Jia-Lin Zhao’s research while affiliated with Shanghai Normal University and other places

Purpose: This study examines the efficacy of a positive psychology intervention involving solution-focused brief therapy (SFBT) techniques in promoting university students' post-traumatic growth and psychological resilience after the COVID-19 pandemic. Methods: The research hypotheses were tested via a quasi-experimental design with pre- and post-tests including three groups: intervention ( n = 28), active control ( n = 25), and control groups ( n = 57). We followed convenience sampling and recruited Chinese students after the peak of the pandemic. Results: Repeated-measures ANOVA revealed that there were significant main effects of groups in post-traumatic growth, F(2, 107) = 3.17, p < .05, η ² = .05, and psychological resilience, F(2, 107) = 4.19, p < .05, η ² = .06. The SFBT-based positive psychology intervention significantly increased both positive outcomes in the intervention group. Discussion: By applying SFBT techniques in positive psychology interventions, pandemic experiences can become an opportunity for students' positive growth.

The COVID-19 lockdown forced people to stay at home and address their family duties more equally. However, since nurses themselves were involved in the closed-loop management in hospitals and unable to return home, there was also an increased likelihood of non-traditional work-family strategies emerging. To ascertain the extant and implications of this phenomenon, this cross-sectional study explores work–family management strategies among nurses during the COVID-19 lockdown and their association with nurses’ individual health, family relationships, and job performance. Survey data were collected from 287 nurses who were involved in the closed-loop management in Shanghai hospitals from March to June 2022. Latent Class Analysis of seven categorical variables of nurses’ work–family status (e.g., the division of childcare labor) produced a best-fit solution of five strategies (BLRT (p) < 0.001, LMR (p) = 0.79, AIC = 5611.34, BIC = 6302.39, SSA-BIC = 5703.65, Entropy = 0.938): (1) fully outsourcing to grandparents, (2) partially outsourcing to grandparents, with the husband filling in the gap, (3) the husband does it all, (4) egalitarian remote workers, and (5) a neo-traditional strategy. Nurses who applied the egalitarian strategy had less psychological distress and relationship tension and better performance than those who applied the neo-traditional strategy and performed most of the childcare. The “husband does it all” strategy and the outsourcing strategies seem to have double-edged effects, with better job performance and family relations but also more distress and fewer sleeping hours among nurses. Overall, with a view to future risk mitigation, policymakers and practitioners should be aware of the diversity of the work–family strategies among nurse families during the lockdown period, and their association with individual and family outcomes, and provide tailored support.

COVID-19 has had a profound effect on frontline social workers as well as their clients, and mitigating the risk of recurrence warrants an investigation of the individual and contextual factors associated with social workers’ experience of helper-related trauma. In this study authors explore the effects of government support and professional support on social workers’ vicarious trauma and the mediating roles of compassion fatigue and professional identity during the COVID-19 pandemic. Surveying 388 social workers from Wuhan, Hubei Province, China, during the pandemic, indicated that professional support was indirectly related to vicarious trauma while compassion fatigue played a fully mediating role. Government support had a negative direct effect on vicarious trauma, and professional identity played a partially mediating role. However, contrary to authors’ expectations, professional identity was positively rather than negatively related to vicarious trauma. These findings suggest, first, that coping strategies for compassion fatigue should be included in professional supervision and, second, that government should provide more substantive support to effectively reduce vicarious trauma among social workers during the pandemic.

This study examines three potential mediating mechanisms regarding the effects of regular video game playing on psychological resilience: (a) the emotion mechanism; (b) the competence mechanism; and (c) the social mechanism. Based on a survey of 554 university students, the results show that the frequency and duration of playing video games have positive indirect effects on psychological resilience via game experiences of positive affect and social connection, and a negative indirect effect via game experiences of negative affect. Contrary to expectations, game competence experience is negatively related to psychological resilience. By clarifying the mechanisms linking playing video games to psychological resilience, our study also provides insights into the value of future game-based interventions.

Background Though many empirical studies have shown the positive relationship between emotional intelligence (EI) and resilience, the bidirectional relationship need to be further explored. Moreover, little research uses holistic approaches to study the relationship among a series of contextual variables, EI and perceptions of resilience in adolescents.Objective The present study investigated the bidirectional relationship between EI and perceptions of resilience in adolescents and explored the effect of contextual variables on their development.Method In a three-wave, longitudinal study, 988 students of sixth graders (mean age of 11.38 years) completed the Emotional Intelligence Scale (WLEIS), Resilience Scale (CD-RISC), and Shanghai High School Student Development-Questionnaire to investigate EI, perceptions of resilience and contextual factors, respectively. A structural equation modeling (SEM) examining the relationship among EI, perceptions of resilience and contextual factors was conducted.ResultsSEM indicated EI and perceptions of resilience at T1 (first semester in sixth grade) predicted EI and perceptions of resilience at T2 (second semester in sixth grade), respectively. EI at T2 can predict perception of resilience at T3 (second semester of seventh grade), but perceptions of resilience at T2 cannot predict EI at T3. As a protective factor, social support positively predicts EI and perceptions of resilience, while family conflicts, school bullying as risk factors negatively predict EI and perceptions of resilience.Conclusions The findings clarified the bidirectional relationship between EI and perceptions of resilience and highlighted the importance of contextual factors. Particularly, good quality of environment such as sufficient social support, combating school bullying and mitigating family conflicts is required to improve adolescents’ EI and resilience to help them cope with the challenges.

This paper proposes a moderated mediation model to explain how job autonomy affects knowledge workers’ job and leisure satisfaction through crafting activities. Using a large‐scale survey of 836 Chinese knowledge workers, we confirm the role of job crafting in mediating the relation between job autonomy and job satisfaction, and further reveal that leisure crafting mediates the relation between job autonomy and leisure satisfaction. Our results also reveal the moderating effects of person‐organization value congruence on the relation between job autonomy and job/leisure crafting and, in turn, on the indirect effect of job autonomy on knowledge workers’ satisfaction. These findings indicate that knowledge‐intensive organizations should apply interventions conducive to leisure crafting to elevate their employees’ well‐being. The findings also highlight the worth of fostering a culture of ‘crafting’ to facilitate person‐organization value congruence and strengthen the positive relations between job autonomy and crafting activities. Job autonomy not only increases knowledge workers’ job satisfaction through job crafting, but also increases their leisure satisfaction through leisure crafting. Person‐organization value congruence moderates the relation between job autonomy and job crafting. With high value congruence, knowledge workers perform more job crafting, and become more satisfied with their jobs. Person‐organization value congruence moderates the relation between job autonomy and leisure crafting. With high value congruence, knowledge workers perform more leisure crafting, and become more satisfied with their leisure experiences.

Background While trait emotional intelligence (EI) has been found to be related to young adolescents’ affect, the underlying mechanisms need to be further explored. Previous findings are also limited by common method problems arising from the use of cross-sectional design involving single-wave data capture. Objective The study aims to clarify the relation between trait EI and young adolescents’ positive and negative affect by further exploring the mediating roles of personal resilience, social support, and prosocial behavior. Method We conducted a three-wave survey among 714 Chinese junior high school students (mean age of 11.11 years) with temporal separations of the research measures to reduce common method variance. Trait EI was measured at the beginning of Grade 6; personal resilience, social support, and prosocial behavior were measured at the end of Grade 6; positive and negative affect were measured at the end of Grade 7. Results Trait EI at the beginning of Grade 6 was positively related to positive affect and negatively related to negative affect by the end of Grade 7. The influence of trait EI on positive affect was fully mediated by personal resilience, social support, and prosocial behavior at the end of Grade 6. Its influence on negative affect was also fully mediated by social support. Conclusions The findings clarify the mechanisms underlying the trait EI effect and highlight the importance of future youth programs targeting mediation mechanisms. In particular, we suggest the worth of utilizing trait EI to better facilitate personal and social resources when facing difficulties, and to help others in appropriate and effective ways.

This paper examines the development of the Chinese Sentiment Lexicon for Internet (CSLI), a sentiment lexicon for capturing the valence and arousal in Chinese online social media texts. We first review the current sentiment lexicons and their building process, including the collection of words, judging the emotionality of words, and testing reliability and validity. In Study 1, we develop CSLI and test its initial reliability and validity. In Study 2, we further test the convergent validity of CSLI by examining its correlations with human judgment in 429 aggregated Weibo comments. In Study 3, the predictive validity of CSLI is examined by linking its results to personality traits among 52 undergraduates. Two replication studies are also conducted to verify the findings in Study 2 and 3. The results have generally supported the reliability and validity of CSLI. Therefore, CSLI can be used as a research tool to capture the degree of valence and arousal in Chinese online social media texts. Its potential to promote human well-being is also discussed.

The authors examine the relationship between emotion-regulation ability, a key branch of emotional intelligence, and job burnout in 343 Chinese employees from a wide range of occupations and find that emotion-regulation ability is negatively related to job burnout, especially in jobs that require high emotional labor. An objective performance-based test of emotional intelligence shows that positive work affect partially mediates the relationship between emotion-regulation ability and burnout. The study refines understanding of how, to what degree, and under what circumstances emotional intelligence is related to job burnout.