Mental stress is on the rise as one of the major health problems in modern society. It is important to detect and manage mental stress to prevent various diseases caused by stress and to maintain a healthy life. The purpose of this paper is to present new heart rate variability (HRV) features based on empirical mode decomposition and to detect acute mental stress through short-term HRV (5 min) and ultra-short-term HRV (under 5 min) analysis. HRV signals were acquired from 74 young police officers using acute stressors, including the Trier Social Stress Test and horror movie viewing, and a total of 26 features, including the proposed IMF energy features and general HRV features, were extracted. A support vector machine (SVM) classification model is used to classify the stress and non-stress states through leave-one-subject-out cross-validation. The classification accuracies of short-term HRV and ultra-short-term HRV analysis are 86.5% and 90.5%, respectively. In the results of ultra-short-term HRV analysis using various time lengths, we suggest the optimal duration to detect mental stress, which can be applied to wearable devices or healthcare systems.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the relationship between parental psychological control (PPC) as perceived by adolescents, emotion inhibition, emotion regulation, and depression in adolescents using a structural equation model. The participants were 316 middle school students in metropolitan areas of South Korea who completed the Domain-Specific Assessment of Psychological Control (DAPC), Children’s Sadness Management Scale (CSMS) and Children’s Anger Management Scale (CAMS), and the Center for Epidemiological Studies–Depression Scale (CES-D) survey. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics, correlation analysis, structural model verification, and bootstrap analysis. The results of this study indicated that PPC had a direct effect on depression. In addition, PPC had a significant effect on the emotion inhibition of dysfunctional emotion regulation, and emotion inhibition significantly affected depression. Therefore, emotion inhibition had a mediating effect between PPC and depression. Finally, this study’s implications and limitations are presented.

Introduction: This study set out to quantitatively examine the relationship between personality and color, focusing on connotations and preference.Method: A total of 854 Koreans, aged from 20 to 60, participated in the study. They indicated which colors they associated with various personality words, completed the Ten Item Personality Inventory, and ranked their color preferences. We analyzed the data using frequency analysis, correlation analysis, t-tests, regression analysis, and cluster analysis.Results: The analyses revealed that all five personality types have characteristic color associations. Through regression analysis, we found that color preference can significantly predict personality. The comparison among personality groups produced by cluster analysis confirmed that people with strong specific personalities prefer the colors that symbolize their personalities.Discussion: This study’s findings highlight the relationship between personality and color preference. The limitations and suggestions for future studies are also presented.

The purpose of this study is to examine risk factors in working environment affecting firefighters’ burnout and to verify the moderating effect of compassion fatigue in the relationship between risk factors and burnout. A total of 371 firefighters working in large cities and small towns participated in the survey, and 341 questionnaires were analyzed. The questionnaires used in the study were the Working Environment Inventory, the Maslach Burnout Inventory, and the Compassion Fatigue Self-test for Helpers Scale. The results presented a high correlation between risk factors, burnout, and compassion fatigue. The overall regression model of risk factors in working environment and burnout was significant, and the explanatory power of the independent variable was 0.444. The sub-factors affecting burnout were the lack of challenge, the role ambiguity, the role conflict, and overwork. Next, firefighters’ compassion fatigue was found to significantly control the effects of risk factors on burnout. In other words, as the level of compassion fatigue increased, the influence of risk factors in working environment on burnout increased. The significance of this study is to provide a basis for establishing environmental and psychological interventions which can reduce firefighters’ burnout.

Art therapy students’ art practice might influence professional identity and career commitment. Art therapy graduate students (n = 202) in South Korea participated in a survey. This study introduces the Art Practice Scale and associated exploratory factor analysis, which identified 2 subvariables: art competency and attitude toward artwork. The correlation analysis results with the My Vocational Situation Vocational Identity Scale and Career Commitment Measurement showed that art practice, professional identity, and career commitment are positively interrelated. The regression analysis results showed that art practice and study period significantly influenced career commitment, and art practice and age influenced professional identity. This study provides empirical evidence to support that art therapy students’ art practice can have a significant effect on their professional growth.

In this study, we explored the differences between mothers’ and children’s perceptions of mothers’ parenting styles (DMCP of MPS) and examined the effects of these differences on children’s depression, aggression, and ego-resilience. A total of 233 pairs of mothers and teen-aged children participated in the study. Our analysis produced four main findings. First, the mothers perceived their parenting attitudes as more rational and affectionate than their children did; children whose mothers rated their parenting styles more favorably had higher levels of depression and aggression and lower ego-resilience. Second, the correlation analysis and the structural equation model verification confirmed that as the DMCP of MPS increased, children’s levels of depression and aggression increased, and their ego-resilience decreased. Third, ego-resilience partly mediated the relationship between DMCP-Rationality and depression. Lastly, we found that ego-resilience and depression had dual mediation effects on the relationship between DMCP-Rationality and children’s aggression. This paper concludes with a discussion of the implications of these findings and suggestions for future studies.