Social media: risks and opportunities
Lecture 1
Social media: websites and applications that enable users to create and share content and/or to
participate in social networking
Risk: a situation involving exposure to danger
Opportunity: a chance for..
Lecture 2
Online aggression: intentional harm delivered by the use of electronic means to a person or a
group of people irrespective of their age, who perceive such acts as offensive, derogatory
(showing a disrespectful attitude), harmful or unwanted.
Cyberbullying: bullying is an aggressive, intentional act or behavior that is carried out by a group
or an individual repeatedly and overtime against a victim who cannot easily defend him- or
herself.
Dark Triad personality traits and adolescent cyber-aggression:
- Dark personalities: those characterized by socially offensive traits
o Narcissism: a sense of importance or uniqueness, fantasies of unlimited success,
requesting constant attention, expecting special favors and being interpersonally
exploitative.
Associated with offline aggression among adolescents
Function well in online environments because they can control their self-
presentation.
Narcissistic exploitativeness (exploiting others) is associated with cyber-
aggression among adolescents.
More intense use of SnS and larger networks
o Machiavellianism: manipulative strategies of social conduct that are not
correlated with general intelligence, and do not necessarily lead to success.
Associated with offline aggression among adolescents
o Psychopathy: an impulsive behavioral style, an arrogant, deceitful interpersonal
style and a deficient affective experience.
Associated with offline aggression and cyber-aggression among
adolescents.
- Traits are clustered, however correlations among the traits are fairly modest
- Each component may still be viewed as a distinct aspect of socially aversive behavior
Cyberaggression: aggressive, intentional acts using electronic means to a person or a group
irrespective of their age, who perceive such acts as offensive, derogatory, harmful or unwanted.
Short dark triad: 9 items per trait
,Adolescents (aged 14 to 18):
- Engaged at least once in the past three months in one or more than one cyber-aggression
activities
o Saying things about someone to make the person a laughing stock was most used
o Sending insulting Facebook messages or comments to someone repeatedly was
second most used
- Only psychopathy is related to cyber-agression on facebook.
Implications:
- cyber-aggression may be used as an indicator of Dark Triad personality in adolescents.
To prevent cyber-aggression, one could use social perspective-taking skills to overcome
egocentrism and antisocial behavior and one could include training of these skills in
prevention programs.
Limitations:
- Their instrument did not allow to investigate sub-constructs of Machiavellianism,
Narcissism and Psychopathy.
- Self-reports: social desirability bias
- Convenience sampling: more girls than boys
Using the Theory of Planned Behavior to understand cyberbullying
The Theory of Planned Behavior:
The Theory of Planned Behavior uses a person's personal attitude (the evaluation of a behavior)
in combination with their perceived control of the behavior (the easy or difficulty of performing
the behavior) and societies' subjective norms (the perception of what others think of the
behavior) to influence their behavioral intention which will lead to the behavior or action.
So proximal determinants are immediate determinants of a specific behavior.
The more favorable the attitudes and social norms with respect to behavior, and the greater the
control, the stronger should be an intention to perform the behavior.
RQ’s:
- What are the underlying beliefs of TPB to predict cyberbullying
- Does TPB explain cyberbullying
Examples items:
- Attitudes: If you bully someone via the internet or mobile phone, you’ll be more popular
among peers.
- Social norm: My friends would not accept me bullying others via the internet or mobile
phone.
, - Behavioral control: It is easy to bully others via the internet or mobile phone if you can
do it anonymous.
Perpetrators:
- More favorable attitudes with regard to cyberbullying
- Normative beliefs that peers approve of cyberbullying
- Having less concerns about being caught and socially punished
Results indicated that 11.75% of the participants cyberbullied at least once in the 6 months.
Attitude is the strongest direct predictor of intention, followed by social norm. Behavioral
control did not had an significant influence on intention to cyberbully. Intention is predictor
cyberbullying
Implications:
- Increase empathy and change group norms by interventions
- Peers are most influential on behavior peer pressure
Limitations:
- Large proportion of self-reported behavior unexplained
o General measurements
o Temporal distance (6 months) between intention and behavior)
- Cyberbullying is not always planned behavior.
- Gender, age and past behavior not taken into account
Perceived long-term outcomes of early traditional and cyberbullying victimization among
emerging adults
Traditional and cyberbullying has been linked to short- and long-term mental health and well-
being problems.
- Evidence traditional bullying: depression, anxiety, self-harm and suicidality, psychotic
symptoms, dissociative and traumatic symptoms, post-traumatic stress, self-esteem,
eating disorders.
- Evidence cyberbullying: Anxiety, depression, low self-esteem, suicidal ideation, social
anxiety, pessimism, unhappiness.
Method:
- Biographic Narrative Interpretive method
o Ask a question regarding an event or experienced during the life of participants
o Asks more narratives after first story
o Ask specific questions on stories
Results:
- Bullying started before the age of 12
, - Bullied for a long time: 4 till 8 years
- Time lag between last bullied and interview: 2 till 10 years
- Traditional bullying, all victims had experiences with:
o Called names
o Laughed at
o Excluded
- Cyberbullying, 80% has experiences with
o Called named
o Laughed at
o Excluded
- Only traditional bullying physical violence
- Only cyberbullying catfished or negative comments on content
- Results showed two broad categories regarding impact:
o Perceived impact on social interaction today
Avoiding past triggers/reasons for bullying
Sharing personal information
Victims are more on guard when sharing personal details
Coping with conflicts, aggression and bullying
Bullying taught them how to cope with these situations. Their best
solution: ignoring and avoiding unnecessary confrontation
Friendships
Friends did nothing when they were bullied or chose side of the
bully. Therefore they are now more critical about friendships today
o Perceived impact on personal characteristics
Self-esteem
Lower
Anxieties
More
Level of empathy
More empathy for victims of bullies
Resilience
Retain some sense of control and move on in a positive way
Or feeling less resilient
Lecture 3
Prosocial behavior: helping others with the aim to give them benefits or increase their wellbeing.
Why do we help?
- Evolutionary factors: same genetic materials. Time has proven that it helps our survival
mode if we help other people, especially when we have the same genetic materials. For
example: a mother protects her child
- Reciprocal altruism: we want something in return
Lecture 1
Social media: websites and applications that enable users to create and share content and/or to
participate in social networking
Risk: a situation involving exposure to danger
Opportunity: a chance for..
Lecture 2
Online aggression: intentional harm delivered by the use of electronic means to a person or a
group of people irrespective of their age, who perceive such acts as offensive, derogatory
(showing a disrespectful attitude), harmful or unwanted.
Cyberbullying: bullying is an aggressive, intentional act or behavior that is carried out by a group
or an individual repeatedly and overtime against a victim who cannot easily defend him- or
herself.
Dark Triad personality traits and adolescent cyber-aggression:
- Dark personalities: those characterized by socially offensive traits
o Narcissism: a sense of importance or uniqueness, fantasies of unlimited success,
requesting constant attention, expecting special favors and being interpersonally
exploitative.
Associated with offline aggression among adolescents
Function well in online environments because they can control their self-
presentation.
Narcissistic exploitativeness (exploiting others) is associated with cyber-
aggression among adolescents.
More intense use of SnS and larger networks
o Machiavellianism: manipulative strategies of social conduct that are not
correlated with general intelligence, and do not necessarily lead to success.
Associated with offline aggression among adolescents
o Psychopathy: an impulsive behavioral style, an arrogant, deceitful interpersonal
style and a deficient affective experience.
Associated with offline aggression and cyber-aggression among
adolescents.
- Traits are clustered, however correlations among the traits are fairly modest
- Each component may still be viewed as a distinct aspect of socially aversive behavior
Cyberaggression: aggressive, intentional acts using electronic means to a person or a group
irrespective of their age, who perceive such acts as offensive, derogatory, harmful or unwanted.
Short dark triad: 9 items per trait
,Adolescents (aged 14 to 18):
- Engaged at least once in the past three months in one or more than one cyber-aggression
activities
o Saying things about someone to make the person a laughing stock was most used
o Sending insulting Facebook messages or comments to someone repeatedly was
second most used
- Only psychopathy is related to cyber-agression on facebook.
Implications:
- cyber-aggression may be used as an indicator of Dark Triad personality in adolescents.
To prevent cyber-aggression, one could use social perspective-taking skills to overcome
egocentrism and antisocial behavior and one could include training of these skills in
prevention programs.
Limitations:
- Their instrument did not allow to investigate sub-constructs of Machiavellianism,
Narcissism and Psychopathy.
- Self-reports: social desirability bias
- Convenience sampling: more girls than boys
Using the Theory of Planned Behavior to understand cyberbullying
The Theory of Planned Behavior:
The Theory of Planned Behavior uses a person's personal attitude (the evaluation of a behavior)
in combination with their perceived control of the behavior (the easy or difficulty of performing
the behavior) and societies' subjective norms (the perception of what others think of the
behavior) to influence their behavioral intention which will lead to the behavior or action.
So proximal determinants are immediate determinants of a specific behavior.
The more favorable the attitudes and social norms with respect to behavior, and the greater the
control, the stronger should be an intention to perform the behavior.
RQ’s:
- What are the underlying beliefs of TPB to predict cyberbullying
- Does TPB explain cyberbullying
Examples items:
- Attitudes: If you bully someone via the internet or mobile phone, you’ll be more popular
among peers.
- Social norm: My friends would not accept me bullying others via the internet or mobile
phone.
, - Behavioral control: It is easy to bully others via the internet or mobile phone if you can
do it anonymous.
Perpetrators:
- More favorable attitudes with regard to cyberbullying
- Normative beliefs that peers approve of cyberbullying
- Having less concerns about being caught and socially punished
Results indicated that 11.75% of the participants cyberbullied at least once in the 6 months.
Attitude is the strongest direct predictor of intention, followed by social norm. Behavioral
control did not had an significant influence on intention to cyberbully. Intention is predictor
cyberbullying
Implications:
- Increase empathy and change group norms by interventions
- Peers are most influential on behavior peer pressure
Limitations:
- Large proportion of self-reported behavior unexplained
o General measurements
o Temporal distance (6 months) between intention and behavior)
- Cyberbullying is not always planned behavior.
- Gender, age and past behavior not taken into account
Perceived long-term outcomes of early traditional and cyberbullying victimization among
emerging adults
Traditional and cyberbullying has been linked to short- and long-term mental health and well-
being problems.
- Evidence traditional bullying: depression, anxiety, self-harm and suicidality, psychotic
symptoms, dissociative and traumatic symptoms, post-traumatic stress, self-esteem,
eating disorders.
- Evidence cyberbullying: Anxiety, depression, low self-esteem, suicidal ideation, social
anxiety, pessimism, unhappiness.
Method:
- Biographic Narrative Interpretive method
o Ask a question regarding an event or experienced during the life of participants
o Asks more narratives after first story
o Ask specific questions on stories
Results:
- Bullying started before the age of 12
, - Bullied for a long time: 4 till 8 years
- Time lag between last bullied and interview: 2 till 10 years
- Traditional bullying, all victims had experiences with:
o Called names
o Laughed at
o Excluded
- Cyberbullying, 80% has experiences with
o Called named
o Laughed at
o Excluded
- Only traditional bullying physical violence
- Only cyberbullying catfished or negative comments on content
- Results showed two broad categories regarding impact:
o Perceived impact on social interaction today
Avoiding past triggers/reasons for bullying
Sharing personal information
Victims are more on guard when sharing personal details
Coping with conflicts, aggression and bullying
Bullying taught them how to cope with these situations. Their best
solution: ignoring and avoiding unnecessary confrontation
Friendships
Friends did nothing when they were bullied or chose side of the
bully. Therefore they are now more critical about friendships today
o Perceived impact on personal characteristics
Self-esteem
Lower
Anxieties
More
Level of empathy
More empathy for victims of bullies
Resilience
Retain some sense of control and move on in a positive way
Or feeling less resilient
Lecture 3
Prosocial behavior: helping others with the aim to give them benefits or increase their wellbeing.
Why do we help?
- Evolutionary factors: same genetic materials. Time has proven that it helps our survival
mode if we help other people, especially when we have the same genetic materials. For
example: a mother protects her child
- Reciprocal altruism: we want something in return
