This study investigated the effect of numerical acuity levels on the performance and estimation patterns in non-symbolic and symbolic number line estimation (NLE) tasks among 4- and 5-year-old children. One hundred and fifty two 4-year-old children and 102 5-year-old children completed two types of SFON task (one is imitation SFON, and the other is automatic SFON) and three types of NLE tasks (non-symbolic area, number-to-position (NP), and position-to-number (PN)). We found three important results: Firstly, latent profile analysis showed that the levels of numerical acuity were classified as high, average, and poor for 4-year-old children, and that were classified as top and average for children aged 5 years. Children's perceptual acuity in capturing numerical information increased significantly from 4 to 5 years old, experiencing a process from relying on reference cue to independent and spontaneous acquisition. Secondly, there existed a context effect on the performance of NLE for 4- and 5-year-old children. All children performed better on non-symbolic area NLE task than that on symbolic NP and PN NLE tasks. Thirdly, the numerical acuity affected performance patterns and strategy use of NLE. Most 5-year-olds can choose appropriate estimation strategies on either non-symbolic NLE or symbolic NLE tasks flexibly. These findings confirm the hypothesis of four-step developmental model, uncover the internal mechanism of children’s mental numerical representation, and provide a theoretical reference for identifying, predicting and screening preschool children with risk of low numerical acuity.

The present study used real-life examples of scientific inventions as experimental material to explore the effects of sensation seeking and tolerance of ambiguity on prototype-inspired scientific creative problem finding. Experiment 1 used sensation seeking and prototype treatment as independent variables, it was found that individuals in the high sensation seeking group were significantly more likely to be inspired by prototypes to ask novel scientific questions than those in the low group. Experiment 2 used tolerance of ambiguity and prototype treatment as independent variables, and found that individuals with high ambiguity tolerance were better at using prototype information to ask more novel and useful scientific questions. In addition, individuals in the prototype condition had a higher rate of raising novel or novel and useful science questions. The findings suggested that prototypes have a stable inspirational effect on scientific creative problem finding, and that sensation seeking and tolerance of ambiguity are important personality traits for scientific creative problem finding inspired by prototypes, and have different effects on novel or novel and useful scientific problem formulation.

The visual form perception hypothesis holds that form perception is the common cognitive basis of both language and mathematics. Previous studies have investigated the role of form perception in different types of mathematical abilities, but its role in different types and levels of language abilities is not clear. The present study examined the independent contribution of form perception to different types of language abilities in Grade 5 primary school students. The results showed that after controlling age, gender, intelligence and processing speed, form perception had a significantly independent contribution to phonological processing, orthographic awareness and semantic understanding at the lexical level, and reading comprehension at the sentence level, but had no significant contribution to reading comprehension at the textual level. The results showed that form perception played a significant role in the abilities of language fluency which could be processed quickly, but not in the complex non-fluency language abilities.

The present study aimed to examine the effect of group-based competition on children’s fair resource allocation, and further explore the role of group bias motivations (including ingroup favoritism and outgroup hate). Using cluster sampling method, 268 3- to 8-year-old children from a kindergarten and primary school in Shandong Province were studied to compare their resource allocation and group bias motivations in competitive (further divided into win and lose conditions) and noncompetitive conditions. We found that: (1) With age, children allocated more resources to their own group when they won and allocated less resources to their own group when they lost; (2) The group bias motivation was mainly manifested as ingroup favoritism rather than outgroup hate, but the in-group favoritism motivation weakened with age; (3) Ingroup favoritism positively predicted children’s allocations to their own group in the lose condition. Overall, the results showed that with age, children allocated according to the competition outcome in group-based competition context, and the reduction of group bias (manifest mainly as ingroup favoritism) in the lose condition is an important explanation for children making more fair allocations.

Based on interactionist model of creative behavior and general strain theory, the study aims to examine the relationship between negative parenting style and malevolent creativity behaviors, and the mediating role of moral disengagement and the moderating role of gender. A total of 926 college students in three universities in Changsha City were recruited by cluster sampling method, the short form of EMBU, the adolescent moral disengagement scale and the malevolent creativity behavior scale. The results showed that: (1) Negative parenting style positively predicted the malevolent creative behaviors; (2) Moral disengagement mediated the relationship between negative parenting style and malevolent creative behaviors; (3) Gender played a moderating role in the first half of the mediating path of “negative parenting style→moral disengagement→malevolent creativity behaviors”, and the positive correlation between negative parenting style and moral disengagement was stronger in men than in women.

The present study aimed to investigate the effects of knowledge of Chinese character component on character recognition and reading comprehension in 123 children from Grades 1 to 3. Hierarchical regression analysis indicated that: (1) Knowledge of Chinese character component in Grades 1 to 3 was a significant predictor of character recognition in Grade 3 after controlling the effects of IQ, vocabulary, and phonological awareness, and the contribution of Grades 2 and 3 is higher than that of Grade 1; (2) Knowledge of Chinese character component in Grade 1 has no unique contribution to reading comprehension in Grade 3, but knowledge of Chinese character component in Grades 2 and 3 has a unique contribution after controlling the effects of IQ, vocabulary, and phonological awareness, and the contribution of Grade 3 is higher than that of Grade 2; (3) Knowledge of Chinese character component still explained variance in reading comprehension after further controlling character recognition. These results underscore the importance of knowledge of Chinese character component for the development of children’s character recognition and reading comprehension, and the contribution of knowledge of Chinese character component to character recognition and reading comprehension changes with development. Specifically, the contribution of knowledge of Chinese character component to reading ability increases across children’s grade.

In order to examine the effect of negative school gossip on middle school students’ mind wandering in class and its mechanism, based on the executive failure hypothesis and sex-role theory, the present study constructed a moderated mediation model. By cluster sampling method, a sample of 778 junior and senior high school students was recruited to complete the negative school gossip scale, patient health questionnaire 4, and mind wandering questionnaire for youth. Results showed that: (1) After controlling for age, negative school gossip significantly positively predicted middle school students’ mind wandering in class; (2) Negative emotion played a full mediating effect in the relationship between negative school gossip and mind wandering in class; (3) Gender moderated the first path of this mediating effect, such that the indirect effect was much stronger for girls than for boys. These findings revealed the formation mechanism of adolescents’ mind wandering in class from the perspective of interpersonal stress and unhealthy emotion, which had a certain reference value for the intervention.

The current study used latent profile analysis (LPA) to identify profiles of peer victimization among rural-to-urban migrant children and determine whether specific victimization profiles were associated with parent-child communication. Participants were 719 rural-to-urban migrant children in Grades 4 to 6 of three elementary schools in Beijing. Results suggested that: (1) Latent profile analyses identified four profiles: high-chronic victims (3.89%), moderate victims (11.13%), moderate-low relational victims (26.84%) and low victims (58.14%). There were significant differences in internalizing and externalizing problems across different victimization profiles; (2) Migrant children with higher levels of parent-child communication were less likely to be classified into profiles with higher frequency and more various forms of peer victimization. The current study identified four profiles that demonstrate the heterogeneity of peer victimization among rural-to-urban migrant children, as well as the protective role of parent-child communication. This study revealed distinct peer victimization patterns in a sample of migrant children and illustrated the protective role of parent-child communication among identified profiles. These findings provide significant implications for prevention and intervention strategies to reduce peer victimization among rural-to-urban migrant children.

To explore the influencing factors related to peer victimization from the home-school co-parenting perspective, a moderated mediation model was constructed to examine the effects of parent-child relationship, teacher-student relationship, and depressive symptoms on peer victimization. The Inventory of Parent and Peer Attachment, the short version of the Student-Teacher Relationship Scale, the Multidimensional Peer Victimization Scale, and the short version of the Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale were used to investigate the students’ parent-child relationship, teacher-student relationship, peer victimization and depressive symptoms. 1710 5th-8th grade students participated in the study. The results showed that: (1) On the one hand, parent-child relationship directly affects depressive symptoms, and indirectly affects peer victimization through depressive symptoms on the other hand; (2) Teacher-student relationship had a moderating effect on all three pathways of the mediating model and played different roles. Specifically, teacher-student relationship would enhance the protection effect of parent-child relationship on peer victimization, weaken the prediction of parent-child relationship on depressive symptoms and the positive prediction of depressive symptoms on peer victimization. The present study confirmed the feasibility of preventing school bullying from the perspective of home-school cooperation, and suggested that special school bullying management activities should fully consider the interaction between family and school to maximize the double insurance role of both.

This study aims to identify different types of family functioning trajectories during junior high school years, investigate their influence on 9th Grade Internet addiction, and further examine the mediating role of resilience between them. In a sample of 1301 junior high school students, this study assessed these constructs via the Family Functioning Questionnaire, the Internet Addiction Scale and the Psychological Resilience Questionnaire over three years. The results showed that: (1) Four heterogenetic types of family functioning trajectories were identified over the three-year period in junior high school—“consistently low” (family functioning) group (12.5%), “consistently high” group (68.5%), “low but increasing” group (10.1%), and “high but decreasing” group (9.0%); (2) Compared to individuals in the “consistently high” group, the ones in the “high but decreasing” and the “consistently low” groups had significantly higher levels of Internet addiction in 9th Grade, and the ones in the “low but increasing” group had significantly lower levels of Internet addiction in 9th Grade; (3) When using the “consistently high” group as the reference group, individuals’ resilience at 9th Grade significantly mediated the association between family functioning trajectories (specifically in the “high but decreasing”, “consistently low”, and “low but increasing” groups) and their 9th Grade Internet addition.

Based on cognitive-relational theory of emotion and coping and Interpersonal theories, 1292 adolescents (age = 14.64 ± 0.63 years) were selected as subjects in a follow-up study to explore the effect of defeat on depression, nSSI and suicidal ideation. The results showed that :(1) Defeat is a risk factor for adolescent mental health; (2) There were four types of interpersonal relationship among adolescents: interpersonal relationship risk group, father-child relationship high-risk group, interpersonal relationship general group and interpersonal relationship advantage group; (3) Perceived stress played a partially mediating role in the relationship between defeat and depression, NSSI and suicidal ideation; (4) Interpersonal relationship types modereated the second half of the mediation model, namely, the effect of perceived stress on adolescent depression, NSSI and suicidal ideation. Specifically, with the increase of interpersonal relationship score, the effect of perceived stress on adolescent mental health decreased, and in the interpersonal relationship advantage group, perceived stress could not predict adolescent NSSI. The results showed that interpersonal relationship could buffer the negative impact of stress. The current study used latent profile analysis to reveal the mediating and moderating effects of perceived stress and interpersonal relationship types, providing more explanations for the developmental mechanisms of depression, NSSI and suicidal ideation among adolescents.

Using two-wave longitudinal study, the present study examined the relationship between bullying victimization and self-injury and the mediating role of loneliness as well as the moderating role of teacher justice. A sample of 2675 students from 7 secondary schools in one city of China (Mean_age = 13.96 years old, 51.70% boys) completed anonymous questionnaires twice within six months. The results showed that: (1) After controlling gender, age and T1 self-injury, T1 bullying victimization was positively predicted T2 self-injury; (2) T2 loneliness mediated the relationship between T1 bullying victimization and T2 self-injury; (3) The effect of T2 loneliness on T2 self-injury was moderated by T1 teacher justice, with the effect being non-significant for students with high perception of teacher justice.

Childhood abuse and neglect were found to be related to more depression in adolescents. However, the specific mechanism of this relationship was not understood well. In light of the previous theoretical and empirical studies, this study inserted self-esteem and self-disclosure between abuse and neglect and depression, in order to examine the underlying mechanism of abuse and neglect to depression and elucidate the difference of mechanism underlying abuse and neglect affecting depression via self-esteem and-disclosure. Four thousand nine hundred and seventy-one adolescents were investigated by using the self-reported childhood trauma, self-esteem, self-disclosure, and depression questionnaires, and the structure equation model was used to carry out the data analysis. The results found that both the abuse and neglect had direct significant and positive effect on depression, had indirect significant and positive effect on depression via self-esteem and self-disclosure, respectively. Moreover, both abuse and neglect had a multiple indirect and positive effect on depression via the path from self-esteem to self-disclosure. However, the indirect effect of neglect on depression was stronger than that of abuse on depression. These findings suggested that the mechanism underlying abuse and neglect affecting depression was similar but not was in the effect size.

Early parent-child interaction affects children’s social development. Comprehensive observation of interaction behavior and interaction level is helpful to study the relationship between them more objectively. Based on the application of Coding Interactive Behavior (CIB) in the past nearly 15 years, it is found that early parent-child interaction affects children’s emotional socialization (empathy and emotion regulation) and behavioral socialization (prosocial behavior and internalization and externalization problem behavior). The interaction of biobehavioral synchronization, oxytocin, and attachment related brain networks may be the neurobiological mechanism of this effect, which is modulated by childhood factors, family factors, and environmental factors. Future research should focus on the potential direction and influence range of early parent-child interaction and children’s social development, enrich the research evidence of neurophysiological mechanism, and explore “retrospective” longitudinal research methods to make up for the shortcomings of existing horizontal and longitudinal studies.

In the information age, readers should routinely validate the incoming information during reading comprehension, so as to avoid the intrusion of wrong information or harmful information. The plausibility of information from a text influences the likelihood that this information becomes part of the text’s mental model. Text-based and knowledge-based validation strategies could be used to monitor the plausibility of information. In the conflict detection stage, knowledge-based and text-based validation strategies play a role in the same way. However, in the conflict resolution stage, knowledge-based validation strategy takes precedence over text-based validation strategy. More research should utilize the paradigm of neurophysiology or add the variables of information intensity and working memory into theory framework, so as to obtain a more profound understanding of the mechanism of validation.