Understanding the psychological process of avoidance-based self-regulation on Facebook

In relation to social network sites, prior research has evidenced behaviors (e.g., censoring) enacted by individuals used to avoid projecting an undesired image to their online audiences. However, no work directly examines the psychological process underpinning such behavior. Drawing upon the theory of self-focused attention and related literature, a model is proposed to fill this research gap. Two studies examine the process whereby public self-awareness (stimulated by engaging with Facebook) leads to a self-comparison with audience expectations and, if discrepant, an increase in social anxiety, which results in the intention to perform avoidance-based self-regulation. By finding support for this process, this research contributes an extended understanding of the psychological factors leading to avoidance-based regulation when online selves are subject to surveillance

Problematic Social Media Use in the Context of Romantic Relationships: Relation to Attachment, Emotion Regulation, and Motivations for Use

Social media is an increasingly popular form of connecting with others, especially among young adults, but problematic social media use (PSMU) has become a growing concern. Research has shown that people with anxious attachment styles and poor emotion regulation have a greater likelihood of having PSMU (Liu & Ma, 2019), but how social media usage might play a role in these relationships has not been well-studied. This research asked if the association between anxious attachment and PSMU will be affected by both emotion regulation and online social surveillance in romantic relationships as mediating influences. We utilized advanced mobile phone features to gather screen time data to measure as a covariate. Young adult participants who were in a romantic relationship and were users of social media (N=158) completed online questionnaires regarding relationship behavior (attachment style, online social surveillance), emotion regulation, and social media use. A subset of the sample also provided detailed screen time data (n=76). Results demonstrated that both emotion regulation difficulties and social surveillance were significantly, positively associated with PSMU, and also were significantly, positively associated with anxious attachment. In contrast to previous work, however, anxious attachment was not directly associated with PSMU. Screen time measures revealed that Facebook has been replaced by newer platforms like Snapchat, Instagram, and TikTok in young adults’ media preferences. Future research should examine the differences among social platforms and their uses

Regulating Mobile Mental Health Apps

Mobile medical apps (MMAs) are a fast‐growing category of software typically installed on personal smartphones and wearable devices. A subset of MMAs are aimed at helping consumers identify mental states and/or mental illnesses. Although this is a fledgling domain, there are already enough extant mental health MMAs both to suggest a typology and to detail some of the regulatory issues they pose. As to the former, the current generation of apps includes those that facilitate self‐assessment or self‐help, connect patients with online support groups, connect patients with therapists, or predict mental health issues. Regulatory concerns with these apps include their quality, safety, and data protection. Unfortunately, the regulatory frameworks that apply have failed to provide coherent risk‐assessment models. As a result, prudent providers will need to progress with caution when it comes to recommending apps to patients or relying on app‐generated data to guide treatment

The Double-edged Sword: A Mixed Methods Study of the Interplay between Bipolar Disorder and Technology Use

Human behavior is increasingly reflected or acted out through technology. This is of particular salience when it comes to changes in behavior associated with serious mental illnesses including schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. Early detection is crucial for these conditions but presently very challenging to achieve. Potentially, characteristics of these conditions\u27 traits and symptoms, at both idiosyncratic and collective levels, may be detectable through technology use patterns. In bipolar disorder specifically, initial evidence associates changes in mood with changes in technology-mediated communication patterns. However much less is known about how people with bipolar disorder use technology more generally in their lives, how they view their technology use in relation to their illness, and, perhaps most crucially, the causal relationship (if any exists) between their technology use and their disease. To address these uncertainties, we conducted a survey of people with bipolar disorder (N = 84). Our results indicate that technology use varies markedly with changes in mood and that technology use broadly may have potential as an early warning signal of mood episodes. We also find that technology for many of these participants is a double-edged sword: acting as both a culprit that can trigger or exacerbate symptoms as well as a support mechanism for recovery. These findings have implications for the design of both early warning systems and technology-mediated interventions

Attachment styles and personal growth following romantic breakups: The mediating roles of distress, rumination, and tendency to rebound

© 2013 Marshall et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.This article has been made available through the Brunel Open Access Publishing Fund.The purpose of this research was to examine the associations of attachment anxiety and avoidance with personal growth following relationship dissolution, and to test breakup distress, rumination, and tendency to rebound with new partners as mediators of these associations. Study 1 (N = 411) and Study 2 (N = 465) measured attachment style, breakup distress, and personal growth; Study 2 additionally measured ruminative reflection, brooding, and proclivity to rebound with new partners. Structural equation modelling revealed in both studies that anxiety was indirectly associated with greater personal growth through heightened breakup distress, whereas avoidance was indirectly associated with lower personal growth through inhibited breakup distress. Study 2 further showed that the positive association of breakup distress with personal growth was accounted for by enhanced reflection and brooding, and that anxious individuals’ greater personal growth was also explained by their proclivity to rebound. These findings suggest that anxious individuals’ hyperactivated breakup distress may act as a catalyst for personal growth by promoting the cognitive processing of breakup-related thoughts and emotions, whereas avoidant individuals’ deactivated distress may inhibit personal growth by suppressing this cognitive work

Online Help Seeking in Emerging Adults: The Role of Attachment Style, Emotion Regulation, and Distress Disclosure

There is minimal research investigating the role of the Internet and computer-mediated technology in help seeking among emerging adults. The purpose of this study was to explore how and from whom emerging adults seek help online for their emotional and personal problems. In particular, the study examined the relations between attachment with intentions and behaviours of seeking help online, as well as from informal and formal sources of support. Three-hundred and fifty-four undergraduate university students (17 to 25 years of age) completed an online survey of questionnaires assessing their attachment style in close relationships, difficulties in emotion regulation, tendency to self-disclose distress to others, and help-seeking intentions and behaviours online and from informal (e.g., parents and friends) and formal sources of support (e.g., social workers and psychologists). Results showed that approximately 95% of the sample sought help for an emotional or personal problem by using online computer-mediated technology, in some capacity, over the past four weeks. Higher levels of attachment avoidance were significantly associated with lower intentions to seek help online by way of directly messaging close others (e.g., via text message), posting to large audiences (e.g., on social networking sites), and searching for and reading information relevant to the problem, as well as with engaging in fewer help-seeking behaviours of directly messaging close others. Similarly, greater attachment avoidance was significantly related to lower intentions to seek help from informal and formal sources of support, as well as to engaging in fewer help-seeking behaviours from informal and formal sources. Conversely, higher levels of attachment anxiety were significantly associated with greater intentions to seek help online by way of posting to anonymous sources of support and searching for and reading information, as well as with engaging in more online helpseeking behaviours of searching for and reading information pertaining to the problem. Greater attachment anxiety was significantly related to lower intentions to seek help from informal sources, but also to engaging in a greater number of help-seeking behaviours from professional sources. A series of significant mediation analyses revealed that higher levels of attachment avoidance predicted greater difficulties in emotional awareness, which in turn, predicted lower intentions (directly messaging close others and searching for/reading information) and fewer behaviours (directly messaging close others) of seeking help online. In contrast, higher levels of attachment anxiety predicted greater difficulties with access to effective emotion regulation strategies, which in turn, predicted a greater number of online help-seeking behaviours (searching for/reading information). Yet, higher levels of attachment anxiety predicted lower tendencies to disclose distress to others, which in turn, predicted lower intentions to seek help from informal sources. Similarly, higher levels of attachment avoidance predicted lower tendencies to disclose distress, which in turn, predicted fewer help-seeking behaviours from informal sources. However, higher levels of attachment avoidance predicted greater difficulties with access to effective emotion regulation strategies, which in turn, predicted a greater number of help-seeking behaviours from formal sources. Applied implications for engaging young people in the help-seeking process via online, computer-mediated technology are discussed – namely, that trusting relationships with close others and greater awareness of emotions continue to be crucial facilitators of seeking help in an online context

Models of collaboration between psychologist and family doctor: a systematic review of primary care psychology

open2noThe prevalence of psychological suffering is greater than the actual request for clinical consultation in Europe (Alonso et al., 2004). In Italy, no more than 5.5% of the population requested psychological assistance during lifetime (Miglioretti et al., 2008). There are different obstacles that prevent the access to mental health services, such as economic restrictions (Mulder et al., 2011), cultural prejudice (Kim et al., 2010), and lack of knowledge about the service providers that can answer to the patient’s psychological needs (Molinari et al., 2012). Therefore, the psychologist is often consulted as a last resort, only after everything else has failed, when problems have become severe, and thus requiring longer, more intensive, and expensive treatments. The introduction of the Primary Care Psychologist, a professional who works together with the family doctor, allows to overcome the above-mentioned problems and intercept unexpressed needs for psychological assistance. This professional role is operating in many countries since several years. In this study, current literature concerning different models of collaboration between physician and psychologist, in Europe and in Italy, was reviewed. A systematic search of Web of Science (ISI), Pubmed, Scopus, and PsychINFO was conducted using the initial search terms Primary Care Psychologist, Family Doctor, Primary Care, Collaborative Practice, and several relevant papers were identified. The review has shown the improved quality of care when mental health care is integrated into primary. Analyzing how different programs are implemented, results indicated that the more efficacious models of Primary Care Psychology are those tailored on the environment’s needs.The results of our systematic review stress the importance of the Primary Care Psychologist implementation also in Italy, to intercept unexpressed psychological needs and enhance clients’ quality of life.openFrancesca, Bianco; Enrico, BenelliBianco, Francesca; Benelli, Enric

Exploring problematic experiences : an IPA study of 'Internet Addiction'

In the past two decades, a considerable amount of research has been carried out on the phenomenon of excessive Internet use, variously termed Internet addiction, Internet dependency and problematic Internet use. Despite this, there is still little agreement as to what constitutes this phenomenon, whether it should be considered a clinical disorder or not and what leads to this excessive or maladaptive use. The terminology used in this study is that of Problematic Internet Use (PIU). Several theoretical models have been proposed in the understanding of PIU including personality models, operant conditioning models, social cognitive and cognitive behavioural models (Davis, 2001; LaRose, lin & Eastin, 2003; Young, 1999). A proposed gap in the literature is the lack of studies exploring participant experiences of problematic Internet use. It is for this reason that this study aimed at exploring the experiences of a small sample of individuals with self-identified problematic Internet use. The implications of this phenomenological data for the above-mentioned theoretical models were then reviewed. This study used an Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) approach in exploring these aims. A sample of four participants was selected through purposive sampling techniques. Four major themes emerged from the analysis namely: Escapism, Social Insecurity and Validation, Perfectionism and Control. These experiences of participants were also explored in terms of the conceptual models reviewed in order to compare how closely they related to participant experiences. A strong inter-relationship was found between the four themes mentioned above. The Internet appeared to provide a sense of control and validation to these individuals while simultaneously rendering them unable to maintain control of their Internet usage in relation to this. This sense of control was experienced through an escape from negative emotions, offline obligations and at times a dissatisfactory position in reality. Of the four models reviewed, the Social Cognitive model proposed by LaRose et al. (2003) appeared to offer the most relevant understanding of PIU to participant experiences. The presence of maladaptive cognitions also appeared to feature strongly as an underlying factor in participants' PIU, as theorised by cognitive behavioural models (Davis, 2001; Young, 1999) Finally recommendations are made for further more detailed exploration of PIU using interpretative, experiential methods

Tracing Relations Between Attachment, Social Media Use, Self-Esteem, Loneliness, and Depression: A Mediation Model

An extensive amount of correlational research has well-established the link between insecure attachment style and subsequent adverse interpersonal and psychopathological outcomes. Moreover, the rise of social media has precipitated a shift in the methods by which individuals communicate; consequently, this has resulted in the shifting of preexisting dispositions toward dysfunctional behaviors to a more ubiquitous route of manifestation. Given that attachment literature has indicated notable differences in both underlying mechanisms and resulting outcomes of both avoidant and anxious attachment, examination of this alongside social media use provides valuable insight into potential relationships between the two. Further, research has examined the implications of each of these constructs in relation to self-esteem and loneliness; however, despite the extensive research, there remains a lack of consensus on the positive or negative implications of these interactions. Accordingly, much of the previous literature has neglected to examine the potential psychopathological implications following the combination of each of these constructs. A series of regression analyses revealed significant indirect effects between attachment style and depression. Results indicated a significant positive relationship between best friend attachment anxiety and social media usage; further examination revealed notable significant mediating roles of both self-esteem and loneliness in the indirect relationship between insecure attachment style and depression. Collectively, these findings not only extend research’s understanding of the complex dynamics amongst these variables, but it also advocates the value of further research into attachment style-specific outcomes