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Family and peer effects, as well as socio-emotional skills, are considered to have an essential role in cyberbullying. Although the dynamics of social factors and socio-emotional processes underlying cyberbullying are still open for research to further understand the direct and indirect relationships among the social factors (e.g., peers and family), socio-emotional skills (e.g. emotion regulation) and cyberbullying engagement. Thus, the aim of our study was to test models of cyberbullying perpetration and cybervictimization based on the role of family dynamics (cohesion, adaptability and communication), social support (from family and friends) and emotion regulation difficulties. One thousand, one hundred and five students (552 males, aged 11–19 years) participated in our research. We used self-report questionnaires to measure cyberbullying perpetration and cybervictimization, family functioning, perceived social support and emotion regulation difficulties. Our main findings support the crucial role of family and peers in cyberbullying engagement during adolescence. Perceived support from friends and family serve as protective factors against cybervictimization. Further, perceived support from friends and balanced family cohesion are protective factors against cyberbullying perpetration. On the other hand, emotion regulation difficulties appear to increase the risk of both cyberbullying perpetration and cybervictimization. Our findings confirm and extend the research on the role of family and peer effects, as well as emotion regulation in cyberbullying engagement. Moreover, our results have important implications for prevention and intervention programs involving family and peer support.

During COVID-19 lockdown the enforced social isolation and other pandemic-related changes highly increased the risk of mental health problems. We aimed to discover how elderly people coped with the psychological burdens of pandemic and the social isolation in Hungary.This study included 589 (441 females) Hungarian individuals, aged 60-83 (Findings showed that perceived change in mood, social connectedness, and quality of life was negatively affected by catastrophizing and loneliness; whereas positive refocusing and contamination fear had a positive effect. According to the SEM analysis, intolerance of uncertainty and loneliness directly affected mental health. Further, maladaptive emotion regulation strategies mediated the connection between intolerance of uncertainty, contamination fear, loneliness and mental health. Whereas adaptive emotion regulation strategy mediated the connection between social support from friends, contamination fear, loneliness and mental health.Overall, our research might help the understanding of how external and internal factors contributed to the well-being of elderly people during the COVID-19. The model can also be translated into professional interventions to develop coping strategies among elderly for the challenges of COVID-19 pandemic in their lives.

The widely used rubber hand illusion (RHI) paradigm provides insight into how the brain manages conflicting multisensory information regarding bodily self-consciousness. Previous functional neuroimaging studies have revealed that the feeling of body ownership is linked to activity in the premotor cortex, the intraparietal areas, the occipitotemporal cortex, and the insula. The current study investigated whether the individual differences in the sensation of body ownership over a rubber hand, as measured by subjective report and the proprioceptive drift, are associated with structural brain differences in terms of cortical thickness in 67 healthy young adults. We found that individual differences measured by the subjective report of body ownership are associated with the cortical thickness in the somatosensory regions, the temporo-parietal junction, the intraparietal areas, and the occipitotemporal cortex, while the proprioceptive drift is linked to the premotor area and the anterior cingulate cortex. These results are in line with functional neuroimaging studies indicating that these areas are indeed involved in processes such as cognitive-affective perspective taking, visual processing of the body, and the experience of body ownership and bodily awareness. Consequently, these individual differences in the sensation of body ownership are pronounced in both functional and structural differences.

People seem to differ in their visual search performance involving emotionally expressive faces when these expressions are seen on faces of others close to their age (peers) compared to faces of non-peers, known as the own-age bias (OAB). This study sought to compare search advantages in angry and happy faces detected on faces of adults and children on a pool of children (N = 77, mean age = 5.57) and adults (N = 68, mean age = 21.48). The goals of this study were to (1) examine the developmental trajectory of expression recognition and (2) examine the development of an OAB. Participants were asked to find a target face displaying an emotional expression among eight neutral faces. Results showed that children and adults found happy faces significantly faster than angry and fearful faces regardless of it being present on the faces of peers or non-peers. Adults responded faster to the faces of peers regardless of the expression. Furthermore, while children detected angry faces significantly faster compared to fearful ones, we found no such difference in adults. In contrast, adults detected all expressions significantly faster when they appeared on the faces of other adults compared to the faces of children. In sum, we found evidence for development in detecting facial expressions and also an age-dependent increase in OAB. We suggest that the happy face could have an advantage in visual processing due to its importance in social situations and its overall higher frequency compared to other emotional expressions. Although we only found some evidence on the OAB, using peer or non-peer faces should be a theoretical consideration of future research because the same emotion displayed on non-peers’ compared to peers’ faces may have different implications and meanings to the perceiver.

Background and aims Internet addiction is a non-substance-related addiction disorder with progressively growing prevalence. Internet addiction, like substance-related addictions, has been linked with high impulsivity, low inhibitory control, and poor decision-making abilities. Cortical thickness measurements and trait impulsivity have been shown to have a distinct relationship in addicts compared to healthy controls. Thus, we test whether the cortical correlates of trait impulsivity are different in Internet addicts and healthy controls, using an impulsive control group (smokers). Methods Thirty Internet addicts (15 females) and 60 age- and gender-matched controls (30 smokers, all young adults aged 19–28 years) were scanned using a 3T MRI scanner and completed the Barratt Impulsiveness Scale. Results Internet addicts had a thinner left superior temporal cortex than controls. Impulsivity had a significant main effect on the left pars orbitalis and bilateral insula, regardless of group membership. We identified divergent relationships between trait impulsivity and thicknesses of the bilateral middle temporal, right superior temporal, left inferior temporal, and left transverse temporal cortices between Internet addicts and healthy controls. Further analysis with smokers revealed that the left middle temporal and left transverse temporal cortical thickness change might be exclusive to Internet addiction. Discussion The effects of impulsivity, combined with a long-term exposure to some specific substance or stimuli, might result in different natures of relationships between impulsivity and brain structure when compared to healthy controls. Conclusion These results may indicate that Internet addiction is similar to substance-related addictions, such that inefficient self-control could result in maladaptive behavior and inability to resist Internet use.

Background and aims Structural differences in higher-order brain areas are common features of behavioral addictions, including Internet addiction (IA) as well. Taking into consideration the limited number of studies and methods used in previous studies on IA, our aim was to investigate the correlates of IA and the morphometry of the frontal lobes. Methods To observe these relationships, the high-resolution T1-weighted MR images of 144 healthy, Caucasian, university students were analyzed with volumetry and voxel-based morphometry. The Problematic Internet Use Questionnaire (PIUQ) was used to assess IA. Results We found significant correlations between PIUQ subscales and the volume of the right pars opercularis volume and gray matter mass in women. Discussion and conclusion The increased gray matter measures of this structure might be explained with the extended effort to control for the impulsive behavior in addiction, and with the increased number of social interactions via the Internet.

Social and emotional competences are considered to have a crucial role in cyberbullying as, e.g., difficulties concerning emotion regulation and empathy can characterize both cyberbullies and cybervictims. Although, the dynamics of socio-emotional processes underlying cyberbullying are still open for research, as e.g., there are contradicting results concerning the role of empathy in cybervictimization. Thus, the aim of our study was to explore the specific maladaptive emotion regulation strategies characterizing cybervictims and to clarify the role of empathy in cybervictimization. Furthermore, another goal was to explore whether moral disengagement characterizes cyberbullies in absence of empathic and adaptive emotion regulation skills. 524 students (214 males, aged 12-19 years) participated in our research. We used self-report questionnaires to measure cyberbullying perpetration and cybervictimization, adaptive and maladaptive emotion regulation strategies, moral disengagement, affective, cognitive empathy, and intention to comfort. Our main findings show that cyberbullying is associated with difficulties in socio-emotional competences. Cyberbullies and bully-victims demonstrate less empathic responsiveness and display higher moral disengagement than noncyberbullies. On the other hand cybervictims tend to use both adaptive and maladaptive emotion regulation strategies to cope with their negative emotions. In addition, cybervictims have higher cognitive and affective empathy than cyberbullies and bully-victims. Our findings confirm and extend the research on the relationship among socio-emotional skills and cyberbullying as well as cybervictimization. Moreover, our results have important implications for prevention programs targeting emotion regulation and empathy.

We examined the comprehension of deceptive intentions revealed in searching task in infancy, on the theoretical basis of natural pedagogy and epistemic trust. The main findings showed that 12-15-month-old infants are able to discriminate the reliable and the deceptive actions of adults, but they do not generalize their previous experience in connection with a novel person, who is treated as a new reliable source of information.

A common brain-related feature of addictions is the altered function of higher-order brain networks. Growing evidence suggests that Internet-related addictions are also associated with breakdown of functional brain networks. Taking into consideration the limited number of studies used in previous studies in Internet addiction (IA), our aim was to investigate the functional correlates of IA in the default mode network (DMN) and in the inhibitory control network (ICN). To observe these relationships, task-related fMRI responses to verbal Stroop and non-verbal Stroop-like tasks were measured in 60 healthy university students. The Problematic Internet Use Questionnaire (PIUQ) was used to assess IA. We found significant deactivations in areas related to the DMN (precuneus, posterior cingulate gyrus) and these areas were negatively correlated with PIUQ during incongruent stimuli. In Stroop task the incongruent_minus_congruent contrast showed positive correlation with PIUQ in areas related to the ICN (left inferior frontal gyrus, left frontal pole, left central opercular, left frontal opercular, left frontal orbital and left insular cortex). Altered DMN might explain some comorbid symptoms and might predict treatment outcomes, while altered ICN may be the reason for having difficulties in stopping and controlling overuse.

It has been shown that individuals who are highly socially anxious prefer computer-mediated communication over face-to-face communication possibly due to the control and social liberation that it provides. Yet, little is known about transdiagnostic psychopathology constructs as mediators that may help understand this relationship. In the present study, our goal was to investigate the extent to which maladaptive cognitive emotion regulation strategies mediate the relationship between social anxiety, problematic social networking (SNS) site and smartphone use (PSU). A total of 499 participants filled out our survey including measures of social anxiety, emotion regulation strategies, social media and smartphone addiction. We used structural equation modeling to test the indirect and direct effects between the variables. We found that maladaptive emotion regulation strategies (rumination, catastrophizing, self-blame and other blame) mediated the relationship between social anxiety and both problematic SNS use and PSU. The direct effect between social anxiety and problematic SNS use was also significant. We show that emotion regulation is a key factor in developing problematic and SNS use. Further, we argue that a smartphone could serve as an external tool for emotion regulation which could, in turn, lead to problematic SNS use. Theoretical as well as practical implications are discussed.

Highlights • Self-esteem and social anxiety only indirectly predicted problematic social networking site (SNS) use and problematic internet use (PIU). • Fear of negative evaluation mediated associations between social anxiety and self-esteem and both PIU and problematic SNS use. • These indirect pathways might also highlight relevant differences behind the motivation of PIU – anonymity – and problematic SNS use – control., Previous research warned that internet and social media use could have a negative effect on the social lives of excessive users. Based on the social compensation hypothesis, however, factors related to social fears could lead to problematic social networking site (SNS) use because individuals try to compensate for their offline popularity. It was shown that individuals with higher levels of social fears tend to prefer computer-mediated (CMC) instead of face to face (FTF) communication. Here, we aimed to create a model that shows the direct and indirect effects of social anxiety and self-esteem on problematic SNS use. A total of 215 participants filled out our survey including measures of social anxiety, self-esteem, fear of negative evaluation, social media and Internet addiction. Using structural equation modeling we tested the indirect and direct effects between the variables. Our results indicated that social anxiety and lower self-esteem could lead to favoring CMC over FTF communication, which may result in problematic internet (PIU) and SNS use as a compensatory behavior to cope with fear of negative evaluation. The indirect pathways might highlight relevant differences behind the motivation of PIU – anonymity – and problematic SNS use – control. Theoretical as well as practical implications are discussed.

Agenesis of corpus callosum is a relatively frequent congenital cerebral malformation including dysplasia, total or partial absence of corpus callosum. The agenesis of corpus callosum can be occured in isolated form without accompanying somatic or central nervous system abnormalities and it can be associated with other central nervus system malformations. The behavioral and cognitive outcome is more favorable for patients with isolated agenesis of corpus callous than syndromic form of corpus callosum. The aim of this study is to review recent research on behavioral and social-cognitive functions in individuals with agenesis of corpus callosum. Developmental delay is common especially in higher-order cognitive and social functions.An internet database search was performed to identify publications on the subject.Fifty-five publications in English corresponded to the criteria. These studies reported deficits in language, social cognition and emotions in individuals with agenesis of corpus callosum which is known as primary corpus callous syndrome.The results indicate that individuals with agenesis of corpus callosum have deficiency in social-cognitive domain (recognition of emotions, weakness in paralinguistic aspects of language and mentalizing abilities). The impaired social cognition can be manifested in behavioral problems like autism and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder.A corpus callosum agenesia (AgCC) viszonylag gyakran előforduló, veleszületett agyi malformáció, mely jelentheti a kérgestest dysplasiáját, teljes, illetve részleges hiányát, mely előfordulhat izoláltan, valamint más agyi anomáliákkal, fejlődési zavarokkal együtt. Az izoláltan megjelenő corpus callosum agenesia esetében a viselkedéses jellemzők és az értelmi képesség prognózisa kedvezőbb, általában kisebb mértékű fejlődési viselkedéses és kognitív lemaradás várható, leginkább a magas szintű kognitív funkciók és a szociális készségek sérülnek, még jó színvonalú intellektus mellett is. Jelen tanulmány célja az izolált corpus callusum hiány viselkedésben és társas-kognitív képességekben megmutatkozó hatásainak kritikai áttekintése.Internetes adatbázisokban történt keresés a corpus callosum agenesiával élő személyekkel végzett neurológiai közlemények témájában.A keresési feltételeknek 57 angol nyelvű tanulmány felelt meg. A közlemények szisztematikus elemzése szerint az izolált corpus callosum agenesia esetében leírható egy ez idáig csupán feltételezett általános tünetegyüttes, mely elsősorban a nyelvi, a társas kognitív és érzelmi területeket érinti, melyet összefoglalóan elsődleges corpus callosum szindróma elnevezéssel illetnek.Az eredmények alapján kimondható, hogy az izolált corpus callosum agenesia társas-kognitív (érzelmi, mentalizációs és pragmatikai) deficittel társul. A szociális képességek hiánya viselkedéses zavarokban manifesztálódik, a kérgestest fejlődési rendellenessége rizikófaktort jelent az autizmus vagy az autisztikus traitek és a figyelemhiányos hiperaktivitás kialakulásának.

Rehabilitation of lower limb amputees and the fitting of their prosthesis depend highly on the psychological adjustment process and motivational state of the patient. The loss of a limb is extremely challenging and can cause various physical and psychological problems. Depression, anxiety, decreased well-being and quality of life, body image dissatisfaction and changes in self-concept and identity are frequent after lower limb amputation. In the interest of adjustment patients have to cope with the emerging changes and difficulties in their lifes as well as the problems in psychological functioning. It is important for them to accept the alterations in their body and identity, and integrate them in a new self-concept in which process motivation is a fundamental issue. The aim of this article is to review the literature on psychological consequences of lower limb amputation, and to propose an integrative way of rehabilitation for lower limb amputees. Orv. Hetil., 2015, 156(39), 1563–1568.

There is a large body of research, indicating that threatening stimuli with evolutionary history are prioritised in visual processing. It has been proposed that all threatening stimuli are prioritised, irrespective of evolutionary age, but it was argued that the method used to produce the results was not suitable for investigating the phenomenon. We present a new visual search task and provide evidence that it is an appropriate tool for future research. In Experiment 1, we investigated how the influence of emotional stimuli on visual search performance varies with valence (negative, positive, and neutral) and arousal (medium and high). Negative valence found to have a greater impact. Furthermore, our results underscore the importance of controlling for arousal. Experiment 2 confirmed these findings and also revealed that negative valence decreases performance by diverting attention away from the task, but arousal can compensate for this by increasing attentional capacity. This mechanism does not seem to be affected by the evolutionary history of the stimulus. In Experiment 3, we reproduced these results using a touchscreen monitor and controlling for variance in low-level visual features. We claim that these results support the notion of preferential processing of threatening cues, regardless of evolutionary origin. However, the level of threat, i.e., how arousing the cue is, has to be taken into account to explain the findings.

Korábbi tanulmányok bizonyították, hogy a gyermekek dezorientációt követően képesek használni a szoba alakját (geometriai tulajdonságait), hogy megtaláljanak térben elrejtett tárgyakat, miközben más vizuális információk (például falak színe) nem segítik a tájékozódást. Ezért azt feltételezték, hogy a téri reorientációt a geometriai modul biztosítja, ami a nem-geometriai információkra nézve „enkapszulált”. Vizsgálatunk célja, hogy megfigyeljük, hogyan integrálódnak a geometriai és nem-geometriai információk a tájékozódás során, olyan esetben, amikor nincs szükség a jobb/bal irányok megkülönböztetésére, illetve kizárólag a szoba falának színe és a metrikus információk szolgálnak jelzőingerként az elrejtett tárgyak megtalálásához. Vizsgálatunk eredménye szerint 4–6 éves gyermekek kisméretű zárt térben képesek együtt kezelni a tér geometriai alakját és a szín információt a téri tájékozódáshoz olyan esetben, amikor a feladat megoldásához nincs szükség a jobb/bal irányok megkülönbözetésére. Továbbá kimutatható a téri nyelv és a tájékozódás közötti pozitív kapcsolat, viszont kizárólag a megkülönböztető vizuális információval ellátott feltételekben.

A közös figyelem kialakulása jelentős mérföldkő a csecsemő társas kapcsolatainak világában. Az utóbbi évtized intenzív kutatása feltárta a közös figyelem csecsemő- és kisgyermekkori fejlődési szakaszait és szerepét a később kibontakozó társas kompetencia területén. Jelen tanulmánynak kettős célja van; egyrészt összefoglalást kíván adni a közös figyelmi képesség fejlődéséről és szerepéről a társas képességek kialakulásában, másrészt áttekintjük a közös figyelem tipikustól eltérő fejlődésmenetét. A kora gyermekkorban megmutatkozó közös figyelemi zavar több, később manifesztálódó pszichopatológiai állapot előzményének tekinthető. Legpregnánsabban az autizmusspektrum-zavarban jelentkezik, de más szociális kommunikációs zavarnál és kapcsolati problémáknál is megfigyelhető az elvárttól eltérő megjelenési forma.

Impaired social functioning is a well-known outcome of individuals with agenesis of the corpus callosum. Social deficits in nonliteral language comprehension, humor, social reasoning, and recognition of facial expression have all been documented in adults with agenesis of the corpus callosum. In the present study, we examined the emotional and mentalizing deficits that contributing to the social-cognitive development in children with isolated corpus callosum agenesia, including emotion recognition, theory of mind, executive function, working memory, and behavioral impairments as assessed by the parents. The study involved children between the age of 6 and 8 years along with typically developing children who were matched by IQ, age, gender, education, and caregiver's education. The findings indicated that children with agenesis of the corpus callosum exhibited mild impairments in all social factors (recognizing emotions, understanding theory of mind), and showed more behavioral problems than control children. Taken together, these findings suggest that reduced callosal connectivity may contribute to the development of higher-order social-cognitive deficits, involving limits of complex and rapidly occurring social information to be processed. The studies of AgCC shed lights of the role of structural connectivity across the hemispheres in neurodevelopmental disorders.

Geometric form perception and its role in reorienting process have been studied extensively in children, but little is known about its early origin in infancy. Here, we present findings of three experiments that used looking-time paradigm to test infants’ sensitivity to geometric and feature information in two-dimensional visual display. One-year-old infants participated in spatial search tasks, which were manipulated regarding the display movement (static, visible rotation and invisible rotation) as a degree of disorientation. The results showed that infants were able to create expectation about a hiding location based on the geometry of a rectangle only in the directionally stable search space, whereas they were capable to use feature cues (color) for reorienting even in that condition when the spatial display was rotated and they were allowed to track the display motion. However, infants did not use either geometry or feature properties of 2-D space in an orientation invariant manner. The findings are discussed within the theory of reorientation with respect to the 2-dimensional space.

Background and purpose Agenesis of corpus callosum is a relatively frequent congenital cerebral malformation including dysplasia, total or partial absence of corpus callosum. The agenesis of corpus callosum can be occured in isolated form without accompanying somatic or central nervous system abnormalities and it can be associated with other central nervus system malformations. The behavioral and cognitive outcome is more favorable for patients with isolated agenesis of corpus callous than syndromic form of corpus callosum. The aim of this study is to review recent research on behavioral and social-cognitive functions in individuals with agenesis of corpus callosum. Developmental delay is common especially in higher-order cognitive and social functions. Methods An internet database search was performed to identify publications on the subject. Results Fifty-five publications in English corresponded to the criteria. These studies reported deficits in language, social cognition and emotions in individuals with agenesis of corpus callosum which is known as primary corpus callous syndrome. Conclusion The results indicate that individuals with agenesis of corpus callosum have deficiency in social-cognitive domain (recognition of emotions, weakness in paralinguistic aspects of language and mentalizing abilities). The impaired social cognition can be manifested in behavioral problems like autism and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder.

Rehabilitation of lower limb amputees and the fitting of their prosthesis depend highly on the psychological adjustment process and motivational state of the patient. The loss of a limb is extremely challenging and can cause various physical and psychological problems. Depression, anxiety, decreased well-being and quality of life, body image dissatisfaction and changes in self-concept and identity are frequent after lower limb amputation. In the interest of adjustment patients have to cope with the emerging changes and difficulties in their lifes as well as the problems in psychological functioning. It is important for them to accept the alterations in their body and identity, and integrate them in a new self-concept in which process motivation is a fundamental issue. The aim of this article is to review the literature on psychological consequences of lower limb amputation, and to propose an integrative way of rehabilitation for lower limb amputees.

The mental rotation is a classical paradigm in cognitive psychology. Recent tests demonstrate that the linearity coefficient (r2) is an appropriate variable to show the cognitive appearance (cognitive strategy) of mental rotation. It is well documented that males perform better than females on object mental rotation. The present work is the first demonstration of a sex difference of cognitive strategy used during mental rotation. A linearity coefficient of females was higher than the coefficient of males. This result implies that females use a more active and powerful mental rotation strategy. This is very important from the viewpoint of some methodology. In the cognitive neuroscience there are various fMRI and MEG works which measure brain activity during mental rotation. However, beside the demonstration of mental rotation paradigm, it may be very important provide that subjects at whom occur actually the mental rotation during brain scanning.

Funding: Hungarian Scientific Research Council (Nr.101762) (TB) People are able to recognize faces from their own ethnic group more easily than faces from other ethnicities. Ethnicity information also easily activates perceptual biases; therefore, the goal of the present study was to examine how ethnicity characteristics affect trustworthiness decisions. We compared the trustworthiness judgments of four samples (two Caucasian and two Asian) to facial images varying along both – trustworthiness level (high, medium and low) and ethnicity (African, Caucasian, South Asian and East Asian). Results showed that trust perception generalized across face ethnicity. More importantly, we found differences in the trustworthiness judgments of other-ethnicity faces between the four samples. Only Caucasian participants showed a bias pro own-ethnicity, especially Hungarian participants when judging medium or low trustworthy looking faces. On contrary, the two Asian samples showed no such bias. Further investigation of the positive own-ethnicity bias suggested that for Hungarian participants, when there are no positive facial expression cues to evaluate, negative ethnicity stereotypes can influence social judgments of faces. Furthermore, this positive bias was highlighted as increased vigilance towards differences in facial cues conveying trustworthiness in other ethnicities coupled with a reduced ability to detect such cues in own-ethnicity faces. Postprint