Social Media: Risks & Opportunities - summary from all lectures

Summary – Social Media: Risks & Opportunities – December 9, 2024

Papers

Lecture 2

Pabian, S., De Backer, C.J.S., & Vandebosch, H. (2015). Dark Triad personality traits and
adolescent cyber-aggression
 First to study the association between Dark Triad traits (as a combined Dark Triad
cluster) and cyber-aggression among an adolescent population
 Cyber-aggression = online aggression (it’s the same!)
 Method: Cross-sectional survey among adolescents aged 14-18
 Results: 1 out of 3 engaged at least once in the past three months in one or more than
one of the eight cyber-aggression activities
 Saying things about someone to make the person a laughing stock was the most
used activity
 Followed by sending insulting messages




 What can we learn from this model?
 Only psychopathy was significantly associated with cyber-aggression
- If you score a bit higher of psychopathy, it is more likely that you perform cyber-
aggression on a higher frequency
o People who are more narcistic are more likely to perform cyber-aggression
 Facebook intensity was connected to cyber-aggression
- If you use Facebook more often, it is more likely that you perform cyber-
aggression on a higher frequency
 It is not about extreme beliefs!
 Implication: as personality traits are fairly stabilized in this age group, cyber-aggression
may be used as an indicator of psychopathy in adolescent individuals

, Prevention?
 Social perspective-taking skills have been proven successful in overcoming
egocentrism and antisocial behavior
 Include training of these skills in prevention programs
 Limitations:
 Short Dark Triad instrument did not allow to investigate sub-constructs of
Machiavellianism, Narcissism and Psychopathy
 More recently: Dark Tetrad ---> sadism as fourth trait
- Sadism = take pleasure out of hurting others
 Self-reports: Are children to admit that they enjoy manipulating etc. others in the
school/leisure context?
 Take-aways: how to translate these findings into concrete implications remains difficult,
hard to change personality traits (black box)
 Might be more informative to focus on determinants of behavior that can be
changed

Pabian, S., & Vandebosch, H. (2014). Using the theory of planned behaviour to understand
cyberbullying: the importance of beliefs for developing interventions
 Focus on proximal determinants of cyberbullying
 Proximal determinants: more immediate determinants of behavior
 Can influence your behavior, but do it through immediate determinants
 Received few attentions in previous research
 Previously studied in isolation from other proximal determinants
 Importance of studying proximal determinants:
 Modifiable by interventions
 RQs:
 Is the Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) a good framework for explaining
cyberbullying perpetration?
 Which are the underlying beliefs of the attitude, subjective norm and perceived
behavioral control?




 Behaviors beliefs (A): belief that forms the attitude
 Normative beliefs (SN)
 Control beliefs (PBC)

,  First one is about accepting (injunctive norms), second one is about doing it
(descriptive norms; what you think that others do)
 Example behavioral beliefs (A):




 Example normative beliefs (SN):




 Example control beliefs (PBC):




 Method: Two-wave panel study among adolescents aged 11-17 years old
 Results: Perpetration CB (at least once in the past 6 months)




 11,7% ---> did not change overtime
 Predicts cyberbullying 6 months later

,  Positive significant relationship between performing cyberbullying & intention
 Attitudes (overall beliefs) and subjective norm was positively related to intention
- If you believe that many important people accept/perform cyberbullying, you
will also have a higher intention to perform the cyberbullying behavior
 Perceived behavioral control was not related to intention
- This is because everybody thought that it was very easy to perform the behavior
and there is no need for skills
 Attitude is based on:
 Emotional release: release of emotions (happiness/angriness)
 Peer group benefits: if you believe that the behavior will give you bad moral feelings
(guilt), you will be not likely to cyberbully
 Moral feelings
 Disliked by peers
 This model teaches us about:
 Relationship between intention & actual behavior
 Relationship between attitude & intention to cyberbully
 Relationship between subjective norm & intention to cyberbully
 Relationship between perceived behavioral control & intention to cyberbully
 Which beliefs form the attitude/subjective norm/perceived behavioral control

Pabian, S., & Vandebosch, H. (2019). Perceived long-term outcomes of early traditional
and cyberbullying victimization among emerging adults
 It is interesting to see both online and offline, because there was a small amount of
people that were only bullied online, which means that people are often bullied in both
offline and online environments
 Method: biographic-narrative interpretive method (BNIM)
 Helps you in exploring life histories, lived situations and personal meanings (so for
the whole life)
 “Can you share your experience with offline and online bullying and how these
experiences have impacted your life?”
- Only ask 1 question, participant tells their own story and just listen/take notes
 Results: victims’ bullying history
 Bullying started before the age of 12 years old
 Bullied for a long period of time (range 4 to 8 years)
 Time lag between last bullying incident and interview
 Two broad categories regarding impact:
1. Perceived impact on social interacting today
o Avoiding past triggers/reasons for bullying (e.g., avoid wearing glasses)
o Sharing personal information (e.g., careful with what you share with others)
o Coping with conflicts/aggression/bullying (e.g., avoiding conflicts)
o Bullying alarm (e.g., awareness of others, feeling empowered to do
something about it)
o Friendships (e.g., it is still quite hard to form new relationships with people,
makes them more critical/careful)