Psychol. Int., Volume 8, Issue 2 (June 2026) – 9 articles

Psychological capital (PsyCap), encompassing hope, self-efficacy, resilience, and optimism, has established itself as a key psychological resource for individuals. However, research in this field remains fragmented, which limits a comprehensive understanding of its role in the psychological mechanisms underlying entrepreneurial behavior, particularly in terms of motivation, coping with stress, and resilience in the face of uncertainty. This study aims to examine and organize the intellectual landscape of PsyCap. A scoping review of 215 articles indexed in Scopus and Web of Science over nearly two decades was conducted in accordance with PRISMA-ScR, using a co-thematic analysis based on text mining techniques. The results reveal a three-phase evolution of the field (emergence, growth, and maturity), built around individual functioning, entrepreneurial cognitions and attitudes, and psychosocial resources. The analysis also highlights unequal access to and use of PsyCap across contexts, as well as differences related to the specific characteristics of the populations studied, shedding light on underexplored groups such as women, refugees, rural and social entrepreneurs, migrants, and entrepreneurs with disabilities. These findings contribute to advancing knowledge in entrepreneurial psychology and offer a detailed analysis of future research avenues, including emerging research questions, methodological approaches, and theoretical interdisciplinary perspectives. Full article

Background: Forgiveness has traditionally been studied across psychological, relational, and sociopolitical domains, often emphasizing either its therapeutic benefits or moral complexities. However, this fragmented literature has limited the development of a unified understanding of forgiveness as a broader psychosocial phenomenon. Objective: This narrative review critically synthesizes 26 years of theoretical, empirical, and applied research to conceptualize forgiveness as a multidimensional framework of socio-psychological repair and mutual recognition across intrapersonal, interpersonal, developmental, organizational, and intergroup contexts. Methods: A systematic review approach was employed to integrate findings from experimental, longitudinal, clinical, and organizational studies selected for their theoretical and empirical relevance. Results: Findings indicate that forgiveness facilitates emotional regulation, cognitive restructuring, identity restoration, relational resilience, organizational functioning, and political reconciliation by transforming moral injury and social disruption into opportunities for healing and restored legitimacy. Across domains, forgiveness promotes emotional recovery, self-respect, social learning, institutional trust, and reconciliation when embedded in justice, accountability, and recognition processes. However, forgiveness is ethically and functionally conditional. In contexts of chronic abuse, coercion, structural inequality, or absent accountability, it may reinforce maladaptive dynamics or perpetuate injustice. Conclusions: Forgiveness is best understood not as an unconditional virtue, but as a context-sensitive, multilevel mechanism of socio-psychological restoration whose benefits depend on voluntariness, justice, accountability, and reciprocal recognition. This framework advances forgiveness scholarship by integrating moral repair with justice-sensitive reconciliation. Full article

This study examines the psychological and contextual factors associated with True Self disclosure on Social Networking Sites (SNSs), with particular emphasis on the role of temporal immersion. Drawing on structured interviews with 121 participants, the findings suggest that SNSs may provide users with opportunities to articulate aspects of their True Self that are often difficult to express in face-to-face interactions. Time spent on SNSs emerges as a key contextual factor: prolonged engagement appears to enhance users’ familiarity with the platform environment, reinforce the internalization of platform-specific norms, and gradually normalize disclosure as an expected and socially reinforced behavior. Within this temporally shaped environment, peer dynamics also emerge, reflected in reciprocal disclosure tendencies that further consolidate these evolving norms. Overall, the results suggest that temporal engagement, rather than abstract notions of control, functions as a key contextual condition in the shift from general, everyday identity-sharing to more selective expressions of the True Self within digital environments. Full article

Disability is frequently theorized through a polarized medical-versus-social binary that can obscure the developmental, relational, and sociocultural processes through which bodily difference becomes psychologically meaningful. This study examines how adults with congenital or early-onset physical disabilities narrate and negotiate disability in everyday life, using psychoanalytic concepts as a complementary heuristic lens within an explicitly interdisciplinary framework that integrates developmental resilience and disability theory. Thirty-five in-depth life-story interviews were conducted with seven adults (25–40 years) across approximately five sessions per participant over two months. Data was analyzed using thematic qualitative content analysis, combining systematic coding of manifest content with interpretive attention to symbolic and relational meanings, while cross-checking psychoanalytic interpretations against developmental and social-disability perspectives. Four recurring compensatory patterns were identified: (1) symbolic resignification and verbal normalization (discursive reframing and minimizing disability); (2) achievement-oriented self-positioning (performance and perfectionistic striving); (3) compensatory role assumption (caregiving/protector roles and mastery enactments); and (4) silent family dynamics (familial denial and narrative). Within the specific context of this study, these patterns appeared to function as regulatory efforts to sustain self-cohesion, agency, and belonging. However, the narratives suggest that when these strategies manifest as rigid ideals of ‘overcoming’ and hyper-competence, they may carry a significant subjective cost for participants. Compensatory behaviors are best understood as ecologically embedded regulatory processes shaped by relational resources (experienced as containing/“holding”) and by sociocultural devaluation linked to ableist norms. An integrated model is proposed in which body, self, and environment co-constitute disability across development, clarifying when compensatory strategies support creative adaptation versus defensive rigidity. Full article

Emergent Post-Loss Experiences (EPLEs) are reported in experiential grief therapies such as Reparative Experience-Based Grief Therapy (REGT) and Induced After-Death Communication Therapy (IADC). Through these experiences, such approaches have demonstrated notable effectiveness and efficiency in the treatment of complicated grief. Yet their phenomenology and structure remain poorly defined, and no validated instruments are available for their assessment. The present study aims to address this gap by examining the phenomenological characteristics of EPLEs and developing a brief instrument for their assessment. Using a cross-sectional mixed-method design, an 87-item EPLE questionnaire was administered retrospectively to 64 former REGT patients alongside the Near-Death Experience (NDE) Scale. A qualitative phase was subsequently conducted to identify phenomenological domains of EPLEs, which informed the derivation of a 22-item EPLE Scale. The scale was examined using exploratory factor analysis, internal consistency, convergent validity, and network analysis. High inter-rater agreement supported the organization of EPLEs into four phenomenological domains: Contact, Sensoriality, Space/Time, and Impact. EPLEs were characterized by relational presence, multisensory perceptual features, altered spatial–temporal experience, and predominantly comforting and meaning-related effects. The EPLE Scale showed satisfactory internal consistency (ω = 0.79). Exploratory factor analysis did not support a stable multidimensional structure, suggesting that the scale is more appropriately interpreted using a global score. Network analysis revealed a highly sparse configuration with selective conditional associations and two organizing nodes, indicating a policentric organization of the experience. Convergent validity was supported by a moderate-to-strong correlation with the NDE Scale (ρ = 0.62, p < 0.001). EPLEs appear to constitute complex and structured experiential configurations that may play a reparative role in relation to the loss and promote adaptive reorganization of the grieving process. The EPLE Scale provides a concise global measure for future research and clinical applications. Full article

Emotional recognition relies on the integration of multiple affective cues. In everyday contexts, however, facial expressions, vocal prosody, and semantic content may convey incongruent emotional information, generating emotional conflict and increasing cognitive demands. The present study examined how multimodal emotional conflict affects emotion recognition during video viewing, focusing on short videos in which a single actor simultaneously conveyed incongruent emotional cues across facial, vocal, and semantic channels. Forty-seven undergraduate students completed a gaze-based response task in which, after each short video, they provided a single judgment of the overall emotion conveyed by the stimulus. The videos depicted either congruent or incongruent combinations of semantic content, facial expressions, and vocal prosody across six basic emotions and a neutral condition. Data were analyzed using repeated-measures ANOVAs and generalized linear mixed-effects models. Accuracy was consistently higher for congruent than incongruent stimuli across all domains, indicating a robust emotional interference effect. Critically, the magnitude of this effect differed by domain. Semantic content showed the largest performance reduction under incongruence, followed by facial expression and vocal prosody. Mixed-effects models confirmed these effects while accounting for participant- and item-level variability and revealed a significant Congruency × Domain interaction. In a gaze-based response task requiring a single overall emotion judgment, emotional conflict disrupted recognition in a domain-specific manner, with semantic information being particularly vulnerable to multimodal interference. Full article

Self-harm represents a significant mental health concern during adolescence and is associated with various psychological risk factors. The present exploratory probe examines the mediating role of perceived social support in the relationship between self-esteem and self-harm among adolescents. The sample consisted of 155 adolescents aged 13 to 18 years (M = 16.35, SD = 1.73). Self-esteem was measured using the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale (RSES), self-harm was assessed using a modified version of the Self-Harm Inventory (SHI), and perceived social support was measured using the Multidimensional Scale of Perceived Social Support (MSPSS). Data were analyzed using correlation analysis, linear regression, and mediation. More than half of the participants (53.5%) reported repeated engagement in self-harming behavior. Self-esteem was significantly negatively associated with self-harm (ρ = −0.508, p < 0.001) and explained approximately 22% of the variance in self-harm. Mediation analysis indicated that perceived social support partially mediated the relationship between self-esteem and self-harm. Lower self-esteem was associated with lower perceived social support, which in turn predicted higher levels of self-harm. The indirect effect was significant (B = −0.31, 95% BootCI (−0.63, −0.09)). These findings highlight the protective role of perceived social support and suggest that strengthening adolescents’ self-esteem and social support networks may contribute to the prevention of self-harm. Full article

Do teacher education programs improve students’ confidence in their field practice teaching skills? Despite a growing interest in how student teachers’ practice self-efficacy (PSE) develops, we know little about the impact of the various components of teacher education programs on PSE. The present study examined whether the first year of teacher education, and particularly the field practice in schools which is directed at training and learning teacher practices, is associated with practice self-efficacy using a targeted measure of PSE for student teachers. Using independent sample t-tests and one-way analysis of variance with survey data from 338 students, we show that second-year students have higher PSE than first-year students on most PSE dimensions, with the largest differences being on the PSE dimensions of Planning and preparation, Teaching in itself, and Evaluation and development. In contrast, first-year students scored higher on Adult collaboration PSE. Further exploratory analyses showed that English majors had lower Planning and preparation and Teaching in itself PSE than other majors, whereas Mathematics majors had higher Adult collaboration PSE. We also conducted item analysis for the purpose of validating the PSE for both first- and second-year students. The findings advance our knowledge of differences in practice self-efficacy over the first year of teacher education. Full article

Social support is generally assumed to buffer ego threat and reduce aggressive behavior in organizations. However, emerging research suggests that support may not always function as intended, particularly in contexts where support can also signal evaluation or control. Drawing on ego threat theory and a conceptualization of narcissism as a self-regulatory system, the present study examines when and for whom social support inhibits or facilitates workplace aggression. Specifically, the study investigates how perceived supervisor and organizational support moderate the relationships between ego threat and power harassment—a culturally institutionalized form of workplace aggression in Japan—and how the moderation effects differ across narcissistic self-regulatory strategies. Survey data of 600 Japanese employees were classified into distinct types reflecting narcissistic self-regulatory strategies, and hierarchical multiple regression analyses were conducted for each type. The results indicated that ego threat has no significant main effect on power harassment tendencies across any narcissistic type. However, among individuals characterized by superiority-based narcissistic strategies, a significant moderation effect emerged indicating that higher levels of perceived supervisor support amplified aggressive responses under ego threat. These findings challenge the universal assumption that social support is inherently protective and demonstrate that its effects depend on how support is interpreted within personal and cultural contexts. Full article