The mediating role of social connectedness in the effect of positive personality, alexithymia and emotional granularity on life satisfaction: Analysis based on a structural equation model

Exploring the relationship between resilience and internet addiction in Chinese college students: The mediating roles of life satisfaction and loneliness

Internet addiction is of great impact on college students' academic performance, life quality and mental health. Although it's well documented the association between resilience and Internet addiction among college students, the mechanism underlying it are not well acknowledged. The study applied resilience scale, the Chinese Internet Addiction Scale, Satisfaction with Life Scale and the third edition of the UCLA Loneliness Scale to explore the mechanism of action between resilience and Internet addiction in college students by applied questionnaire investigation. A total of 813 college students (321 male, Mean age = 22.55) participated in the study. We found resilience and life satisfaction of college students were negatively correlated with Internet addiction (β = -0.85, t = -21.35, p < 0.001; β = -0.08, t = -2.23, p < 0.05), while loneliness was positively correlated with Internet addiction (β = 0.17, t = 7.42, p < 0.01). Furthermore, mediating analyses showed life satisfaction and loneliness played mediating role in the relationship between resilience and Internet addiction (β = -0.90, t = -58.76, p < 0.001). Measures such as strengthening the construction of college students' mental health courses to improve their resilience and life satisfaction, and providing rich community activities to reduce college students' loneliness have been put forward to reduce college students' Internet addiction.

Work immersion and perceived stress among clinical nurses: a latent profile analysis and moderated mediation analysis

BACKGROUND

Exploration of the relationship between individual work immersion and perceived stress is critical for clinical nurses' effective psychological interventions and human resource management, as well as to alleviate nursing staff shortages. In order to further dissect the influencing factors of perceived stress among nursing staff, our study introduces the concepts of perfectionism and social connectedness to analyze the specific pathways that influence perceived stress in terms of an individual's intrinsic and external personality traits. This study provides relevant recommendations for the development of stress management measures for nursing staff.

METHODS

This was a cross-sectional survey. 993 registered clinical nurses were included from four hospitals in Guangzhou through a convenience sampling method. Clinical nurses' work immersion, perceived stress, perfectionism, and social connectedness were investigated using questionnaires based on latent profile analysis. The relationships between variables were analyzed using t-tests, analysis of variance, Pearson's correlation analysis, latent profile analysis, and moderated mediation analysis.

RESULTS

The results showed that (1) general influences on nurses' perceived stress included only child, labor relationship, labor allowance, and family support; (2) nurses' work immersion contained four subgroups: lowest (12.6%), medium-low (39.8%), medium-high (39.9%), and highest (7.7%); (3) positive and negative perfectionism played a mediating role between the association of work immersion and perceived stress; (4) social connectedness played a moderating role in the mediation model of perceived stress.

CONCLUSIONS

Work immersion, perfectionism, and social connectedness have an important impact on clinical nurses' perceived stress. Nursing managers or leaders should pay attention to the differences of individual work immersion status, adopt reasonable stress management strategies, accurately identify positive perfectionist groups and strengthen the relationship between groups, so as to ensure the quality of nursing care, and reduce nursing turnover and alleviate the problem of staff shortage.

How and when can job-insecure employees prevent psychological distress against the COVID-19 pandemic? The role of cognitive appraisal and reappraisal

The COVID-19 pandemic has greatly affected economies around the world, causing record unemployment rates that have exacerbated the already prevalent job insecurity, thereby leading to psychological distress among many individuals. The present study aims to reveal the underlying mechanisms of psychological distress induced by the COVID-19 pandemic among job-insecure employees and to identify one of the emotion regulation strategies (i.e., cognitive reappraisal) as a protective factor that mitigates psychological distress. Drawing upon transactional theory, we proposed and tested a moderated mediation model, wherein cognitive reappraisal serves as a moderator of the direct and indirect relationship between job insecurity and psychological distress via stress appraisals (i.e., threat appraisal and challenge appraisal) based on data from 922 employees. Results show that threat appraisal and challenge appraisal positively and negatively mediate the relationship between job insecurity and psychological distress, respectively. Furthermore, as an emotion regulation strategy, cognitive reappraisal mitigates psychological distress among job-insecure employees, weakens the positive indirect effect of threat appraisal, but intensifies the negative indirect effect of challenge appraisal. Our findings suggest that cognition plays an important role in individuals' emotional reactions to COVID-19-related stress, and cognition reappraisal is an effective emotion regulation strategy in mitigating psychological distress. Therefore, cognition reappraisal skills should be improved to reduce psychological distress induced by COVID-19 pandemic.

OXTR polymorphisms and parental bonding modulate alexithymia: The main effects and interaction

Alexithymia is a subclinical personality disorder characterized by difficulties in identifying and expressing one's own emotion. Individual differences in alexithymia are influenced by both genetic and environmental factors. However, the interplay between these factors and their influences on alexithymia are unclear. Considering that oxytocin plays important roles in emotion processing and that parental bonding influences the development of alexithymia, we explored the associations between OXTR polymorphisms and alexithymia and examined whether the potential associations are moderated by parental bonding. To this end, we genotyped the OXTR polymorphisms (rs53576 and rs1042778) and scored alexithymia and parental bonding with the Toronto Alexithymia Scale and the Parental Bonding Instrument. Results indicated that: (1) the characteristics of alexithymia were negatively associated with parental care and positively with parental overprotection; (2) the OXTR rs53576 was significantly associated with the characteristics of alexithymia, such that the AA genotype was associated with fewer difficulties in identifying feelings and describing feelings than the AG/GG genotypes; and (3) the OXTR rs1042778 interacted with parental care in alexithymia with the vantage sensitivity model: the GG genotype was related to less severity of alexithymia than the AG/GG genotypes only in individuals with higher parental care. Overall, these findings suggest that the OXTR is related to alexithymia and that the quality of parental care influences the relationship. However, considering that the evidence from this study is weak, more research is needed to understand the roles of OXTR in alexithymia.

Furthering the language hypothesis of alexithymia: An integrated review and meta-analysis

Alexithymia, including the inability to identify and express one's own feelings, is a subclinical condition responsible for some of the socioemotional symptoms seen across a range of psychiatric conditions. The language hypothesis of alexithymia posits a language-mediated disruption in the development of discrete emotion concepts from ambiguous affective states, exacerbating the risk of developing alexithymia in language-impaired individuals. To provide a critical evaluation, a systematic review and meta-analysis of 29 empirical studies of language functioning in alexithymia was performed. A modest association was found between alexithymia and multi-domain language deficits (r = -0.14), including structural language, pragmatics, and propensity to use emotional language. A more theoretically-relevant subsample analysis comparing alexithymia levels in language-impaired and typical individuals revealed larger effects, but a limited number of studies adopted this approach. A synthesis of 11 emotional granularity studies also found an association between alexithymia and reduced emotional granularity (r = -0.10). Language impairments seem to increase the risk of alexithymia. Heterogeneous samples and methods suggest the need for studies with improved alexithymia assessments.

The effect of mindfulness levels on the life satisfaction of nursing students

PURPOSE

This study was carried out to determine the effect of mindfulness levels on the life satisfaction of nursing students.

DESIGN AND METHODS

A descriptive correlational study was conducted on 333 nursing students enrolled at a state university in Turkey.

FINDINGS

The statistical analysis of the data indicated that students' mindfulness levels had a significantly positive impact on their satisfaction with life.

IMPLICATIONS FOR PRACTICE

Activities that include exercises, meditation and training geared to raise the level of mindfulness can also be beneficial in terms of increasing satisfaction with life.

Relationship Between Proactive Personality and Entrepreneurial Intentions in College Students: Mediation Effects of Social Capital and Human Capital

The research aims to explore the influence mechanism of proactive personality on the entrepreneurial intentions of college students. Adopting proactive personality scale, social capital scale, human capital scale, and entrepreneurial intention scale, this research tested valid samples of 300 Chinese college students. The results revealed that proactive personality exerted a significant and positive impact on the entrepreneurial intentions. Social capital played a partial mediating role between the proactive personality and the entrepreneurial intentions. Human capital also played a partial mediating role between proactive personality and entrepreneurial intentions. Social capital and human capital exerted a chain mediation effect between proactive personality and entrepreneurial intentions. The result of this research offers valuable insights to the study of the influence of college students’ proactive personality on entrepreneurial intentions and provides entrepreneurship education management in colleges with specific practical suggestions so as to improve entrepreneurial intentions among college students.

Couple's Satisfaction among Lebanese adults: validation of the Toronto Alexithymia Scale and Couple Satisfaction Index-4 scales, association with attachment styles and mediating role of alexithymia

Background

Lebanon is passing through an economic crisis leading to a decreased monthly income within a couple and more couple’s dissatisfaction. Furthermore, many studies postulate that the different types of attachment styles affect the romantic relationship experienced between adults. The main objectives of our study were to (1) validate the Toronto Alexithymia Scale (TAS) and Couple Satisfaction Index-4 (CSI-4) scales, and (2) assess the association between attachment styles and couple satisfaction and evaluate the mediating role of alexithymia in these associations.

Methods

This cross-sectional study involved 445 Lebanese participants (April–May 2021). A confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) was carried out using SPSS AMOS v.24 on the couple satisfaction index and Toronto alexithymia scales’ items. A linear regression was conducted, taking the couple satisfaction index as the dependent variable.

Results

The CFA results of the CSI-4 scale indicated an excellent fit (χ²/df = 3.845/2 = 1.92, TLI = 0.992, RMSEA = 0.046 [95% CI 0.001–0.115] (pclose = 0.436) and CFI = 0.998). The CFA of the TAS indicated a good/acceptable fit (χ²/df = 422.31/132 = 3.2, TLI = 0.89, RMSEA = 0.07 [95% CI 0.063–0.078] (pclose < 0.001) and CFI = 0.91) (items 4 and 8 were removed due to low factor loading (< 0.4)). Being married and higher secure attachment style were significantly associated with more couple satisfaction, whereas older age, higher household crowding index, more alexithymia and mode depression were significantly associated with less couple satisfaction. In addition, alexithymia mediated the association between secure attachment style and couple satisfaction, between preoccupied attachment style and couple satisfaction and between dismissing attachment style and couple satisfaction.

Conclusion

Couple’s satisfaction is positively associated with secure attachment style. In addition, alexithymia plays a mediating role between couple’s satisfaction and attachment styles. Upcoming studies should determine if other mental illnesses play a mediating role between attachment style and couple satisfaction.

Associations Between Mental Health, Interoception, Psychological Flexibility, and Self-as-Context, as Predictors for Alexithymia: A Deep Artificial Neural Network Approach

Background: Alexithymia is a personality trait which is characterized by an inability to identify and describe conscious emotions of oneself and others.

Aim: The present study aimed to determine whether various measures of mental health, interoception, psychological flexibility, and self-as-context, predicted through linear associations alexithymia as an outcome. This also included relevant mediators and non-linear predictors identified for particular sub-groups of participants through cluster analyses of an Artificial Neural Network (ANN) output.

Methodology: Two hundred and thirty participants completed an online survey which included the following questionnaires: Toronto alexithymia scale; Acceptance and Action Questionnaire 2 (AQQII); Positive and Negative Affect Scale (PANAS-SF), Depression, Anxiety, and Stress Scale 21 (DAS21); Multidimensional Assessment of Interoceptive Awareness (MAIA); and the Self-as-Context (SAC) scale. A stepwise backwards linear regression and mediation analysis were performed, as well as a cluster analysis of the non-linear ANN upper hidden layer output.

Results: Higher levels of alexithymia were associated with increased psychological inflexibility, lower positive affect scores, and lower interoception for the subscales of “not distracting” and “attention regulation.” SAC mediated the relation between emotional regulation and total alexithymia. The ANNs accounted for more of the variance than the linear regressions, and were able to identify complex and varied patterns within the participant subgroupings.

Conclusion: The findings were discussed within the context of developing a SAC processed-based therapeutic model for alexithymia, where it is suggested that alexithymia is a complex and multi-faceted condition, which requires a similarly complex, and process-based approach to accurately diagnose and treat this condition.