This present study explores the effect of social support on career decision-making difficulties, with the chain mediation of psychological capital and career decision-making self-efficacy. A total of 770 college students were recruited to complete the survey, which included a social support, career decision-making self-efficacy, psychological capital scale, and career decision-making difficulties scales. Significant correlations were found between social support, career decision-making difficulties, psychological capital, and career decision making self-efficacy. Path analysis indicated that the direct effect of social support on career decision-making difficulty was non-significant; social support affected career decision-making difficulties indirectly through not only the mediating effect of psychological capital but also through the chain mediation of psychological capital and career decision-making self-efficacy. Overall, the results show that social support could exert an effect on career decision-making difficulties through the mediational chains of career decision-making self-efficacy and psychological capital; the implications of this are discussed.

Predominantly, a school provides pedagogical support to its students, though perceptions about the school’s internal environment can incessantly influence a student’s aggregated learning experience. The present study aims to investigate the impact of the campus environment on students’ study engagement and the roles of self-concept clarity and intentional self-regulation on this association. A hypothetical model about the relationship between campus perception, self-concept clarity, intentional self-regulation, and study engagement was tested. A total of 1597 students from Gansu Province, China, selected through a convenience sampling technique, were surveyed utilizing self-rated scales. Data were collected utilizing the Study Engagement Scale, Perceptions of School Climate Scale, Intentional Self-Regulation Scale and Self-Concept Clarity Scale. Results showed lower to moderate positive correlations between study variables. Students’ campus environment perceptions positively predicted adolescents’ study engagement. This association was also mediated by self-concept clarity and intentional self-regulation. All of these factors explained 41.26% variability of the study engagement. These findings show how the learning environment can impact students. Specifically, these results help demonstrate that self-concept clarity and intentional self-regulation have academic importance to optimize students’ study engagement that in turn promotes quality learning.

Neuromyths are misinterpretations of neuroscientific knowledge that may negatively affect the development of science-based education. They arise from complex scientific advances that are often communicated in a simplified form by the media and consumed by the untrained public, including education professionals, in a variety of cultural and social contexts. To better understand such variations, the present research used a questionnaire to survey the belief in neuromyths among headmasters in Gansu province in northwestern China. In all, 253 headmasters of the elemental and middle school participated in the survey, the results showed that headmasters in Gansu province were interested in neuroscience and that they commonly believed neuromyths. The most widespread neuromyths were those about learning styles, rich environments for pre-school children, and exercise to improve brain function. The educators' personal backgrounds, such as level of education and school type, may be predictive of their belief in neuromyths. Our results indicated that headmasters must be alert in attempting to apply neuroscience laboratory results to classroom teaching.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, mental health problems have increased and are likely to be influenced by personality traits. The present study investigated the association between personality traits and mental health problems (anxiety, depression, post-traumatic stress syndrome (PTSD) symptoms, and obsessive–compulsive disorder (OCD) symptoms) through the person-centered approach because this has some advantages over the variable-centered approach. The data were collected from a sample of 765 Chinese citizens who participated in an online survey in October 2020. Latent profile analysis identified three latent personality profiles—highly adaptive, adaptive, and maladaptive. Highly adaptive individuals had higher extroversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, openness, and lower neuroticism, while maladaptive individuals had lower extroversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, openness, and higher neuroticism. Multivariate analysis of variance results showed that individuals with highly adaptive profiles had lower anxiety, depression, and PTSD symptoms compared to individuals with adaptive and maladaptive profiles. The findings of the present study indicate mental health professionals would benefit from formulated intervention plans given the association between latent personality profiles and mental health problems.

Little is known about how rejecting and controlling parenting styles may influence adolescent psychological crisis and what conditions may buffer the detrimental effects of psychological crisis. By integrating multiple theories, this study investigated self-esteem as an underlying mediator and school connectedness as a potential moderator to explain the link between negative parenting and the two psychological crises among Chinese adolescents. In this study, the questionnaire method is adopted to examine the combined mechanism of rejecting parenting style and controlling parenting style on the psychological crisis of adolescents. In total, 1863 adolescents were involved in this study, ranging from 13 to 17 years old. The results showed that both the rejecting parenting style and the controlling parenting style can significantly and positively predict the level of psychological crisis of adolescents, but the predictive power of the rejecting parenting style was stronger. Self-esteem partially mediates the relationship between rejecting parenting style, controlling parenting style, and psychological crisis. School connectedness moderates both the effects of rejecting parenting styles on self-esteem and the effects of self-esteem on the psychological crisis. This study identifies the internal mechanisms by which negative parenting styles affect adolescents’ psychological crisis, and reveals the mediating and moderating roles of self-esteem and school connectedness, providing additional explanatory paths for the mechanisms of adolescents’ psychological crisis.