Some Men Just Want To Watch The World Burn: The Role Of Sensation Seeking, Impulsivity, And Empathy In Cyberbullying

This study explored the potential role of sensation seeking, impulsivity, and empathy in cyberbullying behavior directed towards known and unknown persons. Sensation seeking is one’s propensity to desire novel situations and stimuli. Impulsivity is one’s tendency to engage in behavior without regard for potential consequences. Empathy is conceptualized as one’s ability to understand the experiences and emotions of others. Cyberbullying is the act of intentionally aggressing against another individual via some form of technology. University of Mississippi students (N=393) participated in an online survey and completed measures of the aforementioned variables. Cyberbullying behavior was measured in the context of aggressing towards both known and unknown persons. When sensation seeking was examined as a mediator between impulsivity and cyberbullying of known persons, a significant indirect path was found, indicating mediation. A similar trend relationship was observed for cyberbullying of unknown persons. Results and implications of findings are discussed

Do these violent delights have violent ends? Social Norms, Alcohol, & Sexual Cyberbullying

Sexually aggressive behavior is well-documented among college students. However, little is known about the role technology may play in facilitating this behavior. Given that social norms have been established as a useful framework for understanding problematic and risky behavior in college students, the current authors sought to determine whether this theory might also provide insight into the use of technology to facilitate sexually aggressive behavior. Thus, this work sought to determine whether sexually aggressive behavior which occurs through the use of technology and social media, henceforth known as sexual cyberbullying, mediated the relationship between perceived social norms of sexually aggressive behavior and face to face sexual aggression and coercion. Moreover, given the role of alcohol use in other problematic behaviors in this population, we examined whether alcohol use moderated the aforementioned relationship. Additionally, the present study sought to determine whether engagement in sexual cyberbullying as either a victim or a perpetrator was associated with negative psychosocial outcomes including depression, anxiety, stress, loneliness, and face-to-face sexual victimization. Participants were college students (N=641) at a midsized university in the south-eastern United States. Participants were recruited via the online system, SONA, as well as through flyers, campus wide list-serve emails, and bulletin boards. Participants who selected to complete the study via SONA were redirected via a link to Qualtrics; those who were recruited in other ways were provided with a link directly to Qualtrics. Following informed consent, participants completed the following measures in order: perceived social norms of sexually aggressive strategies (SSS- Social Norms), sexual strategies scale for personal behavior (SSS- Self), Alcohol use Disorders Identification Test (AUDIT), the Cyberbullying Experiences Scale (CES), Sexual Experiences Scale (SES), the Depression Anxiety and Stress Scale (DASS-21), the UCLA Loneliness scale (UCLAL-8), and the Marlowe-Crowne Social Desirability scale. Thirty percent of participants reported engaging in some form of sexually aggressive behavior offline and only 15.6% endorsed engaging in sexual cyberbullying. However, 100% of participants endorsed the belief that their peers were engaging in some form of sexually aggressive behavior. Slightly less than half of participants reported being a victim of sexual cyberbullying (40.7%), and being a victim of sexual cyberbullying significantly predicted being a victim of face to face sexual aggression (R^2= .210, F(15,25)=3.995, p\u3c.001). Individuals who were victims of sexual cyberbullying were significantly different from non-victims in their reports of depression, anxiety, stress, and loneliness (F(15,16)=1.779, p\u3c.01, ?_p^2=.044), with victims having higher scores than non-victims across measures of these symptoms (all p’s \u3c .05). Similarly individuals who reported being perpetrators of sexual cyberbullying were significantly different than non-perpetrators on measures of anxiety and stress ((F(10,11)=1.999, p\u3c.05, , ?_p^2=.033), with perpetrators reporting higher scores on measures of these symptoms. Conditional process modelling revealed a significant indirect effect of perceived social norms of sexually aggressive behavior on face-to-face sexual aggression via sexual cyberbullying (b=.0015, p\u3c.001, 95% CI [.0030, .0110]), indicating mediation. However, alcohol use did not demonstrate a moderating effect on this relationship. Additional findings and implications are discussed

Mental health risks differentially associated with immunocompromised status among healthcare workers and family members at the pandemic outset

The mental health of healthcare workers (HCWs) is critical to their long-term well-being and future disaster preparedness. Goal 1 of this study was to identify rates of mental health problems experienced by HCWs. Goal 2 was to test a model of risk stemming from pandemic-related stressors and vulnerability factors. This cross-sectional study included HCWs (N ​= ​2,246 [1,573 clinical providers; 673 non-clinical staff]) in the Rocky Mountain West who voluntarily completed an online survey in April/May 2020. Respondents completed measures for traumatic stress symptoms, depression, anxiety, alcohol use, and sleep. Logistic regressions stratified by professional role (clinical versus non-clinical) were specified to predict clinical screening cutoff (positive/negative) as a function of five pandemic-related stressors (immunocompromised self; immunocompromised household member; care provision to infected patients; clinical management role; positive cases). Results showed that more than half of HCWs surveyed (52.5%) screened positive (above cutoff) for traumatic stress, depression, or anxiety, with ~20% reporting problematic alcohol use, and variable insufficient sleep from ~10% off shift to ~50% on shift. Clinical employees with an immunocompromised household member had increased odds of screening positive for a mental health problem. Non-clinical HCWs who were immunocompromised were at elevated risk for screening positive a mental health problem. Being female, minority status, and younger increased odds for mental health problems. Implications include alleviating a portion of the mental health burden of HCWs involved in response to the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic by considering policies to protect immunocompromised HCWs and their families (e.g., vaccine priorities, telework options)