Manifestations of personality in Online Social Networks: self-reported Facebook-related behaviors and observable profile information

Despite the enormous popularity of Online Social Networking sites (OSNs; e.g., Facebook and Myspace), little research in psychology has been done on them. Two studies examining how personality is reflected in OSNs revealed several connections between the Big Five personality traits and self-reported Facebook-related behaviors and observable profile information. For example, extraversion predicted not only frequency of Facebook usage (Study 1), but also engagement in the site, with extraverts (vs. introverts) showing traces of higher levels of Facebook activity (Study 2). As in offline contexts, extraverts seek out virtual social engagement, which leaves behind a behavioral residue in the form of friends lists and picture postings. Results suggest that, rather than escaping from or compensating for their offline personality, OSN users appear to extend their offline personalities into the domains of OSNs.     

Compensatory internet use among individuals higher in social anxiety and its implications for well-being

The social compensation hypothesis states that the internet primarily benefits individuals who feel uncomfortable communicating face-to-face. In the current research, we tested whether individuals higher in social anxiety use the internet as a compensatory social medium, and whether such use is associated with greater well-being. In Study 1, individuals higher in social anxiety reported greater feelings of comfort and self-disclosure when socializing online than less socially anxious individuals, but reported less self-disclosure when communicating face-to-face. However, in Study 2, social anxiety was associated with lower quality of life and higher depression most strongly for individuals who communicated frequently online. Our results suggest that, whereas social anxiety may be associated with using the internet as an alternative to face-to-face communication, such a strategy may result in poorer well-being.     

A Framework for Intervention in Marital Conflicts over Family Finances: A View from Africa

One chief source of marital distress and pathology in today's Africa is the issue of which way to go on the sensitive matter of how to control and manage the family's finances, and who, of the two parties in a given marriage, is to contribute what to the upkeep of that marriage. This problem results from the collapse of the traditional African family economics which saw the husband as the chief breadwinner of the family and the wife, the director of the general family services, and the emergence in its place these days, of wage-earning family households. Here, a total crisis that arises is where the two parties concerned fail to introduce equity-based considerations in the settlement of the tension presented. In that case, the danger to be faced is the development of polarization and hassles to destabilize the family. This paper presents a research report suggesting how this danger can be averted.     

Attachment's Links With Adolescents' Social Emotions: The Roles of Negative Emotionality and Emotion Regulation

Recent research has attempted to explain the mechanisms through which parental attachment affects social and emotional outcomes (e.g., Burnette, Taylor, Worthington, &; Forsyth, 2007 Burnette, J.L., Taylor, K.W., Worthington, E.L., &; Forsyth, D.R. (2007). Attachment and trait forgivingness: The mediating role of angry rumination. Personality and Individual Differences, 42, 1585–1596. doi:10.1016/j.paid.2006.10.033[Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]; Panfile &; Laible, 2012 Panfile, T.M., &; Laible, D.J. (2012). Attachment security and child's empathy: The mediating role of emotion regulation. Merrill-Palmer Quarterly, 58, 1–21. doi:10.1353/mpq.2012.0003[Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]). The authors’ goal was to examine negative emotionality and emotion regulation as mediators of the associations that attachment has with empathy, forgiveness, guilt, and jealousy. One hundred forty-eight adolescents reported their parental attachment security, general levels of negative emotionality and abilities to regulate emotional responses, and tendencies to feel empathy, forgiveness, guilt, and jealousy. Results revealed that attachment security was associated with higher levels of empathy, forgiveness, and guilt, but lower levels of jealousy. In addition, emotion regulation mediated the links attachment shared with both empathy and guilt, such that higher levels of attachment security were linked with greater levels of emotion regulation, which led to greater levels of empathy and guilt. Alternatively, negative emotionality mediated the links attachment shared with both forgiveness and jealousy, such that higher levels of attachment security were associated with lower levels of negative emotionality, which in turn was linked to lower levels of forgiveness and higher levels of jealousy. This study provides a general picture of how attachment security may play a role in shaping an individual's levels of social emotions.     

Factor structure and psychometric characteristics of the beck depression inventory-II

The present study evaluated the factor structure and psychometric properties of the Beck Depression Inventory-II (BDI-II; Beck, Steer, & Brown, 1996) in the nonclinical sample of 230 young adults. The BDI-II is a revised version of the BDI-IA. We evaluated the fit of three alternative models to the sample data, using confirmatory factor analysis. Results provided support for the fit of the oblique three-factor model. The BDI-II and factor scales had satisfactory coefficient alpha indices. We obtained gender differences on the BDI-II item, total, and factor scale scores. We examined the relations of the BDI-II with demographic variables and with other self-report measures of social desirability, anxiety, depression, stress, and self-esteem. We also examined the issue of whether specific self-report measures of anxiety and depression assess separate or different constructs. We discuss the limitations of the present study.     

The social phobia and anxiety inventory: Further validation in two nonclinical samples

The Social Phobia and Anxiety Inventory (SPAI) has been developed to assess specific symptoms of social phobia and agoraphobia. Although the SPAI was developed with both clinical and nonclinical populations, research with this measure is currently focused primarily on clinical samples. We examined the factor structure and psychometric properties of the SPAI in adult community and college undergraduate samples. We found that single-sample and multisample confirmatory factor analyses provided support for extending use of the correlated two-factor SPAI subscales to our nonclinical samples. In addition, we found evidence for the internal consistency reliability of the SPAI subscales in both samples. Limitations and suggestions for future research are discussed.