Subjects: Psychology >> Developmental Psychology submitted time 2023-04-11
Abstract： Given the high prevalence rate and its extensive possible adverse outcomes, a large number of theoretical and longitudinal studies have explored the development of social anxiety, but the research findings are inconsistent or even contradictory in preschool childhood, late childhood, and adolescence. In addition, there is still debate between trait theory and state theory of social anxiety, and there is also a lack of study on the age trend of social anxiety stability.
To clarify the above controversies and accurately characterize the age trend of the mean level and the stability of social anxiety, this study conducted a meta-analysis of longitudinal studies involving social anxiety. After pre-registering the study protocol on PROSPERO, we searched literature in six databases (CNKI, Wanfang Data, Web of Science, ProQuest, PubMed, andEBOSCO). In addition, we also backtracked the references cited in previous meta-analyses and reviews. Ultimately, a total of 192 independent samples (N = 170,192) from 173 longitudinal studies were included in the current meta-analysis. In order to quantify the trajectory of social anxiety more precisely, we divided the sample into 11 age groups according to the mean age of the sample between two adjacent measurement waves, and estimated the mean-level change and stability for each age group. The standardized mean difference (d) between two adjacent waves is used to estimate mean-level change, whereas the correlation coefficient (r) is used to estimate stability. Science most of the included studies reported multiple effect sizes, and these multiple effect sizes were most likely dependent, which violated the basic assumption of independent effect sizes in the conventional meta-analytic methods. We applied the three-level meta-analysis approach to handle such data-independency among effect sizes.
Results showed that: (1) The mean level of social anxiety showed a gradual decline from toddlerhood to early adulthood, with only slight increase in mid-adolescence. (2) In terms of rank-order stability, social anxiety rose slowly from toddlerhood to preschool childhood, then swiftly dropped to a low point in elementary childhood, recovered gradually after mid-adolescence, and stabilized at a high level in young adulthood. (3) The mean-level change of social anxiety was not affected by the study characteristics, the participant characteristics, and the variable characteristics. (4) The rank-order stability of social anxiety was moderated by written language, continent, culture, gender, and assessment mode. (5) The stability of social anxiety was a logarithmic function with time lag. Specifically, with the increase of time lag, the stability declined first quickly and then slowly, and almost reached a plateau after 6 years. (6) The results of moderator test for publication status, Egger's test, and Begg's test indicated the absence of publication bias in this meta-analysis.
This study makes a valuable contribution in characterizing the age-specific trends and stability of social anxiety from toddler to young adult by using the meta-analytic method. We conclude from this study that, in terms of mean level, the trajectory of social anxiety generally supports the personality maturation hypothesis. For stability, similar to personality traits, social anxiety tend to be a trait rather than a state construct. Overall, this study provides a new perspective for exploring the lifelong development of social anxiety.
Subjects: Psychology >> Social Psychology submitted time 2023-03-28 Cooperative journals: 《心理科学进展》
Abstract： In an era with surging time pressure, time management disposition is playing an increasingly important role in the psychological and social adaptation of college students experiencing psychological moratorium. Time management disposition refers to individuals' psychological and behavioral patterns of time arrangement when dealing with the functions and values of time. It covers three dimensions, namely sense of time value, sense of time control and sense of time efficacy. The socio-ecological modle highlighted the important role of diachronic systems and macro systems in the mental health of the yonth. But indirect evidence suggested that there was no clear trend in the time management disposition of Chinese college students. The enhancement of skills related to time management may help boost time management disposition while increasing interference and time pressure may weaken the time management skills. Moreover, existing research focued on the impact of individual factors and micro systems on the time management disposition of college students. No research from the macro-perspectives has been made. This research, therefore, adopted the cross-temporal meta-analysis method, a newly developed but extensively applied method of quantitative literature review, to analyze 215 papers published between 1999 and 2020 applying the Adolescence Time Management Disposition Inventory (ATMDI) (N = 103876). Our results showed that: (1) The time management disposition of Chinese college students has declined steadily in the past 22 years, among which the sense of time value stayed stable while the sense of time control and the sense of time efficacy were on the decline; (2) Seven social indicators, namely socioeconomic factors (GDP, household consumption level and urbanization rate), employment factors (the number of college graduates and registered urban unemployment rate) and Interet factors (Internet availability and weekly Internet using hours of netizens), significantly predicted the decline in the time management disposition of college students; (3) there were no significant gender and regional differences in the time management disposition of college students in China. This research explored the time management disposition of college students, a micro psychological variable, from the macro-perspective. Guided by the social ecosystem theory, the research pioneered to verify the declining trend in the time management disposition of college students from the mainland of China. It is revealed that their judgement of time functions and values remained stable over 22 years, but their time planning competence and confidence were declining. In other words, college students admitted the value of time but could not make efficient use of it, which led to a contradiction between attitude and behavior. In addition, this research proved that economy, employment and Internet (three social macro factors) predicted the time management disposition of college students, which elevated the macro significance of time management disposition. Based on existing findings, this research came up with a influencing mechanism model on the time management disposition of college students including the social macro factors. According to the model, the changes in objective macro systems, such as economy, employment and Internet, resulting in changed subjective macro systems, such as social mentality. Both types of macro systems function on individuals and micro systems at the same time. Meanwhile, individual factors and micro systems interact with each other. Futhermore, time change or social transformation has a controlling effect on the whole system. Time change and social transformation can trigger the changes of the above two macro systems, affecting individual factors and micro systems, and further exert an effect on the time management disposition of college students. The model provided theoretical and practical references for future research on time psychology in the social sense.
Subjects: Psychology >> Social Psychology submitted time 2022-03-03
Abstract：
The socio-ecological modle highlighted the important role of diachronic systems and macro-systems in the mental health of the yonth. But indirect evidence suggested that there was no clear trend in the time management disposition of Chinese college students. Moreover, existing research focuses on the impact of individual factors and micro systems on the time management disposition of college students. No research from the macro-perspectives has been made. This research, therefore, adopted the cross-temporal meta-analysis method to analyze 215 papers (N = 103876) published between 1999 and 2020, which adopted the Adolescence Time Management Disposition Inventory (ATMDI). Our results showed that: (1) The time management disposition of Chinese college students has declined steadily in the past 22 years, among which the sense of time value stayed stable while the sense of time control and the sense of time efficacy were on the decline; (2) Seven social indicators, namely socioeconomic factors (GDP, household consumption level and urbanization rate), employment factors (the number of college graduates and registered urban unemployment rate) and Internet factors (Internet availability and weekly Internet using hours of netizens), significantly predicted the decline in the time management disposition of college students; (3) there were no significant gender and regional differences in the time management disposition of college students in China. The research pioneered to verify the declining trend in the time management disposition of college students from the mainland of China, and came up with the influencing mechanism model on the time management disposition of college students, which includes the social macro factors.
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