Mina Jyung

A dominant tradition in social psychological inquiry has cast mortality as a looming threat that people manage through defensive fortification, such as denial or worldview defense (Neimeyer et al.,...

Anecdotal and empirical evidence underscores the importance of aligning major life decisions with one's true self. Yet, achieving this alignment is not always straightforward and appears to vary across cultures and individuals. Across 10 studies (N = 3,127), we investigated these variations by exploring (a) cultural differences in true-self-congruent job choices, focusing on North American and South Korean cultures, and (b) cultural and individual differences in endorsing the belief that following one's true self leads to positive outcomes, particularly increased competence in job choices, which we refer to as the "true-self-as-cause (TSAC)" belief. Study 1 revealed that a higher proportion of American employees reported truly loving their current job compared to South Korean employees. Studies 2-4 showed that North Americans were more willing than South Koreans to leave their current job for one that better aligns with their true self, even at the cost of job stability (Study 2), competence (Studies 3a and 4), financial benefits (Study 3b), or family happiness (Study 3c). Study 5 demonstrated that true-self-congruent job choices among North Americans were explained by their stronger TSAC belief endorsement compared to South Koreans, over and above a number of alternative mechanisms. Studies 6, 7a, and 7b provided causal-chain evidence by manipulating TSAC belief endorsement. The current research contributes to the literature on the true self and authenticity by shedding light on cross-cultural variability in making authentic decisions and its psychological underpinning. Implications and potential directions for future research on the role of TSAC belief endorsement are discussed. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).

Extensive research documents the far-reaching consequences of social class, yet one fundamental question remains underexplored: Does social class shape how people construe death? We examine whether subjective social class is associated with distinct death attitudes and whether those attitudes, in turn, are related to suicidal ideation. Across Studies 1a and 1b, lower subjective social class was associated with greater escape acceptance, which involves viewing death as relief from life’s hardships. By contrast, neutral acceptance, approach acceptance, fear of death, and death avoidance showed no consistent association with social class. In Study 2, lower subjective social class was indirectly associated with greater suicidal ideation through higher escape acceptance, even after adjusting for depressive symptoms and exposure to threatening life events. Taken together, these findings reveal an overlooked implication of perceived social standing: Social class is linked not only to how people live but also to how they make meaning of death.

This study aimed to (1) identify personality profiles based on the Five-Factor Model using a large South Korean sample (N = 813,611) and (2) examine their associations with well-being and related variables (e.g., self-esteem, loneliness, subjective social status). Using a Gaussian Mixture Model (GMM), we identified five personality types: Average, with mid-range scores on all traits; Introverted-Open, with high Openness and low Extraversion and Agreeableness; Introverted-Reactive, with low Conscientiousness and Extraversion and high Neuroticism; Expressive, with high Openness and Extraversion; and Conventional, with low Openness and, to a lesser extent, low Agreeableness and Neuroticism. Membership probabilities for the five personality profiles showed distinct patterns of association with the aforementioned variables, providing further insight into their characteristics. Expressive and Average type membership was associated with only beneficial outcomes, though the magnitude of these associations differed, while the Introverted-Reactive type was linked to lower well-being and various psychological vulnerabilities. The Introverted-Open and Conventional types displayed a nuanced profile, characterized by a combination of both adaptive and maladaptive attributes. These findings build on previous personality typology research by identifying empirically derived profiles in a Korean sample and offer insights for developing targeted, person-centered well-being interventions.

The present research examines whether and how lay intuitive theory regarding the interconnectedness of the mind and body, which we term mind–body correspondence (MBC), predicts engagement in health behaviors. Specifically, we hypothesised that MBC would strengthen mind influences the body (MIB) and body influences the mind (BIM) beliefs, which would in turn increase mental and physical health behaviors, respectively. We tested associations among MBC (independent variable), MIB and BIM beliefs (proposed mediators), and mental and physical health behaviors (dependent variables) using correlational designs in Studies 1a to 1c. Results revealed positive associations between MBC and (1) MIB and BIM and (2) mental and physical health behaviors, as well as between MIB and mental health behaviors and between BIM and physical health behaviors. We then tested the full model in Study 2 with an experimental manipulation of MBC and in Study 3 with a two‐wave longitudinal design. Both studies revealed significant indirect effects of MBC on mental health behaviors via MIB and on physical health behaviors via BIM. Together, our findings suggest that one can encourage mental health behaviors by emphasizing the mind‐to‐body connection and physical health behaviors by highlighting the body‐to‐mind connection.

Positive anticipatory experiences are key to daily well-being. However, the brain’s functional architecture underlying real-world positive anticipatory experiences and well-being remains unexplored. In the present study, we combined an ecological momentary assessment and resting-state functional neuroimaging to identify the neural predictors of real-world positive anticipatory experiences and explore their relationships with subjective well-being (SWB). With a model-based approach, we quantified participants’ accuracy in predicting positive events and the degree to which participants’ affective states were influenced by the positive anticipation. We found that individuals with higher accuracy in predicting upcoming positive events showed greater SWB, and this relationship was mediated by greater positive anticipatory feelings. Importantly, functional connectivity of the dorsal and ventral striatal-hippocampal networks significantly predicted the accuracy and positive anticipatory feelings, respectively. These dissociable but inter-related functional networks were further predictive of SWB. Our findings provide novel and ecologically valid evidence that the interplay between neural systems for reward-processing and memory plays an important role in real-life positive anticipatory experiences and everyday SWB.

Emotional reactivity to everyday events predicts happiness, but the neural circuits underlying this relationship remain incompletely understood. Here, we combined experience sampling methods and diffusion magnetic resonance imaging to examine the association among corticolimbic structural connectivity, real-world emotional reactivity and daily experiences of happiness from 79 young adults (35 females). Participants recorded momentary assessments of emotional and happiness experiences five times a day for a week, approximately 2 weeks after brain scanning. Model-based emotional reactivity scores, which index the degree to which moment-to-moment affective state varies with the occurrence of positive or negative events, were computed. Results showed that stronger microstructural integrity of the uncinate fasciculus and the external capsule was associated with both greater positive and negative emotional reactivity scores. The relationship between these fiber tracts and experienced happiness was explained by emotional reactivity. Importantly, this indirect effect was observed for emotional reactivity to positive but not negative real-world events. Our findings suggest that the corticolimbic circuits supporting socioemotional functions are associated with emotional reactivity and happiness in the real world.