Social Sciences

Abstract: Polymathy—the pursuit, development, and application of broad and deep knowledge in integrated ways—has a 2,500-year intellectual history, yet scholars lacks a cumulative framework for studying it. We reconstruct the development of polymathy from ancient Greece to modern day, showing how recurring debates about range, mastery, true understanding and inquiry, and social contribution have shaped the construct. We then map 103 academic works published from 1931 through August 2026, revealing rapid recent growth alongside conceptual and methodological fragmentation across disciplines, such as psychology and history. Analyzing and integrating the historical and modern literatures, we advance the Triadic Approach to Polymathy, which defines polymathy through the conjunction of three qualities: breadth, depth, and integration. We further distinguish different manifestations and levels of polymathy, involving dispositions, orientations, mastery, accomplishment, and social recognition. This systematization is crucial to study polymathy cumulatively and in relation to other well-developed constructs and theories in psychology, education, and the broad social sciences.

Abstract: Nature connection activities benefit health and well-being, increasing connectedness on individual, social, and environmental levels. However, they are rarely accessible to people with disabilities, who face disproportionate social exclusion and discrimination. As a specific form of nature connection activity, forest bathing has limited research assessing experiences of this population, and few studies provide a qualitative exploration of connectedness through forest bathing. This research offers a unique exploration of adults with disabilities’ experiences of change in connection to self, others, and nature, as a primary focus, through accessible forest bathing programmes. Semi-structured qualita-tive interviews were conducted with fifteen adults with physical disabilities and/or physical health difficulties after attending at least two online and/or in-person forest bathing group sessions. The reflexive thematic analysis resulted in four themes, indicating that accessible forest bathing pro-grammes promoted greater connectedness to self, others, and nature, along with a broader sense of interconnectedness and spiritual meaning. Participants considered connectedness essential for fos-tering self-identity, personal growth, a sense of belonging, community building, environmental stew-ardship, and reducing isolation. The findings suggest accessible forest bathing programmes may war-rant further exploration within clinical practice, green social prescribing, and education to support psychoecosocial well-being and a more inclusive, environmentally conscious society.

Abstract: Background: The scarcity of psychometrically robust instruments limits the assessment of academic stressors among Spanish university students. This study aimed to adapt the University Student Stressors Questionnaire (USSQ) to the Spanish context and evaluate its psychometric properties in a sample of undergraduate and postgraduate students. Methods: A total of 4,925 students from a Spanish public university participated. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses, measurement invariance analyses (by sex, gender, and study level), and convergent validity analyses with measures of depression, anxiety, and stress (DASS-21) and psychological well-being (Ryff’s PWB) were conducted. Results: The final 27-item, seven-factor model demonstrated optimal fit and adequate reliability (McDonald's omega: .73-.89). Partial measurement invariance was achieved for sex and gender, and full invariance for study level. Convergent validity was supported through positive correlations with psychological distress and negative correlations with well-being. Conclusions: The University Student Stressors Questionnaire (USSQ) is a valid and reliable instrument for assessing academic stressors in the Spanish university population. "Fear of failure" emerges as the most prominent factor associated with psychological distress.

Abstract: Artificial intelligence (AI) is increasingly embedded in the workplace, yet less is known about how workers experience AI and whether these experiences differ across countries. The present work compared workplace AI use and attitudes in 225 workers in China and 198 workers in the United States. Participants completed measures describing their work practices, attitudes and motivation toward AI (GAAIS; Schepman & Rodway, 2020, 2023; TENS-Life; Peters et al., 2018; Schrepp et al., 2017; Jian et al., 2000). Using Self-Determination Theory, we also examined whether autonomy, competence, and relatedness were associated with weekly AI use through trust and mistrust in AI. Chinese workers reported using AI more hours per week and reported greater organizational support for AI use than U.S. workers. They also reported more positive and more negative attitudes toward AI, as well as greater mistrust. Chinese workers reported lower AI-supported autonomy and competence but greater AI relatedness than U.S. workers. Mediation analyses indicated that relatedness was indirectly associated with greater weekly AI use through greater trust in AI in both samples. The findings suggest that understanding workplace AI use requires attention not only to the technology itself, but also to workers’ psychological and social experiences with AI.

Abstract: Background/Objectives: Research on perinatal mental health often explores motherhood, with little attention given to fathers’ experiences. Even less is known about how Black fathers navigate emotional well-being, distress and social support during the transition to fatherhood. This qualitative study explores Black fathers’ perspectives on cultural beliefs, values, health and social support with respect to paternal perinatal anxiety and depression within the Canadian context. Methods: 20 qualitative, semi-structured interviews were conducted virtually. Participants were eligible if they self-identified as men, were Black fathers with parental rights to one child and were present at their child’s birth in Canada between 2019 – 2025. Participants were recruited via purposive and reverse snowball sampling. Interviews were coded inductively for relevant patterns. Data analysis was guided by the Black Feminist Theory and Critical Race Theory. Results: The identified themes were: (1) the quiet struggle of new fatherhood; (2) bridging the gap: exploring inclusive care for Black fathers’ perinatal mental health; (3) the weight of strength: support, resilience, and the hidden burden; (4) cultural perspectives on perinatal mental health: influence, resistance, and belief systems; and (5) balancing acts: Black fathers’ mental health amid partner support and self-care. Conclusions: Fathers described managing their own distress while supporting partners and navigating expectations of strength and emotional restraint. Their accounts suggest that perinatal services should make space to ask fathers about their wellbeing and support needs, while recognizing that Black fathers differ in how they understand and seek support. Greater attention to Black fathers’ perspectives on navigating perinatal mental health in Canada may inform inclusive approaches to care and policy, reflective of the true intersections of race, gender and culture.

Abstract: This hypothesis-generating paper proposes a hybrid theoretical framework for music performance anxiety (MPA) that separates two questions often conflated in the literature: how severe MPA is, and why it occurs. The model treats MPA severity as dimensional while hypothesizing that comparable levels of severity may arise through different dominant causal and maintaining mechanisms. Five provisional mechanistic profiles are proposed: skill-deficit, trait-anxious, social-evaluative, somatic-dominant, and trauma/shame-based MPA. These profiles are not presented as established natural kinds or mutually exclusive diagnostic categories; rather, they are clinically and theory-derived, overlapping configurations intended to generate discriminating empirical predictions. The paper first distinguishes physiological arousal from anxiety and performance impairment and reviews limitations in optimal-arousal, flow, positive/negative and facilitating/debilitating anxiety, and unitary accounts of MPA. It then specifies the causal architecture and core propositions of the hybrid model, proposes a multimethod research assessment battery, and derives profile-specific predictions concerning developmental history, contextual reactivity, psychophysiology, and treatment response. Treatment matching is framed as a testable moderation hypothesis rather than an established clinical algorithm. The model predicts that mechanism-informed treatment selection will explain outcome variance beyond baseline MPA severity. Alternative dimensional, hierarchical, network, and continuous-profile accounts are considered, and a program of taxonometric, latent-profile, longitudinal, experimental, psychophysiological, and stratified intervention research is proposed. The framework is intended as a falsifiable research program for explaining heterogeneity in MPA and improving mechanism-informed intervention.

Abstract: Moral beauty, the perception of profound virtue in others, has long been theorized to evokemoral elevation, yet its emotional profile relative to other positive experiences remainsunderexamined. In a randomized writing study, 296 U.S. adults reflected on either (a) a morallybeautiful person or act, (b) an awe-inspiring natural place, or (c) an amusing person, and thenreported moral elevation and a range of discrete emotions. Moral beauty elicited significantlygreater elevation than amusement, and this effect remained robust after controlling for baselineaffect. Nature awe did not differ from amusement in elevation but selectively elicited greaterawe, whereas amusement selectively elicited amusement and higher-arousal positive affect.Moral beauty did not significantly increase a gratitude-and-love composite relative toamusement, although the observed pattern was consistent with a warmer, more affiliative profile.These findings suggest that moral beauty is not reducible to generic positive affect ornature-based awe. Instead, encounters with virtue appear to preferentially elicit moral elevation,helping distinguish the emotional consequences of moral excellence from those of perceptualvastness and playful positivity. The findings contribute to research on positive emotions, moralelevation, and the psychological significance of witnessing virtue.

Abstract: Background: Thinking skills, including goal setting, problem solving, decision making, and cognitive self-regulation, are essential for adaptive functioning during late adolescence and emerging adulthood. However, evidence for structured interventions targeting these skills remains limited in low- and middle-income countries. UNICEF’s Basic Life Skills Training Program (BLSTP) aims to strengthen these competencies, but previous evaluations lacked active control conditions. Method: A three-arm randomized controlled trial was conducted with 90 Pakistani university students (18–24 years) reporting at least average executive-functioning difficulties. Participants were randomly assigned to the BLSTP thinking-skills module, an attention-matched active control program, or a waitlist control group. Outcomes included goal setting, decision making and problem solving, critical and creative thinking, executive functioning, and resilience, assessed at baseline, post-test, and one-month follow-up. Results: Mixed-design repeated-measures ANOVA showed significant group × time interactions for all outcomes (all p < 0.001), with medium-to-large effects (Cohen’s d = 0.85–1.49). Improvements were consistently greatest in the BLSTP group, followed by the active control and waitlist groups. Gains in goal setting, decision making and problem solving, and resilience were maintained at follow-up. Conclusion: The BLSTP thinking-skills module appears to be an effective and feasible intervention for enhancing self-regulatory competencies among university students. Findings also emphasize the value of active controls in evaluating life-skills interventions and supporting their scalable implementation.

Abstract: Background/Objectives: Food environments shape children’s eating practices yet lived experiences remain insufficiently understood. This study explored how children and adolescents experience neighborhood food environments in relation to dimensions of subjective well-being in a context of social vulnerability in Chile. Methods: A quali-tative participatory study was conducted with 15 children and adolescents aged 12–15 years in La Legua and Carmen Mena, San Joaquín. Data were generated through Pho-tovoice, interviews, and emotional mapping. Photographs, maps, transcripts, and field notes were integrated and analyzed using reflexive thematic analysis, complemented by spatial analysis of emotional maps. Results: Five themes were identified: proximity, mobility, and safety; availability, diversity, and food procurement; food as an affective, familial, and social experience; children’s agency; and tensions among practices, pref-erences, restrictions, and aspirations. Nearby food outlets facilitated access, whereas insecurity constrained mobility. Multiple points of sale did not necessarily translate into food diversity, with circuits centered on bread, beverages, snacks, sweets, and fast food. Food experiences included pleasure, care, recognition, togetherness, security, and relief, alongside concern and distress. Children selected, purchased, prepared, and evaluated food within family, economic, and territorial constraints. Conclusions: Neighborhood food environments were experienced as territorial, social, and affective spaces. Access depended not only on availability and proximity but also on safety, prices, mobility, family relationships, preferences, and situated agency. Participatory approaches can broaden nutrition research by revealing how children experience and negotiate food environments.

Abstract: Childhood maltreatment is associated with adult stress response, but the roles of basic psychological need satisfaction and frustration remain unclear. This study examined indirect associations between childhood maltreatment and adult stress response through psychological need dimensions, considering overall maltreatment and its subtypes. Participants were 345 adults, including 74 with and 271 without a reported psychiatric diagnosis. Self-report measures assessed childhood maltreatment, need satisfaction and frustration, and stress response. Hierarchical regression, mediation, and sensitivity analyses were conducted, adjusting for age, sex, subjective socioeconomic status, and diagnosis status. In the final regression model, competence frustration and autonomy frustration were positively associated with stress response, whereas competence satisfaction was negatively associated. In parallel mediation, only competence frustration retained a significant indirect association after false discovery rate (FDR) correction (B = .144, β = .083, adjusted p = .002). In subtype-specific models, emotional abuse showed corrected indirect associations through all need frustration dimensions, emotional neglect through all need satisfaction dimensions, and physical neglect through relatedness frustration. No corrected indirect associations were observed for sexual or physical abuse. Sensitivity analyses found no robust moderation by diagnosis status. Findings highlight competence frustration and differing need-related patterns, although the cross-sectional design precludes causal interpretation.

Abstract: OBJECTIVE To examine the association between workplace gaslighting and actors’ mental health and professional life in Greece. METHOD We carried out a cross-sectional study in Greece and collected data through an online survey conducted from April 2026 to July 2026. The questionnaire was developed using Google Forms and distributed via social media platforms, including actors groups on Facebook and Instagram. We employed a convenience sample of actors in our study. We used the Gaslighting at Work Scale (GWS) to measure levels of workplace gaslighting among our actors. We used the Patient Health Questionnaire-4, the single item job burnout scale, and the single item turnover intention scale to measure anxiety, depression, job burnout, and turnover intention, respectively. RESULTS The study population included 512 actors. Among them, 56.1% were females and 43.9% were males. Mean age of actors was 36.1 years. In our sample, 77.1% (n=395) experienced high levels of workplace gaslighting. After adjustment for gender, age, and work experience we found a positive association between score on the GWS and anxiety (b = 0.793, 95% CI = 0.639 to 0.948, p<0.001), and depression (b = 0.873, 95% CI = 0.711 to 1.035, p<0.001). In other words, actors who experienced higher levels of gaslighting behaviors from their supervisors had also more anxiety and depressive symptoms. After eliminating confounding factors, we found a positive association between score on the GWS and job burnout (b = 0.853, 95% CI = 0.576 to 1.130, p<0.001). Moreover, we found a positive association between score on the GWS and turnover intention (b = 0.725, 95% CI = 0.569 to 0.881, p<0.001). In other words, workplace gaslighting increased levels of job burnout and turnover intention among our actors. CONCLUSIONS Our findings suggested that actors who experience higher levels of gaslighting behaviors from their supervisors have also more anxiety and depressive symptoms. Moreover, workplace gaslighting increases levels of job burnout and turnover intention.

Abstract: Student engagement has become a central construct in educational psychology because of its association with learning, academic achievement, persistence, school adjustment, and well-being. Despite its relevance, the literature still shows considerable conceptual diversity regarding its definition, dimensions, antecedents, and consequences. This article presents a critical, narrative review of the evolution of the construct, from conceptualizations centered on participation and identification with school to multidimensional models integrating behavioral, emotional, cognitive, and agentic dimensions. Particular attention is given to the relational and contextual nature of engagement, including the roles of teacher support, social relationships, sense of belonging, and well-being. The analysis draws on a line of research developed in Portugal within vocational and secondary education and connects it with classic and contemporary international literature. Recent evidence suggests that the different dimensions of engagement play partially distinct roles: behavioral engagement shows particularly strong associations with achievement, agentic engagement with social support, and emotional engagement with motivation and well-being. It is argued that engagement should not be understood as a stable trait of the student, nor reduced to observable participation, but as a dynamic process that emerges from the interaction between students and educational contexts.

Abstract: Introduction: Positive psychology interventions are increasingly used in educational, workplace, and community settings to support well-being, personal growth, resilience, engagement, and other indicators of human development. However, the evidence spans diverse interventions, populations, outcomes, and cultural contexts, and the extent to which positive effects are sustained or transferable remains uncertain.Methods: The researcher-selected databases and information sources were Google Scholar, PubMed (MEDLINE), ERIC. The eligibility protocol restricted publication years to 2020–2026. COSTAQDA recorded source-level retrieval through OpenAlex (250 retrieved; 14323 available), Crossref (250 retrieved; 27071 available). Where researcher-selected sources did not expose a suitable direct bulk-search connector, COSTAQDA used its OpenAlex/Crossref discovery bridge while preserving the researcher-selected source names in the PRISMA record. The identification run recorded 500 records before cross-source deduplication and 487 unique records after deduplication.Results: The synthesis generated one descriptive theme and six analytical themes. Positive psychology interventions were associated with strengthened personal resources; strengths-based reflection supported identity development and intentional growth; positive emotional climates created pathways to engagement and performance; benefits depended on supportive relationships and enabling environments; cultural and situational fit constrained transferability; implementation required preparation, competence, and ethical safeguards; and the evidence supported promise but not definitive claims about long-term human development. Convergence was strongest for self-efficacy, engagement, resilience, and relational support, while divergent findings concerned emotional coexistence, cultural variation, sustainability, and possible harms.Discussion/Conclusion: Positive psychology interventions show promise as context-dependent strategies for human development, but the evidence does not justify universal or definitive causal claims. Transferable implications favour strengths-based, relational, culturally responsive, and institutionally supported implementation.

Abstract: Children’s drawings serve as rich clinical and developmental assessment tools, yet their interpretation remains subjective. The emergence of vision–language models (VLMs) offers a novel, automated approach to this challenge, raising a critical question: do different AI models derive the same clinical narrative when presented with the identical drawing? To investigate this, we evaluated five VLMs—GPT-4 Vision, Claude Vision, Gemini, Grok, and LLaMA—interpreting 315 children’s drawings under a shared, projective-inspired framework. We systematically compared the models’ outputs across emotional tone, thematic focus, linguistic style, and semantic similarity. Our findings reveal a fundamental split between perception and expression: while the systems converged strongly on basic semantic content and topic structure—agreeing on what they see—they diverged significantly in sentiment, clinical vocabulary, tone register, and interpretive stance. This divergence yields a distinct, identifiable “interpretive fingerprint” for each model. We conclude that model choice fundamentally shapes the interpretive narrative in ways that matter for applied use. Given their stylistic divergences and unique interpretive biases, VLMs cannot serve as objective, standalone evaluators, but should instead be utilized strictly as supplementary instruments under professional clinical supervision.

Abstract: Collective emotion is an emergent property of social systems: individual affective states propagate along social ties and, in the aggregate, produce group-level patterns that rise, peak, and stabilize. This paper models emotional contagion as a dynamical process on a real social network, extending the susceptible–influenced–susceptible (SIS) framework with a third, aware state—the susceptible–influenced–aware (SIA) model—and separating two recovery routes that earlier single-channel models conflate: natural recovery, the passive fading of an emotional state, and aware recovery, the active acquisition of emotion-regulation capacity that confers partial protection against re-influence. We implement the agent-based model on the Facebook friendship network (N = 4039, E = 88,234). As a theory-building model rather than a data-calibrated one, it generates, under baseline parameters and across 30 independent simulations, a transient peak of roughly 33% influenced density followed by a stable plateau near 28%, with the aware density lagging behind throughout; these are model outcomes, not empirical estimates of real-world prevalence. Mean-field analysis yields a basic reproduction ratio R₀ = β/(μ + α) ≈ 1.94 governing a transcritical bifurcation between extinction and self-sustaining collective emotion; because the aware channel enters this ratio symmetrically with natural recovery, building regulation capacity is a first-order control on whether collective emotion self-sustains, not merely an aid to recovery. A second analytical result is that the two channels interact non-trivially: the steady-state fraction that acquires regulation capacity is non-monotonic in both the influence rate and the capacity-building rate, peaking at an interior optimum, so the most resilient population is produced by an optimal rather than maximal level of intervention. A social network analysis shows the network is small-world, heavy-tailed, and organized into sixteen strongly modular communities, with a small set of hub-and-bridge nodes mediating cross-community spread. By representing the two recovery channels as independent parameters, the model separates environment-oriented from capacity-oriented interventions and generates testable predictions for the regulation of collective emotion in digital and organizational settings.

Abstract: Family-based treatment (FBT) is widely regarded as the leading evidence-based treatment for adolescents with anorexia nervosa and has demonstrated benefits, particularly in supporting weight restoration. FBT is organised around five central tenets: an agnostic view of illness causation, a non-authoritarian therapeutic stance, parental empowerment, externalisation of the eating disorder and a pragmatic focus on symptom reduction. However, evidence of group-level efficacy does not establish that treatment is appropriate, accessible or psychologically safe for every young person and family. This lived-experience-informed critical analysis brings treatment research into conversation with qualitative evidence, recovery-oriented scholarship and emerging understandings of treatment-related harm. It examines how the five tenets distribute authority, credibility and responsibility and how their enactment may shape psychological safety and recovery. Agnosticism may become incuriosity about the functions and contexts of eating-disorder behaviours; non-authoritarianism may redistribute rather than reduce clinical authority; parental empowerment may displace the young person’s voice; externalisation may support separation from the eating disorder for some while invalidating the testimony of others; and pragmatism may privilege physical restoration without adequately addressing psychological and relational needs. These tensions may be particularly consequential for young people whose presentations include neurodivergence, trauma, chronic illness or other intersecting needs. Rather than rejecting FBT, we propose five corresponding shifts: from agnosticism to explorative curiosity, from non-authoritarianism to meaningful patient choice, from parental empowerment to shared empowerment, from externalisation to individualised differentiation, and from pragmatism to person-centred responsiveness. These shifts may preserve the urgency of nutritional care while strengthening collaboration, dignity and psychological safety.

Abstract:

Background/Objectives: Negative workplace gossip could affect nurses’ mental health and professional life. The aim of this study was to examine the association between negative workplace gossip, mental health and professional life among nurses. Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted in Greece during May 2026. We used valid scales to measure our study variables; Perceived Negative Workplace Gossip Scale, Patient Health Questionnaire-4, Quiet Quitting Scale, Utrecht Work Engagement Scale-3, Organizational-Based Self-Esteem Scale, Single-Item Job Satisfaction measure, Single-Item Burnout measure, and Turnover Intention Scale. Results: We found a significant positive association between negative workplace gossip and both anxiety (p = 0.009), and depression symptoms (p < 0.001). Moreover, multivariable linear regression analysis identified a positive association between negative workplace gossip and three dimensions of quiet quitting; (1) detachment (p < 0.001), (2) lack of initiative (p < 0.001), and (3) lack of motivation (p < 0.001). Also, we found a positive association between negative workplace gossip and job burnout (p < 0.001). Multivariable linear regression analysis showed a negative association between negative workplace gossip and work engagement (p < 0.001), organizational-based self-esteem (p < 0.001), and job satisfaction (p < 0.001). Additionally, multivariable logistic regression analysis showed that higher level of negative workplace gossip was associated with an increased probability of turnover intention (p-value < 0.001). Conclusions: Our findings support the association between negative workplace gossip, anxiety, depression, quiet quitting, work engagement, organizational-based self-esteem, job satisfaction, job burnout, and turnover intention. Healthcare organizations, policymakers, and supervisors should place particular emphasis on addressing negative workplace gossip by implementing targeted interventions aimed at reducing its prevalence.

Abstract: Executive functions and socio-emotional competencies play an important role in emerging literacy and numeracy. Hence, it is important to consider how functioning in the cognitive domain co-occurs with socio-emotional functioning and how these two domains of early childhood development are associated with emerging literacy and numeracy. At the same time, there are few cross-national person-centred studies that address how individual differences in executive functions co-occur with individual differences in socio-emotional competencies. Drawing on the data of 18,875 children (mean age = 5.52 years; 49.30% female) who participated in the International Early Learning and Child Well-being Study 2025, the current study examines latent profiles of executive and socio-emotional competencies in early childhood and their associa-tion with emerging numeracy and literacy. Latent profile analyses yielded five distinct profiles of early childhood executive functions and socio-emotional competencies. The first profile was characterised by globally low functioning (12.9%). The second profile comprised children with comparatively low social-behavioural functioning (24%), whereas the third reflected broadly average, balanced functioning (28.5%). The fourth included children with pronounced executive functioning and emotional strengths but comparatively weaker social and behavioural functioning (20.4%). The fifth profile comprised children who exhibited profound social and behavioural strengths (14.3%). Significant cross-jurisdictional differences were found in profile membership. These differences may reflect broader contextual, cultural, or educational conditions, alt-hough the mechanisms underlying them require further investigation. Significant dif-ferences in emerging literacy and numeracy were also found across profiles, with the children in the fourth profile exhibiting the best numeracy and literacy competencies. The findings suggest that executive and socio-emotional strengths do not necessarily align in early childhood, and that their distinct configurations are associated with dif-ferences in emerging literacy and numeracy.

Abstract: The Revised Multicultural Ideology Scale (MCI-r) has been validated in five Western contexts, each retaining the same four subscales and setting aside Essentialistic Boundaries and Extent of Differences. We report its first administration outside Europe and North America, in 1,200 nationally distributed South Korean adults, and no established structure achieved acceptable fit as specified. The four-factor solution preferred in every prior study was inadmissible in two of three subsamples under robust maximum likelihood and in the full sample under an alternative estimator, because Cultural Maintenance and Social Interaction were not separable (disattenuated r = 1.03; latent r = .896 with method variance modelled). Misfit was organised by item wording direction rather than content. A single orthogonal factor loading the eight negatively worded items raised fit from CFI = .563 to .901 and absorbed 31.6% of their variance; a random intercept representing a general tendency to agree fitted better still on every index, locating the effect in acquiescence rather than in negative wording as such. The only subscales to form an acceptable model were the two containing no negatively worded items, which are also the two set aside in every prior validation — though that advantage is confounded with wording composition and is not interpretable substantively. Mixed-worded subscales cannot be assumed to function equivalently outside the contexts in which they were developed.

Abstract: Background: College mental health screening relies almost exclusively on self-report questionnaires, which are vulnerable to recall bias, impression management, and administrative burden. Digital phenotyping, the measurement of behavior through human-computer interaction, offers complementary, passively collected signals, yet few systems integrate it with validated screening scales in a privacy-conscious way. Because the required sensors, the computer mouse and the webcam, are already standard on screening workstations, objective behavioral measurement can be added without any new peripherals such as EEG headsets or wristbands, at near-zero hardware cost. We present PsyTrace, a privacy-aware, local-first platform that integrates a multi-scale self-report battery with unobtrusive behavioral sensing to support counseling-center screening workflows. Methods: PsyTrace is implemented as a Tauri 2 (Rust + WebView) desktop application with a Next.js 14 / TypeScript user interface. Assessment methodology comprises built-in validated scales (PHQ-9, GAD-7, C-SSRS, PSS-10, PSQI, SIAS-6, ASLEC) plus locally uploaded custom scales, a four-tier risk taxonomy with per-scale adjustable thresholds. Behavioral sensing captures mouse trajectories throughout the questionnaire (14 kinematic features, 5 heuristic signals), and a camera feed at 320*240. Results: The full screening workflow, informed consent, silent sensing, four-tier risk classification, per-scale risk dashboards, exploratory correlation analytics, and privacy-aware report export, is demonstrated end-to-end. Engineering verification includes successful type-checking, a production build, and 26 DOM-level smoke tests. Conclusions: PsyTrace demonstrates a feasible engineering foundation for multimodal, privacy-preserving college mental health screening. Running on ubiquitous hardware with no additional peripherals, it is also a low-cost, easily promotable screening infrastructure. It is a research prototype, not a diagnostic device: calibration of heuristic thresholds and clinical validation with longitudinal cohorts are required next steps. The software is fully open source, and the complete source code is available on GitHub (github.com/GuoXiang9399/PsyPlat).