Search Results (215)

Background: In the context of population aging and the growing burden of chronic conditions, promoting exercise participation has become an important strategy for supporting healthy aging. However, older adults with chronic conditions often face multiple constraints related to symptom burden, risk perception, and everyday life. A theory-informed understanding of the determinants of exercise participation in this population is therefore needed. Methods: This study adopted a theory-informed qualitative descriptive design and conducted face-to-face semi-structured interviews with 30 community-dwelling older adults with chronic conditions. Purposive sampling was used to ensure variation in age, sex, chronic condition type, and exercise participation. Data were analyzed using the framework method guided by the Theoretical Domains Framework (TDF), and the resulting themes were subsequently mapped onto the Capability, Opportunity, Motivation–Behavior (COM-B) model. Results: Participants were aged 60–86 years, and most were women, had low educational attainment, came from rural backgrounds, and lived with multimorbidity. Participants described exercise participation as a day-to-day process of negotiating symptoms, risk, functional boundaries, and everyday responsibilities rather than as a simple matter of willingness. Although most participants recognized the value of exercise, many lacked disease-specific knowledge about suitable exercise types, safe intensity, progression, and warning signs. Symptom burden and functional limitations constrained exercise, but many participants used symptom-based self-regulation strategies, such as resting, slowing down, or modifying activity when discomfort occurred. Family members, peers, health professionals, and community resources could either facilitate exercise or restrict it, depending on their accessibility, continuity, specificity, and practical relevance. Continued participation was closely linked to perceived benefits, controllable risk, self-efficacy, positive emotional experience, and immediate bodily feedback. Conclusions: Exercise promotion for older adults with chronic conditions should move beyond general advice and provide disease-adapted exercise education, symptom-based self-regulation strategies, family and peer support, professional guidance, age-friendly community resources, and feedback mechanisms that support long-term maintenance. Full article

This study examined the associations of self-reported emotional intelligence and self-regulation with children’s well-being among fourth-grade elementary school students in Mersin, Türkiye. The sample comprised 627 students, predominantly aged 9 to 10 years, from seven public elementary schools selected to reflect different district and school contexts. Data were collected in person after ethics committee approval, institutional permissions from the Turkish Ministry of National Education, and written parental consent. The Children’s Emotional Intelligence Scale, the Self-Regulation Scale, and the Stirling Children’s Well-Being Scale were administered. Descriptive statistics, Pearson correlations, simple and multiple linear regressions, and a cross-sectional indirect association analysis using PROCESS Model 4 with 5000 bootstrap resamples were conducted. Emotional intelligence was positively associated with children’s well-being and self-regulation, while self-regulation showed a weaker positive association with well-being. Emotional intelligence explained 31.4% of the variance in well-being, self-regulation explained 8.6% when examined alone, and both variables jointly explained 31.9%, indicating only a marginal increase over emotional intelligence alone. Thus, most of the explained variance was accounted for by emotional intelligence, whereas self-regulation made a very small incremental contribution beyond it. The indirect association analysis indicated a small but statistically supported pattern of indirect association between emotional intelligence and well-being through self-regulation within this cross-sectional design; the association between emotional intelligence and well-being remained significant after self-regulation was included in the model. The findings suggest that emotional intelligence is the stronger socio-emotional correlate of children’s well-being in this sample, whereas self-regulation shows a limited complementary association. Given the cross-sectional design and reliance on self-report measures, the findings should be interpreted as correlational associations rather than evidence of causal effects, temporal ordering, or developmental change. Future studies should use longitudinal, intervention-based, and multi-informant designs to further examine these associations. Full article

Professionals working in family and social services are frequently exposed to emotionally demanding interpersonal experiences, which may influence both their occupational well-being and their perceptions of close relationships. This study was conducted to examine the mediating role of compassion fatigue in the relationship between emotional intelligence and marital anxiety among unmarried mental health professionals in Türkiye. The sample consisted of 311 unmarried mental health workers, including psychologists, social workers, and psychological counselors employed in provincial directorates of the Ministry of Family and Social Services. Data were collected using the Trait Emotional Intelligence Questionnaire—Short Form (TEQue-SF), the Compassion Fatigue—Short Scale, and the Marital Anxiety Scale. Mediation analysis was conducted using PROCESS Macro Model 4. The findings revealed that emotional intelligence negatively predicted compassion fatigue. Emotional intelligence also negatively predicted marital anxiety, while compassion fatigue did not directly predict marital anxiety. Mediation analysis revealed that compassion fatigue played a significant moderate mediating role in the relationship between emotional intelligence and marital anxiety. These findings suggest that occupational emotional experiences may be indirectly associated with relationship-related concerns among unmarried mental health professionals. The results highlight the importance of considering both emotional intelligence and compassion fatigue in understanding marital anxiety and supporting the development of training, supervision, and psychoeducational interventions aimed at strengthening emotional regulation and professional well-being. Future research including both unmarried and married professionals, as well as longitudinal and mixed-method designs incorporating qualitative interviews, may further clarify these relationships and the mechanisms underlying them. Full article

Parents of children and adolescents with type 1 diabetes (T1D) are responsible for intensive daily disease management and often experience high levels of emotional distress. This study examined whether fear of hypoglycemia mediates the association between parents’ emotion regulation strategies and diabetes-related distress. Participants were recruited through Facebook and WhatsApp groups for parents of children and adolescents with T1D, and data was collected via self-report online questionnaires. A total of 102 parents, 92.2% mothers (aged 32–58 years) of children with T1D aged 8–17 years, completed measures of fear of hypoglycemia (Hypoglycemia Fear Survey—Parent Version), diabetes distress (Problem Areas in Diabetes-Parent Revised) and emotion regulation strategies (Emotion Regulation Questionnaire), along with a sociodemographic questionnaire. Four mediation models were tested using PROCESS, including cognitive reappraisal and expressive suppression as predictors and the worry and behavior subscales of fear of hypoglycemia as mediators. Results revealed a significant indirect effect of worry on the relationship between cognitive reappraisal and diabetes distress (indirect effect = −0.15, 95% CI [−0.35, −0.02]), highlighting worry as a potential mediator between these variables, while the direct effect was negative but non-significant. No significant indirect effects were found for expressive suppression on the behavior subscale (indirect effect = 0.12; 95% IC [−0.07; 0.36]) or on the worry subscale (indirect effect = 0.07; 95% IC [−0.08; 0.24]). These findings suggest that cognitive reappraisal may be associated with lower diabetes-related distress through lower levels of excessive worry about hypoglycemia. Clinically, the results highlight fear-related cognition can be a relevant intervention target, alongside emotion regulation skills, in psychosocial support programs for parents of youth with T1D. Full article

Graduate students face increasing academic and psychological pressures, making it important to identify educational practices associated with their mental health. This study examined the association between labor education and graduate students’ mental health by constructing a moderated mediation model. A cross-sectional survey was conducted among 1283 full-time graduate students in Chinese universities. Structural equation modeling and PROCESS analyses were used to test the hypothesized relationships. The results showed that labor education was positively associated with graduate students’ mental health. Bootstrap analyses further supported three sequential mediation pathways: self-efficacy and psychological resilience, meaning in life and time management ability, and problem-solving ability and emotion regulation ability. These indirect pathways collectively account for approximately 40% of the total effect. In addition, supervisor support was found to strengthen the positive association between labor education and self-efficacy, while peer support strengthened the positive association between labor education and problem-solving ability. These findings suggest that labor education may function as a resource-building educational practice in graduate training and that academic social support may condition its association with students’ psychological and behavioral resources. This study contributes to research on graduate student well-being by linking labor education with psychological resources, cognitive appraisal, behavioral adaptation, and academic social support. Full article

Background/Objectives: Fibromyalgia (FM) is a complex disease with symptoms such as brain fog, widespread body pain, sleep disturbances, and mood changes, and its etiology is not clearly understood. Our main aim in this study was to evaluate emotional eating and emotional dysregulation in patients with FM and examine the possible effects of these disorders on disease severity. Materials and Methods: This observational study included 94 patients with FM (6 males, 88 females; mean age: 44.64 ± 9.04 years; range, 19–65 years) and 76 controls (7 males, 69 females; mean age: 41.91 ± 10.874 years; range, 18–64 years). The patient and control group participants completed a form including sociodemographic data. Participants also completed the Fibromyalgia Impact Questionnaire (FIQ), Emotional Eating Questionnaire (EEQ), and Difficulties in Emotion Regulation Scale (DERS). Results: In unadjusted comparisons, DERS-goals and DERS-strategies scores were higher in the FM group than in controls; however, these differences did not remain statistically significant after Bonferroni correction. In the linear regression model, it was found that the total score of the Difficulties in Emotion Regulation Scale (DERS-Total) (p = 0.010) was the only variable that significantly affected the FIQ value. Even though the patient group had slightly higher EEQ scores, there was no statistically significant difference between the two groups (p = 0.721). Conclusions: Emotional regulation difficulties were associated with FM symptom severity, whereas emotional eating did not differ significantly between groups and was not associated with symptom severity. These findings suggest that emotion-related psychological processes should be considered within the biopsychosocial framework of FM. Full article

This study examines how employees’ perceptions of transactional and relational psychological contracts influence emotional labor strategies in contemporary work contexts where AI technologies are increasingly present through AI anxiety, general attitudes toward AI, and generative AI acceptance. Based on Conservation of Resources Theory, Cognitive Appraisal Theory, the Theory of Planned Behavior and technology acceptance frameworks (UTAUT), a conceptual model was tested using survey data from 869 employees across various sectors in Türkiye. Mediation and moderated mediation analyses were conducted using the PROCESS macro for SPSS 30. The results showed that transactional psychological contracts were positively correlated with surface acting, while relational psychological contracts were associated with deep acting. Serial mediation analyses indicated that relational psychological contracts were indirectly associated with higher levels of deep acting, primarily through more positive evaluations of AI, with the full sequential pathway through anxiety reduction not operating as hypothesized. Generative AI acceptance mediated the relationship between negative attitudes toward AI and surface acting. Moreover, generative AI acceptance mediated the relationship between positive attitudes toward AI and deep acting, indicating a pathway through which favorable technology evaluations translate into authentic emotional regulation. Finally, moderated mediation analyses suggest that emotional intelligence strengthens the impact of generative AI acceptance on employees’ emotional labor strategies. Full article

Given that stress is a significant risk factor for problematic social media use, understanding the underlying psychological mechanisms is essential. We introduce the Stress-Induced Digital Escapism (SIDE) framework, which posits that negative internal emotional responses to external stressors may increase reliance on maladaptive emotion regulation strategies that fail to alleviate distress. These processes may, in turn, strengthen escapism motives that lead to seeking emotional relief through compulsive social media use. Using structural equation modeling (N = 238), we examined three integrated psychological pathways—negative stress reactions, maladaptive emotion regulation strategies, and escapism motives—as sequential mediators linking external demands to problematic social media use. Consistent with the proposed framework, external demands showed significant indirect associations with problematic social media use through negative emotional responses, maladaptive interpersonal emotion regulation strategies (venting, reassurance-seeking), and escapism motives as sequential mediators. Sensitivity analysis supported the robustness of the serial mediation model over alternative models with reversed pathways. These findings support the SIDE framework as a unified account of the psychological mechanisms underlying stress-related problematic social media use. Full article

Positive teacher–student relationships in early childhood predict stronger academic and social–emotional outcomes, whereas conflictual or dependent relationships contribute to children’s stress and behavioral and academic difficulties. While prior research emphasizes teachers’ observable relational behaviors, fewer studies explore the internal emotional and cognitive processes that shape these relationships. This mixed-methods study examined how preschool teachers’ emotion socialization practices (i.e., emotion coaching and dismissing) and their classroom expressions of positive and negative emotions relate to their mental representations of their relationships with students. Quantitative analyses tested whether teachers’ emotional expressiveness moderated associations between their emotion socialization practices and relational representations. Complementing these analyses, qualitative narrative interviews with an independent teacher sample explored how educators described their emotional expressiveness, emotion-related practices, and perceived relationships with students. Informed by emotion socialization theory, attachment theory, and the prosocial classroom model, findings highlight the interplay of teachers’ emotional beliefs, regulation, and relational schemas in shaping classroom climate. Our integration of quantitative and qualitative insights provides a more comprehensive understanding of teachers’ emotional functioning and underscores the importance of supporting educators’ relational and emotional competencies to enhance classroom quality and student well-being. Full article

The rapid integration of artificial intelligence (AI) into workplace ecosystems is intensifying adaptation pressure for new employees. This study examines how Workplace Fear of Missing Out (WFMO) influences adaptive performance in this context. Methods: Drawing on Conservation of Resources Theory and the Emotion Regulation Process Model, a dual-path mediating model was tested using survey data from 442 new employees. Hierarchical regression, the Bootstrap method, and fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA) were employed. Results: WFMO is positively associated with adaptive performance. Role stress and cognitive reappraisal function as independent mediators in this relationship. Leader empathy positively moderates both direct relationships and indirect mediating pathways. Fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis reveals two distinct configurational paths to high adaptive performance. Conclusion: Workplace Fear of Missing Out can be transformed into adaptive behavior through resource mobilization and cognitive reappraisal mechanisms, with leader empathy serving as a critical contextual amplifier. These findings challenge the traditional view of workplace anxiety as uniformly detrimental and provide actionable insights for organizational management in technology-driven environments. Full article

Autonomous UAVs for urban traffic monitoring must respond quickly to changing operational conditions while maintaining stable, transparent decision-making. Rule-based controllers respond only at predefined thresholds, while learning-based methods adapt well but lack the certification transparency required for safety-critical deployment. This paper proposes a bio-inspired emotion-regulated decision-control mechanism and introduces the Pull–Push Engine (PPE), a regulatory architecture that balances environmental stimuli against personality-anchored baselines through weighted temporal integration. The PPE is embedded in a three-layer framework combining Big Five personality traits, the Pleasure–Arousal–Dominance (PAD) model, and Ortony–Clore–Collins (OCC) event appraisal. Validation in a SUMO-based simulation across three scenarios of increasing complexity showed that PPE regulation maintained bounded PAD trajectories and zero saturation despite concurrent stressors, whereas removing the pull term caused 57–88% saturation. Behavioral diversity scaled naturally with operational demands: Surprised mood dominated across all scenarios (47.8–67.5%), with Anxious and Focused increasing systematically with complexity. Strategy entropy rose monotonically (1.885–2.033 bits). A sensitivity sweep confirmed robust regulation across a stable operating region, with degradation only at the boundary (p < 0.001 for all key comparisons). Every simulated decision remains causally traceable from stimulus through emotional processing to action. This ensures interpretability, which is essential for future safety-critical UAV deployment, although hardware implementation and field validation are still required. Full article

Food allergy is a chronic immune-mediated condition that must be understood not only as a biological disorder but also as a biopsychosocial condition with significant psychological and neurodevelopmental consequences. Beyond the management of acute allergic reactions, individuals living with food allergy experience ongoing threat appraisal, dietary restriction, and social constraints, shaping emotional regulation, cognition, and wellbeing. This review adopts a psychology-led biopsychosocial and neuropsychological framework to examine the mechanisms through which immune activation and food avoidance influence psychological functioning. Drawing on medical psychology, psychoneuroimmunology, and gut–brain research, we explore how threat perception, interoceptive awareness, learning processes, stress physiology, and family context interact to shape emotional and behavioural responses to food allergy. Particular attention is given to the role of risk perception, vigilance, and learned avoidance in driving anxiety and reduced quality of life. By integrating evidence across psychological and biological domains, this review argues for a more comprehensive model of food allergy that recognises the cumulative emotional and neuropsychological burden associated with living with chronic dietary risk. Greater integration of psychological perspectives within allergy care may help support adaptive coping, reduce unnecessary restriction, and improve quality-of-life outcomes for individuals and families affected by food allergy. Full article

Background/Objectives: Alexithymia is a potential transdiagnostic risk factor for psychiatric and medical disorders involving affect dysregulation. But there is debate over whether a constricted imaginal capacity constitutes a core component of the construct or is a separable correlate. Our aim was to further explore this controversy as any revision to the construct has implications for clinical formulation, neurobiological models of associated default mode network dysfunction, and the coherence of the original psychiatric conceptualization. Methods: To replicate and extend previous factor analytic work, we conducted a two-stage exploratory factor analysis in a community sample that included individuals with a psychiatric history (N = 681). Using most of the subscale indicators employed in two prior factor analytic studies, we used a two-stage procedure: Stage 1 re-employed the general design of those studies. Stage 2 re-specified the analytic space by removing emotional reactivity and fantasizing-for-regulation variables that form their own separable latent dimensions. Results: Stage 1 yielded a conceptual replication of structural separation between alexithymia and imaginal processes. Stage 2 revealed meaningful cross-loadings obscured in the full set, most notably positive constructive daydreaming loading negatively on an externally oriented thinking factor, providing empirical support for the pensée opératoire construct. Additional cross-loadings linked dysphoric daydreaming and poor attentional control with negative emotion appraisal. Conclusions: The structural independence of alexithymia and imaginal processes is partly contingent on indicator set composition. Construct revision should be grounded not on two factor analytic studies using abbreviated self-report measures, but in convergent evidence across methods, including neuroimaging, electroencephalography, structured interview, performance-based assessment, and clinical observation. Full article

Surf tourism, a form of sustainable experiential tourism, directly shapes the socio-economic sustainability of coastal destinations. However, existing research has not uncovered how cognitive appraisal processes and status-seeking motives interact to shape tourists’ behavioral intentions and resilience amid experiential setbacks. Based on a cross-sectional survey design, and grounded in Cognitive Appraisal Theory (CAT) and the Theory of the Leisure Class (TLC), this study empirically tests an integrated socio-cognitive framework using data from 395 surf tourists in Hainan, China. Data were analyzed using partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM). The results demonstrate that cognitive appraisals (outcome desirability, agency, certainty) and status-driven imperatives are powerful predictors of behavioral intentions. Conspicuous Consumption Motivation (CCM) acts as a critical boundary condition, amplifying the positive effect of affective states on intentions, and serving as a psychological buffer that facilitates consumer resilience against tourism setbacks. We further extend a “social-symbolic reappraisal” mechanism—rather than a directly measured variable—through which tourists reframe negative experiences as a “badge of honor” to signal leisure-class status via the moderation effect of CCM. This fills an important gap in existing research on emotion regulation and tourist behavior. This study clarifies the psychological pathway of behavioral sustainability in symbolic experiential tourism and delivers high-impact actionable insights for coastal destinations: operators can leverage the social-symbolic reappraisal mechanism to design identity-focused experience narratives, stabilize tourist flow and revenue streams, increase investments in sustainable infrastructure and marine conservation, and benefit from sustainable management of coastal surf tourism destinations. Full article

This study examines how individuals adapt to situations of danger and change arising from the COVID-19 pandemic by testing a model based on self-regulatory mechanisms. The model includes three key elements: (1) the intensity of negative emotions as a manifestation of affective reaction to situations of danger and change and, at the same time, as a signal activating self-regulatory processes; (2) protective mechanisms in change, that is, the perception of goal congruence and a positive future self; and (3) the individual sense of danger and the overall sense of danger at various physical distances to the self. The study was conducted online. Participants completed a set of standardized questionnaires assessing negative emotions, perceived danger, and protective mechanisms across three measurement waves corresponding to successive stages of the COVID-19 pandemic. The model was validated in three waves of the pandemic in Poland and one in Ukraine. To verify the relationships between the measured variables, a structural equation model was constructed using the RStudio software (version 1.2, 2019) with the Lavaan package. The results were consistent with the prediction model, which considers the relationships between the intensity of negative emotions and the intensity of protective mechanisms in change and perceived danger. Two factors within negative emotions were identified, each interacting differently with self-regulation. Negative emotions were related to the intensity of perceived danger, while protective mechanisms were linked to the reduction in danger. The results confirm the complex nature of self-regulation mechanisms both affectively and cognitively and also their orientation toward the future, which constitutes a protective resource. The study’s limitations include the online method, which limits standardization, control, and the sample’s limited randomness and inequivalence of measurements and sampling in Ukraine and Poland. Full article