Association between self-compassion and cyber aggression in the COVID-19 context: roles of attribution and public stigma.

Self-compassion is negatively associated with aggressive behaviors. However, the association between self-compassion and cyber aggression toward stigmatized people (e.g., people infected with COVID-19) has not been investigated in the COVID-19 context and the mechanism underlying this association remains underexplored. On the basis of emotion regulation theory and attribution theory, this study examined the indirect effects of self-compassion on cyber aggression toward people infected with COVID-19 through attribution and public stigma of COVID-19. Data were collected from 1162 Chinese college students (415 male, mean age = 21.61 years). Participants completed an online questionnaire including measurement of the key variables and basic demographic information. Results indicated that self-compassion was negatively associated with cyber aggression through the lower attribution of COVID-19 and lower public stigma of COVID-19. A sequential pathway from the attribution of COVID-19 to public stigma of COVID-19 was identified in the relationship between self-compassion and cyber aggression. Our findings are consistent with emotion regulation theory and attribution theory, which posit that emotion regulation strategies are associated with interpersonal mistreatment through cognitive pathways. These findings suggest that emotional self-regulation strategies can be used to reduce cyber aggression toward stigmatized people by reducing attribution and public stigma in the COVID-19 context. Self-compassion improvement could be target for the interventions aiming at alleviating public stigma and interpersonal mistreatment toward stigmatized people.

COVID-19 Information Overload and Cyber Aggression during the Pandemic Lockdown: The Mediating Role of Depression/Anxiety and the Moderating Role of Confucian Responsibility Thinking.

Many countries adopted lockdown measures to curb the spread of the outbreak in 2020, while information about COVID-19 has dominated various media outlets, which has led to information overload for people. However, previous research has mainly focused on cancer information overload and the corresponding consequence, and failed to examine its adverse effects in the context of major public health events. Based on the Frustrate Aggression Theory and the Scapegoat Theory, the present study established a moderated mediation model to investigate the emotional and behavioral outcomes of COVID-19 information overload. The mediating role of depression/anxiety in the association between COVID-19 information overload and cyber aggression, as well as the moderating role of Confucian responsibility thinking, were tested. This model was examined with 1005 Chinese people (mean age = 26.91 years, SD = 9.94) during the COVID-19 outbreak. Mediation analyses revealed that COVID-19 information overload was positively related to cyber aggression, depression, and anxiety, parallelly and partially mediated this relationship. Moderated mediation analyses further indicated that Confucian responsibility thinking not only moderated the direct link between COVID-19 information overload and cyber aggression, with the effect being significant only for people with a low level of Confucian responsibility thinking, but also moderated the relationship between COVID-19 information overload and depression/anxiety respectively, with the associations being much more potent for individuals with low levels of Confucian responsibility thinking. These findings have the potential to inform the development of prevention and intervention programs designed to reduce the negative emotions and cyber aggression associated with information overload in public health events.

Cyberbullying in Online/E-Learning Platforms Based on Social Networks

Cyberbullying is a method of harassment using electronic means and is very common among all, as the digital sphere has extended its technology. As school districts shut down in retort to COVID-19 and students are moving to E-learning, ever than before our children may be using most of the period in front of screens. Though the digital world is supporting us link and study more, it is also a situation where harmful behavior can be encountered. It is serious that we engross our children in dialogue to keep them protective and motivate them to be very vigilant with what they share online. To better safeguard your child, we wish you to study more about digital awareness, check your child’s screen time and online activities, comprehend and set settings related to privacy, and set rules with your child. Bullying is spiteful behavior that is aggressive, unwanted, and repeated. This can be verbal, social, physical, or online. They are acts of power and can directly cause guilt, sadness, shame, and anger. Bullying is not restricted to children;adults can also bully other adults or children. Cyberbullying is victimization that happens online and over digital devices. Cyberbullying examples comprise detestable or mean texts, social media posts envisioned to embarrassing or fake images, spread rumors, sexually explicit, or threatening direct messages. It is significant to take cyberbullying and bullying of any kind, seriously. Bullying can have a long-lasting effect on a child’s mental health, relationships, and confidence. It can distress their capability to focus on academics and extracurricular happenings. And, it can also cause a child to make to bullying others, as a technique to get control back and feel like they have power again. In social media where bigger communication opportunities are offered, they even enhance the defenselessness for many people in the form of threatening online with the messages, images, and so on. In recent studies, cyberbullying constitutes a growing problem among youngsters, teenagers, and school students. To avoid such situation, an intelligent system is required for the identification of these threats automatically. The chapter mainly focuses on the types of cyberbullying, followed by case studies in which we discuss about the automatic detection of cyberbullying in online learning/E-learning platform based on social network. © 2022, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd.

Comparing cyberbullying prevalence and process before and during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The psychological consequences of the global COVID-19 pandemic are just now starting to be understood; however, the behavioral consequences are less understood. Thus, the current report examined whether cyberbullying processes and frequency are affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. We compared US adult participant data from six months before the start of the pandemic (July 2019; n = 181) to data collected in the middle of the pandemic (May, 2020; n = 173) to determine if there are any significant differences in anonymity perceptions, belief in the irrelevance of muscularity for online bullying (BIMOB), cyberbullying attitudes, and cyberbullying perpetration. Results showed that there were significant increases in BIMOB, cyberbullying attitudes, and cyberbullying perpetration during the pandemic, but no significant change for anonymity perceptions. Further, the relationships between several variables germane to cyberbullying perpetration prediction were stronger during the pandemic than before. Overall, these findings add to our understanding of the behavioral impact the COVID-19 pandemic has on US adults.