Cyberbullying: adolescent victimization through mobile phone and internet

The aim of this study was to analyse the prevalence of victimization through mobile phone and internet. The differences of gender and academic year in the type of electronic aggression were also examined. The sample comprised 2001 adolescents of both genders and ages between 11 and 17 years. Results indicated that 24.6% of the adolescents had been bullied by mobile phone during the last year, and 29% through internet. In most of the electronic aggressions, girls were more bullied than boys. It was also observed that students attending the first two years of secondary education tended to be more victimized.     

Peer influence and adolescent nonsuicidal self-injury: A theoretical review of mechanisms and moderators

Nonsuicidal self-injury (NSSI) is an increasingly prevalent health risk behavior among adolescents and represents a significant public health concern. Although researchers have identified numerous antecedents or risk factors that precede engagement in NSSI behaviors, few studies have examined the role of peer influence processes. Yet, recent research suggests that adolescents may be more likely to engage in NSSI when close friends or other peers engage in similar behaviors. The following paper reviews past research on peer influence effects, including potential mechanisms and moderating variables. Methodological considerations for future research on peer influence and NSSI are discussed.     

On the cutting edge: Family therapy training in Russia

This article describes briefly the founding of the Moscow Institute for Family Studies and some of the far reaching results of beginning to offer family therapy training in Russia, as well as some of the challenges of this endeavor.     

Late adolescent nonsuicidal self-injury: the roles of coping style, self-esteem, and personality pathology

This study examined the relationship between late adolescent nonsuicidal self-injury (NSSI) and coping style, self-esteem, and personality pathology. Participants were 302 late adolescent (18-19-year-old) college students who completed questionnaires on self-esteem, coping style, personality disorder symptoms, and NSSI. Participants who engaged in NSSI reported more personality pathology, more maladaptive coping styles, less rational coping, and lower self-esteem than did non self-harming participants. As hypothesized, total NSSI correlated with several personality disorders, emotional coping style, and inversely related to self-esteem and adaptive coping styles. Regression equations tested several mediation models to determine whether self-esteem or coping style mediates the relationship between personality disorder symptoms and NSSI. Emotional coping and self-esteem each fully mediated the relationship between various personality disorders and NSSI in the anticipated direction. Results also indicate self-esteem, rational, detached, and emotional coping partially mediate the relationship between several personality disorders and NSSI.     

Exploring adolescent social media and internet gaming addiction: The role of emotion regulation

Behavioral addictions such as social media addiction and internet gaming disorder are prevalent among adolescent populations. Although studies have investigated predictors of these addictive behaviors with international samples of adolescents, less is known about American adolescents. In this study, we investigated the predictive nature of emotion regulation after controlling for age, gender, and race with regard to social media addiction and internet gaming disorder severity. Results indicate that gender and emotion regulation significantly predicted both forms of behavioral addictions with small to moderate effects. Specifically, female gender and lower emotion regulation significantly predicted social media addiction and male gender and lower emotion regulation significantly predicted internet gaming disorder severity. Implications for mental health professionals are discussed.     

Gesture is at the cutting edge of early language development

Children who produce one word at a time often use gesture to supplement their speech, turning a single word into an utterance that conveys a sentence-like meaning ('eat'+point at cookie). Interestingly, the age at which children first produce supplementary gesture-speech combinations of this sort reliably predicts the age at which they first produce two-word utterances. Gesture thus serves as a signal that a child will soon be ready to begin producing multi-word sentences. The question is what happens next. Gesture could continue to expand a child's communicative repertoire over development, combining with words to convey increasingly complex ideas. Alternatively, after serving as an opening wedge into language, gesture could cease its role as a forerunner of linguistic change. We addressed this question in a sample of 40 typically developing children, each observed at 14, 18, and 22 months. The number of supplementary gesture-speech combinations the children produced increased significantly from 14 to 22 months. More importantly, the types of supplementary combinations the children produced changed over time and presaged changes in their speech. Children produced three distinct constructions across the two modalities several months before these same constructions appeared entirely within speech. Gesture thus continues to be at the cutting edge of early language development, providing stepping-stones to increasingly complex linguistic constructions.     

亲子关系和父母教育卷入对青少年抑郁、自伤和自杀意念的影响：挫败感和人生意义感的作用

基于生态系统理论和动机-意志整合模型,采用问卷法以930名青少年(年龄=15.24±1.66岁)及其父母为研究对象,构建一个有调节的中介模型,从家长与孩子双视角分析孩子体验到的亲子关系和父母教育卷入对青少年抑郁、自伤和自杀意念的影响路径。结果显示：(1)相比低亲子关系-低教育卷入一致的个体,高亲子关系-高教育卷入的青少年有着更低水平的挫败感,且相比于低亲子关系-高教育卷入的青少年,有着高亲子关系-低教育卷入的个体表现出更低水平的挫败感;(2)挫败感在亲子关系-教育卷入与青少年抑郁、自伤和自杀意念之间起部分中介作用;(3)人生意义感调节该中介模型后半段,即挫败感对青少年抑郁、自伤和自杀意念的影响,具体表现为随着人生意义感的增加,挫败感对抑郁、自伤和自杀意念的影响逐渐减小。研究从家庭关系中家长与孩子双视角,揭示了挫败感和人生意义感的中介与调节作用,为青少年抑郁、自伤和自杀意念的发生机制提供更多解释路径。     

Developing a model of adolescent friendship formation on the internet.

Previous research has been largely silent about what precisely influences online friendship formation and has ignored motives for online communication as potential explanations. Drawing on a sample of 493 adolescents, this study tested a path model of adolescent friendship formation including as predictors introversion/extraversion, online self-disclosure, motive for social compensation, and frequency of online communication. Our path analysis showed that extraverted adolescents self-disclosed and communicated online more frequently, which, in turn, facilitated the formation of online friendships. Introverted adolescents, by contrast, were more strongly motivated to communicate online to compensate for lacking social skills. This increased their chances of making friends online. Among introverted adolescents, a stronger motive for social compensation also led to more frequent online communication and online self-disclosure, resulting in more online friendships. The model suggests that the antecedents of online friendship formation are more complex than previously assumed and that motives for online communication should be studied more closely.     

The construction of self-injury in the clinical literature: a sociological exploration

This article presents a sociologically informed critique of a range of academic literatures relating to self-injury. It is noted how a lack of consensus on definitional issues, together with the inaccurate portrayal of the "typical self-injurer" in the clinical literature, has impeded the development of a sound understanding of self-injury. Some of the more problematic explanations for self-injury are explored. The individualistic focus of existing research is found to be inadequate, since it fails to account for the social context in which self-injury occurs. Social scientific approaches critically examine psychiatric and psychological constructions of self-injury, explore wider social and cultural meanings of the behavior, and examine its distribution across different social groups. The inclusion of social scientific perspectives into current debates will greatly improve understanding of self-injury.     

Confirmation of the three-factor model of problematic internet use on off-line adolescent and adult samples

As the Internet became widely used, problems associated with its excessive use became increasingly apparent. Although for the assessment of these problems several models and related questionnaires have been elaborated, there has been little effort made to confirm them. The aim of the present study was to test the three-factor model of the previously created Problematic Internet Use Questionnaire (PIUQ) by data collection methods formerly not applied (off-line group and face-to-face settings), on the one hand, and by testing on different age groups (adolescent and adult representative samples), on the other hand. Data were collected from 438 high-school students (44.5 percent boys; mean age: 16.0 years; standard deviation=0.7 years) and also from 963 adults (49.9 percent males; mean age: 33.6 years; standard deviation=11.8 years). We applied confirmatory factor analysis to confirm the measurement model of problematic Internet use. The results of the analyses carried out inevitably support the original three-factor model over the possible one-factor solution. Using latent profile analysis, we identified 11 percent of adults and 18 percent of adolescent users characterized by problematic use. Based on exploratory factor analysis, we also suggest a short form of the PIUQ consisting of nine items. Both the original 18-item version of PIUQ and its short 9-item form have satisfactory reliability and validity characteristics, and thus, they are suitable for the assessment of problematic Internet use in future studies.     

Drawing the net: internet identification, internet use, and the image of internet users.

Theory and research suggest that Internet identification may account for some of the gender divide in Internet use. Internet identification is a type of domain identification, and is inherently bound with images of those who use the Internet, a domain traditionally conceived as masculine. Combining the "draw an Internet user" test with an Internet identification scale, this study tests two hypotheses: participants drawing gender-concordant images will (i) identify with and (ii) use the Internet more than those drawing gender-discordant images. Participants were 371 students (121 males, 250 females) from three universities in the United Kingdom and Australia. The need to challenge masculinized images of the Internet is discussed.     

The effects of self-injury on acute negative arousal: A laboratory simulation

Research suggests that performance of non-suicidal self-injury (NSSI) is associated with the reduction of high-arousal negative affect. The present study examined this phenomenon in a laboratory setting. Individuals with a history of NSSI (n?=?39) and non-NSSI controls (n?=?33) underwent an anger induction, and were randomized to self-administer either a high level of electric shock, or a mild shock (control condition) to their upper arm. Consistent with previous research, injurers displayed greater pain analgesia than controls. Contrary to expectations, high shock did not result in enhanced arousal reduction for injurers. However, the high shock led to greater arousal reduction for injurers than controls. Notably, in the high shock condition, higher levels of electrical stimulation (i.e., voltage administered) predicted greater reductions in negative arousal, whereas higher subjective ratings of pain predicted smaller reductions in negative arousal. This pattern suggests that more intense self-inflicted pain facilitates reduction of negative arousal provided the subjective experience of pain is not too aversive. Findings help clarify emotion-regulation models of NSSI.     

On the edge: The psychoanalyst's transference1

Countertransference is a central topic in analytic work and in the literature. The concept of countertransference includes a basic question which has been understood in different ways. The author attempts to differentiate between the psychoanalyst's transference and his countertransference in the analytic process. It is hard to draw a line between them; analysts are always on the edge. The analyst's transference will be explored and described using three approaches: narcissism, regression profile and the analyst's phase of life. Regression profile is a new concept developed by the author, which may help us to understand the core of the analyst's transference in the analytic situation. She illustrates the topic by clinical vignettes.     

Case study: Effects of naltrexone and sibis on self-injury

The present case study was an effort to determine the relative effectiveness of two variant treatment modalities, and to provide an exploratory study of the hypothesis that therapy with naltrexone might increase the effectiveness of an aversive stimulus in controlling self-injury. Data are presented for a man who was treated for severe self-injury with the Self-Injurious Behavior Inhibiting System (SIBIS) and naltrexone, conducted under open-trial conditions utilizing fixed doses of 50 mg, 75 mg, and 100 mg per day. The effects of naltrexone on SIB were evaluated alone and paired with SIBIS. When used alone, lower dosages of naltrexone produced moderate decrements in self-injury. However, the rate of SIB increased in a dose-dependent manner when naltrexone was paired with SIBIS. The data also suggested that naltrexone may have caused a generalized blunting of both positive and negative affect.