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We conducted 2 experiments in which we tested whether situation valence moderates the psychological consequences of lacking control. Participants who lacked control in negative circumstances were more likely to perceive illusory patterns. However, participants who lacked control in
positive circumstances saw many fewer images compared to those in the full-control condition. Our results indicated that situation valence is an effective moderator of the psychological consequences of lacking control.

The public agenda is an ecosystem in which public issues interact and compete to gain public attention. Whether this ecosystem is primarily competitive or cooperative is an unsettled question in the literature on agenda-setting. This study employs an ecological approach to explicate interissue relationships. It quantifies the nature and evolution of the issue ecosystem and examines the roles of the value orientations of issues and of individuals' education levels and political partisanship in interissue relationships. The study compiled and analyzed the Gallup Most Important Problem polls in the United States from 1958 to 2020. The findings indicate that the issue ecosystem of the American public is essentially competitive and that the balance of competition and cooperation has remained unchanged over time. The interaction between public issues involving materialistic values was more likely to be competitive and the interaction between issues involving postmaterialistic values was more likely to be cooperative.

An inverse relationship between self-evaluation and depression has been established in previous research. In this study we tested hypotheses that social support acts as a mediator between self-evaluation and depression. A sample of 538 undergraduates completed a series of questionnaires
to measure self-evaluation, depression, and social support. As predicted, correlations were found for self-evaluation, depression, and social support. Social support was shown to be a partial mediator in the relationship between self-evaluation and depression thus supporting our hypotheses.

This study examines the influence of internet adoption and internet usage on sociability and use of traditional media. With empirical data collected in Hong Kong between 2003 and 2005, it confirms that adoption and usage are two distinct processes, with different social impacts. It is found that, on average, internet users spend significantly less time on traditional media than nonusers, while both groups spend the same amount of time on social activities. Furthermore, users' sociability and use of traditional media are positively correlated with each other, while among nonusers there is no such correlation. When the spotlight is turned on internet users, a new measurement, called 'sophistication of internet usage', is employed to examine the impact of internet use on traditional media use and sociability. It is found in the study that internet use does not influence users' sociability and use of traditional media, regardless of the length of internet adoption history, which disconfirms the so-called 'novelty effect'.

This article examines citizens' use of the Internet as a popular feedback mechanism, and argues that it can help improve institutional performance. Specifically, it assesses the relationship between Internet penetration rate and public service delivery across 31 first-level administrative divisions in People's Republic of China from 1997 to 2014. A hierarchical linear modelling was conducted using secondary data released by the National Bureau of Statistics and the China Internet Network Information Centre. The result shows a positive relationship between Internet penetration rate and public service delivery when controlling for GDP per capita and education level. The positive relationship increases over time in general. The implications of Internet use for performance-based legitimacy and its impact on political change (or stability) in the authoritarian context are further discussed.

We designed a short-term training course in mindfulness-based cognitive therapy (MBCT) for use with busy people with little time. We examined whether or not MBCT training would affect people's cognition. We assigned 44 participants with no prior experience with mindfulness techniques
randomly to either an MBCT group or a control group. These participants then completed the Trait Coping Style Questionnaire (TCSQ). After having undergone 7 days of training, we assessed participants again with the TCSQ and they also completed the Attention Network Test. Results showed that
orienting and executive control differed between the MBCT and control groups, but there was no difference between the 2 groups in alerting. The score for positive coping style was significantly enhanced in the group who had undergone MBCT training. Our findings suggest that MBCT can be an
effective approach to improve individuals' attentional subsystem and coping style in a short time.

The digital traces of U.S. members of congress on Twitter enable researchers to observe how these public officials interact with one another in a direct and unobtrusive manner. Using data from Twitter and other sources (e.g., roll-call vote data), this study aims to examine how members of congress connect and communicate with one another on Twitter, why they will connect and communicate with one another in such a way, and what effects such connection and communication among members of congress have on their floor vote behavior. The follower-followee and communication networks of members of congress on Twitter demonstrate a high degree of partisan homogeneity. Members of congress prefer to follow or communicate with other members who are similar to them in terms of partisanship, home state, chamber, and public concern. This condition is known as the homophily effect in social network research. However, the magnitude of the homophily effect is mitigated when the effects of endogenous networking mechanisms (i.e., reciprocity and triadic closure) in such networks are controlled. Follower-followee ties can facilitate political discourse among members of congress on Twitter, whereas both follower-followee and communication ties on Twitter increase the likelihood of vote agreement among members of congress. The theoretical, methodological, and practical implications of the findings are addressed.

What does 'Internet studies' entail as a field of social science research? We aim to answer the question by mapping research themes, theorization, and methodology of Internet studies based on 27,000+ articles published in Social Sciences Citation Index and Arts & Humanities Citation Index journals over the last 10 years. In analyzing the articles, we adopt a 'bottom-up' approach – classifying keywords of the Internet studies without any a priori categorization – to identify the boundaries, major divisions, and basic elements of the field talis qualis. The research strategy results in a number of expected, as well as surprising, patterns and trends. Internet studies have evolved into a viable field that has witnessed a booming decade. The field is clustered around four primary research themes: e-Health, e-Business, e-Society, and Human–Technology Interactions. Two or three sub-themes with different research foci and methodologies emerge within each theme. The evolution of popular keywords in each sub-theme further shows that the field has become more concerned with intricate relationships between Internet use and specific behaviors/attitudes/effects; Internet usage patterns have increasingly attracted research attention; and network perspectives and approaches have become popular. Internet studies in the past decade have been modestly theorized. Established research methods (e.g., survey, experiment, and content analysis) still prevail in the Internet studies reviewed.

Research on mobile phone use often starts with the question of how much time users spend using their phones. The question involves an equal-length measure that captures the duration of mobile phone use but does not tackle the other temporal characteristics of user behavior, such as frequency, timing, and sequence. In this study, we propose a variable-length measure called "session" to uncover the unmeasured temporal characteristics. We use an open source dataset to demonstrate how to quantify sessions, aggregate the sessions to higher units of analysis within and across users, evaluate the results, and apply the measure for theoretical or practical purposes.

In this article, we hypothesize, and then demonstrate, that experiences of embarrassment have significantly increased in the United States, due in part, to the current situation in American politics under President Donald Trump. We provide support for our hypothesis by conducting both qualitative and quantitative analyses of Twitter posts in the U.S. obtained from the Crimson Hexagon database. Next, based on literature from social psychology, social neuroscience, and political theory, we propose a two-step process explaining why Trump's behavior has caused people in the U.S. to feel more embarrassment. First, compared to former representatives, Trump violates social norms in a manner that seems intentional, and second, these intentional norm violations specifically threaten the social integrity of in-group members—in this case, U.S. citizens. We discuss how these norm violations relate to the behavior of currently represented citizens and contextualize our rationale in recent changes of political representation and the public sphere. We conclude by proposing that more frequent, nation-wide experiences of embarrassment on behalf of the representative may motivate political actions to prevent further harm to individuals' self-concepts and protect social integrity.

Within the last year, expressions of second-hand embarrassment on Twitter significantly increased. We show how this relates to the current situation in U.S. politics under Trump and provide two explanations for why people feel this way in response to his actions. First, compared to former politicians, Trump's norm violations seem intentional. Second, intentional norm violations specifically threaten the social integrity of in-group members—in this case, U.S citizens. We theorize that these strong, frequent and widespread feelings of second-hand embarrassment motivate political actions to prevent further harm to individuals' self-concept and protect their social integrity.