Ningxin Su

An emerging body of research has shown that requiring participants to make concurrent JOLs during learning can reactively influence memory performance, a phenomenon known as the reactivity effect. However, it remains unclear whether making JOLs can also reactively alter metacognitive control. The present study addressed this question across three types of materials: unrelated word pairs, general knowledge questions, and related word pairs. After studying each item, participants decided whether they would choose to restudy it. In JOL conditions, participants made an item-by-item JOL during learning, while in no-JOL conditions, no such judgment was required. Across all materials, making JOLs reliably increased the proportion of items selected for restudy, indicating a robust reactivity effect on metacognitive control. These findings suggest that JOL reactivity should be considered not only in relation to memory performance but also in relation to metacognitive control.

Although existing research has found that parent–child conflict significantly predicts children’s psychological adjustment, it remains unclear whether father–child and mother–child conflict exert distinct effects on psychological adjustment, the mediating processes through which they operate, and whether these processes vary across primary and secondary school stages. Using a three-wave longitudinal design, this study examined 1210 primary school students (M_age = 10.17, SD_age = 0.85) and 973 secondary school students (M_age = 12.62, SD_age = 1.36). A multiple mediation model integrating parallel and serial paths was constructed to investigate how father–child and mother–child conflict frequency respectively predicted four indicators of psychological adjustment (internalizing problems, externalizing problems, life satisfaction, and prosocial behavior) and to test the mediating roles of parental psychological control and basic psychological needs. Results showed the following: (1) parental psychological control and basic psychological needs served as significant independent mediators of the relationship between conflict frequency and psychological adjustment. In primary school, maternal psychological control emerged as the core mediator; in secondary school, the mediating role of paternal psychological control was significantly strengthened, and the basic psychological need mediated all associations between mother–child conflict and every adjustment indicator. (2) The serial mediating pathway “parental psychological control → basic psychological needs” was robust across both school stages. As a distal family stressor, parent–child conflict is indirectly transformed into maladjustment through a sequential process that first elevates psychological control and then thwarts basic psychological need. These findings illuminate a cascading mechanism underlying the impact of parent–child conflict on multifaceted adjustment and offer stage-specific guidance for targeted family interventions in primary and secondary school settings.