To examine the longitudinal associations between depressive symptoms and subtypes of social withdrawal among rural adolescents and to explore the mediating role of negative interpretation bias, this study conducted a two-wave longitudinal survey with a six-month interval among 415 rural adolescents using self-report questionnaires. The results showed that: (1) after controlling for gender and age, depressive symptoms at Time 1 (T1) significantly and positively predicted social avoidance and shyness at Time 2 (T2); (2) negative interpretation bias at T2 played a significant mediating role in the associations between T1 depressive symptoms and T2 social avoidance, unsociability, and shyness; and (3) the effect of T1 depressive symptoms on T2 social avoidance, and the effect of T2 negative interpretation bias on T2 shyness, were significantly stronger among rural boys than among rural girls. These findings support the symptom-driven model of depression among rural adolescents and further extend evidence for the mediating role of negative interpretation bias, offering important implications for promoting social integration among rural adolescents.

School adjustment is consequential for children’s subsequent learning and development, yet longitudinal evidence on how mothers’ challenging parenting behavior relates to first-grade students’ adjustment remains limited. Two complementary studies examined the mediating role of children’s self-efficacy. Study 1 followed 325 first-grade students for 15 consecutive weeks, with weekly parent reports of school adjustment and single assessments of mothers’ challenging parenting behavior and children’s self-efficacy. Dynamic structural equation modeling showed significant week-to-week autoregression in school adjustment and a significant between-person indirect effect through self-efficacy. Study 2 followed 292 children from the same cohort across two semesters. Mothers’ challenging parenting behavior, children’s self-efficacy, and school adjustment were positively correlated, and the indirect effects of self-efficacy on both first- and second-semester adjustment were significant, whereas the direct effects were not. These findings suggest that appropriately calibrated challenging parenting may be positively associated with school adjustment through children’s self-efficacy. The results should be interpreted as longitudinal associations rather than evidence of a fully dynamic or causal mediation process.

This study aims to investigate the effectiveness of self-compassion group intervention in improving ruminative thinking among college students experiencing depressive symptoms. Participants with depressive symptoms from a university were randomly assigned to an experimental group receiving self-compassion group intervention and a control group receiving no intervention. Depression screening scales and rumination scales were administered before intervention, immediately after intervention, and six months post-intervention. Results showed that the experimental group exhibited significantly reduced levels of depressive symptoms and rumination after intervention compared to pre-intervention levels. Long-term follow-up assessments further demonstrated superior outcomes compared to the immediate post-intervention period. In contrast, the control group showed no significant changes across all assessment points. No significant differences existed between the two groups in all indicators prior to intervention. Post-intervention, the experimental group scored significantly lower than the control group across all measures. This indicates that self-compassion group intervention effectively improves depressive states and rumination in depressed college students, with intervention effects demonstrating good long-term stability.

In online comment sections, it is common for netizens to express moral outrage toward norm-violating behaviors. However, how comments rebutting such outrage influence public attitudes remains underexplored. This study examines the effects of different rebuttal styles directed at outraged commenters (aggressive vs. rational) and comment virality (high exposure/viral vs. low exposure/non-viral) on public attitudes through two experiments. Study 1 found that aggressive rebuttals against netizens expressing moral outrage improved observers’ impressions of those outraged commenters (an effect that held across both high- and low-exposure conditions), but had no significant impact on sympathy toward the original norm violators who sparked the controversy. Study 2 found that rational rebuttals significantly worsened observers’ impressions of the outraged commenters and increased sympathy for the norm violators, but this effect occurred only under high-exposure (viral) conditions. The research reveals the differentiated effects of counter-speech against moral outrage under varying expressive styles and propagation scales, providing empirical evidence for guiding more rational online discussions.

Based on self-identity, emotional projection, and social identity theories, this study constructed an idol worship-identity threat-aggressive behavior model and examined the effects of idol worship and social distance on aggression among college students through two situational experiments. Results showed that at the explicit aggression level, idol worship significantly predicted aggressive behavior. Moreover, idol worship and social distance interacted: Individuals high in idol worship exhibited stronger aggressive tendencies toward close friends than toward strangers. A similar interaction was found at the implicit aggression level: Participants high in idol worship showed stronger implicit aggression toward close friends than toward strangers. These findings reveal the interactive effects of idol worship and social distance on aggression, offering a context-dependent perspective for understanding aggressive behavior in college students.

Existing research on whether people prefer to adopt advice from humans or artificial intelligence (AI) has yielded conflicting findings: Some studies demonstrate people’s preference for human advice, manifesting algorithm aversion, while others show preference for AI advice, indicating algorithm appreciation. Integrating the dual-attitude model and dual-system theory, constructs a cognitive mechanism model, which propose that people hold relatively positive explicit attitudes yet negative implicit attitudes toward AI (vs. human advisors). In addition, intuitive decision-making processes activate negative implicit attitudes towards AI, leading to aversion towards AI advice. Conversely, rational decision-making processes suppress negative implicit attitudes towards AI and activate positive explicit attitudes, resulting in a preference for AI advice. This model systematically explains why and when people prefer AI or human advice, and can integrate contradictory findings from the perspectives of dual attitudes and distinct decision processes. Future research should investigate the dynamic changes in dual attitudes toward AI and focus on implicit attitudes toward AI, thereby better facilitating positive human-AI interactions.