Dispositional mindfulness mediates the relationship between conscientiousness and mental health-related issues in adolescents during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The COVID-19 pandemic is seriously affecting the mental health of adolescents and triggering a series of mental health-related issues. The present study investigates the relationships between conscientiousness, dispositional mindfulness (DM), and adolescents' mental health-related issues including anxiety, depression, and perceived stress during this time. In this study, after obtaining informed consent from participants' parents, 5994 Chinese adolescents voluntarily and anonymously completed an online survey. Conscientiousness was found to be negatively associated with anxiety, depression, and perceived stress. It was found to be positively associated with DM, which, in turn, negatively predicts anxiety, depression, and perceived stress. Conscientiousness is thus related to mental health-related issues, and this relationship is mediated by DM. This mediation effect is stronger in females than in males. These findings provide new and strong evidence for the protective role of conscientiousness and DM in adolescents' mental health-related issues during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Gender differences in the effects of competition and cooperation on risk-taking under ambiguity.

Decision theories have made a distinction between risk (i.e., known probabilities) and ambiguity (i.e., unknown probabilities). Prior work has examined the effect of competition and cooperation on risk-taking under risk. However, little is known about whether and how competition and cooperation affect risk-taking under ambiguity and the role of gender in this effect. The current study addresses this research gap. In the present study, a shortened version of a balloon analogue risk task was used to assess risk-taking under ambiguity. The participants completed this task in competition against a peer, in cooperation with a peer, or alone. The results showed that the participants took more risks in the competition and cooperation conditions than in the individual condition, but no differences were found between the competition and cooperation conditions. More important, gender modulated these effects. First, these effects were driven by males, but not by females. Second, males showed more risk-taking under ambiguity than females in the competitive situation, but not in the cooperative situation. Overall, this work contributes to understanding the effect of social interaction on risky decisions under ambiguity.

The N170 component is sensitive to face-like stimuli: a study of Chinese Peking opera makeup.

The N170 component is considered a neural marker of face-sensitive processing. In the present study, the face-sensitive N170 component of event-related potentials (ERPs) was investigated with a modified oddball paradigm using a natural face (the standard stimulus), human- and animal-like makeup stimuli, scrambled control images that mixed human- and animal-like makeup pieces, and a grey control image. Nineteen participants were instructed to respond within 1000 ms by pressing the 'F' or 'J' key in response to the standard or deviant stimuli, respectively. We simultaneously recorded ERPs, response accuracy, and reaction times. The behavioral results showed that the main effect of stimulus type was significant for reaction time, whereas there were no significant differences in response accuracies among stimulus types. In relation to the ERPs, N170 amplitudes elicited by human-like makeup stimuli, animal-like makeup stimuli, scrambled control images, and a grey control image progressively decreased. A right hemisphere advantage was observed in the N170 amplitudes for human-like makeup stimuli, animal-like makeup stimuli, and scrambled control images but not for grey control image. These results indicate that the N170 component is sensitive to face-like stimuli and reflect configural processing in face recognition.