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This study aims to understand how and why emerging adults come into contact with food media messages, and what they perceive as positive and negative outcomes related to food literacy. Seven focus groups, stratified by gender and socio-economic status, with 37 emerging adults aged between 18 and 25 were conducted. Photovoice was used to reflect on participants’ real-life food media experiences. Findings reveal that food media consumption is a combination of actively searching and incidentally encountering. The results suggest that food media messages attract emerging adults’ attention by bringing content in an entertaining, engaging, and appealing way, and featuring popular food personalities. Finally, food media messages were perceived to both enhance and distort food literacy. The results show how food media messages for food literacy interventions can be designed in order to attract emerging adults’ attention and fulfill their specific needs.

Abstract. Many people are fascinated by celebrities and like to follow them and leave positive comments online about the luxurious lives they lead. There are doubts and concerns, however, about whether celebrity posts regarding personal experiences and advice generate positive responses when their audience is in a situation of chronic stress, such as during a pandemic. On the basis of a field study of real celebrity COVID-19 Instagram posts, this study tested a model for exploring the role of both contextual (i.e., references to luxury in celebrity posts) and individual (i.e., upward social comparison orientation [SCO] and attitudes toward the celebrity) factors in explaining how audiences respond emotionally and behaviorally (i.e., commenting) to celebrity posts during a stressful period. The results indicated that the audience’s emotional and behavioral responses were more negative toward posts with more cues of luxury. SCO seems to moderate these effects, indicating that upward SCO based on these cues can motivate and support to a certain level, but switches to negative effects once the focus on luxury becomes too strong. The results regarding attitudes toward the celebrities behind the messages confirmed the powerful role of this variable during chronic stress, establishing a link between more positive attitudes and more positive emotional responses (amusement and inspiration). These results offer some first exploratory insights into the role of celebrity representations during a global period of stress, which could lay the basis for future experimental research on this topic.

Cyberbullying is a form of online aggression that may have an important health impact, and thus needs to be addressed using evidence-based interventions. Cyberbullying is most prevalent amongst young adolescents. They are in a developmental phase that is characterized by an increased importance of the peer group, high information and communication technology use for social purposes, and risk taking. These factors explain their higher odds of being involved in cyberbullying, either as a perpetrator, victim, or bystander. Because cyberbullying is often interwoven with traditional bullying in the school context, one way to tackle the problem is to integrate anti-cyberbullying components into a whole-school anti-bullying approach. Such an approach not only considers the problem in different phases, but also involves different stakeholders (i.e., pupils, teachers, parents). Cyberbullying, however, can also be prevented, detected or reported, and addressed at the platforms (e.g., social networking sites) where the cyberbullying is actually taking place. These platforms can use reflective interfaces to make people think twice before they actually post a harassing message, support users with protecting their account, use reporting mechanisms to detect cyberbullying instances, and intervene. In addition, other technological solutions (e.g., helplines, serious games) might be used to address the problem. Tackling cyberbullying amongst young people is important as it impacts their mental and physical health, both in the short and the long term. Moreover, involvement in cyberbullying is also related to other externalizing problems (e.g., substance abuse and conduct problems) for perpetrators, and other internalizing problems (e.g., suicidal ideation and self-harm) amongst victims.

Online hate speech on social media platforms causes harm to those who are victimized as well as society at large. The prevalence of hateful content has, thus, prompted numerous calls for improved countermeasures and prevention. For such interventions to be effective, it is necessary to gain a nuanced understanding of influences that facilitate the spread of hate speech. This study does so by investigating what are relevant digital determinants for online hate perpetration. Moreover, the study explores possibilities of different technology-driven interventions for prevention. Thereby, the study specifically considers the digital environments in which online hate speech is most often produced and disseminated, namely social media platforms. We apply frameworks related to the concept of digital affordances to focus on the role that technological features of these platforms play in the context of online hate speech. Data were collected using the Delphi method in which a selected sample of experts from both research and practice answered multiple rounds of surveys with the goal of reaching a group consensus. The study encompassed an open-ended collection of initial ideas, followed by a multiple-choice questionnaire to identify, and rate the most relevant determinants. Usefulness of the suggested intervention ideas was assessed through the three lenses of human-centered design. The results of both thematic analysis and non-parametric statistics yield insights on how features of social media platforms can be both determinants that facilitate online hate perpetration as well as crucial mechanisms of preventive interventions. Implications of these findings for future intervention development are discussed.

The prevalence and impact of online sexual harassment have been increasingly discussed in the EU and beyond in the last years. Therefore, designing effective user self-reporting systems is important. For the victims, it is a chance to get immediate help and support when online sexual harassment happens. For the platform, a good user self-reporting system can help improve users’ trust in, and overall satisfaction with the platform. It is also a chance for platforms to use their technology for social good. The objective of this report is to provide decision-makers with preliminary evidence-based innovative ideas on how to improve the user self-reporting system. Testing the effectiveness of the proposed reporting systems is part of our ongoing research.

Celebrities regularly become the victims of online bashing and criticism by the audience, a phenomenon known as celebrity bashing. Part of the reason why audience members are so aggressive toward famous people is that they consider this an acceptable and even entertaining behavior. However, there is limited knowledge on how these acceptable attitudes are formed. Based on the general aggression model (GAM), this study tested the extent to which attitudes toward celebrity bashing are formed based on situational (exposure to bashing) and personal (trait moral disengagement and empathy) factors and the interaction between them. The results of an online survey conducted among adolescents (N = 159) indicated that a combination of personal and situational factors determines the attitudes toward celebrity bashing. In particular, regular exposure to bashing and higher scores on moral disengagement were related to more acceptable attitudes, whereas cognitive empathy was associated with less acceptable attitudes. Moreover, the interaction effect between exposure and cognitive empathy suggests an underlying mainstreaming effect, with the effect of empathy disappearing when exposure increases among adolescent audiences.

Chemsex refers to the intentional use of drugs before or during sex in a specific context, typically involving prolonged sex sessions with multiple partners. Engaging in chemsex is associated with a wide range of health risks and related risk behaviors. We developed a mobile phone application (‘Budd-app’) to support and inform chemsex participants, reduce potential negative impacts associated with chemsex (e.g., physical, psychological and social health harms), and encourage more reasoned participation. During Budd’s development process, 11 participants completed a survey after each chemsex session they attended. This data collection approach provided precise experiences on drug related behavior, prevention measures for sexually transmitted infection and sexual consent on 63 chemsex sessions. The mean duration of chemsex sessions was 17.5 h. Polydrug use was reported during 95% of chemsex sessions with an average of 3.5 agents per session. Unsafe dosing occurred at 49% of chemsex sessions, and 9/11 participants dosed unsafely at least once. Seven participants did not consistently take measures to prevent STI transmission. Nine had experienced peer pressure, both regarding drug use and sexual health. The same number reported sex without consent, not respecting others’ boundaries as well as their own boundaries not being respected. Many participants experienced negative impact of their chemsex behavior during (7/9) and after (8/9) chemsex. Through participants’ behavior assessment during multiple chemsex sessions, ‘within-person’ variability can be clarified. This clarification provides valuable insights in personal, emotional and contextual vulnerabilities. These insights can direct an individualized care and support trajectory aimed at addressing those vulnerabilities.

Drawing on theory from entertainment experiences and (narrative) persuasion research, this study investigates destigmatizing responses to a genre-hybrid (human-interest and stand-up comedy) nonfiction television program about minority groups. Using an online between-subjects experiment with 417 participants, we found that the combination of human-interest and stand-up comedy can simultaneously stimulate hedonic and eudaimonic experiences, and that this combination reduces trivialization, but not counterarguing responses compared to its separate genre components. Results also show that combining stand-up comedy with human-interest led to higher perceptions of self-efficacy regarding future intergroup contact with minorities, and that this relation was mediated via counterarguing and trivialization. This study is the first to show the potential and unique workings of hedonic and eudaimonic entertainment experiences to reduce resistance to persuasion to achieve destigmatizing outcomes.

Indoor radon is a natural radioactive gas and is one of the leading causes of lung cancer. Despite multiple policy and communication interventions to increase radon testing and mitigation, the uptake of these measures remains insufficient. A participatory research design was applied in Belgium and Slovenia to probe the barriers and facilitators homeowners experience regarding radon protective behavior on the one hand and co-designing communication tools on the other hand. The results show that there remains a need for interventions on all levels (i.e., policy, economic interventions, and communication). Moreover, results indicated a need for a communication strategy that follows the different steps between awareness and performing mitigation measures. Further, involving the target group in the early stages of intervention design was beneficial. Future research is needed to test the effectiveness of the proposed communication strategies in a controlled setting.

Adolescent bullying victimization can have long-term mental health and well-being outcomes. This study focused on the potential mediating role of the perceived long-term negative and positive impact of adolescent bullying victimization to understand its relations with mental health and well-being problems during emerging adulthood. A retrospective study consisting of closed and open-ended questions was conducted among 1010 Flemish and 650 Dutch emerging adults aged 18-26. Path analyses among early victims (N-Flemish = 644; N-Dutch = 217) demonstrated that the relations between bullying victimization intensity and current self-esteem, social interaction anxiety, and life satisfaction were all mediated by the perceived negative long-term impact of adolescent bullying victimization. Additionally, the open-ended questions provided a better understanding of the perceived negative and positive impact of adolescent bullying victimization. The present study offers insights into the importance of considering subjective perceptions of the overall impact of being bullied to understand long-term bullying victimization outcomes. Implications and limitations are discussed, including the need for longitudinal data-for instance, a three-wave panel study-to establish the temporal order of effects.

Background Chemsex refers to the intentional use of drugs before or during sex among men who have sex with men (MSM). Engaging in chemsex has been linked to significant negative impacts on physical, psychological, and social well-being. However, no evidence-based support tools have addressed either these harms or the care needs of MSM who engage in chemsex. Objective The purpose of this paper was to describe the development of a mobile health intervention (named Budd) using the intervention mapping protocol (IMP). Budd aims to support and inform MSM who participate in chemsex, reduce the negative impacts associated with chemsex, and encourage more reasoned participation. Methods The IMP consists of 6 steps to develop, implement, and evaluate evidence-based health interventions. A needs assessment was carried out between September 2, 2019, and March 31, 2020, by conducting a literature study and in-depth interviews. Change objectives were selected based on these findings, after which theory-based intervention methods were selected. The first version of the intervention was developed in December 2020 and pilot-tested between February 1, 2021, and April 30, 2021. Adjustments were made based on the findings from this study. A separate article will be dedicated to the effectiveness study, conducted between October 15, 2021, and February 24, 2022, and implementation of the intervention. The Budd app went live in April 2022. Results Budd aims to address individual factors and support chemsex participants in applying harm reduction measures when taking drugs (drug information, drug combination tool, and notebook), preparing for participation in a chemsex session (articles on chemsex, preparation tool, and event-specific checklist), planning sufficient time after a chemsex session to recover (planning tool), seeking support for their chemsex participation (overview of existing local health care and peer support services, reflection, personal statistics, and user testimonials), taking HIV medication or pre-exposure prophylaxis in a timely manner during a chemsex session (preparation tool), and contacting emergency services in case of an emergency and giving first aid to others (emergency information and personal buddy). Conclusions The IMP proved to be a valuable tool in the planning and development of the Budd app. This study provides researchers and practitioners with valuable information that may help them to set up their own health interventions. International Registered Report Identifier (IRRID) RR1-10.2196/39678

The past two decades have witnessed an increase in ethnicity-related peer aggression, driven by the intensification of the migration phenomenon and rise of information and communication technologies. The goal of the current study is to extend the scope of previous reviews on peer aggression to examine the emerging evidence on the role of technological tools in the prevention, detection, and handling of ethnicity-related peer aggression among young people. We have identified 14 relevant papers published between 2005 and 2020 that help us answer the following research questions: What forms of aggression among young ethnic minorities do these technological interventions try to address? What types of technological interventions are being used? The results indicate that the technological tools are being used to tackle both intergroup as well as intragroup peer aggression, in which ethnic minorities youth is involved (as a victim, perpetrator or bystander). Most studies have focused on adolescents and young adults in the US or in Europe. The technological tools reported on, include: online games, videos, social media, and chat-based programmes, or machine learning algorithms aimed at tackling online and offline peer aggression. They can be used either as stand - alone tools, or as part of intervention programmes (at the school, family or community level). These findings can be useful to improve and elaborate future digital technologies developed to address ethnicity-related peer aggression.

The use of reflective interfaces has been proposed as a useful strategy to reduce cyber harassment amongst adolescents on social networking sites (SNS). By using machine-learning techniques, harassing online messages can be detected before a user submits it online, whereafter a message prompts the user to reconsider the post. This study builds further upon research focusing on the short-term effectiveness of reflective interfaces in preventing harassment. In this context, though, it is not unlikely that adolescents’ user experience with SNS is thwarted when it contains reflective interfaces that might steer their online behaviour. Therefore, this study explores how adolescents evaluate a reflective interface design, in terms of both pragmatic (i.e. functionality, clarity and supportiveness) and hedonic qualities (i.e. autonomy, privacy, self-expression, self-reflection, and pleasure). Moreover, experienced emotions were investigated. In a mixed-method experiment, 24 adolescents (aged 14–16) interacted with a mock SNS with reflective design features. Participants’ emotions were observed while interacting on the SNS that prompted a cue (either containing a verbal message or implicit) for each textual harassment attempt. We further investigated the participants’ experiences retrospectively while watching the screen capture video of their interaction with the reflective interface, and administered a self-report questionnaire. Findings reveal that adolescents’ short-term experiences with SNS in which reflective cues are implemented are not disrupted to a high extent and attitudes are rather positive. Nevertheless, results clearly pointed to a potential fatigue effect in the long-term. Methods to overcome this and alternative options for providing reflective interfaces are suggested.

Food media have become a formidable part of adolescents’ food environments. This study sought to explore how and why adolescents use food media by focusing on selectivity and motives for consumption. We conducted in-depth, semi-structured interviews with 31 Flemish adolescents aged 12 to 16. Food media were both incidentally consumed and selectively sought for education, social utility, and entertainment. The levels of selectivity and motives for consumption varied among the different food media platforms. Incidental consumption was more prevalent with TV cooking shows compared to online food media. The dominant motives for TV cooking show consumption were companionship and entertainment, while online food media were used for a more diverse range of motives dominated by information/inspiration and social interaction. Some participants consumed food media to get motivation and inspiration to improve health and fitness (Fitspiration) while others consumed food media to watch appetizing and aesthetically pleasing food content (Food porn). The social environment in the form of friends and family as well as existing food preferences were dominant psychosocial factors for both traditional and online food media use. Future research is warranted to explore how incidental exposure and the identified motives for use relate to food media effects.

Cyberbullying is a relatively common phenomenon, especially among children and adolescents. Scholars have paid attention to the definition, measurement, and causes of cyberbullying; the profiles of bullies, victims and bystanders; and the potential impact of this specific form of online aggression. They have also pleaded for a multi‐stakeholder approach to address the problem.

El sexting es una de las prácticas a través de la que los jóvenes exploran su sexualidad. Aunque se recomienda responder educativamente a todas las formas en las que se puede expresar este fenómeno, en España, se ha publicado poca investigación que analice su prevalencia diferenciando los distintos tipos de comportamientos de sexting: envío, recepción, reenvío y recepción de reenvíos. El presente estudio aborda esta brecha en la investigación explorando: 1) La prevalencia de sexting, diferenciando entre comportamientos; 2) Las relaciones entre los comportamientos de sexting y el género, la edad, la orientación sexual, tener pareja romántica/sexual, las redes sociales utilizadas, el grado de normalización de sexting y la predisposición para participar en él; 3) Las diferencias de género. En total, participaron 3.314 adolescentes de 12 a 16 años. Los comportamientos de sexting más frecuentes fueron la recepción y la recepción de reenvíos, seguidos del reenvío y el envío. La importancia relativa de cada una de las variables analizadas dependió del comportamiento analizado y del género de los adolescentes. Los resultados destacan la importancia de analizar la diversidad de los comportamientos de sexting y abordar cada uno de ellos desde la educación. Este punto de vista más detallado sobre los diferentes comportamientos podría utilizarse como base para la toma de decisiones educativas y de sensibilización, Sexting is among the practices used by young people to explore their sexuality. Although an educational response to all facets of this phenomenon is recommended, little research has been published to date in Spain that analyses its prevalence by differentiating between the different types of sexting behaviours: sending, receiving, third-party forwarding, and receiving via an intermediary. This gap in the research is addressed by exploring: 1) Sexting prevalence, differentiating between behaviours; 2) Relationships between sexting behaviours and gender, age, sexual orientation, having a romantic/sexual partner, social networking sites used, and the degree of normalisation and willingness to sext; 3) Gender-based differences. In total, 3,314 adolescents aged 12 to 16 years participated in the study. The most frequent sexting behaviours were identified as receiving and receiving via an intermediary, followed by third-party forwarding and the sending of sexual content. The relative importance of each analysed variable depended on the specific sexting behaviour and the participants’ gender. The results highlight the need to analyse the diversity behind sexting behaviours and to address each one in an educational setting. This more detailed look at the different behaviours can be used as the basis for raising awareness and decision-making in education

The COVID-19 pandemic has revealed the Eastern Mediterranean Region's food system's fragility posing severe challenges to maintaining healthy sustainable lifestyle. The aim of this cross-sectional study (N = 13,527 household's family members, mean age: 30.3 ±11.6, 80% women) is to examine the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on food consumption patterns and household's dietary diversity in 10 Eastern Mediterranean countries. A food frequency questionnaire was used to investigate the consumption patterns along with the calculation of the Food Consumption Score (FCS), a proxy indicator of dietary diversity. Data collected on cooking attitudes, shopping and food stock explore the community mitigation measures. In the overall population, before and during the pandemic, most food groups were consumed less or equal to 4 times per week. As evident from our findings and considering that the pandemic may be better, but it's not over, small to moderate changes in food consumption patterns in relatively short time periods can become permanent and lead to substantial poor dietary diversity over time. While it is a priority to mitigate the immediate impact, one area of great concern is the long-term effects of this pandemic on dietary patterns and dietary diversity in Eastern Mediterranean households. To conclude, the COVID-19 crisis revealed the region's unpreparedness to deal with a pandemic. While the aggressive containment strategy was essential for most countries to help prevent the spread, it came at a high nutritional cost, driving poor dietary diversity. This research was funded by the Research Foundation Flanders (G047518N) and Flanders Innovation and Entrepreneurship (HBC.2018.0397). These funding sources had no role in the design of the study, the analysis and interpretation of the data or the writing of, nor the decision to publish the manuscript.

Physical inactivity and sedentary behaviours are leading risk factors for preventable health problems worldwide. Therefore, several smartphone-based interventions have tried to enhance physical activity (PA) through goal reminders based on relatively stable characteristics. However, time-varying factors, such as cognitive fatigue, may act as barriers to engagement in PA. This study aims to unravel what type of goal reminder messages are effective for enhancing PA in situations of cognitive fatigue. First, using a 3 x 3 between-subjects design, we evaluated the effectiveness of goal reminders matched with real-time goals under different levels of cognitive fatigue. This study did not find evidence that the tested goal reminders, intended to be adapted to the real-time goals of the participants, were more effective in promoting PA than goal reminders not adapted to individuals’ real-time goals. Second, to better understand how to design future reminders, two questions explored what format and what content participants considered to be helpful when feeling cognitively fatigued. Results show that GIFs, textual reminders, and pictures are suitable formats in smartphone-based interventions and that humorous content is preferred when feeling cognitively fatigued. These findings contribute to the development of just-in-time adaptive interventions that consider dynamic factors to promote PA.

Abstract. Boredom is a prevalent and relevant, yet understudied, negative emotion in the field of media psychology. This paper proposes novel theoretical foundations to study boredom as an emotion and its related regulation strategies in the context of mobile media. Due to their pervasive nature, mobile media allow for boredom regulation via passive and (inter)active exposure to a wide variety of media contents. It is still unclear how and through which processes mobile media provide successful boredom regulation. This paper first describes the existing scarce and mostly older literature on boredom from the field of media psychology and links this to recent insights from general psychology with as its core the meaning and attentional components (MAC) model ( Westgate & Wilson, 2018 ). It then integrates media psychology predictions for mobile media into the MAC model and identifies gaps and opportunities to be tackled in future media psychology studies, by also taking into account the broader boredom findings from within general psychology, for example, those focusing on the meaning component. Finally, the paper provides a summary of the psychological and neurobiological mechanisms giving rise to boredom and proposes methodological innovations for studying the research questions that are still left unanswered. The aim is to inspire future media psychology research on boredom as a highly relevant emotional state and how boredom regulation through mobile media use for can be both a challenge and an opportunity for individuals’ well-being.

Despite the substantial amount of literature concerning adolescent bystanders of online hate and cyberbullying, relatively little attention has been devoted to studying the same issue in adults. Similarly, the determinants of the effectiveness of different messages to support the victims or counter hate have also been understudied. The existing pieces of empirical research on these topics remained scattered and no systematic review was performed to check if there are any patterns with regard to determinants and consequences of adult bystanders intervening against hate online. To fill these gaps, we performed a literature review in accordance with the guidelines of the Cochrane Collaboration Handbook for Systematic Reviews. The results of the literature search and analysis yielded three important findings. First, personal and contextual factors determining bystander action in adults largely overlap with the factors identified in adolescent populations: empathy, prior victimisation, feelings of responsibility, severity, social norms, relationship with the victim and number of bystanders. Second, personal factors promoting bystander action seem to be interconnected via empathy and social norms, both of which can be facilitated through psycho-education. Third, there is a critical lack of studies on the effectiveness of different bystander interventions.

The purpose of this study is to investigate long-term outcomes of traditional bullying and cyberbullying victimization during childhood and adolescence. Today's emerging adults are the first generation that could have been victimized both offline and online. In order to understand the perceived impact of past bullying victimization on emerging adulthood, the biographic-narrative interpretive method (BNIM) was used among 10 emerging adults aged between 19 and 25 who were bullied both offline and online during multiple years of childhood and/or adolescence. The results showed that the emerging adults attributed a wide range of outcomes to early bullying victimization. Emerging adults perceived impacts on one's current social interacting, including sharing personal information and coping with conflicts, aggression, and bullying, and who one is as an emerging adult (i.e. one's anxieties, self-esteem, empathy, and resilience).

Compartir, leer y responder a narraciones personales en webs de apoyo entre iguales puede tanto fortalecer como amenazar la confianza de los adolescentes para hacer frente a los acontecimientos estresantes (es decir, la autoeficacia como estrategia de afrontamiento). Los principios de la escritura expresiva, el intercambio social de emociones, la persuasión narrativa y los efectos en uno mismo pueden proporcionar información sobre la forma en que esas acciones pueden relacionarse con la autoeficacia como estrategia de afrontamiento. Mediante una encuesta transversal en línea con 311 adolescentes de habla holandesa de entre 14 y 18 años, este artículo explora cómo estas acciones y los motivos del apoyo social (es decir, la búsqueda de información y la búsqueda de apoyo emocional) se relacionan con la autoeficacia de los adolescentes como estrategia de afrontamiento tras usar la web de apoyo entre iguales. Los resultados muestran que la experiencia de los usuarios al leer y responder a narraciones personales no estaba relacionada con su autoeficacia de afrontamiento. Sin embargo, se encontró una relación negativa entre la experiencia de compartir una narración personal y la autoeficacia, por lo que los usuarios no percibieron que el sitio web fuera útil para su confianza general a la hora de hacer frente a acontecimientos estresantes. No obstante, esta relación negativa se invirtió cuando también tenían el objetivo de encontrar apoyo emocional con sus iguales, Sharing, reading and responding to personal narratives on peer-to-peer support websites may provide adolescents with informational and emotional support to feel more confident in coping with stressful events. However, their use may also pose a threat to adolescents’ coping self-efficacy. Principles of expressive writing, social sharing of emotions, narrative persuasion and self-effects may provide insight in how these actions may both positively and negatively relate to coping self-efficacy. By using a cross-sectional online survey with 311 Dutch-speaking adolescents between the ages of 14 and 18, this article explores how these actions and social support motives (i.e. information-seeking and emotional supportseeking) are related to adolescents’ perceptions about the usefulness of these websites to their coping self-efficacy. The results showed a positive relation between adolescents’ social support motives and their belief in the usefulness of these websites to their coping self-efficacy. Therefore, we conclude that it may be an effective coping strategy for many adolescents. There was a negative relation between experience with sharing a personal narrative and coping self-efficacy, meaning that these users did not perceive the website to be helpful to their overall confidence in coping with stressful events. However, this negative relation was reversed when they were motivated to find emotional support with similar others

Paper presented at the second biennial conference on Food & Communication

Emerging research has suggested that digital games can generate entertainment experiences beyond hedonic enjoyment towards eudaimonic experiences: Being emotionally moved, stimulated to reflect on one’s self or a sense of elevation. Studies in this area have mainly focused on individual game characteristics that elicit singular and static eudaimonic game moments. However, such a focus neglects the interplay of multiple game aspects as well as the dynamic nature of eudaimonic experiences. The current study takes a novel approach to eudaimonic game research by conducting a qualitative game analysis of three games (Assassin’s Creed Odyssey, Detroit: Become Human, and God of War) and taking systematic notes on game experiences shortly after playing. Results reveal that emotionally moving, reflective, and elevating eudaimonic experiences were elicited when gameplay notes suggested a strong involvement with the game’s narrative and characters (i.e., narrative engagement) and, in some cases, narrative-impacting choices. These key aspects, in turn, are enhanced by clean player interfaces, graphically realistic characters, close camera perspectives, tone-appropriate soundtrack scores, and both narrative-enhancing (e.g., God of War’s health mechanic) and choice-enhancing mechanics (e.g., Detroit: Become Human’s flowchart). Eudaimonic experiences were also found to evolve throughout the game, with more powerful experiences occurring near the end of the game and some narrative themes fueling the eudaimonic flow of experiences throughout the overall game narrative. This study adds to academic research studying digital games by suggesting an innovative methodological approach that provides a detailed, integrative, and dynamic perspective on eudaimonic game experiences.

In this chapter we argue that the selection of, and engagement with, aggressive entertainment contents can be an emotion regulation strategy, or a way of influencing the nature, expression and intensity of an experienced emotion. We explain this in the context of two, often experienced, negative emotions that have been linked to aggression in the general emotion literature: anger and boredom. By first defining these two emotions and describing their typical action tendencies, we aim to show how the engagement with aggressive media content can be a way of regulating these emotions, sometimes in functional but also in dysfunctional ways. We hereby extend the scope from passively watching aggressive entertainment contents to actively participating and enjoying aggressive acts in the online environment (e.g. online bashing, trolling and cyberbullying).

This paper explores audience responses to the combination of comedy and human-interest television, which can lead to the simultaneous experience of hedonic enjoyment and eudaimonic appreciation. This qualitative audience study consists of 21 interviews with members of the public, reflecting on their viewing experiences of Taboe, a Flemish television programme that combines humour and human-interest about stigmatized groups. This research finds that combining hedonic and eudaimonic entertainment experiences could be key in advancing the way in which television programmes talk about stigmatized groups, leading them to a more inclusive, accessible and overall positive narrative.

One of the challenges Public Service Media institutions face today is how to translate normative values such as universality and diversity into measurable and tangible content in an attempt to realize their “public value”. This contribution shows how the communicative functions of humor can help create public value by introducing audiences to minorities. As a case in point, we analyzed Taboe, a humorous human-interest program about minorities including, amongst others, the visually impaired and the obese, broadcast by Flemish public broadcaster VRT in 2018. Based on in-depth interviews with program makers and participants and a qualitative content analysis of the program, the study found that humor provided the program with a positive, funny yet emotional tone of voice that attracted and kept the audience’s attention. By giving various minorities an active voice, Taboe introduced mainstream audiences to the their perspective, encouraging increased knowledge and understanding and, in turn, tolerance of, and acceptance towards, the minority groups represented.

Chemsex is a growing public health concern, with little evidence-based care and support available. The aim of this study is to understand current risk reduction practices, and the information and care needs of gay, bisexual, and other men who have sex with men (GBMSM) who engage in chemsex. Between January and March 2020, semi structured in-depth interviews with drug-using GBMSM (n = 20) were conducted. Data were analyzed thematically. The reported preparatory measures were: deliberately scheduling chemsex sessions, and discussing preferences regarding setting and attendees. During the event, a logbook is kept to monitor drugs taken by each participant. People try to take care of each other, but this is often counteracted. Respondents highlighted needs: reliable and easily-accessible information, anonymous medical and psychological healthcare, chemsex-specific care, and a value-neutral safe space to talk about chemsex experiences. Results imply two types of users: planned and impulsive users. Adherence to intended harm reduction practices are complicated by drug effects, peer pressure, and feelings of distrust among users.

Reports of a handful of tragic cyberbullying cases, where assumed victims have committed suicide, have revealed that purported cyberbullying attacks are sometimes actually created by the victim himself or herself (using a fake name or posting anonymously). This phenomenon has been named self-cyberbullying, fictitious cyberbullying, digital self-harm, or digital Munchausen. To date, only a few studies have examined this phenomenon to a limited extent. Via a qualitative and quantitative survey, this study further explored forms, motives, contents, means, platforms, and pretended identities of fictitious online victimization in adolescents. In addition, in order to support future research on this topic, first steps were taken to develop and validate an index to assess fictitious online victimization. Positive correlations were found with traditional and cyberbullying and self-harm and negative correlations with self-esteem, subjective well-being, and life satisfaction. These results add to our understanding of the phenomenon and may lay the groundwork for future studies.

Research shows that media entertainment can induce eudaimonic or meaningful experiences, such as being emotionally moved or being stimulated to reflect about oneself. While these studies have primarily focused on adults’ eudaimonic media entertainment experiences, the current study explores whether games can lead to eudaimonic experiences amongst adolescents, for instance, via characteristics like emotionally deep stories and moral choices. Games are very popular among adolescents, while eudaimonic experiences may possibly fulfill key needs of identity development and peer relatedness as well as prove to be beneficial for adolescents’ well-being and overall development. To explore adolescents’ eudaimonic game experiences, we performed a qualitative study existing of six focus groups (N = 33) and 20 individual in-depth interviews (total N = 53). Results indicate that adolescents do experience eudaimonic game moments. Specifically, they experienced socially bonding, reflective (about oneself and society), emotionally moving, and elevating moments. These were considered particularly meaningful when they were somehow connected to real life. Finally, adolescents mostly mentioned narrative aspects (i.e., the game’s story, characters, moral choices), other real players, and audiovisual aspects like graphics and soundtrack as important elicitors of eudaimonic game experiences. Limitations and future research suggestions are further discussed.

Contains fulltext : 224831.pdf (Publisher’s version ) (Closed access) Modern technologies can aid working processes as well as provide individuals with an opportunity to connect and form interpersonal relationships. However, they can also create a context for displaced aggression. In this study, we examine whether people experiencing work stressors may engage in online antisocial behavioral as a means of venting their negative emotions. Specifically, we investigate whether experiencing stressors at work fuels anger in the private context and whether this anger triggers subsequent displaced aggression in the form of antisocial online behavior (AOB) throughout the evening. Additionally, we examine the crossover of anger to AOB in couples in their private context. We conducted a diary study amongst 95 dual‐earner couples, twice a day, during five consecutive working days. Results confirmed that men’s daily work stressors spilled over to their private context in the form of anger after work and AOB throughout the evening. No crossover effects were found from their partner. For women, a crossover effect was found of their partner's work stressors and anger on their own AOB. These results demonstrate gender differences in displaced online aggression. 29 p.

Adolescents regularly observe practices of online celebrity bashing. Existing research pointed to adolescent bystanders' approving attitudes toward this practice. However, knowledge is lacking on how adolescent bystanders respond emotionally and physiologically to cases of celebrity bashing. An experimental study with two conditions (bashing/neutral) was conducted to investigate the influence of exposure to online celebrity bashing on the emotional responses and physiological arousal among adolescent bystanders (n = 67). Self-reported questionnaires before and after exposure to celebrity bashing were used to measure participants' emotional state. Their physiological activation (heart rate and skin conductance) was recorded using the E4 Empatica Wristlet. The results indicated that adolescents responded quite negatively to the cases of celebrity bashing, expressing increased feelings of anger, sadness, frustration and powerlessness, and decreased feelings of amusement. Moreover, adolescent bystanders experienced celebrity bashing as stressful, as both the heart rate and phasic skin conductance significantly increased after exposure to bashing.

Adolescents regularly become involved in online aggression. While existing research mainly concentrated on online peer aggression, some studies pointed to adolescents' aggression toward other targets, such as celebrities. It is known that socio-cognitive characteristics such as empathy and moral disengagement are associated with adolescents' aggression toward peers, but so far it remains unexplored if these traits can also explain celebrity aggression. The current study investigated the relationship between affective and cognitive empathy, moral disengagement and online celebrity aggression. The sample consisted of 1255 adolescents with a mean age of 14.17 years (SD = 0.47). Participants completed the Moral Disengagement Scale adapted to a celebrity context, the Emotional Quotient and a scale measuring mild and severe online celebrity aggression. Structural equation analysis in Mplus indicated that, when controlling for gender and celebrity media consumption, affective empathy was associated with severe and not with mild online celebrity aggression. The cognitive component of empathy was unrelated with online aggression toward celebrities. Moral disengagement was related with mild and severe online celebrity aggression and also mediated the relationship between affective empathy and both mild and severe celebrity aggression. Following these results, strategies aiming at reducing celebrity aggression may benefit from a focus on socio-cognitive characteristics.

The present study investigated the effect of descriptive and injunctive norms of peers, parents, and favorite celebrities on adolescents’ negative online behavior toward celebrities. The sample consisted of 1,255 adolescents ([Formula: see text] = 14.17, SD = 0.47). Adolescents indicated what their peers, parents, and favorite celebrities think of celebrity bashing (injunctive norms) and whether they engage in it (descriptive norms). The adolescents also indicated how often they had participated in negative online behavior toward celebrities and peers. The results revealed that compared with injunctive norms, descriptive norms are better predictors of adolescents’ negative online behavior toward celebrities. Focusing on the different role models, the impact of peers was the strongest for both mild and severe forms of celebrity aggression. Moreover, the results showed that adolescents who engage in negative online behavior directed at celebrities are likely to do the same regarding peers.

Although social media offer adolescents new possibilities for emotion regulation, little is known about how adolescents use different platforms to this end. This study adds to the emotion regulation literature and affordances-of-technologies perspective by describing whether and how adolescents use different social media platforms (Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, Twitter, Tumblr, YouTube, 9Gag, and blogs) for emotion sharing and how technical, social, and contextual factors influence these practices. In-depth interviews with 22 adolescents aged 14 to 18 show that adolescents share emotions on multiple of these platforms. Although the different platforms have similar affordances, their social norms clearly differ and influence adolescents’ online behavior. Facebook statuses, Instagram, and Snapchat are mostly used for sharing positive emotions, if emotions are shared at all. Twitter and Messenger, on the other hand, are also used for sharing negative emotions, albeit for different reasons.

Although the majority of research on adolescents’ online behavior has focused on antisocial behavior such as cyberbullying, adolescents more often behave prosocially than antisocially online. Research on offline prosocial behavior has shown that happiness and prosocial behavior are related. Furthermore, spillover-crossover research suggests that emotional states originating in one context can spill over to another context and can even cross over from one person to another. Therefore, this study examined whether happiness is also related to adolescents’ online prosocial behavior and whether others’ (in this case, parents’) happiness also indirectly, via transmission to adolescents’ own happiness, predicts adolescents’ online prosocial behavior. Via a daily diary method, the associations of adolescents’ own happiness and their parents’ happiness with adolescents’ online prosocial behavior were tested on a daily level. The findings suggest that, on a daily level, happiness creates a ripple effect whereby adolescents and parents take their positive emotional states from school and work home, and adolescents act on their happiness by behaving more prosocially online. The strongest spillover and crossover effects were found for girls and their mothers, evoking questions for future research to understand these gender differences. ispartof: Journal of Happiness Studies vol:20 issue:4 pages:1241-1258 status: published

New technologies at work broaden the scope of bullying behaviours to the online context, creating opportunities for a new form of bullying to arise â workplace cyberbullying. So far, knowledge on the factors contributing to workplace cyberbullying has been lacking. Within this emerging research line, the Emotion Reaction model (Vranjes, Baillien, Vandebosch, Erreygers, & De Witte, 2017a), specifically focused on workplace cyberbullying, was put forward. In this study, we test the modelâ s main proposition regarding exposure to workplace cyberbullying; namely, that stressors evoked emotions predict exposure to cyberbullying and that this relation is moderated by emotion regulation strategies. The model was tested in two steps. First, the model as a whole was tested cross-sectionally. Next, the direction of causality between fear and sadness and exposure to cyberbullying was tested using a cross-lagged panel design. The results provide support for the central role of fear and sadness in the relationship between work stressors and cyberbullying exposure and the moderating role of reappraisal. No moderating effect of suppression was observed. In addition, support is found for the causal claim that fear and sadness predict cyberbullying exposure. The results and their implications are discussed. ispartof: Work and Stress vol:32 issue:4 pages:379-399 status: published

The goal of the present study was to investigate how negative peer interactions offline and online are associated with each other and with other daily interactions among early adolescents. To this aim, photo-elicitation interviewing was used to gather data among a sample of 34 early adolescents (13–14 years). A thematic analysis revealed that adolescents experience a wide range of different types of negative peer interactions offline and online. Most of the negative interactions recalled by the participants took place exclusively offline or online, and only a few were continued and/or managed in another environment. When participants were involved in online negative interactions they often acted as if nothing happened afterwards in the offline environment. On the other hand, offline negative interactions were often not continued online because the persons involved did not interact online. Further implications of the results for prevention and intervention, and for future research are discussed.

With the rise of the new technologies, new forms of aggression have also emerged. In that respect, cyberbullying amongst youngsters has been the topic of contemporary research. This form of bullying is defined as aggression that intentionally and repeatedly takes place within an electronic context (Kowalski, Limber & Agatson, 2012). Despite the increased use of ICT’s at work and an impressive body of research on workplace bullying (Neall & Tuckey, 2014), studies in the work context have largely neglected its electronic counterpart. The purpose of the present paper is therefore to construct and validate a scale for measuring workplace cyberbullying. Combining the existing knowledge from studies on workplace bullying and cyberbullying amongst youngsters, we have constructed a list of cyberbullying acts at work. A web survey was distributed to four organizations from different sectors. The participants (N = 710) were asked to rate their exposure to the different negative cyber acts (e.g. hacking personal information), their exposure to different work stressors (e.g. workload and role ambiguity) and their subjective well-being. We first performed a cross-validation in which a random half of the sample was used for the EFA and the other half was used for the CFA. After omission of low loading items, EFA revealed a three-factor structure (i.e. ‘work related cyberbullying’, ‘person related cyberbullying’ and ‘intrusion’) and this was further confirmed by the CFA. Next, a SEM was performed on the whole sample to test different forms of validity (i.e. convergent, discriminant and predictive validity). The preliminary findings suggest that the scale has good psychometric properties. However, the third factor ‘intrusion’ could be supplemented with additional items, which is to be done in a second study. The construction of the Inventory of Cyberbullying Acts at Work (ICA-W) offers an avenue for further exploring this phenomenon in the work context. ispartof: European Journal of Work and Organizational Psychology vol:27 issue:1 pages:28-39 ispartof: location:Linz, Austria status: published

Adolescents often seek and provide peer support as an effective strategy for countering cyberbullying victimization. Little is known about the actual content of such peer support, however, partly due to limitations inherent to survey, interview or focus group research. The current study examined online peer support that had been sought and provided with regard to cyberbullying. It involved thematic analysis of cyberbullying message threads, and stories of benefit and effectiveness, in two online support group fora for adolescents. Applying Tardy’s (1985) social support framework, and including the social support categorisations proposed by House (1981), we found that peer support in this context involved information on coping strategies, and discussion of: (cyber)bullying as a phenomenon; the actors involved; and, the victim’s specific (cyber)bullying situation. In addition, online fora members provided victims with various subtypes of emotional support. Further research is needed on the effectiveness of different types of peer support, particularly regarding the coping strategies that adolescents recommend.