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Background: The novel coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) outbreak has seriously threatened the mental health of college students. This study intended to invest whether perceived threat avoidability of COVID-19 relates to psychic anxiety among college students during the early stage of the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as the mediating roles of COVID-19-specific wishful thinking and COVID-19-specific protective behaviors in this relationship. Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted in China, using a random sampling method (February 6–25, 2020). Self-reported questionnaires were conducted online included the Perceived Threat Avoidability of COVID-19 Scale, COVID-19-specific Wishful Thinking Scale, COVID-19-specific Protective Behaviors Scale, and the Hamilton Psychogenic Anxiety Scale. The data were analyzed using Structural equation modeling and Bootstrapping procedure. Results: A total of 2922 samples were collected in this study. Perceived threat avoidability of COVID-19 is negatively related to psychic anxiety (β = −0.158, p < 0.001), and both COVID-19-specific wishful thinking (β = −0.006, p = 0.029, 95% CI: [−0.012, −0.001]) and protective behaviors (β = −0.029, p < 0.001, 95% CI: [−0.043, −0.018]) mediate this relationship. Also, COVID-19-specific wishful thinking is found to correlate with COVID-19-specific protective behaviors negatively (β = −0.112, p < 0.001). Conclusion: Perceived threat avoidability of COVID-19 contributes to psychic anxiety among college students. COVID-19-specific wishful thinking strategy plays a negative mediating role and increases the level of anxiety; COVID-19-specific protective behaviors strategy plays a positive mediating role and reduces the level of anxiety; meanwhile, wishful thinking also suppresses college students from adopting protective behaviors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: The purpose of this study is to investigate whether Chinese college students' social cyberloafing out of class has a curvilinear effect on academic performance and whether students' levels of psychological detachment and relaxation mediate the effect. Design/methodology/approach: A field survey was used to collect 502 self-reported responses from student Internet users at a large university located in central China. Findings: The results show an inverted U-shaped relationship between social cyberloafing out of class and academic performance. Two types of effort recovery experience gained from social cyberloafing, psychological detachment and relaxation, mediate that effect. Students' social cyberloafing out of class is positively associated with psychological detachment and relaxation, which in turn, have opposite effects on academic performance. Practical implications: This study offers novel insights into the effects of social cyberloafing on college students' academic achievement. The findings illustrate how social cyberloafing can serve as a recovery experience and improve academic performance, but it can hinder performance if the cyberloafing is excessive. Originality/value: This study extends the cyberloafing literature by focusing on Chinese college students' cyberloafing out of class. The study finds that a moderate amount of social cyberloafing out of class can result in psychological detachment, relaxation and improved performance when returning to academic work. However, both too much or too little social cyberloafing can result in difficulty returning to academic work and reduced academic performance. The findings are novel to the cyberloafing literature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigates the in-class and out-of-class cyberloafing activities of students in China and tests the relationship between those activities and academic performance. A sample of 1,050 undergraduate students at a large University in China reported their in-class (N= 548) and out-of-class (N= 502) cyberloafing activities, which were tested against the student's academic performance. The test results show a negative relationship between in-class cyberloafing and academic performance, but an inverted U-shaped relationship between outof- class cyberloafing and academic performance. The results support our propositions that cyberloafing is a harmful distraction in the classroom, but can have positive effects when performed in moderation outside the classroom as a means of effort recovery. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]