Search

Cyberbullying is recognized as a problematic behavior that is often first identified during adolescence, a period which has increased susceptibility to developing mental health disorders. Due to the ever-growing nature of social media and technology, cyberbullying behaviors are becoming increasingly problematic for the adolescent demographic. Research has shown that impulsivity, social connectedness, and gender may influence cyberbullying behaviors. To our knowledge, the current study was the first to investigate the direct relationship between these variables and cyberbullying involvement in early adolescents. The sample consisted of participants of the same age and school grade, in order to ensure that data were comparable regarding stage of social development. The sample was 12-year-old participants in grade 7 (N = 69), recruited from the Sunshine Coast, Australia. It was hypothesized that higher impulsivity, lower social connectedness, and female gender would predict higher cyberbullying perpetration and victimization. The results did not support this hypothesis; however, a significant positive relationship between cyberbullying perpetration and victimization was revealed, as well as between impulsivity and social connectedness. Findings from this study help to inform preventative interventions to protect vulnerable individuals from serious mental health disorders, as well as support the need for further research in this area. Refereed/Peer-reviewed

Cyberbullying is an increasingly problematic psychosocial health risk, particularly in youth. Electroencephalography (EEG) is commonly utilized to investigate the potential effects of social behaviors on brain activity. Hence, the current paper provides a systematic review of EEG-related studies that have addressed cyberbullying-like behaviors. Initial searches from 4 databases returned 1150 unique articles, which were screened according to PRISMA guidelines. The 29 articles remaining after full text screening investigated online social exclusion, a method of cyberbullying. Across these studies, there was evidence of links between social exclusion and abnormalities in a range of event related potential (ERP) and EEG measures representative of deviance detection (“N2” ERP), response to detection (“P3” ERP), emotional attention (“late slow wave” ERP) and emotional regulation (“frontal theta” EEG). Meta-analysis demonstrated increased P3 and late slow wave amplitudes in response to social exclusion, as well as increases in frontal-medial theta power, particularly in child and adolescent samples. However, many studies had small sample sizes, and lacked longitudinal insight into the effects of recurrent ostracism on brain function. Future research should explore the effects of a broader range of cyberbullying behaviors on psychophysiology longitudinally, particularly in vulnerable populations such as adolescents.

Refereed/Peer-reviewed Adolescence is a critical period of social and neural development. Brain regions which process social information develop throughout adolescence as young people learn to navigate social environments. Studies investigating brain structural connectivity (indexed by white matter (WM) integrity), and social connectedness in adolescents have been limited until recently, with literature stemming mostly from adult samples, broad age ranges within adolescence or based on social network characteristics as opposed to social connectedness. This cross-sectional study of 12-year-olds (N = 73) explored the relationship between social connectedness (SCS) and structural connectivity in early adolescence, to gauge how this snapshot of WM development is associated with social behaviour. Whole brain voxel-wise diffusion tensor imaging was undertaken to determine correlations between SCS and fractional anisotropy (FA), radial (RD) and axial (AD) diffusivity of clusters within WM tracts. Significant negative relationships between FA and SCS scores were found in clusters within 11 WM tracts, with significant positive correlations between SCS and both RD and AD across clusters within 13 and 8 clusters, respectively. Clusters within the genu of the corpus callosum (CCgn) showed strong correlations for all three metrics, and regression models that included gender, age, and psychological distress, revealed SCS to be the only significant predictor of CCgn FA, RD and AD values. Overall, these findings suggest that those with lower social connectedness had a WM profile suggestive of reduced axonal density and/or coherence. Longitudinal research is needed to track such WM profiles during adolescent development and determine the associations with mental health and well-being outcomes.