A Dual-Path Model of Aggression, grounded in the Social Information Processing Model, was developed to address the issue of cognitive mechanisms underlying within-person changes in adolescent aggression. To test the model, we examined longitudinal relationships between positive outcome expectancies for aggression, moral disengagement, and aggression in 712 middle-school students, assessed four times over a 1.5-year period. A Random Intercept Cross-Lagged Panel Model (RI-CLPM) analysis indicated a bidirectional relationship between within-person changes in positive outcome expectancies and aggression across Time 1-Time 2 and Time 2-Time 3, while moral disengagement at Time 3 mediated the effect of positive outcome expectancies at Time 2 on aggression at Time 4. These results partly support the Dual-Path Model of Aggression and suggest that there is a bidirectional relationship between the database factors (which are proposed in the Social Information Processing Model and refer to the latent mental structures encompassing memory store and social schema) and aggression, and an indirect path from database factors (e.g., positive outcome expectancies) to aggression via cognitive variables of the social information processing step (e.g., moral disengagement) at the within-person level. These within-person effects contribute to the targeted interventions for aggressive cognitions and behaviors.

Suicidal ideation remains a longstanding and critical issue in mental health research due to its serious consequences for individuals’ lives and well-being. Although relative deprivation has been identified as an important risk factor for suicidal ideation, the mechanisms underlying this association remain poorly understood. Drawing on multiple theoretical perspectives, including the Strain Theory of suicide and the Stress-Buffering Model, this study examined a moderated mediation model linking relative deprivation to suicidal ideation, with psychological pain as the mediator and social support as the moderator. A cross-sectional survey was conducted among 630 college students. Participants completed self-report measures of relative deprivation, psychological pain, perceived social support, and suicidal ideation. The findings revealed that relative deprivation was positively associated with suicidal ideation and that psychological pain mediated this association (β = 0.066, 95% CI = [0.028, 0.121]). Moreover, social support significantly moderated both stages of the mediation process, weakening the positive effect of relative deprivation on psychological pain and the positive effect of psychological pain on suicidal ideation (β = −0.130, 95% CI = [−0.190, −0.070]; β = −0.089, 95% CI = [−0.150, −0.028]). Overall, the findings suggest that relative deprivation contributes to suicidal ideation through psychological pain and that social support serves as an important boundary condition in this process. These findings extend existing theoretical frameworks and offer practical implications for suicide prevention among college students.

The effects of moral protective factors (e.g., moral cost) on aggression and the underlying mechanisms remain unclear. To address this issue, this study developed the Moral Cost of Aggression Questionnaire (MCAQ) and validated its psychometric properties in 516 college students (287 female; Mage = 19.77 years, SD = 1.61). Subsequently, the relationships among moral cost, positive outcome expectancies for aggression (POEA), and aggression were examined in 749 college students (330 females; Mage = 18.96 years, SD = 0.74). Mediation analysis indicated that POEA mediated the relationship between moral cost and aggression. This pattern of associations is consistent with the hypothesis that moral cost is negatively associated with aggression, in part through its link to lower subjective value of aggressive outcomes (i.e., lower POEA). This study provides a reliable and valid measure of the trait moral cost (MCAQ) and offers preliminary empirical support for a discounting mechanism in which moral cost is associated with reduced aggression via decreased POEA. These findings suggest that interventions targeting both moral cost and outcome valuation may be a useful direction for future research.