Table of Content

15 January 2025, Volume 41 Issue 1

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Analogy Reasoning Deficits in Children with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder: Executive Function or Analogy Strategies?

ZHOU Haichun, CHEN Yinghe, QI Yue, CHEN Yue, DU Xingyu, YU Lingjun, YU Xiao

Psychological Development and Education. 2025, 41(1):  1-11.  doi:10.16187/j.cnki.issn1001-4918.2025.01.01

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Analogical reasoning is the central driver of individuals’ cognitive development. We recruited a total of 41 children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and 46 typically developing (TD) children and captured their eye movements in the process of completing the A∶B∶∶C∶D analogical reasoning task by eye-tracking technology. Differences in analogical reasoning performance and eye movement patterns between ADHD and TD children were examined. Furthermore, we investigated whether executive function or analogical reasoning strategies were associated with ADHD children’s deficits in analogical reasoning. The results showed that: (1) Children with ADHD had significantly lower correct rates and longer reaction times than TD children, and they spent significantly more time searching around the target situation and fixating on the perceptual distraction; (2) Children with ADHD had significantly lower inhibitory control abilities compared with TD children, whereas there was no significant difference in terms of analogical strategies. Besides, the hierarchical regression demonstrated that only inhibitory control significantly contributed to the group differences in analogical reasoning performance. These findings suggest that the deficits in executive function, rather than analogical strategies relate to the deficits in analogical reasoning in children with ADHD.

Development of Semantic False Memories in Adolescents: Study and Test Factors

GUO Ying, CHEN Xiaodan, LIU Wenzhi, LIU Yutong, ZHU Bi

Psychological Development and Education. 2025, 41(1):  12-21.  doi:10.16187/j.cnki.issn1001-4918.2025.01.02

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This study investigated the development of semantic false memories in Chinese adolescents, and explored the effect of learning and testing on adolescents’ semantic false memories by comparing visual versus auditory studies and immediate versus delayed tests. Experiment 1 examined the differences in semantic false recall among middle school, high school and college students. Experiment 2 explored the differences in semantic false recognition between high school and college students on immediate and delayed one-week tests. Experiment 3 explored the differences in semantic false recognition between high school and college students after visual and auditory learning. Results showed that semantic false recall of middle and high school students was lower than that of college students, while true recall of middle school students was lower than that of high school and college students (Experiment 1). Prolonged testing intervals led to a decrease in true recognition and an increase in false recognition. Specifically, high school students had lower true recognition rates and comparable false recognition rates than college students in the immediate test, while high school students had both lower true and false recognition rates than college students in the delayed test (Experiment 2). Both high school students and college students had higher true recognition and lower false recognition in the immediate visual test after visual learning than after auditory learning, with no age group differences (Experiment 3). In support of fuzzy trace theory, these findings illustrate the development of verbatim and gist traces and may help us to understand the memory development of adolescents.

The Neural Correlates of Convergent Thinking Measured by Remote Association Test

LI Wenfu, Wang Kangcheng, CHEN Jingting, LIU Chuanxin, QIU Jiang

Psychological Development and Education. 2025, 41(1):  22-31.  doi:10.16187/j.cnki.issn1001-4918.2025.01.03

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Convergent thinking is a crucial measurable component of creativity, however, the neural basis of convergent thinking remains unclear. Using resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (rs-fMRI) and remote association test (RAT), the present study used both ReHo (Regional Homogeneity) and ALFF (Amplitude of Low Frequency Fluctuation) to explore the neural correlates of convergent thinking. Results showed that the score of RAT was significantly negatively associated with ALFF in the precuneus while positively associated with ALFF in the right Rolandic operculum extending into Insula. Meanwhile, the results also revealed that RAT was significantly negatively correlated with the ReHo in the left Inferior Frontal Gyrus (IFG) extending into pars opercularis and the left IFG extending into precentral gyrus. The present research explored for the first time the association between both ALFF and ReHo and convergent thinking measured by RAT. The results were discussed from the possible functions of these brain regions in spatial imagination, information integration and attention orientation.

The Relationship between Creativity Anxiety and Real-life Creativity: Chain Mediating Effects of Cognitive Flexibility and Creative Process Engagement

XIANG Shuoqi, LI Yadan, YE Chaoqun, YANG Weixing, GUO Xipei, ZHANG Lingling, HU Weiping

Psychological Development and Education. 2025, 41(1):  32-41.  doi:10.16187/j.cnki.issn1001-4918.2025.01.04

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Based on the Attentional Control Theory (ACT) and the Creative Process Theory (CPT), this study explored the relationship between creativity anxiety and real-life creativity (creative activities, CAct; creative achievements, CAch) and examined the potential chain mediating roles of cognitive flexibility (alternatives, AS; control, CS) and creative process engagement (problem identification, PI; information searching and encoding, ISE; idea generation, IG) between them. Four hundred and ten college students (M = 20.320, SD = 0.694) were recruited randomly. The results were as follows: (1) Creativity anxiety negatively predicted both creative activity (CAct) and creative achievement (CAch); (2) Creativity anxiety associates with creative activity (CAct) through the chain mediating effect of three paths (CA→AS→PI→CAct; CA→AS→IG→CAct; CA→CS→PI→CAct); (3) Creativity anxiety associates with creative achievement (CAch) through the chain mediating effect of another three paths (CA→AS→ISE→CAch; CA→AS→IG→CAch; CA→CS→ISE→CAch). This study is beneficial to understanding the underlying mechanism between creativity anxiety and real-life creativity and expanding the application scope of ACT and CPT. More importantly, these findings for intervening adverse effects of creativity anxiety on creative performance provide an adequate basis.

The Effect of Criticism on Behavior Improvement Intention of Junior and Senior High School Students: The Effect of Teacher-student Relationship Intimacy

CHENG Yahua, YAN Lin, ZHANG Feng

Psychological Development and Education. 2025, 41(1):  42-50.  doi:10.16187/j.cnki.issn1001-4918.2025.01.05

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The current study aims to investigate the effect of criticism on teacher-student relationship intimacy and behavior improvement intention of junior and senior high school students, and test the hypothesized mediating effect of teacher-student relationship intimacy between criticism and behavior improvement intention. Results showed that, compared to outcome criticism: (1) For junior high school students, both person criticism and process criticism had a destructive effect on students’ teacher-student relationship intimacy, which in turn contributed to an decrease in their behavior improvement intention; (2) For senior high school students, process criticism could positively promote students’ perception of the teacher-student relationship intimacy, which had a subsequent positive effect on their behavior improvement intention. Person criticism, however, had a negative effect on students’ perception of the teacher-student relationship intimacy, which in turn negatively weakened their behavior improvement intention. These findings not only help to deeply understand the psychological mechanism of criticism undermining students to develop good behavior patterns, but also provide an accurate scientific basis for seeking criticism strategies for students’ behaviors in different academic stages.

The Relationship between Interparental Conflict and Prosocial Behavior in Adolescents: The Role of Interpersonal Trust and Empathy

YOU Zhiqi, GUO Yushun, ZHANG Lu, LI Xiaojun

Psychological Development and Education. 2025, 41(1):  51-59.  doi:10.16187/j.cnki.issn1001-4918.2025.01.06

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A total of 1612 adolescents in grades 4~9 were investigated using the questionnaire method. On the basis of Attachment Theory and Emotional Security Theory, a structural equation model was used to examine the mediating mechanism of interpersonal trust and empathy in the relationship between interparental conflict and prosocial behaviour in adolescents. The research results showed that while the direct path between interparental conflict and prosocial behaviour was not significant, interparental conflict indirectly affected prosocial behaviour through the separate mediating effect of empathy and the sequential mediating effect of interpersonal trust and empathy. The research extends relevant theories and provides a basis for effective interventions for the promotion of prosocial behaviour in adolescents.

The Role of Character Positional Frequency in Chinese Word Recognition in Semantic Categorization Task

CAO Haibo, LAN Zebo, GAO Feng, WANG Jingxin

Psychological Development and Education. 2025, 41(1):  60-67.  doi:10.16187/j.cnki.issn1001-4918.2025.01.07

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Understanding the cognitive mechanisms underlying word segmentation has been an important aspect of research on Chinese reading. Accordingly, to obtain insight into the influence of character positional frequency during Chinese word segmentation, we investigated the effects of orthogonally manipulating both initial and final character positional frequency for target words that were of either high or low lexical frequency through two semantic categorization tasks. In Experiment 1, low-frequency words were used to examine the effect of character positional frequency. The results indicated that the initial character positional frequency was significant in reaction time, and had no effect on the final character positional frequency for target words. In Experiment 2, high-frequency words were used to investigate the effect of character positional frequency. The results showed no character positional frequency effect for the initial or final target words. In conclusion, the findings show that the character positional frequency plays a more important role in word processing, which reveals a privileged role for the initial character positional frequency as a cue to word segmentation and recognition. Furthermore, this influence of character positional frequency depends on word frequency; and is only observed for words of lower lexical frequency.

The Developmental Trajectories of Idiom Comprehension and Its Influential Factors in Chinese Middle-grade Primary School Children

XIE Ruibo, FANG Yuanyuan, WU Xinchun, NGUYEN Thi Phuong, ZHAO Ying

Psychological Development and Education. 2025, 41(1):  68-76.  doi:10.16187/j.cnki.issn1001-4918.2025.01.08

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Chinese idiom is an important part of children’s language development, and exists widely in spoken and written language. In this study, 283 third-grade Chinese children were selected and followed up three times from grade 3 entering to grade 5 for two years. A latent variable growth model was used to explore the developmental trajectories of high semantic decomposition idiom, middle semantic decomposition idiom, and semantic indecomposable idiom, and the predictive effects of phonological awareness, morphological awareness, and reading comprehension on the developmental trajectories of the three types of idioms. The results showed that: (1) All three types of idioms showed a linear development trend over time with significant individual differences in the initial level and development speed, and there were compensatory effects on the development of high semantic decomposition idiom and middle semantic decomposition idiom; (2) Phonological awareness and reading comprehension could positively predict the initial level of high semantic decomposition idiom, morphological awareness and reading comprehension could positively predict the initial level of middle semantic decomposition idiom, while the initial level of semantic indecomposable idiom was only significantly positively predicted by morphological awareness; (3) Reading comprehension was a positive predictor and morphological awareness was a negative predictor of the development speed of semantic indecomposable idiom. These results indicate that phonological awareness, morphological awareness, and reading comprehension play different roles in the development of three types of idioms, which enriches the recognition of Chinese idioms and has important implications for future idiom teaching.

The Effect of Family Atmosphere on Self-esteem and Mental Health: A Three-year Longitudinal Study

LI Qiming, LI Qi

Psychological Development and Education. 2025, 41(1):  77-85.  doi:10.16187/j.cnki.issn1001-4918.2025.01.09

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To explore the effects of family atmosphere and self-esteem on adolescents’ mental health, we conducted a three-year longitudinal study with an interval of one year from a total of 243 adolescents. Our results demonstrated that: (1) Family atmosphere and mental health were stable across three years with no significant change from each point (T1, T2, T3), whereas self-esteem showed an increasing trend across three years; (2) Cross-lagged analysis showed that only family atmosphere (T1) Could positively predict mental health (T2), and family atmosphere (T2) could positively predict mental health (T3); (3) Only self-esteem (T1) could positively predict mental health (T2), and self-esteem (T2) could positively predict mental health (T3), and it only supported the vulnerability model; (4) Self-esteem (T2) partly mediated the effects of family atmosphere (T1) on mental health (T3), besides, there was no significant gender difference in the cross-lagged model. These findings shed light on the importance of altering family atmosphere and promoting self-esteem in enhancing mental health.

Reciprocal Relations between Interpersonal Sensitivity and Problem Behaviors among Left-behind Children: Between- and Within-person Effects

XU Shanshan, HUANG Shuzhen, CUI Xiumin, CHEN Hui, LIN Xiuyun

Psychological Development and Education. 2025, 41(1):  86-98.  doi:10.16187/j.cnki.issn1001-4918.2025.01.10

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This study examined the between-and within-person reciprocal relationships between interpersonal sensitivity and problem behaviors among left-behind children using cross-lagged modeling (CLPM) and random intercept cross-lagged modeling analysis (RI-CLPM). A sample of 545 left-behind children completed a three-wave longitudinal survey. Data analysis revealed: (1) The results of the CLPM demonstrated a significant reciprocal relationship between the interpersonal sensitivity of left-behind children and their internalizing and externalizing problems at the between-person level, respectively; (2) The RI-CLPM revealed significant within-person reciprocal relationships between interpersonal sensitivity and internalizing problems, but no significant within-person reciprocal relationships between interpersonal sensitivity and externalizing problems were found; (3) No differences were found in the reciprocal relationship between interpersonal sensitivity and problem behaviors among different types of left-behind children. These findings highlight the importance of distinguishing between- and within-person associations. Future prevention or intervention research should focus on left-behind children with high levels of interpersonal sensitivity, internalizing problems, and externalizing problems. Educators and parents need to make efforts to reduce the interpersonal sensitivity and internalizing problems of left-behind children in order to break the vicious cycle.

The Association between Teacher-student Relationship and Aggressive Behavior in Elementary School Students: Roles of Self-esteem and Parent-child Cohesion

YU Bin, GUO Cheng, MIAO Hualing, PENG Yujue

Psychological Development and Education. 2025, 41(1):  99-108.  doi:10.16187/j.cnki.issn1001-4918.2025.01.11

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In the current study, 5482 students in grade 4 to 6 from 7 elementary schools were investigated to explore the relationship between teacher-student relationship and aggressive behavior of elementary school students through questionnaires, and to examine the mechanism of self-esteem and parent-child cohesion. After controlling for gender and age, the results showed that: (1) The teacher-student relationship significantly negatively predicted aggressive behavior of elementary school students; (2) Teacher-student relationship indirectly negatively predicted aggressive behavior of elementary school students through self-esteem; (3) Both the direct and indirect effects of teacher-student relationship on aggressive behavior of elementary school students were moderated by parent-child cohesion. Specifically, with the increase of parent-child cohesion, the positive predictive effect of teacher-student relationship on self-esteem and the negative predictive effect on aggressive behavior were enhanced, while the negative predictive effect of self-esteem on aggressive behavior was weakened, and vice versa. This study is helpful to reveal the relationship between teacher-student relationship and aggressive behavior of elementary school students and has certain implications for the prevention and intervention of aggressive behavior of elementary school students.

The Relationship between Negative Life Events and Internet Addiction in Junior Middle School Students: The Roles of Social Anxiety and Boredom Proneness

ZHOU Ziyan, HU Xiao, ZHANG Yilin, SU Ruilin, XIN Sufei, SHENG Liang

Psychological Development and Education. 2025, 41(1):  109-116.  doi:10.16187/j.cnki.issn1001-4918.2025.01.12

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This study investigated the relationship between negative life events and Internet addiction among 3880 junior middle school students and examined the chain mediating effect of social anxiety and boredom proneness. The results showed that: (1) Negative life events can significantly and positively predict Internet addiction among junior middle school students; (2) Social anxiety and boredom proneness partially mediated the relationship between negative life events and Internet addiction, respectively; (3) Negative life events can also indirectly predict Internet addiction through the chain mediating effect of social anxiety and boredom proneness. Combined with the above findings and based on the modified Interaction of Person-Affect-Cognition-Execution (I-PACE) model of Internet addicton and the group characteristics of junior middle school students, the present study revealed the internal mechanism of negative environmental factors on junior middle school students’ Internet addiction and important practical implications for intervention work.

The Influence of Awe on Aggressive Behavior among Adolescents: Peer Relationship as a Moderator

LI Xiaoming, MENG Yuan, YANG Zhiqing, LIU Xiaodan

Psychological Development and Education. 2025, 41(1):  117-125.  doi:10.16187/j.cnki.issn1001-4918.2025.01.13

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This study explored the effects of awe (positive and negative awe) on adolescent aggression and the moderating effect of peer relationships through objectively manipulating individuals’ emotional states of awe. The study aimed to provide suggestions for educators to intervene effectively in adolescents’ aggressive behavior. The results showed that: (1) Awe (especially positive awe) and good peer relationships could effectively inhibit adolescent aggressive behavior; (2) Peer relationships moderated the effect of awe on adolescent aggression, and positive awe had a stronger suppressive effect on aggression in those with poor peer relationships than in those with good peer relationships. Current research reveals the importance of developing awe in adolescents with social adjustment problems.

Identity Confusion and Adolescent Non-suicidal Self-injury: The Mediating Role of Alienation and the Moderating Role of Difficulties in Emotional Regulation

GU Honglei, HUANG Jia, LI Jiacheng

Psychological Development and Education. 2025, 41(1):  126-134.  doi:10.16187/j.cnki.issn1001-4918.2025.01.14

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Adolescents are at high risk of non-suicidal self-injury (NSSI), and the prevalence rate of adolescent NSSI has been increasing in recent years. Based on the boundaries model of NSSI, this study aimed to explore the relationship between identity confusion and adolescent NSSI. From the perspective of experiential avoidance, a moderated mediation model was proposed to examine the mediating role of alienation and the moderating role of difficulties in emotional regulation. 1319 adolescents were investigated using the Non-suicidal Self-injury Scale, the identity subscale from Erikson Psychosocial Inventory, the interpersonal alienation subscale from Adolescent Students Alienation Scale, and the Difficulties in Emotion Regulation Scale. The results indicated that after controlling gender and age, identity confusion was positively associated with adolescent NSSI, and this association was mediated by alienation. Difficulty in emotion regulation moderated the mediation effect of alienation in the association between identity confusion and NSSI. Specifically, the mediation effect of alienation was significant only for the adolescents with higher level of difficulties in emotion regulation. This study examines the relationship between the central task of adolescent development (i.e., identity) and NSSI, which has practical implications for preventing and reducing adolescent NSSI.

Irritability in Early Childhood: Characteristics, Measurements, Risk Factors and Interventions

LI Yanwei, HUANG Yiyi, ZHAI Qingzhuo, ZHOU Wenqin, YUAN Zongjin

Psychological Development and Education. 2025, 41(1):  135-144.  doi:10.16187/j.cnki.issn1001-4918.2025.01.15

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Irritability is an important transdiagnostic feature for a wide range of psychiatric disorders. This paper summarized the definition of irritability and pointed out that irritability is common during early childhood. Early childhood irritability is developmental and might be harmful to an individual's future life. Based on this, a variety of measurements of early childhood irritability, along with its risk factors and mental interventions were introduced. Future research in this field should focus on the following aspects: (1) Developing a multimodal and multi-index measurement system; (2) Investigating the complex impact mechanisms for early childhood irritability from the perspective of cognitive-emotional interaction and the bidirectional mechanism between irritability and its risk factors; (3) Designing individualized and multidimensional human-computer interactive intervention programs.

The “Saying-Is-Believing” Effect: From the Perspective of Shared Reality Theory

CUI Ziqian, ZHANG Huan, LIU Xiping

Psychological Development and Education. 2025, 41(1):  145-152.  doi:10.16187/j.cnki.issn1001-4918.2025.01.16

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In the process of interpersonal communication, speakers usually adjust their oral output according to the characteristics of the audience, which is called the audience-tuning effect. Meanwhile, speakers’ memory of the output information was changed in a long-term period, which is called the “Saying-Is-Believing” (SIB) effect. Early theories (the basic information process and the cognitive dissonance) had attempted to explain this phenomenon, but the research evidence remained controversial. According to the recent shared reality theory, humans are driven by epistemic motivation and affiliative motivation to work with others to build a shared reality representation of the world, which leads to the SIB effect. Future studies should explore the challenges and revelations of shared reality theory in explaining the SIB effect. In addition, researchers should also combine the methods of social cognitive neuroscience to explore the neural process and its cognitive explanation of the SIB effect on a broader scale and pay more attention to the widespread application of the SIB effect in real life.