The Peer Victimization in College Survey: Construction and validation.

Colleges and universities are increasingly concerned about respect for diversity and tolerance of individual differences on their campuses. Nevertheless, no comprehensive measure of peer victimization has been developed and validated for use with college student populations. The Peer Victimization in College Survey (PVIC) is the first such measure. Study 1 (N = 733) reports how PVIC items were empirically derived to ensure construct coverage. Study 2 (N = 100) reports how intuitive PVIC subscales were established to distinguish between subtypes of college peer victimization. Study 3 (N = 520) provides evidence of convergent, discriminant, and construct validity for the PVIC, including its relations to risk factors and to outcomes such as depressive symptoms, anxiety, stress, and college sense of belonging. Study 4 (N = 633) validates several PVIC scaling methods and provides evidence of incremental validity of the measure over current (unvalidated) measures. The PVIC can assess subtypes of peer victimization on college campuses, evaluate the effectiveness of campus intervention efforts, and test hypotheses about the causes and effects of peer victimization. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).

Emotional and cognitive reactivity: Validating a multilevel modeling approach to daily diary data.

An increasing number of studies are applying multilevel modeling (MLM) to daily diary assessments of emotional and cognitive reactivity (ER and CR). Despite their generation of promising results, these methods have yet to be validated. The current study, consisting of 449 participants from over 90 different colleges and universities, had 2 goals: (a) to assess the convergent validity of these methods in relation to more conventional measures, and (b) to assess the construct validity of these methods in relation to depressive symptoms. Results support the extraction of within- versus between-person aspects of both constructs from daily diary data. Evidence of convergent validity derives from the association of MLM-based estimates of ER and CR with established self-report questionnaire methods. Evidence of construct validity derives from the relation of these estimates to symptoms of depression. The value of distinguishing within- from between-person aspects of ER and CR is discussed. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).

Dynamic measures of emotional and cognitive reactivity in college students.

Questionnaire and mood-induction measures of emotional and cognitive reactivity (ER and CR) have noteworthy strengths as well as potential liabilities (as do virtually all measures of psychological constructs). Toward a solution to the fallible measurement problem, methodologists have long advocated utilizing qualitatively diverse assessment methods to converge upon the constructs of interests. The current article introduces and provides initial validation of the Behind Your Back measure that (unlike any other measure) simultaneously assesses both ER and CR in college students via methods that avoid some of the problems associated with conventional measures. For both ER and CR, 3 dimensions are hypothesized, representing (a) person-driven, (b) event-driven, and (c) person/event-driven aspects of ER and CR. Results support this tripartite structure and provide evidence of convergent and construct validity of the method, including significant relations to self-reported symptoms of depression. Implications of these BYB-derived dimensions for theory and enhancing practice are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).

Are Aspects of Twitter Use Associated with Reduced Depressive Symptoms? The Moderating Role of In-Person Social Support.

In a two-wave, 4-month longitudinal study of 308 adults, two hypotheses were tested regarding the relation of Twitter-based measures of online social media use and in-person social support with depressive thoughts and symptoms. For four of five measures, Twitter use by in-person social support interactions predicted residualized change in depression-related outcomes over time; these results supported a corollary of the social compensation hypothesis that social media use is associated with greater benefits for people with lower in-person social support. In particular, having a larger Twitter social network (i.e., following and being followed by more people) and being more active in that network (i.e., sending and receiving more tweets) are especially helpful to people who have lower levels of in-person social support. For the fifth measure (the sentiment of Tweets), no interaction emerged; however, a beneficial main effect offset the adverse main effect of low in-person social support.