The present study examined whether anxiety mediates the relationship between negative affect and smartphone addiction tendency, and whether mindset of anxiety moderates this indirect effect. Recent research highlights that women are more prone to smartphone addiction risk, emphasizing the importance of identifying psychological mechanisms and protective factors. A total of 231 female undergraduates from a four-year university in Seoul completed self-report questionnaires online. Using Process Macro Model 7 for SPSS, the analysis revealed that anxiety significantly mediated the relationship between negative affect and smartphone addiction tendency, while the direct effect was not significant. Furthermore, the mindset of anxiety moderated the indirect effect, such that a stronger growth-oriented mindset weakened the association. These findings suggest that cultivating a growth mindset could serve as a protective strategy against smartphone addiction in female college students. Given the malleability of mindsets through education and training, this study offers practical implications for promoting digital well-being and mental health within this population.
The purpose of this study is to verify the mediating effect of social media use motives in the gender difference in social media addiction. To this end, the Bergen Social Media Addiction Scale and the Social Media Use Motives Scale–Revised were administered to 433 college students (154 males and 279 females) who use social media. The results of the study showed that coping motives, pastime motives, expression motives, and concealment motives functioned as mediating variables in the gender difference in social media addiction. Among these four motives, the mediating effect of coping motives showed the largest effect size. These research results suggest that when intervening in social media addiction among female college students, interventions should focus on coping motives, pastime motives, expression motives, and concealment motives.
As workforce diversity emerges as a key element of organizational competitiveness worldwide, there is a growing interest in inclusive leadership that recognizes and respects individual differences among employees. In particular, the role of leadership in effectively leveraging the capabilities of members from diverse backgrounds has gained increasing attention, highlighting the need for empirical investigations into how leadership affects female employees. This study aims to examine the impact of inclusive leadership on task performance among female employees and to analyze the mediating role of proactive behavior in this relationship. A survey was conducted with female workers across various industries in South Korea. The analyses revealed that inclusive leadership significantly influenced proactive behavior, and proactive behavior, in turn, had a significant effect on task performance. However, the direct effect of inclusive leadership on task performance was not statistically significant, indicating a full mediation effect of proactive behavior. These findings suggest that inclusive leadership indirectly enhances task performance by promoting proactive behavior among female employees. This contributes to a deeper understanding of the mechanism through which inclusive leadership influences performance outcomes and underscores its strategic importance in managing diversity within organizations. Finally, the theoretical and practical implications, limitations, and directions for future research are discussed.
This study investigated the mediating effect of multi-role stress and the moderated mediating effect of self-compassion in the relationship between evaluative concern perfectionism and job burnout among employed mothers. A survey was conducted with 312 working women with children, and the data were analyzed using the PROCESS Macro. The key findings are as follows. First, evaluative concern perfectionism significantly influenced job burnout through the mediating effect of multi-role stress. Second, self-compassion and isolation, a subfactor of self-compassion, moderated the relationship between multi-role stress and job burnout. Notably, the association between multi-role stress and burnout was stronger among individuals with higher levels of self-compassion or with lower levels of isolation. Third, the moderated mediating effect of self-compassion through multi-role stress in the relationship between evaluative concern perfectionism and job burnout was significant. These findings suggest that multi-role stress partially mediates the relationship between evaluative concern perfectionism and job burnout, and that self-compassion moderates this mediating pathway. Based on these results, the study discusses its implications, acknowledges its limitations, and offers suggestions for future research.
This study aimed to explore how North Korean female defectors experience and perceive interpersonal relationships in the workplace by employing the Photovoice methodology. Through the process of capturing photographs and narrating their lived experiences, participants were able to express the emotions and meanings embedded in their interpersonal experiences in a visual and narrative form. Four North Korean female defectors residing and working in the Seoul metropolitan area participated in the study. Data were collected through a Photovoice orientation session and in-depth interviews. The analysis yielded three major themes—(1) workplace relationships as a source of adaptation and growth, (2) barriers to forming relationships, and (3) facilitators of relationship building—along with six subthemes and 25 meaning units. The findings revealed the following: First, emotionally supportive relationships in the workplace served as a channel for cultural adaptation and promoted a stable settlement in South Korean society. Second, barriers to forming workplace relationships included prejudice, discrimination, uncomfortable attention, and difficulties with modern technologies, all of which intensified psychological withdrawal and feelings of isolation. Third, efforts to actively engage with others and voluntary attitudes played a key role in forming workplace relationships and enhancing job satisfaction and adjustment. Based on these findings, the study offers suggestions for counseling and policy interventions to support the social integration and healthy interpersonal development of North Korean female defectors, and provides directions for future research.
The purpose of this study was to examine whether codependency would mediate the relationship between self-differentiation and life satisfaction in married couples using the Actor-Partner Interdependence Model (APIM). A total of 447 married couples participated in an online survey, and the analysis yielded the following results. First, there were significant differences between husbands and wives in terms of self-differentiation and codependency. Husbands exhibited higher levels of self-differentiation than their wives, whereas wives showed higher levels of codependency than their husbands. Second, the actor and partner effects of self-differentiation on life satisfaction were not significant for either husbands or wives. Third, the actor effect of self-differentiation on codependency was significant for both husbands and wives, while the partner effect was not significant. Fourth, the effects of codependency on life satisfaction varied by gender. While neither the actor nor the partner effects of codependency were significant for husbands, both effects were significant for wives. Fifth, the mediating effect of codependency in the relationship between self-differentiation and life satisfaction was significant only for wives. This suggests that wives' self-differentiation and codependency have a greater impact on marital life satisfaction than those of husbands. Finally, based on these findings, we discuss the implications of this study and provide suggestions for future research.
The purpose of this study was to examines the mother-child interaction longitudinal effect of a counseling intervention H.E.A.R program for postpartum depression. The subjects were 14 mothers with a postpartum depression scale score of 13 or higher and were divided into experimental group (EG, n=6) and control group (CG, n=8). EG were measured five times before and after intervention and CG were measured in the same way without the program. The results were as follows: First, there were significant differences between EG and CG in all measured variables. Second, longitudinal effects were not observed only for mother's language expression. Third, the largest effect was observed in mother-child interaction, followed by postpartum depression. This study was significant in that it verified the longitudinal effects of a short-term postpartum depression intervention counseling program in the area of postpartum depression intervention, where structured counseling programs were lacking.
The Purpose of this study was to examine the mediating effects of self-differentiation and ambivalence over emotional expressiveness in the relationship between mother's parentification on negative parenting behavior. The participant were 377 mothers with children from 0-13 years old and completed the self-report survey of Filial Responsibility Scale-Adult, Negative parenting behavior, Self-differentiation, Ambivalence over emotional expressiveness questionnaire. The collected data were subjected to frequency analysis, descriptive statistics and correlation analysis using SPSS 25.0, and structural models and mediating effects were verified using AMOS 28.0. The results of the study are as follows. First, The sub-factors of mother's parentification, negative parenting behavior, and ambivalence over emotional expressiveness demonstrated a significant positive correlation, Self-differentiation showing a significant negative correlation. Second, in the relationship between parentification and negative parenting behavior, the mediating effects of self-differentiation, ambivalence over emotional expressiveness were found to be significant, respectively. Third, it was found that there is a double mediating effect in which self-differentiation and ambivalence over emotional expressiveness sequentially mediate the relationship between parentification and negative parenting behavior. Through this study, it was possible to confirm the mediating role of self-differentiation and ambivalence over emotional expressiveness in the effect of the mother's parentification experience on negative parenting behavior. In particular, it is meaningful to find and present counseling intervention methods for clients who have difficulty raising children due to excessive parentalization experiences in childhood in terms of parentification, self-differentiation, and ambivalence over emotional expressiveness. Based on these findings, the significance and limitations of this research, as well as recommendations for future research were discussed.
This study aimed to understand the experiences and meanings of relationship changes between middle-aged married women and their mothers. To explore the contextualized meanings embedded in participants’ individual lives, a narrative inquiry methodology was employed. Three middle-aged married women who perceived a clear and subjective change in their relationships with their mothers were selected through purposeful sampling. In addition to in-depth interviews, supplementary materials such as picture books, photographs, poems, and journals were collected through emails, phone calls, and social media to enrich the participants’ narratives. Using the narrative inquiry framework proposed by Clandinin and Connelly, field texts were constructed and then reconstructed into research texts by considering temporality, spatiality, and sociality. The narratives of participants revealed four core themes: The Sunflower That Bows Its Head, My Shadow Reflected in Mother’s Mirror, The Seesaw Game in the Fog, and A Long Journey Back to Myself. The findings showed that for middle-aged women, changes in the mother-daughter relationship had a profound impact beyond the family system, facilitating self-reflection and a redefinition of life’s meaning. Through these changes, the women engaged in a process of reconstructing the meanings of “being a mother” and “being oneself.” Based on these findings, the study discusses practical and therapeutic implications for counseling middle-aged women
This study explored the essence of the psychological and internal experiences of counselors working with women engaged in prostitution, employing a phenomenological methodology. In-depth interviews were conducted over 15 sessions with four counselors who had practical experience in prostitution counseling, and the data were analyzed based on van Manen’s four existential categories: lived experience of space, lived experience of time, lived experience of relation, and lived experience of body. The counselors experienced existential disruptions and processes of self-reconstruction beyond the traditional counseling framework through deep engagement with the suffering and lives of the women. Counseling emerged as a space that fractured the counselor’s world through structural limitations, repeated violence, emotional exhaustion, and ethical dilemmas, while simultaneously fostering ontological reflection and transformative practice through encounters with the Other. This study demonstrates that prostitution counseling is not merely a form of support but an existential journey that reshapes the being of both counselor and client, and suggests implications for enhancing the psychological protection and institutional support for counselors.
According to the 2018 National Survey on Fertility and Family Health and Welfare in South Korea, the most significant difficulty experienced during infertility treatment was “psychological distress and a sense of isolation” (36.1%), while one of the major reasons for discontinuing treatment was “psychological burden” (18.3%). However, current national infertility support policies focus primarily on providing financial assistance for medical procedures, with relatively little attention given to the psychological changes and emotional challenges that women undergoing infertility treatment face. The purpose of this study is to explore the psychological changes experienced by women throughout the infertility treatment process from a phenomenological perspective and to identify key factors contributing to infertility-related stress, with the aim of suggesting effective psychological support strategies. To achieve this, in-depth interviews were conducted using Giorgi’s descriptive phenomenological method with married women who had undergone in vitro fertilization (IVF) three or more times within the past five years. Analysis of the data revealed four major themes: “A Life Overwhelmed by Infertility,” “Stress Caused by Infertility,” “Psychological Changes During the Treatment Process,” and “Efforts to Overcome Infertility Stress.” Based on these findings, this study proposes practical psychological support measures for women undergoing infertility treatment and discusses the implications and limitations of the research.
