TY  - JOUR
AU  - Chen, Yidi
AU  - Zheng, Lei
AU  - Ma, Jinjin
AU  - Zhu, Huanya
AU  - Gan, Yiqun
PY  - 2025
DA  - 2025/2/21
TI  - The Mediating Role of Meaning-Making in the Relationship Between Mental Time Travel and Positive Emotions in Stress-Related Blogs: Big Data Text Analysis Research
JO  - J Med Internet Res
SP  - e63407
VL  - 27
KW  - stress
KW  - meaning-making
KW  - mental time travel
KW  - big data
KW  - mini meta-analysis
KW  - text analysis
KW  - coping mechanisim
KW  - Weibo
KW  - post
KW  - web crawler
KW  - positive emotion
KW  - emotion
KW  - meta-analysis
KW  - anxiety
KW  - depression
KW  - mental health
KW  - ecological momentary assessment
KW  - EMA
KW  - stress model
KW  - natural language processing
KW  - NLP
AB  - Background: Given the ubiquity of stress, a key focus of stress research is exploring how to better coexist with stress. Objective: This study conducted text analysis on stress-related Weibo posts using a web crawler to investigate whether these posts contained positive emotions, as well as elements of mental time travel and meaning-making. A mediation model of mental time travel, meaning-making, and positive emotions was constructed to examine whether meaning-making triggered by mental time travel can foster positive emotions under stress. Methods: Using Python 3.8, the original public data from active Weibo users were crawled, yielding 331,711 stress-related posts. To avoid false positives, these posts were randomly divided into two large samples for cross-validation (sample 1: n=165,374; sample 2: n=166,337). Google’s natural language processing application programming interface was used for word segmentation, followed by text and mediation analysis using the Chinese psychological analysis system “Wenxin.” A mini–meta-analysis of the mediation path coefficients was conducted. Text analysis identified mental time travel words, meaning-making words, and positive emotion words in stress-related posts. Results: The constructed mediation model of mental time travel words (time words), meaning-making words (causal and insightful words), and positive poststress emotions validated positive adaptation following stress. A mini–meta-analysis of two different mediation models constructed in the two subsamples indicated a stable mediation effect across the 2 random subsamples. The combined effect size (B) obtained was .013 (SE 0.003, 95% CI 0.007-0.018; P<.001), demonstrating that meaning-making triggered by mental time travel in stress-related blog posts can predict positive emotions under stress. Conclusions: Individuals can adapt positively to stress by engaging in meaning-making processes that are triggered by mental time travel and reflected in their social media posts. The study’s mediation model confirmed that mental time travel leads to meaning-making, which fosters positive emotional responses to stress. Mental time travel serves as a psychological strategy to facilitate positive adaptation to stressful situations. 
SN  - 1438-8871
UR  - https://www.jmir.org/2025/1/e63407
UR  - https://doi.org/10.2196/63407
UR  - http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/39900590
DO  - 10.2196/63407
ID  - info:doi/10.2196/63407
ER  -