Tonglin Jiang

Peking University | PKU · School of Psychological and Cognitive Sciences

The current research concerns the relations among self-concept clarity, autobiographic memory, and self-continuity. We hypothesized, and tested in seven studies, that low self-concept clarity would disrupt self-continuity, but resorting to autobiographic memory would counter this disruption, thus restoring self-continuity. In Studies 1-2, low or th...

We propose that the emotion of awe (i.e., challenge that exceeds the scope of one's mental structures, requiring cognitive accommodation) awakens self-transcendence (i.e., reaching beyond one's self-boundary), which in turn invigorates pursuit of the authentic self (i.e., alignment with one's true self). This process has implications for prosociali...

Rituals are pervasive and beneficial. Little is known, however, about causes or antecedents of ritual engagement. We hypothesized that nostalgia—a sentimental longing for one’s past—promotes ritual engagement, which in turn augments meaning in life. We tested this hypothesis in five methodologically diverse studies. In Study 1 ( N = 311), nostalgia...

Social pain is ubiquitous and has deleterious effects on people's health. Thus, identifying how to promote social pain recovery is important. Across three studies (N = 989), we examined whether a self-administered online awe-intervening approach could help people recover from social pain. With participants from the United States and China, we found...

In the current research, we aimed to extend the literature on workplace objectification and contribute to employees’ well-being by exploring whether and how workplace objectification increases self-harm as well as the coping strategy that may weaken the effect. Employing archive data analytic, correlational, longitudinal, and experimental designs,...

Personal narratives constitute one of the most fundamental means of making sense of one’s experiences. In the digital age, documenting life online has emerged as a new form of personal narrative. However, what contributes to documenting life online and its implications has remained unaddressed. With self-reported scales (Studies 1–2) and the behavi...

Research in psychological science has predominantly focused on the importance of social interaction to health and well-being, neglecting how solitude relates to optimal functioning. Although solitude is sometimes perceived as an aversive state associated with loneliness and ostracism, solitude can also serve as a time for self-reflection and spirit...

Awe is theoretically proposed as a meaning-making emotion. However, empirical evidence has shown that awe has mixed effects on meaning in life. The explanations for such complicated results have been limited. To fill this gap, in this research, we aimed to clarify how and when awe contributes to meaning in life. In six studies (N = 1,115), we exami...

Parental tradition transfer to children is pivotal for their socialization, identity formation, and culture perpetuation. But what motivates parents to transfer traditions to their children? We hypothesized that nostalgia, an emotion strengthening interpersonal bonds, would promote tradition transfer through parent-child relationship closeness. We...

Socially anxious individuals struggle with establishing and maintaining social relationships. We hypothesized that, when socially anxious, people often turn to nostalgia, which alleviates the interpersonal competence deficits that accompany social anxiety. We tested and supported this hypothesis in six studies ( N = 1,858), three preregistered. In...

Objectification denies individuals’ personhood and renders them as tools for facilitating others’ goal achievement. With two studies (N = 446), the present investigation aimed to contribute to the literature by testing whether and how objectification impacts prosociality, including prosocial intention and prosocial behavior. Study 1, with a correla...

Online music platforms that include social networking features sometimes become supportive social communities where young people can disclose their emotional distress and receive support. However, few studies have examined young people's disclosure in social music communities or the support they provide or receive. In this study, which focuses on a...

Nostalgia, a sentimental longing for one's past, as a buffer against psychological threats has been well-established across various domains. However, whether nostalgia could alleviate cyberbullying's adverse effects has never been investigated. We have conducted two studies (N = 471) to examine nostalgia as a buffer against cyberbullying victimizat...

Awe is a self-relevant emotion, but whether and how awe impacts global self-continuity (GSC), a sense of connectedness among past, present, and future selves, has never been investigated. In six studies (N = 1,384), we examined the relationship between awe and GSC, as well as the mechanisms underlying this relationship, with both correlational and...

Research on awe and meaning in life (MIL) is rare. In the current research, we conducted a pre-registered study to examine how awe influences MIL from the perspective of the tripartite model of MIL as well as the construction and detection routes of deriving meaning. The results showed that awe increased MIL via motivating purpose pursuit but decre...

Whether and how self-concept clarity (SCC) affects self-control has not been sufficiently explored in empirical research. We proposed that low SCC inhibits self-control through a lower sense of global self-continuity. The results of five studies provided converging support for our mediation model ( N = 898). Compared with participants with high SCC...

Recent advances in natural language based virtual assistants have attracted more researches on application of recommender systems (RS) into the service product domain (e.g., looking for a restaurant or a hotel), given that RS can assist users in more effectively obtaining information. However, though there is emerging study on how the presentation...

This research explored whether people hold double standards in a public crisis. We proposed that during the COVID-19 pandemic, people required others to strictly follow self-quarantine rules and other preventive behaviors, whereas they themselves would not, demonstrating double standards. Moreover, this effect would be moderated by the perceived th...

We sought to clarify the psychological profile of experimentally induced nostalgia, compared to two other modes of thinking about one’s past—reflection and brooding—also experimentally induced. We tested both British and Chinese participants. Our main hypothesis was that nostalgia’s profile is more positive in terms of six psychological benefits an...

This research focused on the psychological impact of an epidemic. We conducted a cross-sectional survey and two empirical experiments to examine how an epidemic would influence unethical behaviors and how the effect differs in people of different subjective socioeconomic statuses. These studies consistently demonstrated that subjective socioeconomi...

We conducted six studies to test our hypotheses that ostracism disrupts self-continuity and that self-affirmation counters ostracism’s negative influence on self-continuity. Participants who experienced more ostracism in their daily lives (Study 1), imagined being ostracized (Studies 2 and 5), recalled a past ostracism experience (Studies 3 and 6),...

An earlier review (Schneider et al., 2018) examined the connection between humor styles and mental health. The present article supplements and extends Schneider et al.'s review by surveying a broader concept, subjective well-being (SWB), and investigating the moderating effects of culture and age. To this end, we collected data from 85 studies, wit...

Four studies ( N = 1,151) examined whether people with lower subjective social classes would be more likely to apply higher moral standards to others than to themselves. With participants from mainland China, Hong Kong, and the United States, we found that people of lower measured or manipulated subjective social classes accepted others’ hypothetic...

Eleven studies (N = 2,254; 2 preregistered) examined whether ostracism would trigger suicidal thoughts and whether perceived meaning in life would account for this effect. The feeling of ostracism was induced via recalling a past experience (Studies 1a, 1c, 2c, and 3b), imagining a future experience (Studies 1d, 1e, and 2b), engaging in an online r...

According to the temporal need–threat model, ostracism results in three stages of responses. Research on the responses to ostracism has predominantly focused on the first two stages, and the literature needs further empirical evidence on responses to long-term ostracism. We conducted two studies to better understand the association between long-ter...

In five studies, we tested whether ostracism triggers feelings of relative deprivation and whether relative deprivation accounts for the impact of ostracism on aggression. Relative to participants who recalled either inclusive or neutral experiences, participants who recalled ostracism experiences reported higher levels of relative deprivation (Stu...

This research examined the relations of social media addiction to college students' mental health and academic performance, investigated the role of self-esteem as a mediator for the relations, and further tested the effectiveness of an intervention in reducing social media addiction and its potential adverse outcomes. In Study 1, we used a survey...

Humor is a universal phenomenon but is also culturally tinted. In this article, we reviewed the existing research that investigates how culture impacts individuals’ humor perception and usage as well as humor’s implications for psychological well-being. Previous research has substantiated evidence that Easterners do not hold as positive an attitude...

This study examined individual factors contributing to online shaming, a recent phenomenon where people engage in social policing by shaming transgressions using the Internet technology. It focused on the effects of socioeconomic status (SES) and the belief in a just world (BJW). A sample of 245 city employees in Nanjing, China participated in the...