Symptoms of depression and anxiety usually co-occur and are inextricably linked to sleep disturbance. However, little is known about the symptom-to-symptom relationships among these three mental disorders. Hence, to improve our understanding of concurrent depression, anxiety, and sleep disturbance, we used the network analysis approach to construct an interplay relationship among the above three mental disorders and identify which specific symptoms bridge these aggregations. We collected data from a large sample ( N = 6710, male = 3074, female = 3636; mean age = 19.28) at a university. We estimated the symptom network structure of depression, anxiety, and sleep disturbance as assessed by the Patient Health Questionnaire-9, Generalized Anxiety Disorder-7, and Youth Self-Rating Insomnia Scale during the COVID-19 lockdown. We further investigated four goals: first, identifying the individual core symptoms in the network by the index of “expected influence”; second, determining the bridge symptoms that play roles in linking different mental disorders by the index of bridge expected influence (1-step); third, examining the robustness of all results; and fourth, providing an overall structure that may or may not differ by sex. The network structure was stable, accurate, and predictable. Items referring to sleep dissatisfaction, poor sleep quality, and uncontrollable worry were potentially core symptoms in the interplay among depression, anxiety, and sleep disturbance. Sleep, guilt, restlessness, irritability, and feeling afraid can function as bridges among depression, anxiety, and sleep disturbance, which is clinically relevant and theoretically important. The results suggested that the network structures significantly differed between the female and male networks. Robustness tests also revealed that the results were reliable.

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Background Social anxiety is a frequently reported symptom in children and adolescents. The literature suggests that family function is related to symptoms of social anxiety in children. However, relatively little is known about the potential mechanisms underlying the relationship between family function and social anxiety. Thus, the purpose of the present study is to examine the roles of peer attachment and self‐esteem in the relationship between family function and social anxiety in a sample of migrant children in China. Methods A total of 437 participants (54.9% male; meanage = 10.87 years) were selected from two public schools of migrant children in two areas of Hangzhou and Jiaxing, the major labor‐importing cities in China, in May 2016. All participants completed four questionnaires assessing family function, peer attachment, self‐esteem, and social anxiety. Results The results showed that family function was bivariately and significantly related to symptoms of social anxiety. Additionally, self‐esteem fully mediated the relationship between family function and social anxiety peer attachment. Moreover, the relationship between family function and social anxiety was fully mediated by peer attachment and self‐esteem (in that order). Conclusions Peer attachment and self‐esteem serve as critical pathways linking family function and social anxiety. Thus, tailored interventions should consider the roles of peer attachment and self‐esteem to alleviate symptoms of social anxiety in migrant children.

Previous research on moral judgment (MJ) has focused on understanding the cognitive processes and emotional factors that influence different types of moral judgment tasks, such as personal and impersonal dilemmas. However, few studies have distinguished between the emotions related to cognition and the complex emotions specifically caused by MJ tasks. This gap in knowledge is important to address to have a better understanding of how emotions influence moral judgment. The aim of this study was to investigate the influence of fear and the role of moral emotions on MJ. Data were collected from 145 participants through jsPsych and analyzed using mixed‐model analysis of variance (ANOVA) and correlation analysis. The study found that individuals who were triggered by the fear increased the number of utilitarian moral judgments in personal moral scenarios and lengthened the cognitive process, but not in impersonal moral dilemmas. Hence, we speculate that fear may play a cognitive role in personal moral dilemmas and an emotional role in impersonal moral dilemmas. Another finding is that the complex moral emotions arising from the moral decision‐making process may affect the effectiveness of fear and potentially influence moral judgments. However, this study adopts a cautious attitude toward these discoveries, and further verification of this hypothesis should be conducted in the future.