This study tested whether the presence of an attractive face would influence individuals' honesty. In 2 experiments, 225 participants were asked to predict the outcome of computerised coin-flips and to self-report the accuracy of their predictions. Self-reports were made in the presence of a facial photo of a female who had been rated before the experiment as high attractive, middle attractive or low attractive by other volunteers. Participants were rewarded based on their self-reported (not actual) accuracy. The results showed that subjects tended to give more dishonest self-reports when presented with middle or low attractive facial images than when presented with high attractive images, with self-reported accuracy being significantly higher than the random level. The results of this study show that presented with an attractive face, subjects tend to engage in behaviours that conform to moral codes.

IntroductionHaving to adapt to a new environment with various other challenges while completing their studies, Chinese college students experience intense stress related to the study of the English language. However, there has been little research on the serial mediating mechanism of English-learning stress on English academic performance.MethodsPresent study recruited 1130 undergraduate students to finish self-report online questionnaire to collect the information about their English-learning stress, academic anxiety and burnout, English academic performance and grit. We constructed a moderated serial mediation model to test the effect of academic anxiety and academic burnout and explored whether grit can restrict the decrease in academic performance caused by English-learning stress.Results Results show that: (1) both academic anxiety and academic burnout mediate the relationship between English-learning stress and performance; (2) academic anxiety and academic burnout show a significant serial mediating role between academic pressure and English academic performance; and (3) grit significantly moderates the relationship between academic burnout and English academic performance.DiscussionThese results lead us to believe that cultivating the grit of Chinese college students may be an effective way to improve the academic performance of those experiencing high English-learning stress.

Research has indicated that English learning stress contributes significantly to English learning burnout among undergraduate students. However, knowledge of the mediating and moderating mechanisms underlying this relationship is limited. To bridge this gap, a moderated mediation model was constructed to examine whether English learning self-efficacy mediated the relationship between English learning stress and English learning burnout. Furthermore, this study analyzed whether the mediated relationship was moderated by mindfulness and gender. A total of 1130 Chinese undergraduate students (mean age = 20.84 years, SD = 1.57 years) reported their experiences regarding English learning stress, English learning self-efficacy, English learning burnout, and mindfulness. After controlling for covariates, the results revealed that English learning self-efficacy mediated the positive link between English learning stress and English learning burnout among both men and women. Moreover, the findings demonstrated that the indirect link was moderated by mindfulness among male undergraduate students. However, the moderating effect of mindfulness was not significant among the women in this study. The implications of these findings for future research, and the development of intervention and prevention of English learning burnout are discussed.

The processing of words in sentence reading is influenced by both information from sentential context (the effect of predictability) and information from previewing upcoming words (the preview effect), but how both effects interact during online reading is not clear. In this study, we tested the interaction of predictability effect and the preview effect in predicting reading processing. In the experiment, sentence constraint was controlled using all high-constraint sentences as materials. We manipulated both the predictability of the target word in the sentence and the semantic relationship between the preview word and the target word as predictors of the semantic preview effect. The results showed that the semantic preview effect was present only when the target word had low-predictability in the sentence but was not observed when the target word had high-predictability in the sentence. The results suggest that contextual information in reading can modulate the pre-activation of words and thus influence whether the preview word has a priming effect. The results of this study provide further evidence that reading comprehension involves an interactive system of processing multiple sources of information at multiple levels.