The present study explores the personal narratives of bullying victimization among Costa Rican college students, examining how cultural factors shape bullying. Thirteen participants aged 18 to 23 recounted their experiences being victims of bullying in elementary and high school through semi-structured interviews. Thematic analysis revealed three themes and subthemes: (1) Helplessness (Inward and Outward), (2) Negative Emotions (Internalization and Maladaptive Responses), and (3) Sense-Making (Normalization/Rationalization, Positive Gains, and Outsider Status). These themes capture the emotional impacts and the ways participants interpreted their victimization, often with feelings of powerlessness, frustration, and self-doubt. This study contributes to understanding the cultural dimensions of bullying in Latin American contexts, providing insights for tailored interventions that support youth resilience and address unique societal factors, particularly by bolstering family involvement and bystander intervention.

BackgroundIndividuals with Social Anxiety Disorder (SAD) often experience poor sleep, which may influence treatment outcomes. Although theoretical models link sleep and fear extinction mechanisms, findings are equivocal and largely based on subjective measures. This study investigates the bidirectional relationship between sleep (duration, efficiency, quality) and outcomes from exposure-based SAD therapy.MethodsParticipants (N = 32) with SAD completed five weeks of exposure-based group therapy. Daily sleep data (self-report and actigraphy) were collected pre-, during, and post-treatment. The Liebowitz Social anxiety scale (LSAS) assessed treatment outcomes. Multilevel modeling examined associations between sleep and treatment outcomes.ResultsTreatment significantly impacted sleep such that nights after therapy were associated with reduced actigraphy-based sleep duration and participants with poor baseline sleep exhibited post-treatment improvements in sleep quality and efficiency (self-report and actigraphy). While poor baseline sleep quality and actigraphy sleep duration were associated with greater baseline symptoms, they did not predict changes across treatment. Sleep before and after exposure sessions also did not predict SAD symptoms.ConclusionsFindings suggest exposure-based SAD treatment influences sleep, particularly in poor sleepers, but that poor sleep does not hinder treatment efficacy. Additionally, clinicians may consider informing patients about potential post-exposure sleep disturbances to support engagement.

Early adolescence is a critical time for promoting emerging adolescents’ positive social skill development and mental well-being. This investigation addresses unique characteristics of these relations by holistically examining how school-based social cohesion and school stress combine to impact peer aggression and prosocial behavior. Using a person-centered approach, fifth and sixth grade students ( N = 142, M = 10.68 years) were assessed on measures of social cohesion, school stress, peer aggression, and prosocial behavior at fall and spring time points. Latent cluster analyses revealed three student profiles: (1) low cohesion and high stress, (2) high cohesion and low stress, and (3) medium cohesion and medium stress. Significant differences in peer aggression and prosocial behavior were found between the three profiles and follow-up analyses examine profiles in association with other domain stress. Findings are discussed with respect to how schools may enhance services to promote prosocial behavior and mitigate aggressive trajectories.

Objective:The current study longitudinally examines college student Twitter patterns throughout initial phases of the COVID-19 pandemic. This study aims to better understand psychological impact and online personal communication during the pandemic. Participants:A dataset consisting of ∼720,000 tweets posted by students from universities throughout the United States during the 2020 spring semester was analyzed according to structural and sentimental analysis. Methods:Using a data-driven approach, three time periods emerged which reflected the transition to online learning. Results:Significant changes in structure and sentiment of tweets were observed across phases. Conclusions:Changes in Twitter patterns revealed important features of this unprecedented transition to online learning for college students.

Research demonstrates the malleability of memory; a dynamic process that occurs across development and can be influenced by internal and external frames. Narratives of past experiences represent one modality of understanding how memories are influenced by these frames. The present experimental study examines how memories of bullying are affected by two distinct yet common cultural frames. College students (n = 92) were randomly assigned to one of two groups; one with a definition of bullying framing the experience in terms of resilience and one framing it in terms of negative psychosocial effects. Participants then wrote about a remembered experience with bullying. The researchers coded the narratives for coping strategies used in response to bullying as well as for positive or negative emotion words and story endings. The results demonstrated statistically significant differences between groups in the ways bullying experiences were remembered and described. Participants in the Resiliency Group more often had positive endings to their bullying narratives and used more coping skills and positive emotion words overall. The implications of a subtle frame influencing memories of bullying and its relation to development, identity, social order, peer relationships, and resilience are discussed.

The current naturalistic study used a novel multilevel lagged regressed change analysis to compare how different dream types predict distinct patterns of change in negative emotion during next-day wakefulness. For up to 21 mornings, 191 adults used an online dream log to report whether they had dreamed and-if so-which emotional content categories of dream they had experienced; next, they rated their current level of negative emotion. Aligning with theory suggesting a behavior-dependent emotional processing function of dreaming, it was hypothesized that nondisturbed dreams and bad dreams would aid in emotional processing because the dreamer stays asleep, whereas idiopathic nightmares would inhibit emotional processing because the dreamer wakes up and ceases sleep-dependent processing. As predicted, nondisturbed dreams predicted next-day decreases in negative emotion. Surprisingly, idiopathic nightmares also predicted next-day decreases in negative emotion, whereas bad dreams did not predict change in negative emotion. Bad dreams and nightmares within the same night predicted next-day increases in negative emotion. These findings are discussed in relation to dream memory functioning as an emotional integration mechanism that can support change toward wakeful emotional equilibration.

The current study evaluated the impact of psychological wellbeing on sleep quality during the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. A novel empirical model tested variables that mediate and moderate this impact. First, a relationship was established between psychological wellbeing during the COVID-19 pandemic and sleep quality. Second, resilience-based coping associated with the COVID-19 pandemic was tested as a mediator of the impact of psychological wellbeing on sleep quality. Third, dispositional rumination, mindfulness, and worry were compared as moderators of the impact of psychological wellbeing on sleep quality. Fourth, a moderated mediated model was tested for each moderator. Online survey data was collected from 153 adults in the United States. Results demonstrated that coping with the COVID-19 pandemic partially mediated the impact of psychological wellbeing on sleep quality. Worry, but not rumination or mindfulness, moderated the impact. A moderated mediation model failed to demonstrate significance, indicating that the data are best represented by distinct mediation and moderation models. Thus, interventions aimed at improving sleep quality should prioritize concurrent reduction in worry and increase in resilience-based coping strategies. This study provides practical and theoretical contribution to the literature by demonstrating relationships between key variables and contextualizing how the model can be used for assessments and interventions during widespread crises.

Studies on framing demonstrate that the way ideas are presented influences emotions and decision-making. Many bullying interventions involve competing frames, with some discussing bullying in terms of negative effects and others in terms of resiliency. Gender is closely related to frames about bullying, as culturally communicated expectations contribute to differences in individuals’ internalized frames. The current cross-sectional study explores how resiliency and negative effects frames in the context of bullying impact emotion and social decision-making across males and females. Participants ( N = 92) ages 19–30 ( M = 27.97, SD = 2.17) answered questionnaires around self-construal, internalized beliefs about bullying, and current bullying experiences before being randomized to write about a time they either demonstrated resiliency to or negative effects from bullying, balanced by males and females. The participants completed questionnaires regarding predictions of future bullying, current emotions, and social decision-making. The four groups were entered in a MANOVA and compared across dependent measures to better understand how both frames and gender affected future predictions of bullying, current emotions, and social decision-making. The overall model was significant (Wilks Lamda = .51, F = 1.94, p = 0.004, η p 2 = .20). Next, a MANOVA compared males versus females on self-construal, beliefs about bullying, and current levels of bullying to better understand pre-existing gender-based differences. The overall model was significant (Wilks Lamda, F = 3.41, p = 0.00). These variables that differed across gender were entered as covariates into a MANCOVA model which compared the four groups across dependent measures, with the aim to elucidate factors influencing the gender by frame effect. The overall model was significant (Wilks Lamda = 0.57, F (30,228) = 1.81, p = 0.009, η p 2 = 0.20). The results demonstrate that frames around bullying influence emotions and social decision-making, and that this impact differs across gender.

Efforts to demonstrate children's ability to report experiencing mixed emotions have typically used an allocentric approach, asking children to report on emotions of other individuals in response to stories or movie clips demonstrating social themes. In contrast, literature examining children's personal experiencing and understanding of their own mixed emotions, typified as an egocentric approach, in nonsocial situations remains underdeveloped. The current study examined the development of children's reported understanding and experience of mixed emotions egocentrically. By examining a nonsocial context, this investigation extends existing gender- and age-related research on expressing egocentric mixed emotion. Using a computerized game with a disappointing wins paradigm, egocentric mixed emotional experience was elicited in 142 children (80 boys, 62 girls) aged 6 to 12 years. Results revealed that age, but not gender, was a statistically significant predictor of expressing egocentric mixed emotion experience and understanding. When studying mixed emotion development in a nonsocial context, gender did not contribute to differences in child reports. A significant positive relationship between egocentric mixed emotion experiencing and understanding also emerged. These findings contribute to our understanding of children's emotion development and offer future directions for examining the broad domain of nonsocial contexts in youth expression of mixed emotions.

Bystanders represent one major avenue for reducing the incidence and severity of social exclusion, yet little research has examined behavioral measurement of bystander intervention. Utilizing the most common low risk form of exclusion, this study examined how group membership impacts college students' behavioral response to a peer's social exclusion through an Internet-based ball tossing game (N = 121). Participants played the game with three other virtual players, in which two of these players excluded the third player. Results demonstrated increased inclusive behavior towards the excluded peer across study conditions. This inclusion was strengthened when the excluded player was in the participant's in-group. Participants displayed an initial preference for in-group members, although attitudes towards all peers improved after the shared activity. Findings point to the interaction of social norms of inclusion, group membership, and changes in familiarity in determining bystander responses to social exclusion. In low-risk exclusion, group membership maintains an impact but does not provide sufficient motivation to counteract the social norm of inclusivity. The implication of bystander actions for promotion of community and future research are discussed.

The study extends research on the effect of frames. It is the first study to examine how framing affects the impact of being bullied. College students were randomly assigned to one of two groups: one framing bullying in terms of resilience and the other framing bullying with negative psychosocial consequences. Participants were asked to engage in a brief writing task aimed to actively create a frame and then completed both implicit and explicit measures. There was a significant main effect by gender and several significant interaction effects between frame and gender. These results suggest that framing impacts an individual's conceptualization of emotionally salient personal memories and should be considered when developing bullying interventions. The impact of framing bullying may vary by gender.

ABSTRACT Sexuality-related social support from family and friends plays a central role in positive sexuality development among adolescent females. However, few research tools are available to practitioners, educators, or researchers to understand adolescent females' experiences of their sexual development. This mixed-methods study presents a novel quantitative measure of adolescent females’ sexuality-related stress and social support experiences, including the unique experiences among sexual minority females. In Study 1, qualitative interviews were conducted with 19 adolescent females to hear directly from them about experiences of support – or lack thereof – across several ecological contexts in their lives. Themes derived from these interviews then informed the item creation process for the present measure. In Study 2, input from field experts and female adolescent volunteers were used to create a 26-item quantitative measure: The Female Adolescent Sexuality Stress and Support (FASSS) Scale. Exploratory factor analyses indicated six subscales. Demonstrating strong reliability, and strong construct, content, face, and convergent validity, the FASSS offers a novel tool capturing the characteristics, qualities, and contexts of adolescent sexuality-related experiences. By evaluating social supports in multiple contexts, this tool allows researchers and practitioners to look more closely at how adolescent females experience both positive and negative aspects of their sexuality.

The Affect Dysfunction Network model posits that disturbed dreams serve an adaptive emotional function and that nightmares and bad dreams may be functionally distinct. Bad dreams do not awaken the sleeper and thus may be analogous to behavioral exposure. Nightmares awaken the sleeper and may be analogous to experiential avoidance. More information is needed regarding how arousal is involved in disturbed dreams. We hypothesize that (a) bad dreams will relate to high levels of negative affect and low arousal and (b) nightmares will relate to high levels of negative affect, experiential avoidance, and arousal. Data was collected from 129 participants from across the globe via an online platform. At Time 1, participants reported about negative affect, arousal, and experiential avoidance. For three weeks participants completed daily data regarding affect load, nightmares, and bad dreams. At Time 2, participants reported about negative affect, arousal, and experiential avoidance. Hierarchical multiple regressions revealed the impact of negative affect, experiential avoidance, and arousal on bad dreams and nightmares. The main effects of negative affect, experiential avoidance, and arousal did not account for a significant portion of the variance in bad dreams or nightmares. Interaction effects emerged such that participants with high levels of arousal exhibited a positive association between negative affect and bad dreams (B = .06, t = 2.70, ΔR2 = .06, p = .008, β = .26) and participants with high levels of experiential avoidance exhibited a positive association between negative affect and bad dreams (B = .01, t = 2.48, ΔR2 = .05, p = .015, β = .22). The interaction between experiential avoidance and arousal was not statistically significant. People with high levels of arousal and experiential avoidance may be more likely to have bad dreams, not necessarily nightmares, when they have high levels of negative affect. This suggests that negative affect is an integral component of disturbed dreaming and, in combination with trait arousal or experiential avoidance, can be processed without waking the sleeper. The implications for intervention will be discussed. N/A

Recent research suggests that the stress-sleep relationship is mediated by pre-sleep arousal (PSA) and that cognitive arousal has a stronger mediating effect than somatic arousal; however, this has not been directly tested. Using multilevel moderated mediation, we compared the effects of cognitive arousal and somatic arousal within the stress-sleep relationship. We also assessed whether two forms of repetitive negative thought-rumination and worry-are similarly involved in the stress-sleep relationship. Data was collected from 178 participants across the United States via an online platform. Participants completed baseline self-report surveys examining rumination tendencies and worry tendencies. Over the course of 2 weeks, participants completed daily questionnaires assessing daily stress, PSA, and sleep quality. Results indicated that indirect effects from stress to sleep quality via PSA were statistically significant at low and high levels of rumination and worry, and people at high levels of rumination and worry had stronger relationships between stress and PSA. Across all models, cognitive arousal consistently accounted for more of the variance in the stress-sleep relationship as compared to somatic arousal. Implications for the cognitive behavioral treatment of insomnia are discussed.

Objective: We examine within-group differences in cardiovascular reactivity and recovery patterns following fear-versus anger-inducing stress tasks as they relate to sleep experience.Methods: Eighty-seven college student volunteers (64.4% female) were randomized to either a fear task or an anger task.Heart rate and blood pressure measurements were taken at baseline prior to task initiation, throughout the task, and during post-task recovery intervals.Additionally, prospective sleep data was collected daily for two weeks.Results: For participants in the fear-inducing stress condition, significant elevation in systolic blood pressure persisted into the laboratory task recovery period and was negatively associated with sleep quality.This effect was not found for any other cardiovascular variables nor for participants in the anger-inducing stress condition. Conclusions:Participant response to a stress task that evoked fear was related to sleep experience whereas anger response was not.Our results suggest that there is variability in the relationships between different negative emotional stressors and sleep experience, in particular when considering both reactivity to and recovery from the stressor.Interventions for sleep should target methods of recovery from stress.

Electronic bullying continues to increase yet remains under-researched (e.g., Waasdorp & Bradshaw, 2015). This is especially true for college populations, a group that often uses online technology (Duggan & Brenner, 2014). A paucity of experimentally designed studies have examined and compared behavioral and emotional responses to bullying situations in both electronic and traditional formats. This study seeks to elucidate differences and similarities between the two bullying formats specifically examining cognitive, strategic, and emotional responses. We utilized an experimental design with hypothetical scenarios to investigate college students' social-cognitive responses to two forms of relational bullying: embarrassment and exclusion, presented in traditional and electronic formats. Participants were 124 college-age students at a mid-size Northeastern university. Results demonstrated different emotional responses and behavioral responses depending on the medium (electronic versus traditional). Specifically, in terms of emotions, participants felt higher embarrassment in traditional bullying scenarios and higher anger in electronic bullying scenarios. In terms of behavioral responses participants were more likely to seek help in traditional bullying scenarios compared to using the avoidance strategies of joking when bullying occurred online. Additionally, qualitative responses regarding the impact of bullying medium were analyzed and significant differences were found regarding reasons for the bullying severity and impact depending on medium. This study demonstrates several important differences between electronic and traditional bullying in terms of emotional and behavioral responses as well as qualitative reports of severity.

People who engage in non-suicidal self-injury (NSSI) often conceal their practices, which limits examination and understanding of their engagement. The goal of this research is to utilize data from public online social networks (namely, LiveJournal, a major blogging social networking site) to observe the NSSI population in a naturally occurring setting. Specifically, the focus of this paper is the interests publicly declared by LiveJournal users. In the course of study, we collected the self-declared interests of 25,000 users who are members of or participate in 139 NSSI-related communities. We constructed a family of semantic networks of interests based on their similarity. The semantic networks are structured and contain several dense clusters—semantic domains—that include NSSI-specific interests (such as self-injury and razor), references to music performers (such as evanescence), and general daily life and creativity related interests (such as poetry and friendship). Assuming users are genuine in their declarations, the clusters reveal distinct patterns of interest and may signal keys to NSSI.

While peer aggression and victimization research has traditionally focused on children and adolescents, less research has examined this phenomenon in college students.The current study examines aggression, victimization, and prosociality in a college sample from the perspective of peer aggression as a possible adaptation to form and maintain social dominance hierarchies.A sample of college freshman was surveyed in their first and second semesters of college to determine whether peer aggression and victimization decreased over time, as would be expected if it functioned to organize social hierarchies.Contrary to hypothesis, levels of aggression and victimization were stable over time.However, overt and relational aggression and victimization were not necessarily linked to negative psychosocial outcomes, consistent with the hypothesis that they may be a normal feature of social organization in moderate amounts.Prosociality and aggression were found to be uncorrelated, suggesting that they may be two complementary social strategies that can be selectively used by individuals.

The term mixed emotions refers to the presence of two opposite-valence emotions toward a single target. Identifying when children begin to report experiencing and understanding mixed emotions is critical in identifying how skills such as adaptive functioning, coping strategies, environmental understanding, and socioemotional competence emerge. Prior research has shown that children as young as 5years old can understand and experience mixed emotion, but perhaps appropriately sensitive methodologies can reveal these abilities in younger children. The present study evaluated 57 children between 3 and 5years old for mixed emotion experience and understanding using an animated video clip in which a character experiences a mixed emotional episode. Ordinal logistic regression was utilized to examine the relation of gender, attention, and understanding of content to experience and understanding of mixed emotion. While only 12% of children reported experiencing mixed emotion while watching the clip, 49% of children-some as young as 3years old-were able to recognize the mixed emotional experience of the character. Thus, mixed emotion understanding emerges earlier than previously identified and the expression of understanding may develop independently of the ability to report mixed emotion experience. These findings are discussed in relation to cognitive and developmental considerations.

With adolescents' frequent use of social media, electronic bullying has emerged as a powerful platform for peer victimization. The present two studies explore how adolescents perceive electronic vs. traditional bullying in emotional impact and strategic responses. In Study 1, 97 adolescents (mean age = 15) viewed hypothetical peer victimization scenarios, in parallel electronic and traditional forms, with female characters experiencing indirect relational aggression and direct verbal aggression. In Study 2, 47 adolescents (mean age = 14) viewed the direct verbal aggression scenario from Study 1, and a new scenario, involving male characters in the context of direct verbal aggression. Participants were asked to imagine themselves as the victim in all scenarios and then rate their emotional reactions, strategic responses, and goals for the outcome. Adolescents reported significant negative emotions and disruptions in typical daily activities as the victim across divergent bullying scenarios. In both studies few differences emerged when comparing electronic to traditional bullying, suggesting that online and off-line bullying are subtypes of peer victimization. There were expected differences in strategic responses that fit the medium of the bullying. Results also suggested that embarrassment is a common and highly relevant negative experience in both indirect relational and direct verbal aggression among adolescents.