A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis of Interventions to Decrease Cyberbullying Perpetration and Victimization.

Evidence suggests that cyberbullying among school-age children is related to problem behaviors and other adverse school performance constructs. As a result, numerous school-based programs have been developed and implemented to decrease cyberbullying perpetration and victimization. Given the extensive literature and variation in program effectiveness, we conducted a comprehensive systematic review and meta-analysis of programs to decrease cyberbullying perpetration and victimization. Our review included published and unpublished literature, utilized modern, transparent, and reproducible methods, and examined confirmatory and exploratory moderating factors. A total of 50 studies and 320 effect sizes spanning 45,371 participants met the review protocol criteria. Results indicated that programs significantly reduced cyberbullying perpetration (g = -0.18, SE = 0.05, 95% CI [-0.28, -0.09]) and victimization (g = -0.13, SE = 0.04, 95% CI [-0.21, -0.05]). Moderator analyses, however, yielded only a few statistically significant findings. We interpret these findings and provide implications for future cyberbullying prevention policy and practice.

A meta-analysis of longitudinal partial correlations between school violence and mental health, school performance, and criminal or delinquent acts.

The daily challenges resulting from all types of school violence-such as physical aggression, bullying, peer victimization, and general threats-have the potential to affect, longitudinally, students' mental health, school performance, and involvement in criminal or delinquent acts. Across primary and secondary studies, however, variation in how and how much school violence relates to these outcomes, has persisted. The purpose of this systematic review and meta-analysis, therefore, was to clarify this uncertainty by synthesizing the longitudinal relations. We conducted exhaustive searching procedures, implemented rigorous screening and coding processes, and estimated an underused effect size, the partial correlation from multiple regression models, before estimating a random-effects meta-analysis using robust variance estimation. We meta-analyzed 114 independent studies, totaling 765 effect sizes across 95,618 individual participants. The results of the overall analyses found a statistically significant longitudinal relation between school violence, in any role, and the aggregated outcome variables (rp = .06). Given that this effect size inherently controls for multiple potential confounding covariates, we consider the relation's magnitude clinically meaningful. We end by discussing ways practitioners and researchers may use these analyses when implementing prevention programming and how the field of meta-analysis should more frequently utilize the partial correlation. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).

Locating unregistered and unreported data for use in a social science systematic review and meta-analysis.

Meta-analysts rely on the availability of data from previously conducted studies. That is, they rely on primary study authors to register their outcome data, either in a study's text or on publicly available websites, and report the results of their work, either again in a study's text or on publicly accessible data repositories. If a primary study author does not register data collection and similarly does not report the data collection results, the meta-analyst is at risk of failing to include the collected data. The purpose of this study is to attempt to locate one type of meta-analytic data: findings from studies that neither registered nor reported the collected outcome data. To do so, we conducted a large-scale search for potential studies and emailed an author query request to more than 600 primary study authors to ask if they had collected eligible outcome data. We received responses from 75 authors (12.3%), three of whom sent eligible findings. The results of our search confirmed our proof of concept (i.e., that authors collect data but fail to register or report it publicly), and the meta-analytic results indicated that excluding the identified studies would change some of our substantive conclusions. Cost analyses indicated, however, a high price to finding the missing studies. We end by reaffirming our calls for greater adoption of primary study pre-registration as well as data archiving in publicly available repositories.

Between- and within-family association test of the dopamine receptor D2 TaqIA polymorphism and alcohol abuse and dependence in a general population sample of adults.

OBJECTIVE: Dopaminergic dysfunction has been hypothesized to play an important role in the etiology of alcohol-use disorders. A restriction fragment length polymorphism (RFLP) in the 3' untranslated region (3'UTR) of the DRD2 gene affects gene expression and has been implicated as a risk factor for alcohol dependence. This polymorphism (TaqIA) has been reported as positively associated with alcohol-use disorders in case-control samples, but these results have not been replicated in family-based association studies. The mixed results of association between the DRD2 TaqIA polymorphism and alcohol-use disorders may be the result of differences in sample size, phenotype definition, heterogeneity of the samples, and genetic admixture. METHOD: We conducted tests of association in a sample of 838 adults participating in the National Youth Survey Family Study (NYSFS). We examined whether the DRD2 TaqIA polymorphism was associated with a symptom-count measure of alcohol abuse and dependence derived from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fourth Edition, and the Craving Withdrawal Model. RESULTS: Tests of association were nonsignificant across each classification system examined. Power calculations suggested that these results were despite the ability to detect an effect size of 1%. CONCLUSIONS: This study supports other family-based association tests that have reported no association between the DRD2 TaqIA polymorphism and alcohol abuse and dependence.

Childhood maltreatment, subsequent antisocial behavior, and the role of monoamine oxidase A genotype.

BACKGROUND: A functional promoter polymorphism in monoamine oxidase A (MAOA) has been implicated as a moderating factor in the relationship between childhood maltreatment and later adolescent and adult antisocial behavior. Despite wide interest in this hypothesis, results remain mixed from the few attempts at replication. METHODS: Regression-based analyses were conducted to test for a genotype-environment interaction using self-reported physical abuse and MAOA genotype to predict later antisocial behavior and arrests for violence by participants in the National Youth Survey Family Study. We also examined the interaction using a measure of violent victimization. The analysis sample included 277 Caucasian male respondents, aged 11-15 in 1976, who provided buccal swab DNA samples and who were successfully genotyped for the variable number tandem repeat (VNTR) in the MAOA promoter using polymerase chain reaction. RESULTS: Maltreatment by a parent during adolescence was a risk factor for adolescent and adult antisocial and violence related behavioral problems. Tests for the main effect of MAOA and a MAOA-maltreatment interaction were nonsignificant. Similar results were obtained using the measure of adolescent violent victimization. CONCLUSIONS: Findings from this general population sample could not confirm the hypothesis that MAOA moderates the relationship between adolescent maltreatment and adolescent or adult antisocial behavior.

Relationally and physically aggressive children's intent attributions and feelings of distress for relational and instrumental peer provocations.

Numerous studies have demonstrated that physically aggressive children exhibit hostile attributional biases in response to instrumental peer provocations, a social information-processing pattern that has been recognized as a contributor to peer-directed aggression. The present studies (N = 127 and N = 535) were designed to extend past research by evaluating the intent attributions and feelings of emotional distress of relationally and physically aggressive children in response to instrumental and relational provocation contexts. Results indicated that physically aggressive children exhibited hostile attributional biases and reported relatively greater distress for instrumental provocation situations, whereas relationally aggressive children exhibited hostile attributional biases and reported relatively greater distress for relational provocation contexts. Implications of these findings for the understanding of factors that may contribute to relational as well as physical aggression are discussed.