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Hostile online communication is a global concern. Academic research and teaching staff are among those professionals who routinely give public comments and are thus vulnerable to online attacks. This social psychological and criminological study investigated online harassment victimization among university researchers and teachers. Survey participants (N = 2,492) were university research and teaching staff members from five major universities in Finland. Victimization was assessed with a 20-item inventory. The study included a wide range of both background and general measures on well-being at work. Participants also took part in an online experiment involving a death threat targeting a colleague. Results showed that 30% of the participants reported being victims of online harassment during the prior 6 months. Victims were more often senior staff members, minority group members, and from the social sciences and humanities. Those active in traditional or social media were much more likely to be targeted. Victims reported higher psychological distress, lower generalized trust, and lower perceived social support at work than non-victims. Individuals who were targeted by a colleague from their work community reported higher post-traumatic stress disorder scores and a higher impact of perceived online harassment on their work compared to other victims. In the experimental part of the study, participants reported more anxiety when a close colleague received a death threat. Participants also recommended more countermeasures to a close colleague than to an unknown person from the same research field. Results indicate that online harassment compromises well-being at work in academia. There is an urgent need to find ways of preventing online harassment, both in workplaces and in society at large.

This study investigated the impact of cyberbullying victimization at work on well-being and strain in the workplace. This is the first study to use a longitudinal approach to research cyberbullying at work. A nationally representative sample of Finnish workers (n = 768) took part in a five-wave survey study. Both within-person and between-person effects were analyzed using hybrid regression models showing that experiencing cyberbullying at work leads to psychological distress, technostress, work exhaustion, and decreased work engagement. The effects of remote work and social media use were also explored. These results confirm that cyberbullying at work can have damaging consequences for victims and, consequently, for whole organizations. Thus, it constitutes a significant problem that employers must confront. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years, European societies have been faced with an enormous challenge when the ongoing struggle of the COVID-19 pandemic coincided with the biggest military conflict in the region since World War II, namely Russia's full-scale attack on Ukraine. As such crises can have a substantial impact on mental health, it is crucial to follow their effect on the population, especially in the circumstances of multiple coexisting threats. Two studies examined the association of COVID-19 anxiety and war-related anxiety with mental health in Finnish population. We found that COVID-19 anxiety and anxiety over Russia's attack on Ukraine were associated with psychological distress and perceived stress. Moreover, we found an interaction effect on psychological distress consistently in two samples, showing that participants who reported higher COVID-19 and war-related anxiety experienced higher psychological distress. These results show the especially heavy burden that these serious coinciding crises have on the mental health of the population. The findings of the current study provide directions for future research and have implications for practitioners and decision makers alike. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigated the experiences of Finnish media professionals with online harassment. Participants (N = 695) answered a survey including questions concerning their experiences with online harassment and a survey experiment involving a death threat received by someone else. Results showed that closeness to the victim was associated with increased anxiety levels, but it did not affect countermeasures recommendations for the victim. Victims' reactions depended on their visibility in the public sphere and on the frequency and severity of the harassment. The results demonstrate that online harassment is prevalent among media professionals and that prevention and intervention are crucial. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]