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Mengjie Tu,1 Yafei Guo,2 Xincai Zhang,3 Quanlei Yu1,4 1School of Psychology, Central China Normal University, Wuhan, Hubei, People’s Republic of China; 2Department of Business Administration, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Champaign, IL, USA; 3Fuyang City No.11 Middle School, Anhui, People’s Republic of China; 4School of Psychology, Beijing Normal University, Beijing, People’s Republic of ChinaCorrespondence: Quanlei Yu Email yulei19881987@mail.ccnu.edu.cnBackground: Parent-child facial resemblance, as an important cue of paternal uncertainty, may impact fathers’ parenting behaviors and further affect children’s academic performance. However, mothers are almost 100% confident of the blood relationship with their child and care less about the facial resemblance cues.Methods: To test these hypotheses, the present study recruited 122 junior high school students and measured the perceived facial resemblance with their parents, the parents’ parenting style, academic performance, and demographic variables.Results: The results showed that the perceived father-child facial resemblance rather than the mother-child facial resemblance significantly influenced adolescents’ academic performance. Further, fathers’ caring parenting style mediated the relationship between the perceived father-child facial resemblance and academic performance.Conclusion: These findings not only supported the paternal uncertainty hypothesis but also extended the parental investment theory.Keywords: perceived father–child facial resemblance, academic performance, caring parenting, paternal uncertainty

Mothers have almost 100% certainty of their relationship with their offspring, but fathers face paternal uncertainty, which affects not only parental investment but also grandparents’ investment in grandchildren. However, due to Chinese patriarchal culture and preference for sons, grandparents may give their grandchildren different investments by gender. To explore the psychological and behavioral mechanisms of grandparents’ emotional investment in grandchildren from both cultural and evolutionary perspectives, this study collected data from 642 Chinese participants who had impressions of all four grandparents and measured their relationships with their grandparents and other demographic variables. After controlling for the number of grandchildren, participant’s age, region, etc., a significant interaction between the grandchild’s gender and grandparent categories was found. Simple effect analysis and post-hoc analysis showed significant differences in grandsons’ intimacy with maternal grandmothers and grandfathers, but no other grandparents, while granddaughter’s intimacy with maternal grandmothers was significantly higher and with paternal grandfathers significantly lower than with other grandparents, and there were no other significant differences. Those results support human psychology and behavior are jointly influenced by evolution and culture.

Purpose Bullying is a serious problem among adolescents. Many scholars have examined school bullying in recent years; however, there are many psychological and behavioral mechanisms for bully that still remain unclear. Based on the theory of self-worth orientation, this study examined the influence of academic achievement on bullying behavior among adolescents and explored the moderating effects of perceived social support and age cohort. Methods Participants were 3227 middle and high school students in the 7th through 12th grades in China. A self-report method was used to measure academic achievement, social support, bullying, and demographic variables. Results Moderation analyses indicated that the relationship between academic achievement and bullying behavior was moderated by the perceived social support of adolescents and their age cohort. Specifically, social support moderated the relationship between achievement and bullying behavior positively in the middle school group but negatively in the high school group. Conclusion The results support the hypothesis of self-worth orientation theory and indicate that bullying intervention could be enhanced by addressing the relationships between academic achievement, social support, age cohort, and bullying.

With the increasing development of science and technology, the Internet has become an essential part of people’s daily lives providing great convenience. However, the Internet also leads to problematic Internet use (PIU) among adolescents, which has attracted increasing attention from the academic community. Peer victimization is a pervasive stressor among adolescents and has been proven to lead to a series of mental health challenges. Although the association between peer victimization and PIU has been well documented, the underlying mechanism remains unclear. This study aimed to understand how and when peer victimization increases the risk of PIU among adolescents. Building on Agnew’s general strain theory, this study hypothesized that depression mediates the relationship between peer victimization and PIU and humor moderates the mediating model. To examine these hypotheses, 469 middle school students were recruited to complete a series of questionnaires on peer victimization, depression, humor, and PIU. The results showed that depression partially mediated the relationship between peer victimization and PIU. A moderated mediation analysis indicated that humor moderated the indirect pathway, consistent with the reverse stress-buffering model, the relationship between peer victimization and depression was stronger for adolescents with high humor. However, the relationship between depression and PIU was weaker in adolescents with high humor, which is in line with the stress-buffering model. These findings could be of significance in understanding the underlying mechanism of PIU associated with peer victimization and provide a new perspective for preventing PIU among adolescents, especially those experiencing peer victimization. The limitations and considerations for future research are discussed.

People may often encounter a dilemma where they have to choose between smaller but immediate benefits and larger but delayed rewards, which is termed intertemporal choice. To explore the unusual behavior in intertemporal choice among those who are addicted to internet, a dual processing model, which is at present limited to the neural science, is tested and further extended to behavioral domain through a series of laboratory experiment. Study 1 tested and supported the dual processing model on intertemporal choice, showing that the hot processing and cold processing systems displayed an interacting effect on internet addicts' behaviors in intertemporal choice. Study 2 examined different features of processing type among internet addicts and common people, finding that internet addicts did not show preference over any kind of three processing types as common people did. Moreover, we found that level of self-control displayed a mediating effect on internet addicts and healthy control's different behavior in intertemporal choice. At last, study 3 manipulated the level of self-control to explore the mediator effect on internet addicts' unusual behavior in intertemporal choice, showing that self-control mediated the relationship between subject type and intertemporal choice. The findings indicated that the self-control as the psychological mechanism in the intertemporal choice.

Group creation is the process by which group members collaborate to produce novel and useful ideas or products, including ideas generation and evaluation. However, the interpersonal neural mechanism of group creation during natural communication remains unclear. In this study, two groups of same-sex dyads with similar individual creativity collaborated to complete the Product Improvement Task (creative condition) and the Item Purchase Plan Task (control condition), respectively. Functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) was used to record both members' neural activity in the left prefrontal (lPFC) and right temporal-parietal junction (rTPJ) regions during the task. Considering that the role asymmetry of group members may have an impact on interpersonal neural patterns, we identified leaders and followers in the dyads based on participant performance. The results showed that leaders and followers in the creative condition had significantly lower interpersonal neural synchronization (INS) in the right superior temporal gyrus-left superior frontal gyrus, right supramarginal gyrus-left superior frontal gyrus, and right supramarginal gyrus-left middle frontal gyrus than in the control condition. Partial multivariate Granger causality analyses revealed the influence between dyads was bidirectional but was significantly stronger from the leaders to the followers than the other direction. In addition, in the creative task, the INS was significantly associated with novelty, appropriateness, and conflict of views. All these findings suggest that the ideas generation and ideas evaluation process in group creation have poor interpersonal neural activity coupling due to factors such as the difficulty of understanding novel ideas. However, performances may be improved when groups can better integrate views and reach collective understanding, intentions, and goals. Furthermore, we found that there are differences in the dynamics of INS in different brain regions. The INS related to the novelty of the group creation decreased in the early stages, while the INS related to the appropriateness decreased in the middle stages. Our findings reveal a unique interpersonal neural pattern of group creation processes in the context of natural communication.

Explicit self-esteem (ESE) is an important factor influencing subject well-being (SWB). However, the relationship between ESE and SWB is not clear. Due to the complex nature of self-esteem, implicit self-esteem (ISE) might moderate the relationship between ESE and SWB. Furthermore, providing the consistency between ISE and ESE, the interacting effect of ISE and ESE would only be significant for the cognitive component of SWB rather than the emotional component. To examine these assumptions, the present study recruited a total of 134 undergraduate students and measured their ISE, ESE, and SWB using Implicit Association Test (IAT) and self-report measures. The results showed that (a) ESE, rather than ISE, was significantly correlated to SWB; and (b) the interaction between ISE and ESE could significantly predict the cognitive components of SWB rather than the emotional components. Those findings contribute to the further understanding of the relationship between self-esteem and SWB.

Via internal fertilization, fathers face the risk of paternal uncertainty. Parent-child facial resemblance is a good index to assess genetic resemblance. Previous studies have shown that parent-child facial resemblance significantly influences parental investment. Therefore, parent-child facial resemblance may predict father's parenting behaviors, but not the mother's behaviors. The purpose of the present study was to explore the effect of parent-child facial resemblance for parenting behaviors. We recruited 114 parents of secondary school students from 114 independent families and measured participants' perceived parent-child facial resemblance and parenting behaviors. Results showed that, after controlling for participants' age and socioeconomic status, parents' gender moderated the effect of perceived parent-child facial resemblance on supportive/engaged parenting, but not hostile/coercive parenting. Further analysis of a simple slope effect test showed that perceived father-child facial resemblance significantly predicted a father's supportive/engaged parenting. But the effect of perceived mother-child facial resemblance for a mother's supportive/engaged parenting was not significant. These findings enriched the attach theory from the life history perspective.

When humans are confronted with an epidemic situation or a continuous natural disaster, success depends largely on how critical information is conveyed to as many people as possible, how individuals' emotional experiences of the crisis are elicited, and how their behaviors are directed going forward. Efficient publicity is key to successful epidemic prevention and control. This study explores the role of creative publicity by comparing the influence of creative publicity and general publicity in different periods of the COVID-19 outbreak in China. The effects of creative and general publicity differed across varying periods of the COVID-19 outbreak. Specifically, compared to general publicity, creative publicity had a significant impact on individuals' emotional arousal in the early period of the COVID-19 outbreak while it significantly promoted individuals' emotional arousal, behavioral regulation, and willingness to actively disseminate information in the middle period. In the stable period of the COVID-19 outbreak, creative publicity performed better than general publicity in regulating individuals' behavior. On the other hand, general publicity was more effective than creative publicity in regulating individuals' behavior and actively disseminating information about the epidemic in the early period of the COVID-19 outbreak. In conclusion, creative and general publicity had differing effects in different periods of the COVID-19 outbreak, which may relate to the characteristics of the publicity format and people's psychological conditions in different periods of the COVID-19 outbreak.

Past literature on humor and creativity mainly focuses on the positive effect of humor on the divergent aspect of creativity. However, few researches have examined the relationship between humor and the convergent aspect of creativity, specifically insight problem-solving. The present research aimed to fill in this gap and examine the effect of humor on insight problem-solving. In Study 1, a sample of 32 subjects participated in a within-subjects study that tested the effects of humor comprehension (cognitive component of humor) and humor appreciation (affective component of humor) on insight problem-solving. In Study 2, a sample of 62 participants was recruited in a between-subjects study that examined the mediating role of cognitive flexibility. The results showed that: (1) participants' performance on insight problem-solving was significantly higher in humor condition than that in the non-humor condition; (2) no performance differences were found between the cognitive humor condition and the cognitive and affective humor condition; (3) cognitive flexibility partially mediated the effect of humor on insight problem-solving. These findings suggested that humor comprehension, rather than humor appreciation, can promote individuals' performance on insight problem-solving. The implications for convergent aspect of creativity and interventions on how to utilize humor to enhance creativity are discussed.

Online games have gained prominence in people's lives. While some studies have demonstrated that online games damage students’ cognitive flexibility, others have illustrated that they improve players’ cognitive flexibility. From the perspective of self-worth orientation theory, this study hypothesized that self-worth moderates the relationship between online game use and cognitive flexibility. To explore this hypothesis, 110 participants were recruited to report online game use, self-worth, and cognitive flexibility using E-prime software. The results showed that self-worth moderated the relationship between online game use and generalization, conceptual insight, cognitive focus, and conceptual plasticity. In the case of high self-worth, playing online puzzle games can improve students’ conceptual plasticity. In the case of low self-worth, playing online puzzle games reduces generalization, cognitive focus, and conceptual plasticity, while playing online shooter games reduces conceptual insight. These results indicate that self-worth moderates the impact of online games on cognitive flexibility, and high self-worth enhances this effect, while low self-worth weakens this effect, providing a basis for improving the cognitive flexibility of youths. This also provides a new perspective for teachers and parents to evaluate the influence of online games on children's cognitive flexibility development.

This study explored the effect of parent–child facial resemblance on the parent–child relationship in a traditional patriarchal cultural context in China. We analyzed 177 elementary and secondary school students in China. This study found that the father's perceived facial resemblance with the child significantly affected his relationship with the child. However, this result was not found among mothers. In addition, from a perspective of offspring, the sons' perceived facial resemblance with the father significantly predicted his relationship with the father, but this did not apply to daughters. Finally, this study found a mediating of father-child closeness on the relationship between perceived father-child facial resemblances and mother-child closeness. These findings enriched the theory of parental investment and extended the current model of the parent–child relationship.

Previous studies have demonstrated that the preference for online social interaction (POSI) is one of the most important factors affecting problematic Internet use (PIU). As self-worth orientation theory suggests, however, only-child could buffer the effect of POSI on PIU, given the fact that children without siblings (the only-child) typically enjoy more resources from parents than do children with siblings. As children grow, particularly after school age, they would become more susceptible to the peers' influence than parents'. Thus, the buffering effect of only-child would decrease along with age due to the lessening effect of parents. To examine the moderating effect of sibling condition (only-child vs. children with siblings) and moderated moderating effect of age cohort (adolescent vs. emerging adult) on the relationship between POSI and PIU, we collected data from 12,051 Chinese students and measured their POSI, PIU, sibling condition, age and other demographics. The results showed that (a) the PIU score of only-child was significantly lower than that of children with siblings; (b) the POSI significantly predicted the PIU; (c) sibling condition moderated the relationship between POSI and PIU, and age cohort further moderated the moderation of sibling condition; (d) age cohort moderated the relationship between POSI and PIU. The implications for the prevention of Internet addictive behaviors among adolescents were discussed.

Two studies were conducted to explore the effect of parental sex on well-being due to parenthood. Study 1 analyzed the sixth wave of the World Values Survey data. The results indicated that parents were happier than their respective childless peers. However, the effect of motherhood was significantly higher than that of fatherhood. Furthermore, Study 2 analyzed the data from 354 single-child parents in China. The results showed that perceived parent–child facial resemblance moderated the sex difference in well-being. Specifically, in the high parent–child facial resemblance group, both fathers and mothers showed high levels of well-being; however, in the low parent–child facial resemblance group, the well-being level of mothers was higher than fathers. These results supported the renovated pyramid of needs and the hypothesis of paternal uncertainty.

Teacher support plays a role in promoting students’ motivations in the academic settings, but little is known about how teacher support impacts students’ creative self-efficacy. The purpose of this study was to explore the relationship between perceived teacher support and students’ creative self- efficacy, taking into account the possible mediating effects of autonomous motivation and achievement emotions. A total of 512 junior high school students (age M = 12.58, SD = 0.74) completed the Perceived Teacher Support Questionnaire, Adolescent Achievement Emotions Questionnaire, Self-Regulation Style Questionnaire-Academic and Students’ Creative Self-Efficacy Scale. Results showed that: (1) junior high school students’ autonomous motivation and positive achievement emotions (enjoyment and relaxation) mediated the relationship between perceived teacher support and creative self-efficacy, but the mediating effects of negative achievement emotions (anxiety and boredom) were not significant. (2) perceived teacher support also affected creative self-efficacy through the chain mediation of students’ autonomous motivation and relaxation, but the chain mediation of students’ autonomous motivation and other achievement emotions was not significant. The present study has implications for educators and researchers interested in enhancing students’ creativity.

The self-worth orientation theory hypothesizes that self-worth is the ultimate reason for people's behavior. Adolescents are prone to problematic Internet use (PIU) when they obtain compensatory self-worth in online social interaction. Academic performance is highly valued in China. Compared with excellent academic performance, those with poor academic performance would be low in self-worth and thus more susceptible to compensation through online social support. However, the academic performance range of high school students was smaller than that of primary and middle schools students, who have universal education. Thus, the age cohort may moderate the moderating effect of academic performance on the relationship between POSI and PIU. Eight hundred and forty-four Chinese student-parent dyads were recruited to examine this hypothesis. The results supported this hypothesis, and these findings further support the hypotheses of the self-worth orientation theory. The practical implications and limitations of the study were discussed.

The purpose of this study was to examine the effect of handedness on the relationship between implicit self-esteem (ISE) and explicit self-esteem (ESE). A total of 93 undergraduate students (28 left-handers, 32 mix-handers, and 33 right-handers) participated in this study. Participants reported their ISE, ESE, and handedness using an Implicit Association Test (IAT) and an array of self-report measures. Results indicated that (a) there was a significant correlation between ESE and ISE in the whole sample, and (b) there was a very strong significant correlation in left-handed participants; and no significant correlation in right-handed participants. A further analysis showed a moderating effect of participants' handedness on the relationship between ISE and ESE. Implications and future research directions were discussed.

Previous studies have shown that parental marriage satisfaction is a crucial cause of adolescent suicide. Short breastfeeding duration may not satisfy the individual sense of security, resulting in insecure attachment patterns that reinforce the impact of adverse external environment on individual mental health. Therefore, the duration of breastfeeding may influence the effect of marriage satisfaction on adolescent suicidal ideation. To explore this hypothesis, this study recruited 610 middle school students and their parents as participants, and adopted self-report method to measure the duration of breastfeeding, marriage satisfaction and adolescent suicidal ideation. The results showed that the marriage satisfaction of parents negatively predicted the suicidal ideation of adolescents significantly, and the duration of breastfeeding moderated the effect of marriage satisfaction on suicidal ideation of adolescents. Furthermore, when the breastfeeding duration was short, parental marriage satisfaction negatively predicted adolescent suicide ideation, however, when the breastfeeding duration was long, the predictive effect of marriage satisfaction on adolescent suicide ideation was reduced to insignificant. The results support the hypothesis of this study, and the research conclusion has certain theoretical and practical significance for the prevention of adolescent suicide.

This study explored the relationship between perceived teacher support and primary students’ creative thinking as well as the mechanism underlying these associations and gender differences. A sample of 362 primary students (196 boys) was surveyed using the Perceived Teacher Support Questionnaire, Creative Self-efficacy Scale, Divergent Thinking Test, and Remote Associate Test. The results indicated that perceived teacher support was positively associated with students' creative thinking, and creative self-efficacy mediated the relationship between perceived teacher support and divergent thinking. Additionally, gender moderated the first stage of the mediating model of creative self-efficacy between perceived teacher support and divergent thinking; specifically, the effect of perceived teacher support on divergent thinking was more pronounced in boys than girls. These findings suggest that teachers can be considered valid attachment figures for students and have a positive effect on improving primary students’ creative thinking.

Highlights • Marital satisfaction negatively predicted adolescents' problematic internet use (PIU). • Depression mediated the relationship between marital satisfaction and PIU. • The mediating effect was significant for individuals with low physical activity. • The mediating effect was not significant for individuals with high physical activity., Introduction To explore the moderating effect of physical activity and the mediating effect of depression on the relationship between marital satisfaction and adolescents’ problematic internet use (PIU). Methods This study adopted a sample of 288 adolescents and their parents, and measured adolescents’ depression, PIU, physical activity, and parents’ marital satisfaction. Results These results showed that parental marital satisfaction negatively predicted adolescents' PIU. Adolescents’ depression played a mediating role between parental marital satisfaction and adolescents’ PIU. Further mediated moderation effect analysis showed that the interaction between marital satisfaction and adolescents' physical activity affected the PIU through adolescents’ depression. Specifically, for individuals with lower physical activity, the marital satisfaction affected the PIU through adolescents' depression. However, for the group with higher physical activity, physical activity weakened the effects of marital satisfaction on adolescents' depression, and the mediating effect of depression did not reach a significant level. Conclusion These results are of theoretical and practical significance in understanding and intervening to address adolescents' PIU.

Results of studies on the relationship between implicit (ISE) and explicit (ESE) self-esteem have been inconsistent, possibly because of the moderating influence of factors such as gender, response latency, and cognitive load. We examined the moderating effect of cultural tendency on the relationship between ISE and ESE in the context of Chinese culture. We developed a Chinese version of the Implicit Association Test (IAT) to measure participants' ISE. Participants were 100 undergraduate students at 2 Chinese universities, who completed the IAT and a series of quantitative measures to assess their ISE, ESE, and cultural tendency. Results showed that there was a weak correlation between ISE and ESE, and that individualism, rather than collectivism, moderated the relationship between ISE and ESE.

Father-child facial resemblance is an important cue for men to evaluate paternity. Previous studies found that fathers’ perceptions of low facial resemblance with offspring lead to low confidence of paternity. Fathers’ uncertainty of paternity could cause psychological stress and anxiety, which, after a long time, may further turn into trait anxiety. Conversely, females can ensure a biological connection with offspring because of internal fertilization. The purpose of this study was thus to examine the role of parents’ gender in the effect of parents’ perceived facial resemblance with child on their trait anxiety. In this study, one hundred and fifty-one parents (father or mother) from one-child families reported their facial resemblance with child and their trait anxiety. Results showed that (a) males tended to perceive higher facial similarity with child than did females, and (b) males’ perceived facial resemblance with child significantly predicted trait anxiety, whereas females’ perceived facial resemblance did not. These findings suggested that the uncertainty of paternity contributed to the trait anxiety of fathers, but not mothers.