Amid the quickening rhythms of contemporary life and the steady escalation of stress exposure, concerns surrounding psychological well-being have become increasingly visible. Within this context, music therapy has received increasing attention from both researchers and practitioners because it focuses on emotional regulation. However, current music therapy applications still have some clear limitations. In particular, they often do not provide a satisfying emotional experience for users or fully meet their individual needs. To address these issues, this paper applies emotional design theory and combines it with the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP). Based on this approach, it develops a research framework for designing music therapy applications that better support users' emotional needs. First, this study reviews previous research on emotional design theory and the AHP method through a literature review. Based on this review, the overall research process is established. Next, user research is carried out through interviews, questionnaires, and competitor analysis. These methods help identify the main user needs in different music therapy scenarios. Finally, an AHP model is developed to analyze the importance of these needs and determine their priority.

As parental overprotection increases in contemporary families, its impact on adolescent development has aroused extensive scholarly concern. Currently, there are many studies on the influence of parental overprotection on adolescents' depression, but there is a lack of comprehensive research on parental overprotection. This study analyzed the mechanism of its influence by integrating 12 relevant studies from the Google Scholar and China National Knowledge Infrastructure. The research found that parental overprotection is positively correlated with adolescents' depression. For adolescents themselves, parental overprotection leads to a lack of autonomy and affects the core brain regions involved in emotional processing. For families, parental overprotection disrupts family emotional connections and parent- adolescent trust. Influenced by social concepts, male adolescents are more likely to be depressed under the parental overprotection, and maternal overprotection has a greater impact on the adolescent depression. Therefore, measures can be implemented from the family, school, and social aspects to prevent teenage depression.

Research on embodied cognition indicates that spatially congruent actions help in the acquisition of vocabulary knowledge, but it is unknown whether it is enough to use just a minimal pointing gesture to make one activate metaphorical mapping between vertical space and emotion valence. In the present study, we offer an experiment that aims to investigate the effect of gesture–valence congruency on the learning of Dutch vocabulary words for native Chinese speakers. Participants will have to learn sixteen new Dutch nouns that are associated with positive or negative valence Chinese words. They will be divided into three groups based on the congruency of the pointing gesture used (metaphorically congruent, metaphorically incongruent, or control condition). The measure of success will be recognition accuracy of the learned words. It is hypothesized that there will be maximum recognition accuracy in the congruent group, medium accuracy in the control group, and minimum accuracy in the incongruent group. Thus, the proposed study is the continuation of previous works in the field of embodied metaphors.

Mental health is one of the most pressing issues facing adolescents worldwide today, often silently overlooked and largely unaddressed. Motivated by the challenge that emotion problems prevail among Chinese adolescents, this article explores the correlation between adolescents' anxiety and music interventions by using music curricula. Adopting a narrative literature review combined with comparative case analysis that combines documentary analysis with exploratory research, this study points that even though music has shown its potential as an appropriate tool to improve adolescents' psychological well-being to cope with axiety, their practices in reality are often unstructured, lacking an overall alleviation methodology and restraining the efficiency. It hense proposes a "pyramid-shaped" music education system focusing on music-based interventions in addition to the traditional aesthetic functions to address the problem at three levels: the classroom, the school, and the broader education system. The outcome of the study is that curricular music interventions should receive higher attention from various parts of the music education system, and new and more efficient teaching methods, which may solve adolescents' emotional issues, should be applied systematically.

Professional psychological help-seeking can ensure timely intervention and assist young adults in navigating mental health challenges. In this regard, mental health literacy is typically expected to enhance the intention of seeking help by improving the identification of psychological distress, understanding of treatments, and awareness of professional resources. However, higher levels of mental health literacy do not necessarily translate into greater intentions to pursue professional help. This paper examines the role of internalized stigma in the relationship between mental health literacy and professional psychological help-seeking intention among young Chinese adults from a literature-based perspective. Drawing on the literature about mental health literacy, help-seeking stigma, and barriers to professional help-seeking in the Chinese context, it is proposed that the stigmatized beliefs shared in society may be internalized and integrated into self-concept. The internalization of stigma may inhibit professional help-seeking intentions by triggering shame, self-blame, reduced self-worth, and threats to identity, while concerns about family reputation, disclosure, and social judgment may further increase the perceived cost of seeking help. The analysis shows that mental health literacy may serve as important cognitive basis for professional help-seeking intentions, yet its effect may remain limited when internalized stigma persists. Therefore, mental health education should therefore be combined with anti-stigma strategies, confidentiality protection, normalization of counseling, and culturally sensitive support.

As social media has become an integral part of university students' daily lives, its impact on mental health has attracted increasing attention. Against this background, this paper reviews existing research on social media use and depressive symptoms, focusing on overall associations, variations across types of use, and the psychological mechanisms involved. Previous studies have generally indicated that the relationship between social media use and depression is complex rather than simply causal. More specifically, problematic, passive, and addictive forms of use are more strongly associated with psychological risks than general or functional use. At the mechanism level, FoMO and upward social comparison may serve as initial triggers by fostering feelings of inadequacy and negative self-perceptions, which may then be reinforced by envy and rumination, further prolonging negative emotions. Meanwhile, loneliness and limited social support may exacerbate depressive symptoms. Consequently, the impact of social media on university students' mental health is shaped by usage duration, usage patterns, and the psychological processes involved.

This study examines the effects of internet addiction on adolescents, with a focus on psychological and social functioning and the role of family and social support in treatment. Evidence links problematic internet use to social anxiety, social phobia, depressive symptoms, and reduced face-to-face interaction. These difficulties may intensify when excessive reliance on online communication limits offline social contact, while social withdrawal may further increase reliance on online interaction. This creates a reciprocal pattern in which psychological distress and problematic internet use may reinforce each other. Besides, this pattern also has implications for treatment. In particular, family-based interventions have been linked to lower problematic internet use, improved family functioning, and lower depressive symptoms. Social support can complement family-based intervention by promoting face-to-face communication and participation in offline activities. However, differences in the definition and measurement of internet addiction, the predominance of cross-sectional studies, and cultural and individual differences limit comparisons across findings and conclusions about causality. Future research should therefore use longitudinal and experimental designs to clarify these relationships and determine how culture, family, and individual factors affect treatment outcomes. In practice, treatment should address not only internet use but also the psychological and social difficulties associated with it.

Growth mindset has been widely studied in relation to students' motivation and academic achievement, yet less is known about how it relates to students' confidence in managing their own learning. This study examined whether mathematics self-efficacy helps explain the association between growth mindset and confidence in self-directed learning among Southeast Asian students. PISA 2022 data from 4,693 students in Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, and Thailand were analysed using Pearson correlations and structural equation modelling, with gender and socioeconomic status included as covariates. Growth mindset was positively associated with mathematics self-efficacy (β = .086), while mathematics self-efficacy showed a stronger positive association with confidence in self-directed learning (β = .373). The direct association between growth mindset and confidence in self-directed learning was not significant (β = −.019). However, a small but significant indirect association through mathematics self-efficacy was observed (β = .032, 95% CI [.017, .042]). These findings suggest that mathematics self-efficacy may represent one pathway linking broader beliefs about the development of ability with students' confidence in managing their learning. The results also indicate that growth-mindset approaches may be more meaningful when accompanied by opportunities to strengthen task-specific confidence.

The growing presence of background music in learning environments highlights the need to examine its influences on cognitive performance under varying task demands. Based on Zajonc's arousal theory, this study investigates how background music and task difficulty jointly influence cognitive performance and evaluates the relevance of this theory in student learning contexts. Accordingly, a 2×2 mixed experimental design was conducted with forty high school AP Psychology students, incorporating two environmental conditions, background music and silence, and two task difficulty levels, simple and complex Sudoku tasks. Participants solved low-load 4×4 Sudoku puzzles and high-load 9×9 Sudoku puzzles under both conditions, with completion time and errors recorded as performance measures. The results indicate that background music enhances simple-task performance by reducing completion time (M = 55.50 vs. 78.35) and errors (0.15 vs. 0.25). Nevertheless, it impairs complex-task performance by increasing completion time (M = 542.45 vs. 410.95) and errors (M = 7.30 vs. 3.65). Thus, the effects of background music depend on task demands. In Zajonc's arousal theory, music-induced arousal can enhance simple task performance by strengthening dominant responses, while excessive arousal may interfere with the controlled processing required for complex tasks.

Belief in school meritocracy (BSM)—the belief that students' academic success is primarily determined by their effort and ability—may provide pupils with a sense of control and psychological stability. However, such a sense can be undermined if what students experience does not match their meritocratic expectations, which could contribute to poorer psychological outcomes. The study investigated the association between BSM and generalized anxiety among Chinese high school students and specifically examined if loneliness and depression mediated this association. A cross-sectional correlational study was conducted with 324 students from 2 secondary schools in Chongqing, China, who completed questionnaires on BSM, loneliness, depression and generalized anxiety. Analyzes were: Pearson correlations, linear regression and bootstrap tests of mediation. Students with higher BSM levels reported lower loneliness, depression, and generalized anxiety. BSM was a significant negative predictor of depression and anxiety after adjusting for gender and only-child status. Mediation analysis revealed that the relationship between BSM and generalized anxiety was fully mediated by loneliness and depression. Three significant indirect pathways were identified: BSM via loneliness to anxiety, BSM via depression to anxiety, and a sequential pathway from BSM to loneliness to depression to anxiety. It implies that school meritocratic beliefs may be linked to students' psychological well-being through both social and emotional pathways. Specifically, loneliness and depression may be important mediators between students' beliefs about academic success and their anxiety. Findings demonstrate the significance of social support and disconnecting academic achievement from students' sense of self-worth.