Effects of Parental Psychological Control on Child’s School Life: Mobile Phone Dependency as Mediator

Ecological view of human development calls for an investigation of multiple contexts surrounding children. In South Korea, traditional Confucianism and recent technological advancements serve as influential social and cultural contexts that affect parent–child relations and child development. High levels of parental control and strong emphasis on academic achievement have long been distinctive features of Korean parenting practices, which are attributable to Confucian values. Additionally, Korean children’s mobile phone dependency (MPD) has become a growing concern, as South Korea developed as an IT powerhouse. Combined, these contexts resulted in high parental control of children’s mobile phone use, so that such electronic devices would not hinder learning and achievement. Effects of high parental control on children’s MPD and their school life, however, have yet to be discovered. We hypothesized, that, unlike parents’ intentions, psychological control is more likely to increase MPD and disrupt school life. To examine this research model, we made use of the first and third wave data from Korea Children and Youth Panel Survey. Participants were 2378 children (52.2 % boys) of the same age of 10 in the first wave. After multiple imputation for missing values, hierarchical logistic regression followed to examine the mediational model. The results verified the hypothesized model, showing significant adverse influence of psychological control on MPD, self-regulated learning and school adjustment. MPD fully mediated the effect of psychological control on self-regulations, while partially mediating the effects on school adjustment. Implications for Korean parents with regard to supporting children’s psychological autonomy was discussed.     

Meaning in life and its relationships with intrinsic religiosity,deliberate rumination,and emotional regulation

Meaning in life is one of the core elements of well‐being. Although meaning in life has received considerable research interest over the years, much of this research did not differentiate between the two categories of meaning, that is, search for meaning and meaning in life. The present study first investigated collective explanatory powers that intrinsic religiosity, deliberate rumination, and emotional regulation – three predictors selected based on past literature – have on these two types of meaning. In addition, mediational effects of deliberate rumination and emotional regulation in the links between intrinsic religiosity and search for meaning and presence of meaning were investigated. The participants were 326 undergraduate students in Seoul, South Korea. The hierarchical regression analyses found that while intrinsic religiosity contributed significantly in explaining only presence of meaning, deliberate rumination and emotional regulation had significant contributions in explaining both search for meaning and presence of meaning. Also, double mediational analysis using structural equation modelling revealed that deliberate rumination, but not emotional regulation, mediated the relationship between intrinsic religiosity and meaning in life. The implications and directions for future studies are also discussed.     

Empathy,culture and self‐humanising: Empathising reduces the attribution of greater humanness to the self more in Japan than Australia

People tend to ascribe greater humanness to themselves than to others. Previous research has indicated that this “self‐humanising” bias is independent of self‐enhancement and robust across cultures. The present study examined the possible role of empathy in reducing this bias in Japan (N = 80) and Australia (N = 80). Results showed that unlike Australians, Japanese participants who recalled personal experiences of empathising with others were less likely to self‐humanise than those in a neutral condition. The effect of the empathy manipulation was not observed in Australia. The findings suggest that empathy may reduce self‐focus and enable perceivers to appreciate the full humanness of others, but this effect may be culturally contingent.     

Belief in a zero-sum game and subjective well-being across 35 countries

Current Psychology - This article presents a short research report on the relationship between perceived antagonism in social relations measured using the Belief in a Zero-Sum Game (BZSG) scale,...     

The interactional effect between employees’ perceived materialistic rewards and marital status on attitudinal and behavioral outcomes: An empirical investigation

Current Psychology - This study investigates whether the degree of materialistic rewards perceived by employees leads to creative behavior for organizational change, and identifies possible...     

Opening minds by supporting needs: do autonomy and competence support facilitate mindfulness and academic performance?

Social Psychology of Education - In a pair of studies, the present research examined mindfulness as a mediator through which perceived support for the basic psychological needs of autonomy and...     

Differential Relationships of Hedonic and Eudaimonic Well-Being with Self-Control and Long-Term Orientation1

This study sought to explore differential relations between the hedonic (life satisfaction, negative affect, and positive affect) and eudaimonic (psychological well-being and social well-being) components of well-being and five criterion variables: long-term planning, self-control, sensation-seeking, grit, and intellectualism. The study used a sample of 1,310 Korean adults (M_age = 40.024 years, SD_age = 10.922 years). It was predicted and found that the criterion variables of the study had stronger associations with eudaimonic well-being than hedonic well-being. The results indicate that eudaimonic well-being is more consistent than hedonic well-being with a long-term emphasis on skill-building and striving for future goals (as opposed to immediate gratification).     

The Protective Effect of Neighbourhood Collective Efficacy On Family Violence and Youth Antisocial Behaviour in Two South Korean Prospective Longitudinal Cohorts

Research on Child and Adolescent Psychopathology - Neighbourhood collective efficacy has been proposed as a protective factor against family violence and youth antisocial behaviour. However, little...     

Judging meaning improves function in the aging brain

Important new evidence suggests that under-recruitment of frontal cortex under intentional learning conditions in older adults can be repaired when older subjects are instructed to focus on meaning. However, the tendency for older subjects to activate both hemispheres when young adults recruit only one was not reversible. These findings provide important insights with respect to plasticity and compensation in the aging brain.     

Long-Term Follow-Up of a Randomized Controlled Trial Comparing Acceptance and Commitment Therapy and Standard Cognitive Behavior Therapy for Anxiety and Depression

The present study represents one of the first comparisons of the long-term effectiveness of traditional cognitive behavior therapy (i.e., Beckian cognitive therapy; CT) and acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT). One hundred thirty-two anxious or depressed outpatients were randomly assigned to receive either CT or ACT, and were assessed at posttreatment (n = 90) and at 1.5-year (n = 91) follow-up. As previously reported, the two treatments were equivalently effective at posttreatment according to measures of depression, anxiety, overall (social/occupational/symptom-related) functioning, and quality of life. However, current results suggest that treatment gains were better maintained at follow-up in the CT condition. Clinical significance analyses revealed that, at follow-up, one-third more CT patients were in the clinically normative range in terms of depressive symptoms and more than twice as many CT patients were in the normative range in terms of functioning levels. The possible long-term advantage of CT relative to ACT in this population is discussed.