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 >> Developmental Psychology submitted time 2023-03-28 Cooperative journals: 《心理科学进展》
Abstract： Fear of missing out (FoMO) refers to the pervasive apprehension resulting from worries that others might be experiencing fantastic stories or positive events from which one is absent. FoMO is determined by various factors such as personality traits, psychological needs, social media usage and age. FoMO would exert great impacts on social media usage and psychosocial adaptation. Meanwhile, FoMO can act as a mediator through which some factors influence social media usage and psychological adaption. The key issues of future studies on FoMO are the discrimination of contiguous concept, improvement of measurement and research method, as well as investigation of influencing factors and aftereffects.
Subjects: Psychology >> Developmental Psychology submitted time 2023-03-28 Cooperative journals: 《心理科学进展》
Abstract： To own an object means that the owner has many informative rights to the object, such as touching, using, changing, tracking and transferring. Research revealed that 3-year-old children understand that an owner have exclusive rights to touch and use his/her own objects but others do not, but their understandings of owners’ rights to change, track and transfer property are relatively poorer. This indicates that the development of children’s representation of ownership rights may not be synchronous. Three-year- olds understand that an owner has right to entitle others to use his/her property, and actively maintain this. When someone prevents the enforcement of this right, they will protest. This demonstrates that young children are aware of second-order ownership rights. In future studies, the mechanisms underlying the dissociation among representations of different ownership rights should be explored. Besides, it is worthwhile investigating how children represent ownership rights of public property (such as buses). Different cultures may put different weight on specific ownership right, which calls for more cross-cultural studies.
Subjects: Psychology >> Social Psychology submitted time 2023-03-27 Cooperative journals: 《心理学报》
Abstract： According to life history theory, organisms face necessary trade-offs in allocating limited energy and resources between somatic effort and reproductive effort. How an individual allocates resources to cope with survival and reproductive tasks reflects their life history strategies. In unpredictable environments, individuals tend to invest more in reproductive efforts and prioritize immediate payoffs because the future is uncertain, and the delayed benefits may not be available later. Food may be considered an immediate reward and overeating may more likely occur among people living in unpredictable environments. Our research investigated how early life environmental unpredictability affects overeating and the underlying mechanism between the association. Study 1 recruited 91 adolescent participants and utilized the Eating in the Absence of Hunger protocol (EAH). Participants were randomly assigned either to the “hunger” or “absence of hunger” groups. Both groups completed a food portion choice task. Participants were presented with photographs of 36 food types (18 high-calorie and 18 low-calorie), where participants chose their desired food portion on each picture from 0 (none) to 4 (four portions). Results indicated that the hunger state could moderate the effects of early life environmental unpredictability on overeating. Specifically, (a)in hunger state, environmental unpredictability was not associated with selected high-calorie/unhealthy food portion, while participants living in high environmental unpredictability selected more high-calorie/unhealthy food portion than those living in low environmental unpredictability, i.e., overeating; (b)in hunger state, participants living in high environmental unpredictability selected less low-calorie/healthy food portion than those living in low environmental unpredictability, while in the absence of hunger state, environmental unpredictability was not associated with selected low-calorie/healthy food portion. Hence, our results, on the one hand, supported the initial hypothesis that early life environmental unpredictability could promote overeating in the absence of hunger state. On the other hand, our findings demonstrated that individuals in the hunger state would be more impulsive, selecting less healthy food.Study 2 examined differences in overeating between participants with high and low perceived death threat states. The former group was comprised of 301 community residents from Wuhan City, the epicenter of the Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) outbreak. The latter group was comprised of 179 community residents from the 42 other cities in China. Participants completed questionnaires regarding early life environmental unpredictability, fast life history strategy (Mini-K), overeating, perceived death threat, and social support. Results indicated that early life environmental unpredictability may affect overeating through the mediating role of fast life history strategies. Moreover, perceived death threat and social support may moderate the path between fast life history strategies and overeating. Evidently, participants with both high and low death threats, fast life history strategies were positively associated with overeating; however, the effect was smaller for the latter grouping. For individuals with high social support, fast life history strategies were not associated with overeating; while for individuals with low social support, fast life history strategies were positively associated with overeating. Findings indicated that environmental unpredictability in early life was positively associated with overeating through fast life history strategies. Additionally, this effect intensifies when the current environment is life-threatening; while the effect would be buffered for individuals with high social support. Findings provided evidence for the prevention and intervention of healthy eating promotion in the context of COVID-19.
Subjects: Psychology >> Social Psychology submitted time 2023-03-27 Cooperative journals: 《心理学报》
Abstract： The novel Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) outbreak increases public mental stress and pandemic-related trauma. Timely and comprehensive online mental health services have been deployed across China. Hotline counselors can be exposed to the stress and trauma experienced by callers indirectly. They may experience secondary traumatic stress (STS) as a result of their empathetic engagement with traumatized clients, and they may also experience vicarious posttraumatic growth (VPTG). The present study examined negative and positive change in hotline counselors concurrently and explored the mechanisms of both positive and negative outcomes. Participants were 776 counselors (81% female, average age = 42.57 ± 7.90, average years of experience = 12.44 ± 5.92) recruited from MOE-CCNU Mental Health Service Platform, the biggest official telephone-based and online psychological support platform in China during COVID-19 period. Empathy and VPTG were measured by revised Chinese versions of self-report questionnaires. STS was assessed by the corresponding subscale of the Professional Quality of Life Scale. The Chinese Meaning in Life Questionnaire was used to assess participants’ search for life meaning. Mindfulness was evaluated by Mindful Attention Awareness Scale. Latent variable structural equation modeling was applied. After controlling age, trauma cases and total cases, counselors’ empathy was positively associated with STS and VPTG. Results revealed that empathy was positively associated with STS and VPTG. Mindfulness mediated this association between empathy and STS. Search for meaning mediated the relationship between empathy and VPTG. Additionally, the association between empathy and VPTG was also mediated through other four significant mediating pathways: (a) secondary trauma stress, (b) secondary traumatic stress and search for meaning, (c) mindfulness and search for meaning, and (d) mindfulness and secondary trauma stress and search for meaning. Our findings support that empathy lead to both positive and negative outcomes among hotline counselors during COVID-19 period in China, highlighting dialectical insights into trauma workers’ experiences. When counselors engage in others’ traumatic experience, their vicarious negative emotional experience may be a pathway to growth, and search for life meaning is an important factor in that growth.
Subjects: Psychology >> Clinical and Counseling Psychology submitted time 2021-05-25
Abstract： " The novel Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) outbreak increases public mental stress and pandemic-related trauma. Timely and comprehensive online mental health services have been deployed across China. Hotline counselors can be exposed to the stress and trauma experienced by callers indirectly. They may experience secondary traumatic stress (STS) as a result of their empathetic engagement with traumatized clients, and they may also experience vicarious posttraumatic growth (VPTG). The present study examined negative and positive change in hotline counselors concurrently and explored the mechanisms of both positive and negative outcomes. Participants were 776 counselors (81% female, average age = 42.57 ± 7.90, average years of experience = 12.44 ± 5.92) recruited from MOE-CCNU Mental Health Service Platform, the biggest official telephone-based and online psychological support platform in China during COVID-19 period. Empathy and VPTG were measured by revised Chinese versions of self-report questionnaires. STS was assessed by the corresponding subscale of the Professional Quality of Life Scale. The Chinese Meaning in Life Questionnaire was used to assess participants’ search for life meaning. Mindfulness was evaluated by Mindful Attention Awareness Scale. Latent variable structural equation modeling was applied. After controlling age, trauma cases and total cases, counselors’ empathy was positively associated with STS and VPTG. Results revealed that empathy was positively associated with STS and VPTG. Mindfulness mediated this association between empathy and STS. Search for meaning mediated the relationship between empathy and VPTG. Additionally, the association between empathy and VPTG was also mediated through other four significant mediating pathways: (a) secondary trauma stress, (b) secondary traumatic stress and search for meaning, (c) mindfulness and search for meaning, and (d) mindfulness and secondary trauma stress and search for meaning. Our findings support that empathy lead to both positive and negative outcomes among hotline counselors during COVID-19 period in China, highlighting dialectical insights into trauma workers’ experiences. When counselors engage in others’ traumatic experience, their vicarious negative emotional experience may be a pathway to growth, and search for life meaning is an important factor in that growth. "
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