Emotional adjustment in victims and perpetrators of cyberbullying and traditional bullying

Given the rise in cyberbullying among secondary education students and the importance of certain psychological adjustment variables for the comprehension of this type of violent behavior, both in bullies and in victims, the purpose of the present study was to analyse the emotional adjustment of those involved in cyber- and traditional bullying. The adjustment variables studied were self-concept, perceived stress, loneliness, depressive symptomatology, social anxiety, life satisfaction, and emotional intelligence. Using a sample of 1318 adolescents (47% boys), aged between 11 and 17 years, four groups were established to compare victims and cybervictims (uninvolved students, traditional victims, cybervictims, and traditional–cybervictims). The analysis of variance showed that students who performed the same role (bully or victim) in both contexts (at school and online). In particular, those who suffered traditional or cyberbullying or both conjointly presented lower scores in physical and social self-concept, life satisfaction, emotional clarity, and emotion regulation, as well as higher scores in perceived stress, loneliness, depression, and social anxiety. In bullies—traditional, cyberbullying or both simultaneously—higher scores were observed in perceived stress, loneliness, depressive symptomatology, fear of negative assessment, avoidance, and general social anxiety, and lower scores in the dimensions of academic and family self-concept, life satisfaction, emotional clarity, and emotion regulation. In general, the findings indicate that students who were involved in bullying situations, both victims and bullies, presented more damaged emotional profiles than those who are uninvolved, especially students who performed the same role (bully or victim) in both contexts (at school and online).

     

Follow-up of a full-scale network assembly

The authors conducted two full-scale network assemblies for the family network of a suicidal adolescent. Findings from the clinical follow-up and telephone interviews with 21 of 65 participants revealed benefits for the index family and the network members who participated in the meetings. A ripple effect in which the participants' own personal networks improved was also demonstrated. Benefits included resolution of a suicidal crisis, better understanding of depression and family stress, more adaptive responses to depression and suicidal risk, and improved personal relationships. No casualties from this intervention were discovered. This report is intended to stimulate future, more systematic outcome studies.     

Be aware of the rifle but do not forget the stench: differential effects of fear and disgust on lexical processing and memory

The aim of this study was to investigate the role of discrete emotions in lexical processing and memory, focusing on disgust and fear. We compared neutral words to disgust-related words and fear-related words in three experiments. In Experiments 1 and 2, participants performed a lexical decision task (LDT), and in Experiment 3 an affective categorisation task. These tasks were followed by an unexpected memory task. The results of the LDT experiments showed slower reaction times for both types of negative words with respect to neutral words, plus a higher percentage of errors, this being more consistent for fear-related words (Experiments 1 and 2) than for disgust-related words (Experiment 2). Furthermore, only disgusting words exhibited a higher recall accuracy than neutral words in the memory task. Moreover, the advantage in memory for disgusting words disappeared when participants carried out an affective categorisation task during encoding (Experiment 3), suggesting that the superiority in memory for disgusting words observed in Experiments 1 and 2 could be due to greater elaborative processing. Taken together, these findings point to the relevance of discrete emotions in explaining the effects of the emotional content on lexical processing and memory.     

Gendered Self-Concept and the Aggressive Expression of Driving Anger: Positive Femininity Buffers Negative Masculinity

The aggressive expression of driving anger is a risk factor for aggressive and dangerous driving behavior and is associated with a greater risk of accident involvement. The present study related positive and negative facets of a masculine and feminine self-concept to aggressive and adaptive forms of anger expression while driving. A sample of 417 drivers (194 women, 46.5%) in Germany completed the Positive-Negative Sex Role Inventory (PN-SRI) as a measure of positive and negative masculinity and femininity and the Driving Anger Expression Inventory (DAX) as a measure of driving anger expression. Aggressive forms of expressing driving anger were unrelated to gender but differed significantly in relation to gendered self-concept. Negative but not positive masculinity was found to predict higher aggressive and lower adaptive anger expression. No main effects of positive or negative femininity were found. However, the link between negative masculinity and aggressive anger expression was buffered by positive femininity: Negative masculinity was unrelated to aggressive anger expression when accompanied by positive femininity. Adaptive anger expression showed negative links with negative masculinity and positive links with positive masculinity. The findings held for both men and women and support the theoretical distinction between positive and negative facets of the gendered self-concept. The implications for the conceptualization of both gendered self-concept and anger expression on the road are discussed.     

Menstrual Knowledge and Taboo TV Commercials: Effects on Self-Objectification among Italian and Swedish Women

Despite menstruation being a physiological phenomenon in women’s life, social research has highlighted that there are still many taboos, also conveyed by advertising, which prevent an open discourse on the topic and can have negative impacts on women’s well-being. The present study examined the influence of the exposure to existing TV advertisements for sanitary napkins depicting menstruation as a taboo on self-objectification in women from Italy (n = 160) and Sweden (n = 159). To do so, we also investigated the moderating role of menstrual knowledge in this relationship. Our findings showed that in the Italian sample, exposure to the taboo TV commercial led to more self-objectification especially for participants with lower knowledge of menstruation. These effects did not occur for their Swedish counterparts, showing no differences in self-objectification when women were exposed to the taboo advertisement. The present results are discussed in light of cultural differences in sexual and menstrual education between the two countries. Theoretical and practical implications are drawn.     

Reward Responsivity in Parenting: Development of a Novel Measure in Mothers of Young Children

The purpose of the current study was to develop and evaluate a measure of maternal reward responsivity in parenting. Deficits in reward responsivity, a common feature of depression, may contribute to maladaptive parenting behaviors. Reward responsivity is an individual difference in reactivity to pleasurable stimuli and represents a key motivational component that could contribute to the frequency and quality of mothers’ interactions with their infants. However, there is currently no measure of reward responsivity in parenting, which would be necessary to evaluate the link between mother reward responsivity, behaviors towards their infant, and infant behavior. Therefore, the current study reports on the development and initial evaluation of a self-report measure of reward responsivity in parenting, the Mother Inventory of Reward Experience (MIRE). We evaluated the MIRE among 200 mothers (M?=?28.45, SD?=?5.50) recruited from a pediatric primary care center. After item analysis, 22 items were retained and displayed high internal consistency reliability and test re-test reliability. Convergent validity was established via a significant correlation with global reward responsivity. Concurrent validity was established via significant correlations with depressive symptoms, parenting stress, and child behavior problems. Incremental validity of the MIRE over a measure of global reward responsivity was supported. These results support the reliability and validity of the MIRE as a measure of reward responsivity in parenting.     

Virtuous Arguers: Responsible and Reliable

Virtuous arguers are expected to manifest virtues such as intellectual humility and open-mindedness, but from such traits the quality of arguments does not immediately follow. However, it also seems implausible that a virtuous arguer can systematically put forward bad arguments. How could virtue argumentation theory combine both insights? The solution, I argue, lies in an analogy with virtue epistemology: considering both responsibilist and reliabilist virtues gives us a fuller picture of the virtuous arguer.     

Scientific Progress,Understanding, and Knowledge: Reply to Park

Dellsén (2016) has recently argued for an understanding-based account of scientific progress, the noetic account, according to which science (or a particular scientific discipline) makes cognitive progress precisely when it increases our understanding of some aspect of the world. I contrast this account with Bird’s (2007, 2015); epistemic account, according to which such progress is made precisely when our knowledge of the world is increased or accumulated. In a recent paper, Park (2017) criticizes various aspects of my account and his arguments in favor of the noetic account as against Bird’s epistemic account. This paper responds to Park’s objections. An important upshot of the paper is that we should distinguish between episodes that constitute and promote scientific progress, and evaluate account of scientific progress in terms of how they classify different episodes with respect to these categories.