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The current study explored the role of teacher-child relationship plays on the relationship between preschooler's shyness level and externalizing problem. The sample consisted of 463 children from 6 preschools of Shandong province in northern China. Mothers reported the shyness level, aggressive behavior, and attention problem of their children, whereas teachers rated the teacher-child relationships. Among the results, the shyness level of girls were significantly higher than that of boys; children's age was significantly and negatively correlated with parents' rating of child shyness, aggressive behavior, and attention problem; shyness was associated with more aggressive behaviors, more attention problems, higher teacher-child dependence, higher teacher-child conflict, and lower teacher-child closeness. The aggressive behavior was associated with higher teacher-child dependence and higher teacher-child conflict. Teacher-child closeness moderated the relationship between shyness and externalizing problem (including aggressive behavior and attention problem). Teacher-child dependency moderated the relationship between shyness and aggressive behavior.

Numerous studies have reported that individuals' loneliness, anxiety, and depression levels increased during the COVID‐19 pandemic period. However, reciprocal associations among loneliness, anxiety, and depression, as well as gender differences in these associations, have not been investigated. Therefore, temporal associations among loneliness, anxiety, and depression and gender differences in these associations were examined in a longitudinal study during the COVID‐19 pandemic period. The loneliness, anxiety, and depression levels of 458 university students were evaluated at three timepoints (T1, T2, and T3) during the COVID‐19 pandemic period in China. The timepoints were separated by 1 month. Cross‐lagged panel designs were used to examine reciprocal associations among loneliness, anxiety, and depression as well as the stability and gender differences of these associations. Cross‐lagged panel analysis revealed that T1 depression positively predicted T2 anxiety and loneliness, T1 loneliness positively predicted T2 depression, T2 anxiety positively predicted T3 depression, T2 depression positively predicted T3 anxiety and loneliness, T2 loneliness positively predicted T3 depression, and T1 loneliness positively predicted T3 anxiety through the mediating role of T2 depression. No gender differences were observed in the cross‐lagged associations. During the COVID‐19 pandemic period, loneliness and depression predicted each other across time, and loneliness predicted anxiety across time, mediated by depression. No gender differences were observed in the cross‐lagged associations among loneliness, anxiety, and depression.

The association between hope and depression has been studied, leaving the underlying mechanism of how hope might predict depression unexplored. With a cross-sectional design, this study investigated two possible mediating factors in the relationship between hope and depression among Chinese shadow education tutors, who confront a high turnover rate and are at high risk for depression. Altogether, 221 tutors participated in the survey, and reported their dispositional hope, perceived social support (PSS), perceived stress (PS), and depression. Results indicated that both PSS and PS mediated the relationship between hope and depression. Results also supported the hypothesized serial mediating effect. In other words, hope as a positive disposition may promote PSS, which can mitigate PS. The reduced PS, in turn, alleviates depression. This finding not only shed light on the independent and accumulative mediating effects of PSS and PS, but also has implications for preventive interventions among Chinese shadow education tutors experiencing the enormous pressure of instability. This serial mediation model should be confirmed by further longitudinal study.

Empathy is one of the leading social abilities to understand or feel the emotions of other people. Attachment is thought to be a critical influential factor of empathy, as revealed by attachment theory and experimental studies, while empathy is also believed to facilitate the quality of attachment. Although many studies are conducted concerning the two subjects, the direction and magnitude of their relationship still remain unclear. In order to clarify the discrepant results in the previous study and explore the moderators in the empathy–attachment association, three-level meta-analyses were conducted in the present work. Based on 212 effect sizes from 59 samples in 50 studies with a total of 24,572 participants, random effect model analyses showed that empathy was insignificantly correlated with anxious attachment, significantly negatively correlated with avoidant attachment, and significantly positively correlated with secure attachment. The meta-analytic results indicated that children and adolescents with high secure attachment tend to show more empathy than those with low secure attachment. The meta-regression model revealed significant effects of the empathy dimension, culture, empathy measurement tools, and publication state. Additionally, implications and future directions for the empathy–attachment relationship were also discussed.

This study investigated the interoceptive accuracy (IAc) of shy adolescents during anticipation of public speaking with a 2 × 2 factorial design. Altogether, 637 junior secondary students in an eastern province of China were sampled and screened with the Chinese version of Cheek and Buss shyness scale. The top 27% of students were considered the shy group (n = 30, 16 girls, Mage = 13.03, SD = 0.67), whereas the bottom 27% were labelled the non-shy group (n = 31, 16 girls, Mage = 13.16, SD = 0.86). The two groups of participants estimated their heart rates during specified intervals using a mental tracking paradigm in two conditions (baseline vs. anticipation), while their actual heart rates were simultaneously measured. The results indicated that: (1) the shy adolescents were more accurate in estimating their actual heart rate than non-shy adolescents; and (2) both shy and non-shy adolescents exhibit enhanced IAc in anticipation conditions when compared with baseline conditions. Implications of the higher IAc of shy adolescents and the state feature of IAc are discussed.

A random sample of 535 children was selected by cluster random sampling. The shyness level and parenting style of parents and shyness level of children were investigated. The results indicated that there was a positive correlation between parent shyness and child shyness, and there was a negative correlation between the child shyness and the authoritative parenting style. Mother shyness has a positive effect on different gender child shyness, but father shyness can only positively predict boy's shyness. The authoritarian parenting style has a negative predictive effect on boy's shyness. The authoritative parenting style could significantly enhance the influence of parent shyness on child shyness.

The goal of this study is to examine how social support affects Chinese male drug addicts’ abstention motivation. To elucidate the mechanism as well as the boundary condition of the aforesaid influence, self-control and sensation-seeking were induced. Using the questionnaire method, the cross-sectional data were collected from 498 male drug addicts from one hospital and four compulsory isolation drug abstention centers in Central China region. The results indicated that social support has a positive direct and indirect effect on abstention motivation. The indirect influence is that the impact of social support on abstention motivation is mediated by self-control. The direct effect was moderated by sensation-seeking. Specifically, for individuals with low sensation-seeking, social support can significantly increase drug abstinence motivation, but this effect was not significant for those with high sensation-seeking. Theoretical and practical implications of the results were discussed.