Future thinking is intimately linked with emotions, as projecting oneself into the future typically involves a construction of positive situations that one strives to achieve or negative situations that one seeks to avoid. Therefore, the current study evaluated eye movement during neutral, positive, and negative future thinking. We invited participants to imagine neutral, past, and negative future events while their scan path was recorded by an eye tracker. The analysis demonstrated more and shorter fixations during positive and negative emotional thinking than during neutral future thinking. No statistically significant differences were observed between neutral and positive or negative future thinking regarding the number, duration, or amplitude of the saccades. Comparisons between positive and negative future thinking demonstrated no significant differences on the characteristics of fixations or saccades. Compared to neutral future thinking, emotional future thinking may involve less complex visual representation. However, positive and negative future thinking may trigger similar processing of visual representations.

Hope, defined as a cognitive set of beliefs concerning goal-related activities and comprising agency thinking and pathways thinking, is considered both as a relatively stable disposition and as a momentary state. To expand knowledge on state hope, we validated its measure by testing alternative factorial models. With two cross-sectional studies, we aimed to validate the factorial structure of the Polish version of the State Hope Scale (SHS-PL). Study 1 involved 242 Polish employees (158 women) aged 18–64 years, and Study 2 involved 953 Polish adults (704 women) aged 18 to 75 years. The results demonstrated that the bifactor model was the best representation of the structure of state hope. It simultaneously captures the global aspect of state hope and its two specific dimensions: agency and pathways. The results also revealed that the SHS-PL scores showed full scalar invariance across genders and across two age groups. Finally, the total score as well as the agency and pathways scales achieved acceptable levels of reliability (in both studies, the Cronbach's α coefficient was greater than .85 for all scales) and validity: Correlations of the SHSPL scores with dispositional hope and with positive and negative affect conformed to the theoretically expected pattern of results. The results provide evidence supporting the postulated structure of state hope and validate the new Polish-language version of its measure.

A screening assessment of anxiety and depressive symptoms is of great importance for preventing mental health problems. The current study aimed to (a) examine the factor structure, measurement invariance, reliability, and temporal stability of the Polish version of the Patient Health Questionnaire– 4 (PHQ–4) developed for measuring anxiety and depressive symptoms, (b) estimate the prevalence of these symptoms in different age and gender groups from February to July 2022, and (c) identify latent subpopulations of females and males based on their anxiety and depressive symptom levels. The sample included 2557 Polish adults (1730 females, 811 males, and 16 non-binary individuals) aged 18–78 (M = 27.18, SD = 12.29). The Polish version of the PHQ–4 was used. Multi-group confirmatory factor analysis and latent profile analysis (LPA) were carried out. The Polish version of the PHQ–4 had an intended two-factor structure, was invariant across age and gender categories, and in general, displayed strong psychometric properties. Based on the cut-off scores for the anxiety and depression subscales of ≥3, more than half of females and males in three age groups (aged 18–29, 30–44, and 45–59) were screened positively for anxiety and/or depression, and more than one-third of females aged 60–78 and males aged 60–76 were screened positively for both disorders. We distinguished (by LPA) and described four subpopulations common for both females and males. We identified risk groups for mental disorders (females, males aged 30–44, non-binary and younger people in general, as well as unemployed, less educated, and single people). The prevalence of probable anxiety and depressive disorders in the Polish population is extremely high. It is necessary to provide further mental health monitoring.

Forgiveness is an interdisciplinary topic. The very fact that the concept of forgiveness is found in different spiritual traditions indicates that the act of forgiving is of special importance to human social functioning both within and across cultures. With this in mind, psychologists conduct research on the determinants of forgiveness and its impact on the psychosocial functioning of individuals. The predictors of forgiveness include, among others, personality traits. However, researchers emphasize that the impact of personality on the willingness to forgive is mediated by numerous other variables. An analysis of psychological literature as well as clinical and therapeutic experience suggest that early maladaptive schemas (EMS) may be one such variable. Thus, the main goal of the present study was to examine whether EMS played an intermediary role in relationships between personality traits and forgiveness in Polish adults. Two hundred and forty adults aged 20 to 59 years were surveyed. Four measures were used: (a) the NEO-Five Factor Inventory (NEO-FFI), (b) the Personality Inventory for DSM-5 (PID-5-SF), (c) the Young Schema Questionnaire (YSQ-S3), and (d) the Heartland Forgiveness Scale (HFS). The analyses revealed a number of statistically significant relationships. Among others, it was confirmed that EMS mediated the relationships between four (out of 10) personality traits and forgiveness. Mediation relationships were found for neuroticism (normal personality) and the dysfunctional personality traits of negative affectivity, detachment, and psychoticism.

The COVID-19 pandemic is having a significant impact on people's psychological well-being and mental health. This study aimed to identify factors linked to emotional distress, burnout and sense of safety in teachers related to the reopening of Polish schools after lockdown, remote work, and the holiday period between March and August 2020. A total of 1,286 teachers from different educational institutions participated in the online study. A set of questionnaires was used to measure depressive and anxiety symptoms, sense of safety, fear of coronavirus, emotion regulation strategies, resilience, and burnout. Sociodemographic, COVID-19- and work-related variables were also controlled. Path analysis showed that emotion regulation strategies had both direct and indirect (via FCV-19 and resilience) effects on the severity of depressive symptoms, anxiety, burnout and sense of safety. These results are discussed in the context of both possible risk and protective factors for teachers’ wellbeing. Possible systemic solutions or therapeutic interventions that may be beneficial for this group are also discussed.

Emotion regulation might have an impact on memory performance. Nevertheless, there is still no clear relationship between the type of emotion regulation strategy and the type of information recalled. An experiment was conducted involving 194 participants that performed an online task in which they had to recall three kinds of words (positive, negative, and neutral), with competitive recall cues (first letter), as the same cue was used for a word in each emotional category. They also answered three instruments for measuring emotion regulation (Emotion Regulation Questionnaire, ERQ), deficits in emotion regulation (Difficulties in Emotion Regulation Scale, DERS), and affective state (Positive and Negative Affect Schedule, PANAS). The results showed that participants with higher (vs. lower) levels in cognitive reappraisal performed better at recalling positive words. In turn, deficits in emotion regulation were linked to a weaker performance when recalling words with an emotional content, particularly the dimension of interference in recalling negative words. The results are discussed from the perspective of the processes involved in emotion regulation, while also considering the more stable skill-related aspects when controlling emotions.

Eye blinks not only serve to maintain the tear film of the eye but also seem to have a functional role in information processing. People tend to inhibit an eye blink when they expect relevant information to occur in their visual environment and blink more often when the information has been processed. Recent studies have shown that this relation also holds for auditory information processing. However, only artificial auditory stimuli like tones or controlled lists of words were used in studies so far. In the current study, we tested whether there would be a temporal association between the pauses in a continuous speech stream and the listener’s eye blinks. To this end, we analyzed the eye blinks of 35 participants who were instructed to attend to one of two simultaneously presented audiobooks. We found that the blink patterns of 13 participants were coupled with the speech pauses in the attended speech stream. These participants blinked more often during the pauses in the attended speech stream. Contrary to our prediction, participants did not inhibit their blinking preceding a pause in the attended speech stream. As expected, there was no evidence that the listeners’ blink pattern was coupled to the pauses in the ignored speech stream. Thus, the listeners’ blink patterns can reflect attention to continuous speech.

Attitudes do not necessarily translate into behaviors, as there is a gap between attitudes and behaviors. The current study selected self-control fatigue and information source credibility to explore the gap between attitudes and behaviors. Experiment 1 explored the effect of self-control fatigue on attitudes and behaviors. Experiment 2 based on experiment 1 to explore the effects of self-control fatigue and information source credibility on attitudes and behavior. Experiment 2 found that compared with the control group, the self-control fatigue group had a weaker attitude towards sugar, but more participants chose the sugar-sweetened beverages. Self-control fatigue widened the gap between participants’ attitudes and behaviors. Experiment 2 found that under the persuasion of high information source credibility, participants in the self-control fatigue group not only had a weaker attitude towards sugar, but also chose the sugar-sweetened beverages less frequently. The information source credibility shrinks the gap of attitude and behavior. In summary, this study found that under the influence of high information source credibility, individuals with self-control fatigue are more likely to change their attitudes and behaviors.