We investigated the dual relationship between information and communication technology (ICT) use at work and employee well-being through the framework of the job demands-resources theory. Data were collected from the seventh European Working Conditions Survey (Eurofound), which involved 37 countries and a representative sample of 7,900 workers. The findings revealed that ICT plays a dual role. On one hand, ICT enhances job autonomy, which positively influences work engagement and, subsequently, improves well-being. On the other hand, ICT use increases workload, leading to greater job exhaustion and reduced well-being. Additionally, autonomy was found to be negatively related to exhaustion, offering a secondary positive pathway to well-being. The study also examined the moderator role of employee age. Results showed that age amplifies the negative relationships between ICT use, workload, and well-being. Overall, the study highlights the complex interplay between ICT use at work and employee well-being.

This study provides evidence supporting the validity of the Psychologically Rich Life Questionnaire (PRLQ) in a large Spanish sample, comparing its 17-item and 12-item versions and various measures of well-being and distress. Both versions show high internal consistency and adequate fit, although some elements could be interpreted as favoring the 12-item version. Analyses revealed significant associations between PRLQ scores and sociodemographic factors, with higher scores observed among older individuals, those with higher levels of education, and those with higher incomes, although effect sizes were small. We found a consistent pattern of positive correlations with well-being variables (e.g., resilience and meaning in life) and negative correlations with distress measures (e.g., depression, anxiety, and loneliness). This study, for the first time in Spanish, presents information on a questionnaire that addresses a novel concept complementary to traditional views of hedonic and eudaimonic well-being. Limitations, including digital literacy disparities and potential cultural or age-related biases, are discussed. Future research should explore the cross-cultural equivalence of the PRLQ and its utility in longitudinal and predictive contexts.

Including general options on items, such as None-of-the-above (NOTA), could lead to worse psychometric properties. Further, personality traits are related to academic performance and could influence NOTA effects. Therefore, this study aims to test the effects of NOTA by manipulating its appearance and its use as the correct option or as a distractor, while considering the examinees’ personality traits. The sample consisted of 449 psychology students who answered a statistics concept inventory. A crossed random-effects model was conducted to model the probability of answering an item correctly depending on items and students’ covariates. The appearance of NOTA negatively affects the probability of answering correctly and changes between examinees. Conscientiousness, Extraversion, Emotional Stability, and previous knowledge of statistics are also significant predictors. The results point to increased items’ difficulty when NOTA is included, although not all the examinees seem to show the same behavior when dealing with NOTA options.

One factor that has been shown to mediate and protect against psychopathology is the ability to engage in meaning making in adverse situations during the COVID-19 pandemic. To date, the models that have attempted to explain the relationship between traumatic, stressful events’ meaning and clinical symptoms have been conducted in a piecemeal fashion. The objective of this study is to analyze which model (two-pathway model vs three-pathway model) has a better fit in explaining the association between the violation of global meaning and clinical symptoms such as somatization, anxiety, and depression in participants during the COVID-19 pandemic. The study sample consisted of N = 1106 adults. The results suggest that the violation of schemas affects depression and anxiety symptoms through three pathways: (a) Path one, directly, schema violation explains clinical symptoms; (b) Path two, indirectly, schema violation explains clinical symptoms through the search for meaning and negative effect; and (c) Path three, the presence of meaning explains positive affect and buffers clinical symptoms. The three-pathway model explains 90% of the variance in clinical symptoms. The three-pathway model has clinical implications for the assessment, prevention, and treatment of people who are coping with unforeseen negative situations.

Employees rely heavily on computer-mediated communication (CMC). While CMC provides significant benefits, it also presents some challenges. The theoretical mechanisms underlying these opposing effects remain poorly understood, limiting our ability to mitigate the drawbacks of CMC use while maximizing its advantages. This study leverages job design theory to unravel the complex relationship between CMC use and employee basic need satisfaction, an important determinant of employee well-being and performance. More specifically, we propose that CMC use can satisfy the basic psychological needs of relatedness, competence, and autonomy as defined in self-determination theory, by providing social support, a critical job resource. However, it may also impede psychological need satisfaction by introducing technology-induced job demands, such as interruptions and techno-workload. A daily diary study among 143 employees reporting on at least 2 days of working from home corroborated these hypotheses: CMC use was positively related to daily relatedness satisfaction through enhanced social support. Conversely, it was negatively associated with daily autonomy satisfaction through task interruptions and techno-workload. We discuss the theoretical and practical implications of these results, confirming the dual role of CMC in fulfilling and challenging basic psychological need satisfaction.

Problematic Internet use, defined as excessive, disproportionate, or inappropriate use of the Internet leading to distress, significant time consumption, and impaired normal functioning in various crucial life domains, is emerging as a major issue in many developed countries. The growing interest in exploring this phenomenon has led to the proliferation of assessment tools designed to evaluate it. The present study aims to adapt Basque the Generalized Problematic Internet Use Scale-2 (GPIUS-2), a questionnaire specifically designed to assess the cognitive and behavioral aspects of problematic Internet use and its associated consequences, and to evaluate the psychometric properties of the new instrument. The study was carried out with two independent samples, one composed of adults (n = 283, 18–62 years of age, 56.5% female) and the other of adolescents (n = 943, 11–16 years of age, 52.0% female). Three models were tested by confirmatory factor analysis: a one-dimensional model, the original five-factor model, and a four-factor model. The results indicated that both the 4-factor and 5-factor models obtained adequate fit indices, and consequently, the most parsimonious model was chosen. Invariance testing revealed comparable measurement properties of the GPIUS-2 in both men and women, and adults and adolescents. Furthermore, the scores of the GPIUS-2 subscales revealed strong positive correlations with Internet addiction and moderate positive correlations with depression, anxiety, and stress. The results therefore indicate that the Basque version of GPIUS-2 is a reliable instrument with adequate evidence of validity that will enable professionals to assess problematic Internet use in this population.

The use of observational methodology has become increasingly more common in psychological research, highlighting the need for tools that ensure methodological rigor. This study presents evidence of convergent/discriminant validity for the Methodological Quality Scale for Studies Based on Observational Methodology (MQSOM). A multitrait-multimethod (MTMM) analysis with Spearman’s correlations was used to examine the relationship between MQSOM dimensions and those of three instruments: the Methodological Rigor in Mixed Methods (MRMM), the Guidelines for Reporting Evaluations Based on Observational Methodology (GREOM), and the Mixed Methods Appraisal Tool (MMAT). Ninety-six articles were coded using MQSOM and the instruments for comparison. The MQSOM’s design converged with the MRMM’s mixed-methods design (ρ = .217, p = .034), GREOM’s design (ρ = .217, p = .034), and MMAT’s qualitative (QUAL) component (ρ = .212, p = .038). The MQSOM’s measurement and analysis aligned with MRMM’s data analysis (ρ = .611, p < .001), GREOM’s data quality control (ρ = .423, p < .001) and results (ρ = .328, p = .001), and MMAT’s quantitative (QUANT) (ρ = .214, p = .037) and mixed-methods (ρ = .643, p < .001) components. MQSOM’s design exhibited discriminant validity from MRMM’s data collection (ρ = .025, p = .807) and data analysis (ρ = −.051, p = .620), GREOM’s data quality control (ρ = .025, p = .812) and results (ρ = −.032, p = .759), and MMAT’s QUANT component (ρ = −.035, p = .733). This study reinforces the validity of MQSOM as a useful methodological quality scale.

Sensory processing sensitivity (SPS) is a trait characterized by heightened responsiveness to external and internal stimuli. Past research suggests individuals high in SPS may exhibit depressive symptoms, possibly due to their highly sensitive nervous system. While the link between SPS and sleep quality remains unexplored, studies have established a strong association between depression and sleep. This study aimed to compare sensitivity groups concerning sleep quality and depression and to evaluate depression’s moderating effects on the SPS–sleep quality relationship. An online survey was administered to 1,122 Spanish participants (female 75.8%, n = 850), with a mean age of 24.5 (standard deviation [SD] = 11.2). Analyses of covariance (ANCOVAs) indicated that the high-sensitivity group experienced more sleep disturbances and severe symptoms of depression, considering gender, age, and monthly incomes as sociodemographic variables. Depression was found to significantly moderate the SPS–sleep quality relationship (F(2, 1116) = 5.717, p = .003), exacerbating the impact of SPS on sleep disturbances. The study findings suggest that highly sensitive people appear to indicate more severe depressive symptoms, as well as sleep quality disturbances, with the influence of gender, age, and monthly income. Also, depression seems to moderate the relationship between SPS and sleep quality, leading to greater sleep disturbances among highly sensitive individuals with severe depressive symptoms.

Social decision-making is a multifaceted process where decisions impact not only the individual but also the larger group. Acute stress may influence individual decision-making, potentially increasing reward-driven choices and affecting learning and adaptive adjustment. However, studies examining stress’s impact on social decision-making have presented inconsistencies, potentially arising from assessing decision-making as a singular dimension. This article aims to test, using computational modeling, the stress effect on social decision making and cognitive subprocesses involved during the Ultimatum Game (UG). Seventy-three healthy participants underwent the UG, with only half exposed before to the virtual Trier Social Stress Test (TSST-VR). In our data, prosocial behavior—as indexed by the number of accepted offers and sensitivity to unfair distributions—did not show immediate alterations 15 min following stressor onset. However, stressed participants exhibited a diminished capacity to learn and adapt during the task, alongside a more perseverative decision-making pattern. These results support the negative impact of stress on social decisions and underscore the importance of considering its effects in mitigating challenges related to social integration and cohesion.

This research builds on previous work showing that interpersonal synchrony in dyads is a social cue that informs bystanders about the dyads’ psychological attributes and influences their intentions to affiliate with members of dyads. Across two studies, participants were asked to observe dyads walking down a corridor during the TV show Shark Tank, rate the dyads’ collective efficacy, and express their own intentions to affiliate with them. The results replicate and extend previous work, suggesting that perceived synchrony, collective efficacy, and affiliation intentions are positively correlated, and that perceived synchrony can have positive spill-over effects on outcomes such as attracting business proposals and being liked by others.

This study examined a multilevel model of leadership climate, professional self-efficacy, and technostrain in a sample of 877 individuals across 76 teams in Spain and Uruguay. We hypothesized that high levels of professional self-efficacy would mediate the relationship between leadership climate and technostrain (i.e., exhaustion, skepticism, anxiety, and inefficacy related to technology use). Our findings reveal that a positive leadership climate significantly boosts professional self-efficacy, which in turn decreases the experience of technostrain. Moreover, perceptions of shared leadership are positively associated with reduced technostrain. In terms of practical implications, the results suggest that leaders can mitigate the technostrain experienced by workers by providing socio-emotional support, facilitating positive experiences with information and communication technology (ICT), and exemplifying ethical conduct in ICT use. Additionally, efficacy beliefs can be optimized through prior training and the perception of technological and social facilitators in the workplace, which will contribute to the development of positive technology experiences at work. Further implications and limitations of the study will be discussed.