Articles in this Volume

Research Article Open Access
To What Extent Do Psychopathic Personality Traits Predict Violent Criminal Behavior among Adolescents
A characteristic test is a scientific procedure designed to measure a particular characteristic, such as behavior. The characteristic tests are used to predict the criminal behavior of people. This essay explores to what extent do psychopathic personality traits predict violent criminal behavior among adolescents. Specifically, the essay is going to be divided into two sections. Firstly, how psychopathic personality traits, particularly Callous-Unemotional (CU) traits, impulsivity, and antisocial behavior, can predict violent criminal behavior in adolescents. The essay will first review existing research on the link between psychopathic traits and violent crime in adolescents, focusing on studies that use tools like the Youth Psychopathic Traits Inventory (YPI) and the Psychopathy Checklist: Youth Version (PCL-YV) to measure CU traits, impulsivity, and antisocial tendencies. Secondly, this essay will also explore the differences between adolescents and adults in terms of how psychiatric traits predict violent criminal behaviors. We will analyze the manifestations of traits such as CU and impulsivity in adolescents and adults, and explore how the differences affect the predictors of criminal behaviors. Also, in this essay, we will discuss more relevant reasons which will cause violent behavior, such as brain development, environmental upbringing, and adolescent personality changes. To summarize the main points from a number of current research studies, and analyze how psychiatric traits change over time, the essay aims to provide a clearer version of how psychiatric traits affect violent behaviors in adolescents, and what different roles these traits play in adults.
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The Structural Limits of Title VII in Addressing Intersectional Discrimination
This paper examines the structural limits of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 in addressing intersectional discrimination. While the statute prohibits employment discrimination “because of race” and “because of sex,” its categorical design requires courts to treat each ground discretely, producing legal invisibility for women of colour whose harms cannot be parsed into single axes. Through doctrinal analysis, the paper interrogates this paradox: Title VII has achieved significant advances, from recognising sex stereotyping in Price Waterhouse v. Hopkins to dismantling overt exclusionary practices, yet its single-axis framework consistently erases intersectional claims, as illustrated by Price Waterhouse v. Hopkins and DeGraffenreid v. General Motors. Engaging with jurisprudential theory, the analysis situates Title VII within broader debates between Hart’s positivist emphasis on rule-based clarity. The paper argues that equality statutes function as boundaries: they forbid certain conduct but cannot repair systemic subordination. Comparative reference to international frameworks such as CEDAW highlights alternative models of substantive equality, though enforcement remains weak. The conclusion considers both legislative reform and judicial reinterpretation but emphasises the central paradox of equality law: the very clarity that secures its enforceability also renders it least capable of recognising injustice in its most entrenched, intersectional forms.
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Constructing and Contesting the “New Woman”: Gendered Discourses in the May Fourth Era
Set against the intellectual and cultural transformation of early twentieth-century China, this paper investigates how the image of the "New Woman" was constructed and contested during the May Fourth era. It focuses on the tension between male-dominated discourse and women's self-expression, drawing on New Youth, The Ladies' Journal, and literary works by Lu Xun, Ding Ling, and Lu Yin. The study finds that while male intellectuals often represented women as symbols of national progress and moral reform, female writers reinterpreted modern womanhood through emotional, bodily, and experiential narratives that reflected individual consciousness and agency. This interaction between male and female perspectives revealed the contradictions within the enlightenment ideals of the period. It demonstrated how women's writing transformed abstract discourses of emancipation into lived, self-aware experiences. The research highlights the complex dynamics of gender and modernity in shaping early Chinese feminist consciousness.
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Relation Between Self-esteem, Perfectionism, and Orthorexia Nervosa
Orthorexia Nervosa (ON) is a dietary phenomenon that has garnered significant attention in recent years. Its core characteristic is an excessive preoccupation with healthy eating, manifesting as strict dietary restrictions and frequently accompanied by psychological distress. The study uses a review method for literature from different cultures, fields and theoretical literature, in which the relationship between and the impact of self-esteem and perfectionism on ON were examined. And this review can show the vital role of self-esteem and perfectionism for the mechanism of ON in terms of comparing the design of the study, sample of study and findings of the study with its limitations. It is very apparent from the findings that almost every study points out that lower self-esteem is related to high ON tendencies. However, cross-sectional research, such as that which was performed on both the Australian sample and the American sample, did not show any association that was meaningful. In fact, it went so far as to show that ON individuals were better in terms of their self-respect. In addition, many studies have shown a strong positive relationship between perfectionism and ON, with maladaptive perfectionism having the strongest relationship. It is more important that perfectionism not merely directly predict the development of ON but also may indirectly predict ON through perfectionism-related psychosocial and behavioural characteristics. All these results together indicate that self-esteem and perfectionism play an important role in the psychological processes of ON. Nevertheless, there are differences between studies. In addition, most studies use cross-sectional designs with specific samples and therefore rely mainly on correlational findings to make causal inferences. Future studies should use longitudinal and cross-cultural designs, including extra conceivable mediating and moderating variables so as to more completely describe the ways in which self-esteem and perfectionism influence ON.
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The Interplay of Personal Motivation and Social Media Influence on Female Consumption Decisions
Female consumption decisions are often influenced by a complex interplay between personal motivations and external social factors. This study explores how social media exposure, perceptions of fashion trends, and the symbolic meanings of brand logos shape Chinese female consumers’ willingness to purchase luxury products. Drawing on theories of consumer identity and social comparison, the research investigates how social media platforms cultivate aspirational lifestyles and reinforce class-based distinctions through visual branding. By analyzing the responses collected by 4 questionnaires from young female consumers, the study highlights how luxury consumption is not only a personal choice but also a social performance shaped by peer influence and digital culture. The findings aim to deepen understanding of how modern consumerism intersects with gender, social influence, and media representation in contemporary China.
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Bifocal Intimacy: Negotiating Diasporic Family Conflicts in The Wedding Banquet and The Farewell
This paper examines how diasporic family conflicts in Ang Lee’s The Wedding Banquet (1993) and Lulu Wang’s The Farewell (2019) reveal the complex negotiations of intimacy within Sino-American families. Through close textual and cinematic analysis, the study explores how intergenerational tensions, cultural values, and moral codes shape relationships across distance and migration. Drawing on theories of diasporic intimacy and homing desire, the paper proposes the concept of bifocal intimacy to describe how diasporic families sustain care by balancing two moral grammars—truth and silence, duty and autonomy, and homeland and hostland. Rather than resolving conflicts, these families maintain closeness through ongoing negotiation and calibrated compromise. By reframing diasporic intimacy as an active and relational process, this study contributes to broader discussions of transnational identity, intergenerational belonging, and the emotional dynamics of diasporic life.
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Social Comparison on Social Media and Its Impact on Self-Esteem, Appearance Anxiety, and Career Worry
Social media has become a central part of everyday life, it can shape how people think and feel about themselves. A major process in this environment is social comparison, where individuals evaluate themselves against others. This paper examines recent research to determine how upward and downward comparisons on social media affect self-esteem and various types of worry. The methods employed in the reviewed paper include experiments, meta-analyses, and large-scale surveys, which together provide both causal and real-world evidence. The findings suggest that upward comparison typically lowers self-esteem, affects body image, and promotes negative feelings, but downward comparison may provide only temporary and inconsistent consolation.  In terms of anxiety, upward comparison can cause social anxiety through rumination, appearance anxiety through self-objectification, career anxiety due to competition pressure, and online social anxiety when seeing portrait-based content.  At the same time, protective elements like self-compassion and self-esteem can help mitigate these detrimental impacts. Overall, the studies reviewed confirm that upward comparison on social media is a major risk factor for young people’s mental health. These results highlight the need for future research using more diverse methods, including long-term and experimental designs, as well as interventions that promote self-compassion and healthier online habits. The insights gained can support efforts to create safer and more supportive digital spaces.
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The Stagnant Utopia in The Box: Rethinking Freedom Through Dystopian Fiction and Kant’s Thing-in-Itself
This paper argues that dystopian fiction carries profound philosophical imprints, primarily facilitating a critical re-examination of the relationship between technology and freedom. It contends that the ultimate horror depicted in the classic dystopian trilogy—We, Brave New World, and 1984—is not merely their oppressive institutions but a deeper "stagnation of history." This stagnation occurs when the pursuit of certainty and order extinguishes the openness and potentiality of the historical process itself, leading civilization into a static, albeit technically advanced, equilibrium. To decipher this stagnation, the paper employs Kant's critical distinction between the "thing-in-itself" and "phenomena," illustrating how the inherent limits of human reason confine us to a "transparent glass box" of perception, implying a fundamental intellectual finitude. The analysis further demonstrates that modern technology, particularly algorithmic recommendation systems creating "information cocoons," does not attempt to overcome this Kantian limit but instead operationalizes it. Following Heidegger's concept of Gestell(Enframing), technology constructs a comfortable, self-reinforcing "simulated thing-in-itself" that caters to our existing preferences. This system satiates curiosity with predictable content, thereby systematically eroding the desire to explore the true, unknown world outside the "box." Consequently, the philosophical dilemma of cognitive limitation transforms into a technological reality of willing intellectual stasis. The paper concludes that true freedom and transcendence lie not in accepting this designed finitude but in reviving a critical, pioneering spirit that continuously challenges the boundaries of the given, a crucial revelation from dystopian warnings against a stagnant utopia.
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Differential Associations Between Childhood Trauma Subtypes and Anxiety Symptoms in Young Adults
Childhood trauma act as a potential predictor for anxiety, while many studies regard early predicament as a binary factor instead of a multifaceted progression. This study operated a cross-sectional, correlational design on university-aged sample, aiming to examine the correlations between five childhood trauma subtypes accordingly to CTQ-SF (sexual abuse, physical abuse, emotional abuse, physical neglect, emotional neglect) and three anxiety disorders (Generalized Anxiety Disorder – GAD-7, Social Anxiety – SIAS, Panic Disorder – PDSS-SR) via online assessments. Measures included the CTQ-SF (28 items; five subscales), GAD-7 (0–21), SIAS (20 items), and PDSS-SR (0–28). Anxiety scales were strongly intercorrelated (PDSS-SR-GAD: r=.65; GAD-SIAS: r=.36; PDSS-SR-SIAS: r = .21), while CTQ subscales showed robust covariation (e.g., emotional abuse-physical abuse: r = .68; physical neglect-emotional neglect: r = .62). Notably, the current study proposed gender as a moderating factor, as gender-specific adversity were reported to render certain anxiety disorders. Consequently, a weak relationship between trauma categories (and CTQ aggregation) and anxiety subtypes was established. The results accentuated the essentiality to conceptualize trauma as a multidimensional determinant, including possible reporting bias and underlying mechanisms that transform subtype-specific experiences into discrepant anxiety types. For future directions, research could employ longitudinal and constant-dose models and discover applicable mediators onto intervening programs. Such extension holds implication on tailorizing trauma-sensitive measuring instruments and protective strategies for young population at early stage.
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The Role of Self-Control in Preventing Unethical Behaviors: Evidence from Delay Discounting Tasks
Unethical behavior often reflects a conflict between immediate self-interest and longer-term moral or reputational costs. Delay discounting (DD) provides a process-sensitive measure of temporal myopia in reward valuation, while self-control captures regulatory capacity in goal pursuit. This study investigates how DD and self-control jointly predict unethical behavior. A sample of 307 Chinese university students completed validated measures of DD, self-control, and unethical behavioral tendencies. Correlational analyses revealed that steeper DD was positively associated with unethical behavior, whereas higher self-control was negatively associated with unethical behavior. Moreover, self-control correlated negatively with DD, suggesting that individuals with stronger regulatory capacity are less biased toward short-term rewards. Regression analyses confirmed that both DD and self-control independently predicted unethical behavior, accounting for 53% of the variance. These findings provide evidence that unethical decision making is not an occasional lapse but a systematic outcome of intertemporal valuation biases and regulatory processes. The results support neurocomputational models of moral choice that emphasize value-based integration of immediate gains and long-term costs, moderated by control mechanisms. Practically, DD tasks and self-control measures may serve as early indicators of ethical risk, enabling targeted interventions.
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