Plurality in the Measurement of Social Media Use and Mental Health: An Exploratory Study Among Adolescents and Young Adults

On a daily basis, individuals between 12 and 25 years of age engage with their mobile devices for many hours. Social Media Use (SMU) has important implications for the social life of younger individuals in particular. However, measuring SMU and its effects often poses challenges to researchers. In this exploratory study, we focus on some of these challenges, by addressing how plurality in the measurement and age-specific characteristics of SMU can influence its relationship with measures of subjective mental health (MH). We conducted a survey among a nationally representative sample of Dutch adolescents and young adults (N=3,669). Using these data, we show that measures of SMU show little similarity with each other, and that age-group differences underlie SMU. Similar to the small associations previously shown in social media-effects research, we also find some evidence that greater SMU associates to drops and to increases in MH. Albeit nuanced, associations between SMU and MH were found to be characterized by both linear and quadratic functions. These findings bear implications for the level of association between different measures of SMU and its theorized relationship with other dependent variables of interest in media-effects research

Event-Related Brain Potentials Reflect Predictive Coding of Forecasted Economic Change

Research has demonstrated the importance of economic forecasts for financial decisions at the aggregate economic level. However, little is known about the psychological and neurophysiological mechanisms that economic forecasts activate during decision-making at the level of individual decision making. In the present study we used event-related brain potentials to test the hypothesis that economic forecasts can influence individuals’ internal model of the economy and influence their subsequent financial decision making. Using a simple economic decision-making game, the Balloon Analogue Risk Task (BART) and predictive messages about possible economic changes in the game before each block, we test the idea that brain potentials time-locked to decision outcomes can vary as a function of exposure to economic forecasts. Behavioural results indicate that economic forecasts influenced the amount of risk that participants were willing to take. Analyses of brain potentials indicated parametric increases of the N1, P2, P3a, and P3b amplitudes as a function of the level of risk in subsequent inflation steps in the BART. Mismatches between economic forecasts and decision outcomes in the BART, i.e. reward prediction errors, were reflected in the amplitude of the P2, P3a and P3b, suggesting increased attentional processing of unexpected outcomes. These electrophysiological results corroborate the idea that economic messages may indeed influence people’s beliefs about the economy and bias their subsequent financial decision making. Our findings present a first important step in the development of a low-level neurophysiological model that may help to explain the self-fulfilling prophecy effect of economic news in the larger economy

Affective Components of Forecasted Economic Change in the Losses Domain

We investigate the effect of economic forecasting on economic risk taking in the losses domain, extending previous work in the domain of gains. Behavioral measures of risk taking, reaction times, and skin conductance measures were included to investigate the activation of psychophysiological arousal (anxiety) in response to economic forecasting and subsequent decision-making. Using a within-subjects experiment (N = 53), effects of positive/negative valence were investigated using a Balloon Analogue of Risk Task. Behavioral results replicate earlier findings, extending the effect of economic forecasting to the domain of loss prevention. Skin conductance measures revealed that the negative economic messages relative to positive messages were accompanied by immediate physiological arousal which was sustained during the subsequent block. These findings support the involvement of anxiety in economic decision-making and corroborate the theoretical idea that forecasted changes in the future economy become an instant psychological reality, producing biases in peoples’ perception, emotion and behavior

The Self-Fulfilling Prophecy of Economic Forecasting a Cognitive Neuroscientific Perspective

PhD Dissertatio

Forecasted Economic Change and the Self-fulfilling Prophecy in Economic Decision-Making

In this study we investigated the self-fulfilling prophecy effect in teh domain od economic decision-making, using the Balloon Analogue Risk Task (originally developed by Lejuez et al. 2002). Participants (N = 41) completed a series of 180 trials/balloons, devided in three blocks of 60 trials each. The first block was always a baseline measure. Between blocks, participants read a positive or negative message (counterbalanced acros blocks 2 and 3) about upcoming changes in the BART (see corresponding paper for details). We were interested in the change in risk-taking, following presentation of the message manipulation. We measured risk takign as the average number of inflations in trials in which the balloon did not pop, the average number of balloon bursts and actual earnings. We also tested Reaction Times to inflation responses, took self-report measures on trust in the messages and experience of the game and recorder participant's responses to items relating to implusivity andrisk taking, as measured by the DOSPERT scale (originally developed by Blais & Weber, 2002). The experiment had three phases: 1. DOSPERT phase; 2. BART phase; 3. Funnel Debriefing phase

Risk taking as a function of trial number 1–60, for each block of trials.

<p>Note: middle dashed line and circles indicate performance in the baseline; bottom bold black line and down-pointing arrows denote performance in the negative message block; top solid grey line and up-pointing arrows denote performance in the positive message block. No significant changes in risk taking across 60 trials were found in the two experimental blocks.</p

Event-related brain potentials reflect predictive coding of anticipated economic change

Research has demonstrated the importance of economic forecasts for financial decisions at the aggregate economic level. However, little is known about the psychological and neurophysiological mechanisms that economic forecasts activate at the level of individual decision-making. In the present study, we used event-related brain potentials (ERPs) to test the hypothesis that economic forecasts influence individuals' internal model of the economy and their subsequent decision behavior. Using a simple economic decision-making game, the Balloon Analogue of Risk Task (BART) and predictive messages about possible economic changes in the game before each block, we test the idea that brain potentials time-locked to decision outcomes can vary as a function of exposure to economic forecasts. Behavioural results indicate that economic forecasts influenced the amount of risk that participants were willing to take. Analyses of brain potentials indicated parametric increases of the N1, P2, P3a, and P3b amplitudes as a function of the level of risk in subsequent inflation steps in the BART. Mismatches between economic forecasts and decision outcomes in the BART (i.e., reward prediction errors) were reflected in the amplitude of the P2, P3a, and P3b, suggesting increased attentional processing of unexpected outcomes. These electrophysiological results corroborate the idea that economic messages may indeed influence people’s beliefs about the economy and bias their subsequent financial decision-making. Our findings present a first important step in the development of a low-level neurophysiological model that may help to explain the self-fulfilling prophecy effect of economic news in the larger economy

Risk taking in the BART task as a function of number of inflations in each experimental block.

<p>Note: The dashed line represents performance in the baseline; error bars show 95% confidence intervals; asterisks indicate significance values (*<i>p</i> < .05, **<i>p</i> < .005, ***<i>p</i> < .001).</p

Behavioral Performance in the BART Task: Descriptive Statistics.

<p>Behavioral Performance in the BART Task: Descriptive Statistics.</p