’ teaching practice. Moreover, this study confirmed the mediating role of teachers’ intention to use ICT in teaching in the relationship between teachers’ psychological perceptions and ICT instructional usage behavior. However, there were differences in the significance of these variables in the chain effect of teachers’ intention to use ICT. These findings expand our understanding of the factors influencing ICT use in teaching among VET teachers in China, thus providing practical implications for higher vocational college managers to promote teachers’ ICT teaching behaviors. Full article

The recent pandemic has influenced teachers’ mental health and well-being. The present work follows the Job-Demands-Control model, analyzing changes in the demands, control, and social support during COVID-19, and how they influence job satisfaction, emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, and personal accomplishment among school teachers. The sample comprised 172 school teachers. The instruments applied were The Maslach Burnout Inventory (MBI), The Job Satisfaction Teacher Index (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), 2014), and The Demand Control Support Questionnaire (DCSQ). Job satisfaction was predicted exclusively by social support, revealing the importance of social interactions at work. Emotional exhaustion and depersonalization were predicted by job demands, showing that an increase in job demands (i.e., COVID) affects individuals’ feelings of burnout. The results show that it would be interesting to design strategies that guarantee job control in the teaching context. This would open multiple pathways to implement healthier methodological processes for teachers and the consequent research to support these processes. Full article

Digital endorsers are already utilized extensively in various businesses. The major objective of the current study was to find out the impact of image realism of digital endorsers on the purchase intention of gift products for the elderly. We investigated this issue through three online experiments. Study 1 (n = 205) found that cartoon digital endorsers (vs. realistic digital endorsers) generate higher purchase intention for the product. Study 2 (n = 175) showed that perceived social value plays a mediating role in the relationship between the image realism of digital endorsers and purchase intention. Study 3 (n = 127) demonstrated the moderating role of information framing in the relationship between the image realism of digital endorsers and purchase intention. In all, our research extends the previous literature on digital human endorsements and advertising of elderly products and provides several managerial implications for consumers and marketers. Full article

Overweightness and obesity can negatively influence many activities, including postural balance and locomotion, increasing predisposition to injury and risk of falls due to limitations on the biomechanics of daily living. The present study aimed to determine the influence of the anthropometric profile and physical activity level (PAL) on the postural balance of overweight and obese children. The sample included 387 schoolchildren (216 boys and 171 girls). The variables of the anthropometric profile studied were body mass, biped height, BMI, waist circumference, waist-to-hip ratio (WHR), summation of folds, body composition, and somatotype. PAL was measured using the PAQ-C questionnaire. Static and dynamic postural balance were measured through an open-eye (OE) and closed-eye (CE) posturographic test and the SEBTm, respectively. For static balance, the significant models were for mediolateral velocity (R² = 0.42 in OA; R² = 0.24 in OC), anteroposterior velocity (R² = 0.21 in OA; R² = 0.27 in OC), and mean velocity (R² = 0.27 in OA; R² = 0.46 in OC), where the predictors of low performance were younger age, male sex, overweight/obese nutritional status, greater thickness of skin folds, less tendency to mesomorphy, and greater fat mass. On the other hand, for dynamic postural balance, the significant models were observed in the previous direction (R² = 0.39), posteromedial (R² = 0.57), and posterolateral (R² = 0.56), where the variables that predict a low performance were low PAL, overweight/obese nutritional status, and high WHR. Overweight and obese children presented a deficit in static and dynamic postural balance, enhanced by variables such as gender, age, PAL, and anthropometric characteristics related to adiposity. Full article

COVID-19 has exposed university students to high-stress situations, and the percentage of individuals with depressive symptoms was high during the COVID-19 pandemic. Furthermore, subthreshold depression carries a risk for the subsequent development of major depressive disorder (MDD). During the COVID-19 pandemic, we examined whether differences exist between university students who deteriorated from subthreshold depression to MDD and those who remained stable or improved. Four hundred seventeen participants completed all the measures twice over a one-year interval. One hundred twenty-three participants met the criteria for subthreshold depression at Time 1. One year later, 42 participants no longer met the criteria for subthreshold depression, 68 participants maintained the criteria for subthreshold depression, and 13 participants met the criteria for MDD. We conducted two-way repeated measures ANOVA to examine the differences between those who deteriorated from subthreshold depression to MDD and those who did not. The study results suggest that avoidance behavior is associated with the development of MDD from subthreshold depression. Additionally, the study showed that experiencing isolation relates to MDD onset. Therefore, we should monitor avoidance behavior and isolation in pandemic conditions. Consequently, attention to avoidance behavior and isolation may be important; however, further research is required. Full article

The present study views the personal main page on social media as a psychological home in cyberspace, since they have identical characteristics. Many young people share their lives on social media. However, a backlash is triggered among young people when parents start to use social media and attempt to participate in their children’s online activities, causing young users to migrate social media platforms. This study introduced two concepts of psychological home, self-disclosure and psychological ownership, and the research purpose aims to investigate the relationships between self-disclosure, psychological ownership, and migration intention based on the expectation-disconfirmation theory. A survey research method was used in the study. A total of 561 samples were collected through online questionnaires, and SmartPLS 4.0 was applied for analysis. The results reveal that (1) parental involvement in social media has a positive relationship with dissatisfaction; (2) disconfirmation of psychological ownership and disconfirmation of self-disclosure have a negative relationship with dissatisfaction; (3) the greater the users’ dissatisfaction with social media is, the greater the intention to migrate social medias. Full article

Brand names on food packaging and the diagnosticity of brand names have notable effects on consumer preferences. However, their effects on healthy food consumption are not clear. The objective of this study was to investigate the effect of healthy brands and the diagnosticity of brand names on consumers’ subjective ratings of different calorie foods. In two studies, participants viewed 32 pictures of high- and low-calorie food product packaging from healthy and unhealthy brands and rated their feelings and willingness to pay online. Study 1 used real brand names, and Study 2 used fictional brand names and added press releases to manipulate diagnosticity. The present study demonstrated that participants perceived foods from healthy brands as healthier but less delicious and were more willing to buy low-calorie foods from healthy brands. Moreover, only when the brand name was of high diagnosticity were high-calorie foods rated as more likable, and did the willingness to pay for low-calorie foods increase. Collectively, these findings highlight the influence of the healthy brand on consumers’ subjective ratings of food. It is also inspiring for healthy food marketing. Full article

Food and sleep are critical for human survival. However, for individuals with eating disorders, they face two critical disruptions in terms of abnormal feeding patterns as well as poor sleep. These difficulties are exacerbated as a result of the recent coronavirus pandemic, which caused drastic changes in daily life schedules and living arrangements. The current study therefore aims to explore, through qualitative means, how individuals with eating disorders are affected during the subsequent lockdowns, with a particular emphasis on the pandemic’s impact on their sleep in Saudi Arabia. Two groups of participants were recruited: participants with eating disorders and healthy controls. Based on thematic analysis of focus group discussion data, it was found that both types of participants experienced poorer sleep and poorer mental health. Participants with eating disorders too showed a deterioration of their symptoms. However, healthy participants tended to show greater levels of recovery and coping. Based on the study findings, recommendations for future studies are made. Full article

Nursing care involves a continuous interaction between nurses and people with disabilities. This has created a need for assessment tools that measure nurses’ knowledge about the basic human needs of people with disabilities. The aim of this cross-sectional study was to develop a Knowledge of Basic Human Needs Scale and investigate nurses’ levels of knowledge about the basic human needs of people with disabilities and their association with nurses’ education. Data were analyzed using principal component analysis to test the construct validity and to identify factors using principal varimax rotation. The reliability estimate was based on Cronbach’s alpha coefficient. Linear regression models were used to assess the association between knowledge about basic human needs and predictors. Factor analysis extracted eight factors, explaining 66.3% of the total variance. The sampling adequacy, criterion validity, and internal consistency were satisfactory. The nurses’ levels of education was associated with their knowledge about the basic human needs of people with disabilities. The questionnaire constitutes a valuable contribution to improving nurses’ knowledge and practice, as well as the quality of healthcare, and it provides a contribution to improving the quality of life for people with disabilities. Full article

Start temporal landmark is the beginning of a period of time. Previous research has established that individuals have the need for arousal at the start temporal landmarks but less research has focused on individual differences and the relationship between self and others (independent vs. interdependent). This research examines the influence of individuals’ self-construal on the relationship between start temporal landmarks and arousal product preference. Three experiments with 1136 participants were recruited from a university, community, and online store in Southern China. The data were analyzed by Cochran–Mantel–Haenszel on SPSS 26.0 software program. The results showed that self-construal influenced the effect of start temporal landmarks on arousal product preference. Specifically, compared with ordinary temporal landmarks, individuals with interdependent self-construal prefer high arousal products under start temporal landmarks, whereas those with independent self-construal show no significantly different preference for high or low arousal products under the start temporal landmarks. Furthermore, psychological resources play a mediating role. This research extends the theoretical research on self-construal in the field of temporal landmarks and arousal. It also has important practical implications for improving the sales of high arousal products. Full article

Every day the wellbeing of disadvantaged individuals and communities is being transformed through the activities of self-transcendent social activists. The positive contagion generated by their actions is felt globally through influence, replication, leadership training and education. These people are visionary, brave, and describe their lives as joyful, deeply fulfilled, and impactful. Seeking no personal recognition or accolade, born from a deep feeling of connectedness and a vision of how life could be better, participants describe the factors that influenced their decision to dedicate their lives to serving the greater good. Using Constructivist Grounded Theory, in-depth semi structured interviews were carried out with eight participants who self-identified as self-transcendent social activists, who have initiated non-mandated and not-for-profit community action. Data was analyzed to explore each participant’s personal experiences of self-transcendence and how being self-transcendent has manifested their life choices. The findings present a definition of ‘self-transcendent social activism’ and a theoretical model that explains the development of participants’ activism: trigger, activate, maintain and sustain, resulting in an impact experienced at three levels - individual, community and global. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed. Full article

A major concern voiced by motor behavior scientists is to find useful practice techniques that can be effective in improving motor learning and performance. Neurofeedback and self-controlled practice are among the techniques that have recently drawn attention from specialists in this area. The present study examined the additive and individual effects of sensorimotor rhythm (SMR) neurofeedback as well as self-controlled practice on motor learning and performance in novice golfers. In this semi-empirical study, forty adults (20 females, Mean_age = 26.10, SD = 5.56 years) were conveniently selected and randomly assigned to four groups: (1) neurofeedback/self-controlled practice, (2) neurofeedback/yoked practice, (3) sham/self-controlled practice, and (4) sham/yoked practice. The participants performed golf putting task in four stages, namely pretest (12 trials), intervention (one day after pretest; 6 sessions, 36 trails each), post-test (one day after intervention; 12 trials), and follow-up (two weeks after interventions; 12 trials). In addition, the participants had their EEG (SMR wave in Cz point) recorded during pretest, post-test, and follow-up. The results indicated that, although no additive effect was observed for the two practices during different stages of the experiment (p > 0.05), in acquisition and post-test stages, SMR neurofeedback and self-controlled practice independently facilitated golf putting (p ≤ 0.05). However, in the follow-up test, only the neurofeedback practice maintained its positive effects (p ≤ 0.05). The results also showed that participation in SMR neurofeedback practice can enhance the power of the SMR wave (p ≤ 0.05), regardless of the type of the self-controlled practice used. In sum, the two practice techniques seem to be independently effective in facilitating motor learning in instructional settings, particularly for golfers. Full article

This study explores primary school pupils’ knowledge recall and interpretation skills regarding chemical and physical phenomena, in relation to three psychometric variables: logical thinking, field dependence/field independence, and divergent thinking. The participants (N = 375) were in the fifth and sixth grades (aged 11–12) taking an introductory course in science, and they were involved in three tasks related to combustion, dissolution, and mixture separation. The pupils had to complete an instrument, in which they were asked to describe and interpret the phenomena involved in the tasks. Two achievement variables were recorded separately, one relating to knowledge recall and the other to the interpretation of the phenomena. In addition, the participants completed the corresponding psychometric tests. Correlational and multiple linear regression analysis showed that the dependent measures were associated with the cognitive variables, while path and mediation analysis showed the direct and indirect effects of the neo-Piagetian constructs on the dimensions of knowledge and interpretations. The main implications of the findings are theoretical and concern the role of the operationalized mental resources in learning the specific subject matter. Moreover, the results inform teaching practices and curricula designs, and they point out the learning difficulties ascending from the individual differences under study. Further discussion on conceptual change is provided. Full article

To reduce the impact of rating bias and popularity bias in recommender system, and make the recommender system reach a balance between recommendation utility and debias effect at the same time, we propose a bi-process debiasing recommendation model based on matrix factorization. Firstly, considering the problem that the user’s ratings are affected by the herd mentality, which leads to a consistency between the rating and the selection of rating items, resulting in the power-law distribution, the k-times parabolic fuzzy distribution was used to fuse the user’s age to redistribute the ratings. Secondly, the loss function is optimized by the continuously increasing flow and popularity of items. Finally, user emotion and item popularity are combined to construct user psychological tendency, which is divided into three levels: strong, medium and weak, and different levels are given different weights. To verify the performance of the model, the experimental results on real datasets show that the model proposed in this paper not only effectively reduces the recommendation bias but also ensures the recommendation utility. Full article

Background: As the global prevalence of stroke continues to rise, it becomes increasingly pressing to investigate digital health behaviour change interventions that promote physical activity and reduce sedentary behaviour for stroke patients to support active lifestyles. Purpose: The primary aim of this study is to investigate the effectiveness of digital health interventions in promoting physical activity and reducing sedentary behaviour for stroke patients. The secondary aim is to investigate the intervention components that explain intervention effectiveness to further inform intervention development and policy making. Methods: A systematic search of the literature was conducted in four databases (Scopus, MEDLINE (PubMed), Web of Science, and PsychINFO) to identify the most robust evidence in the form of randomised controlled trials of digital interventions for patients with stroke. A random-effects meta-analysis were utilized to quantify the intervention effects on behaviour change, and subgroup analyses to characterise intervention effective components. Results: In total, 16 RCTs were deemed eligible and included in the systematic review. Meta-analyses suggested significant improvements in physical activity (SMD = 0.39, 95% CI 0.17, 0.61, N = 326, p < 0.001, I₂ = 0%), and reductions in time of sedentary behaviour (SMD= −0.45, 95% CI −0.76, -0.14, N = 167, p = 0.00, I₂ = 0%) after stroke. The 10 m walk test for physical activity, and the timed up and go test for sedentary behaviour, were the objective outcome measures in the most effective behavioural change interventions. Subgroup analyses found that most effective interventions were underpinned by theories of self-regulation and utilised interactive functions to engage patients with the processes of behaviour change. Conclusions: Digital self-monitoring behavioural interventions are effective in promoting physical activity for stroke patients in adjunct to usual care clinical practice and rehabilitation programmes. Rigorous studies are required to provide evidence to disentangle the most effective intervention components for preventative practices and rehabilitation programs and to inform policymaking for stroke treatment. Full article

Entrepreneurship catalyzes economic growth; it generates jobs, advances the economy and solves global challenges. Hence, it is crucial to understand the factors contributing to entrepreneurship and entrepreneurs’ development. While many studies have investigated intrapersonal factors for entrepreneurial tendencies, the present study focuses on a critical yet often overlooked interpersonal aspect: attachment orientations. Specifically, this article examines the relationship between adult attachment orientations and entrepreneurial tendencies. Three studies across three countries (Israel, the UK, and Singapore) indicated that an anxious attachment orientation in close relationships is negatively associated with enterprising tendencies. In Israel (Study 1) and Singapore (Study 2), avoidant attachment in close relationships was also negatively correlated to such tendencies. Overall, the more people feel secure in close relationships (lower scores on attachment anxiety or avoidance), the higher their enterprising tendencies. Limitations and future research suggestions are discussed. Full article

Subjective brightness perception reportedly differs among the peripheral visual fields owing to lower- and higher-order cognition. However, there is still a lack of information associated with subjective brightness perception in the world-centered coordinates, not in the visual fields. In this study, we aimed to investigate the anisotropy of subjective brightness perception in the world-centered coordinates based on pupillary responses to the stimuli in five locations by manipulating the world-centered coordinates through active (requiring head movement) and passive scenes (without head movement) in a virtual reality environment. Specifically, this study aimed to elucidate if there is an ecological advantage in the five different locations in the world-centered coordinates. The pupillary responses to glare and halo stimuli indicated that the brightness perception differed among the five locations in the world-centered coordinates. Furthermore, we found that the pupillary response to stimuli at the top location might be influenced by ecological factors (such as from the bright sky and the sun’s existence). Thus, we have contributed to the understanding of the extraretinal information influence on subjective brightness perception in the world-centered coordinates, demonstrating that the pupillary response is independent of head movement. Full article

Student engagement plays a significant role in promoting student learning outcomes in the higher education context. The goal of this meta-analysis was to investigate factors influencing student engagement in higher education institutions in different contexts. The meta-analysis integrated data from 93,188 participants and 148 effects across studies to address this issue. The meta-analysis revealed 14 factors affecting students’ learning participation. The classification was based on internal and external factors, aiming to explore the main factors influencing students’ intention, behavior, and process of learning participation. The external influencing factors with moderate correlations were the teacher-student relationship (R = 0.456, p < 0.001) and positive teacher behavior (R = 0.419, p < 0.001). Additionally, the main external influencing factors were partnership (R = 0.174, p < 0.001), environmental support (R = −0.028), negative teacher behavior (R = −0.064), and negative learning behavior (R = −0145), which were all negatively correlated with learning participation. The results also indicated that factors influencing student engagement can be divided into two categories: promoting factors and hindering factors. The promoting factors include students’ positive emotion, positive learning behavior, positive teacher behavior, the teacher-student relationship and partnership, students’ learning and thinking ability, the support of learning resources, students’ individual and personality characteristics, and teaching factors. The hindering factors include lack of environmental support, negative student behavior, and negative teacher behavior. Further, conceptual and practical implications are discussed in relation to these findings. Full article

Absconding from inpatient psychiatric services has been associated with poor outcomes, putting the patient and community at risk and prolonging the recovery process. A retrospective study investigated the absconding rates and risk factors among patients admitted to an open-door, no-restraint inpatient psychiatric unit. Overall, the absconding rate was 4.5%, and the relative risk of absconding was higher for male, younger, and non-Caucasian patients as well as for those who had already absconded, were unknown to health services, compulsorily admitted, admitted for substance abuse, and in the first days of hospitalization. The findings of this study may have important public health implications. Full article

The sustainable development of infrastructure construction projects heavily depends on favorable cooperation of all parties and ethical code of conduct, while Un-ethical pro-organizational behavior (UPB) may undermine the mutual efforts and cause serious consequences. UPB has aroused wide interest of researchers, but what may trigger construction employees to engage in UPB at team-level has not been elucidated completely. With information asymmetry and huge uncertainty, the behaviors of employees in temporary project teams are marked by environmental and personal characters. The study discusses the influences of collective moral judgement focus on self (CMJS) and Machiavellianism on UPB. Through a moderated mediation analysis conducted on a set of survey data from Chinese construction projects, the empirical results of the two-level hierarchical linear model indicate that CMJS positively impacts UPB directly, and meanwhile Machiavellianism acts as a partial mediator in the relationship between CMJS and UPB. The findings also reveal that performance-avoidance goal orientation (PAGO) and motivation to learn (MTL) moderate and strengthen the relationship between Machiavellianism and UPB. The study offers practical suggestions for both project managers and policymakers of construction projects. Full article

Around 5.5–6.5 months of age, infants first attend to object size and perceive its mass cues in simple collision events. Infants attend to the size of the moving object and expect a greater displacement following a collision with a large object and stationary object, and lesser displacement following a collision with a small object and stationary object. It has been proposed that infants of 6-to-7 months of age can differentiate between sizes of moving objects but do not perceive the size and mass relationships in simple collision events. The present two investigations aimed to investigate whether infants 10-to-11 months of age (N = 16) could perceive this relationship (experiment 1) and the reverse of this relationship (experiment 2) utilising the looking time paradigm. The reverse of this relationship entailed the circumstances in which the moving object size was kept constant, but the stationary object size varied (small or large). Results from these experiments revealed that infants did not differ in their looking times for size congruent and size incongruent distances in both conditions. Infants did not look longer at the incongruent test events that violated expectation. For that reason, we conclude infants of 10-to-11 months of age were unable to perceive size and mass associations in collision events in either direction (moving object or stationary object size). Full article

This paper examines the relationship between property return and seller behavior and aims to test the disposition effect in China’s real estate market. Using transaction data in Beijing, we find that loss properties have a lower sell propensity relative to gain properties, confirming the existence of the disposition effect. We also find that the disposition effect is more pronounced in samples with shorter holding periods. Sellers with financial constraints and popular projects are more likely to show the disposition effect. Furthermore, we find that sellers exhibit loss aversion; specifically, sellers with loss properties are likely to set a higher listing price, which provides indirect evidence for the disposition effect. Full article

The hometown brand is symbolic of a hometown and can induce homesickness in consumers. Especially for those who live in other countries, it can stimulate their inner sense of belonging, self-identity, and effectiveness, in turn generating a series of brand behaviors and promoting sustainable brand development. In this study, we adopt a situational experimental research method from the perspective of sense of place theory and social exchange theory in order to assess the regulatory mechanism of place attachment through the mediating mechanism of psychological ownership. In this way, we explore the mechanism underlying the relationship between homesickness advertising (vs. non-homesickness advertising) on the hometown brand citizenship behavior of consumers. Our findings suggest that (1) homesickness advertising has a more positive effect on consumer hometown brand citizenship behavior than non-homesickness advertising; (2) psychological ownership plays a fully mediating role in the relationship between homesickness advertising (vs. non-homesickness advertising) and consumer hometown brand citizenship behavior; and (3) place attachment plays a moderating role in the influence of homesickness advertising (vs. non-homesickness advertising) on the hometown brand citizenship behavior of consumers through psychological ownership. Full article

Previous research reported inconsistent results on the relationship between social media (SM) use and psychological well-being, suggesting the importance of assessing possible moderators, e.g., motives for SM use. However, no longitudinal study has yet investigated whether, among people who use SM, specific motives for using SM may represent protective/risk factors for the development of psychological distress, especially after a stressful event. Our longitudinal study aimed at assessing the moderating role of motives for using SM (i.e., coping, conformity, enhancement, social motives) in the relationship between COVID-19 pandemic-related post-traumatic stress symptoms during the lockdown and changes in general distress after lockdown. At Time 1 (during the first lockdown in Italy), 660 participants responded to an online survey, reporting their post-traumatic symptoms, motives for using SM, and general distress (i.e., anxiety, depression, and stress symptoms). At Time 2 (three months later, following lockdown), 117 participants volunteered to continue with the follow-up survey assessing general distress symptoms again. Results showed that among those who had experienced more severe post-traumatic symptoms at Time 1, using SM for social motives was associated with more improvement of general distress symptoms. No evidence was found of moderating effects of other motives for SM use. The findings suggest that social connections may have helped to cope with stress during forced confinement, and that SM use may be beneficial for mental health when motivated by maintaining social interactions. Full article

Previous research has shown that eyebrow movement during speech exhibits a systematic relationship with intonation: brow raises tend to be aligned with pitch accents, typically preceding them. The present study approaches the question of temporal alignment between brow movement and intonation from a new angle. The study makes use of footage from the Late Night Show with David Letterman, processed with 3D facial landmark detection. Pitch is modeled as a sinusoidal function whose parameters are correlated with the maximum height of the eyebrows in a brow raise. The results confirm some previous findings on audiovisual prosody but lead to new insights as well. First, the shape of the pitch signal in a region of approx. 630 ms before the brow raise is not random and tends to display a specific shape. Second, while being less informative than the post-peak pitch, the pitch signal in the pre-peak region also exhibits correlations with the magnitude of the associated brow raises. Both of these results point to early preparatory action in the speech signal, calling into question the visual-precedes-acoustic assumption. The results are interpreted as supporting a unified view of gesture/speech co-production that regards both signals as manifestations of a single communicative act. Full article

Successful performance of a task relies on selectively attending to the target, while ignoring distractions. Studies on perceptual load theory (PLT), conducted involving independent tasks with visual and auditory modalities, have shown that if a task is low-load, distractors and the target are both processed. If the task is high-load, distractions are not processed. The current study expands these findings by considering the effect of cross-modality (target and distractor from separate modalities) and congruency (similarity of target and distractor) on selective attention, using a word-identification task. Parameters were analysed, including response time, accuracy rates, congruency of distractions, and subjective report of load. In contrast to past studies on PLT, the results of the current study show that modality (congruency of the distractors) had a significant effect and load had no effect on selective attention. This study demonstrates that subjective measurement of load is important when studying perceptual load and selective attention. Full article

The current study investigated the effects of Chinese young adult users’ perceived information overload (i.e., the daily perception of exposure to excessive information) on their intention to stop using short-form video applications. Specifically, this study accomplished this by measuring the direct and indirect effects of social media fatigue, maladaptive coping, and life dissatisfaction in relation to users’ intention to discontinue their use of short-form video applications. The data were collected using a web-based survey and validated questionnaire, with a sample of 340 young adult (18–26 years old) respondents. The results indicated that perceived information overload had a direct effect on the intention to discontinue the use of short-form video applications. Moreover, short-form video fatigue, maladaptive coping, and life dissatisfaction all played mediating roles in the relationship between perceived information overload and the intention to discontinue the use of short-form video applications among young adults in China. Full article

Career crafting is a new concept in the field of career research in recent years. However, the research on career crafting is still in its infancy, and there are few systematic and integrated studies. In this study, we have collected the existing research and extracted the 12 most related articles from 10 databases (Web of Science, Google Scholar, ProQuest, and EBSCO Host, etc.) by the end of 2022 to discuss the concepts of discrimination, theoretical basis, research methods, and measurement tools and variables of career crafting. As a reference for the follow-up in-depth study, future research should progress forward, such as by deepening and expanding the theoretical basis, testing and developing mature scales, building multilevel influencing factors and testing their interaction, and furthering the research on the mechanism of multi-field effects. Full article

The COVID-19 pandemic has negatively influenced the psychological well-being of people around the world; university students have experienced feelings of fear of the COVID-19 pandemic, due to the intolerance of uncertainty, and a worsened quality of life, related to the reduction of social contacts. Scholars all around the world widely suggest the need to take care of this issue, proposing solutions to support students’ adjustment in the post-pandemic period. The literature on positive psychology and the life design approach has identified multiple psychological resources, the character strengths, that can sustain people’s life satisfaction and well-being in changing contexts, including their university experience. We proposed an online group career counseling intervention for 30 Italian university students (experimental group) to promote university students’ psychological resources and mitigate the long-term negative implications of the COVID-19 pandemic on life satisfaction. The other 30 students formed the control group. We found that the students engaged in the online group career counseling intervention evidenced, at the post-test, higher levels than the pre-test of (a) resilience, (b) subjective risk intelligence, (c) career adaptability, (d) self-efficacy, (e) optimism, (f) hope, (g) life satisfaction, and lower levels than the pre-test of (h) fears of COVID-19 pandemic. No differences at Time 1 and Time 2 were found in the control group. Implications for future research and practice will be discussed. Full article