Can Positive Emotion Induction
Reduce Negative Reactions among
Adolescents Cyberbullying Victims?
YeoJu Chung, Associate Professor, Korea National University of Education
Kyunghee Du, JaMyoung Yi, & A-ra Lee
Contents
Introduction
Literature Review
Research Hypothesis
Method & Procedure
Results
Discussion & Conclusion
Introduction & Literature Review
Purpose
Cyberbullying is increasing and one of counseling issues
Victims of cyber bullying
– depressive, anxious, sensitive, cautious, and react to a
ggression, feelings of being ostracized and of loneliness,
or sometimes suicide
the importance of positive affect has been stressed in co
unseling area
Functions of enhancing positive affects have been focus
ed also by some emotion researchers (e.g. Fredrickson, 1
998; Fredrickson & Levenson, 1998).
how to solve cyberbullying problem
–inducing positive affects will reduce negative psycholo
gical effects from cyberbullying
Literature Review - Bullying
 What is Bullying? (Olweus, 1993, 1999a)
 Aggressive behavior or intentional harmdoing
 Repeated and over time action
 An imbalance of power in an interpersonal
relationship
 Someone intentionally inflicts, or attempts to
inflict, and show aggressive behaviors
 Verbal vs. Nonverbal
• Verbal actions: threatening, taunting, teasing, and
calling names
• Nonverbal actions: hitting, pushing, kicking, pinching,
and restraining
Literature Review – Cyber Bullying
 What is Cyber Bullying?
 Bullying that involves the use of e-mail, instant
messaging, text digital imaging messages and
digital images sent via cellular phones, Web
pages, Web logs(blogs), chat rooms or
discussion groups, and other information
communication technologies (Health Resources
and Services Administration, 2006; Patchin &
Hinduja, 2006; Shariff & Gouin, 2005; Willard,
2006)
Literature Review – Cyber Bullying
 What is Cyber Bullying?
 Nancy Willard, 2006
 Kowalski, Limber, and Agatston, 2008
Flaming: online fi
ghts using electro
nic messages with
angry and vulgar l
anguage
Harassment: repe
atedly sending na
sty, mean, and ins
ulting messages
Outing: sharing p
ersonal informatio
n with others
Denigration: sendi
ng or posting goss
ip about a person
to damage reputa
tion or friendships
Exclusion: intenti
onally excluding s
omeone from an o
nline group
Impersonation: pr
etending to be so
meone else and s
ending or posting
material
Cyberstalking: rep
eated, intense har
assment including
threats
Literature Review – Cyber Bullying
 Cyber Bullying Passes Current
 National Children’s Home (NCH, 2002) Study: 7% via Internet
chat rooms, and 4% through e-mail
 Keith and Martin (2004): 57% of students said that someone
had said hurtful or angry things to them online
 Ybarra and Mitchell (2004a): 19% of young regular Internet
users aged 10-17 were involved in online harassment
 British study (Smith, Mahdavi, Carvalho, & Tippett, 2006): 22%
of the students aged 11-16 reported that they had been bullied
in the cyber space at least once in the two months
 Williams and Guerra (2006): 21% of the students had ever
been cyber bullied
 Afrab’s (2006) study: 53% of the respondents said that they
had been bullied online
 Chung and Kim (2013): 42.9% of total students(n=1112) have
experienced cyberbullying before
Literature Review – Cyber Bullying
Cyber bullying - More Harmful
Lose Power
of Inhibition
•No punishment or social disapproval due to anonymity
•Can carry their actions much more than they normally w
ould (Williams, Harkins, and Latane,1981)
Can’t See
Emotional
Reaction
•targets also cannot see the faces of the perpetrator
•miscommunication between bullies and victims (Kowalski
, Limber, and Agatston, 2008)
Can’t predict
•A single act may be forwarded to hundreds or thousands
of children over a period of time
•Feel repeatedly bullied
Repetition
Literature Review – Cyber Bullying
Victims of Cyber bullying
• Depressed mood, loneliness, anxiety, frustration, in
visibility, and helplessness (Geller, Goodstein, Silver,
and Sternberg, 1974; Leary, 1990)
• Feeling bad, having less control, and losing a sense
of belonging (Williams, Cheung, and Choi, 2000)
• Feeling a loss of self-esteem and angry (Rigby, 200
8)
Literature Review
– Focus on affect problems
of victims in bullying
Affect problems of victims
 self-evaluation and emotional coping skills
(Andreou, 2001)
 lack of emotional ability to prevent and resolve
conflicts (Mahady-Wilton, 1997)
 symptoms and suicidal thoughts (Roland, 2002)
 depressed and stressful due to negative selfconcept (Marsh, Parada, Craven and Finger,
2004)
Chung and Kim (2013)
What kind of feeling did you have when you are bullied in the cyber space?
64
70
60
50.7
50
40
27.5
30
17.2
14.5 15.9
15.7
20
10
32.1
7.2
7.2
12.2 13.3
3.1
0
1.7
0
lonely
boring
shameful
want to die
sensitive
depressed
indifferent
angry
shocked
hurted
irritated
confused
anxiety
fearful
Chung and Kim (2013)
Reactions after being cyberbullied
– only cyberbullied middle school students
45.9
60
38.7
50
0.9
3.9
7.3
20
2.1
10
29.9
31.7
28.4
40
Talk with
teachers
Talk with
parents
Pretended to
be good
contrast to…
Wrote a script
expressing my
bad feeling
Cyberbullied
other people
Cried
Cursed them to
friends
Revenged in
the same way
Angry and
cursed them by
oneself
Ignored
0
65
70
30
Literature Review
– Functions of Positive Affect
compared to Negative Affect
Positive affects recharge the depleted self
•Positive emotions are able to restore the self’s capacity for self-regulati
on (Tice et al., 2004)
•happy mood led to longer persistence and positive mood make people
recover their energy that help to regulate themselves further
Positive affects help self-regulation
•A primary function of self-regulation in adults is to maintain positive e
motional mood and reduce the continued deterioration of negative mo
od states (Morris, 1989)
Positive affects undo effects of negative affects
•positive affects serve to broaden an individual's momentary thought-a
ction repertoire, which in turn has the effect of building that individual'
s physical, intellectual, and social resources (Carver, 2003; Cosmides
& Tooby, 2000; Fredrickson, 2005)
Literature Review
– Functions of Positive Affect
compared to Negative Affect
Positive affects broaden functions of attention
and cognition
•Fredrickson and Joiner (2002) assessed the prediction that positive aff
ects broaden the scopes of attention and cognition, and, by consequen
ce, initiate upward spirals toward increasing emotional well-being
Positive affects enhance thought, feeling,
and behavior and make us attain the goal
•Positively valenced moods and emotions lead people to think, feel, and
act in ways that promote both resource building and involvement with
approach goals (Elliot & Thrash, 2002; Lyubomirsky, 2001)
Positive affects make people remember positive
factors
•Niedenthal and Setterlund (1994) also suggested that happiness and s
adness have emotion-congruent effects upon selective perception
•Mayer and his colleagues (1992) also tested mood-congruent effect in
their experiment
Literature Review
– Functions of Positive Affect
compared to Negative Affect
Positive affects impact on perception and
judgement
•Parkinson and his colleagues (1996) assumed that the world seems a
more pleasant and welcoming place when one is in a happy mood
•Fearful individuals have been shown to have heightened estimates that
risky, dangerous events will be part of their future (Lerner & Keltner, 2
001)
Positive affects increase ego resilience
•Cohn and his colleagues (2009) suggested that positive affects lead to
higher levels of ego resilience in the future
Positive affects enhance coping ability
•Fredrickson (2001) said that the frequent experience of positive emoti
on broadens thinking and actions and result in enduring personal reso
urces
•In Aspinwall (1998)’s study, he tested that positive mood may play a b
eneficial, multifaceted, and flexible role in self-regulatory processes
Literature Review
– Functions of Positive Affect
compared to Negative Affect
Positive affects decline externalizing problems
•Secure attachment and positive maternal control correlated positively
with effective regulatory strategy use (Gillom et al., 2002)
•Frequent positive emotions during school were associated with higher l
evels of student engagement and negative emotions with lower levels
of engagement (Amy et al., 2008)
Positive affects decline psychopathology
•low levels of positive affectivity are associated with a number of clinica
l syndroms, including social phobia, agoraphobia, posttraumatic stress
disorder, schizophrenia, eating disdorder, and the substance disorders
(Gillom et al., 2002)
Positive affects increase helping behavior
•good moods increased offers of help that involved reading and evaluati
ng statements that participants believed would improve their mood (Is
en & Simmond, 1978)
Positive affects increase satisfaction of life
•Positive affectivity is a significant predictor of job satisfaction (Olekalns
& Erwin, 1998; Agho, Price, Mueller (1992)
Literature Review
How to enhance positive affect
– mood induction
imagination
Velten’s
MIPs
film/story
music
feedback
social
interaction
gift
facial
expression
combined
MIPs
• the effect size
Film/Story + instructions - the most significant
combined (e.g. Velten + music, or Velten + feedback) - very significant
(Westermann and his collegues’ meta analysis,1996)
Research Hypothesis
Research Hypothesis
 Experiment 1. Cyberbullying manipulation will make people have
negative feelings and biases.
 Participants in the cyberbullying manipulation condition will get larger points in
negative moods and get fewer points in positive moods of self report adjective
selection than participants in control group.
 Participants in the cyberbullying manipulation condition will show higher negative
biases when they interpret facial expression than participants in control group.
 Experiment 2. Positive affect enhancement will make people have
positive feelings, not biased, and memorize more positive factors.
 Participants in the positive affect enhancement condition will get larger points in
positive moods and get fewer points in negative moods of self report adjective
selection than participants in control group.
 Participants in the positive affect enhancement condition will show lower
negative biases when they interpret facial expression than participants in control
group
 Participants in the positive affect enhancement condition will memorize more
positive meaning words than participants in control group.
 Participants in the positive affect enhancement condition will memorize more
words than participants in control group.
Research Hypothesis
 Experiment 3. Positive affect enhancement will weaken negative
feelings, biases in interpretation and memory, and negative
movements from cyberbullying?
 Participants in the positive affect enhancement condition will get larger points in
positive moods and get fewer points in negative moods of self report adjective
selection than participants in control group even after they are cyberbullied.
 Participants in the positive affect enhancement condition will show lower
negative biases when they interpret facial expression than participants in control
group even after they are cyberbullied.
 Participants in the positive affect enhancement condition will memorize more
positive meaning words than participants in control group even after they are
cyberbullied.
 Participants in the positive affect enhancement condition will memorize more
words than participants in control group even after they are cyberbullied.
 Participants in the positive affect enhancement condition will show lower
negative face and hands movement.
Method & Procedure
Research Method - Participants
Experiment
group
Control
group
Total
Males
9
8
17
Females
8
7
15
Yes
4
3
7
No
13
12
25
17
15
32
Males
10
10
20
Females
7
7
14
17
17
34
Males
17
18
35
Females
15
14
29
Yes
5
7
12
No
27
25
52
Experiment 1
Participants
Sex
Cyberbullied experience
Total
Experiment 2
Sex
Total
Experiment 3
Sex
Cyberbullying experience
Research Method - Measures
Experiment
Mood
Induction
Self Report
Interpret
facial
Expressions
Emotional
words
memory
Video
Taping
Research Method - Measures
① Mood Induction (Velten + feedback)
The Velten Mood Induction Procedure (Velten, 1967, 1968)
• Used extensively by researchers to induce elated and depressed
moods in the laboratory.
• The task consists of subjects being asked to read and "try to
feel the mood suggested" by 60 self-referent elated or
depressed statements, or 60 neutral statements.
• Selected both 30 positive sentences and 30 neutral
sentences
• Tested effect of these sentences in experiment 2
• Used 30 sentences right after feedback in experiment 3
Research Method - Measures
② Self report - emotions
Instrument for Measuring Emotions
(Kang, Hahn, & Chon, 2000)
•
•
•
•
developed by Kang et al. (2000)
based on self-discrepancy theory
consisting of 20 items rated on 7-point scale
dejection-related emotion (depression), agitation-related emotion
(anxiety), and positive feeling
• GFI of the 3 subscales is .995
감정 형용사
전혀 느끼지 않는다
중간정도
매우 많이 느낀다
1
무기력하다
0
1
2
3
4
5
6
2
불만스럽다
0
1
2
3
4
5
6
3
슬프다
0
1
2
3
4
5
6
4
실망스럽다
1
2
3
4
5
6
5
우울하다
0
1
2
3
4
5
6
6
의기소침하다
0
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
긴장되다
0
1
2
3
4
5
6
8
걱정스럽다
0
1
2
3
4
5
6
9
불안하다
0
1
2
3
4
5
6
10
두렵다
0
1
2
3
4
5
6
11
안절부절하다
0
1
2
3
4
5
6
12
초조하다
0
1
2
3
4
5
6
13
기쁘다
0
1
2
3
4
5
6
14
활기차다
0
1
2
3
4
5
6
15
만족스럽다
0
1
2
3
4
5
6
16
희망적이다
0
1
2
3
4
5
6
17
안도감
0
1
2
3
4
5
6
18
안심되다
0
1
2
3
4
5
6
19
안정감
0
1
2
3
4
5
6
20
편안하다
0
1
2
3
4
5
6
depression
0
anxiety
Positive feeling
Research Method - Measures
② Interpret facial expressions
Japanese and Caucasian Facial Expressions of Emotion
(JACFEE) and Neutral Faces (JACNeuF) (Matsumoto, &
Ekman, 1988) (appendix G)
• developed by Matsumoto and Ekman (1988)
• anger, contempt, disgust, fear, happiness, sadness, and surprise
• evidence for cross-cultural differences in levels of recognition
(Matsumoto, 1992)
• selecting the intended emotion term were conducted and resulted
in significant findings at the 70% , 75%, and 80% agreement levels
Contempt
Neutral
Research Method - Measures
③ Emotional words memory
Emotional words memory test
(Vasa, Carlino, London, & Min, 2006)
• developed by Vasa et al. (2006)
• threat, positive, and neutral. Childrens valence ratings
• Cronbach’s alpha coefficients .91, .89, and .92 for threat, positive,
and neutral words, respectively
• Selected 10 positive words, 10 negative words, and 10 neutral
words – randomly arranged
• recall positive and negative emotional words, and non-emotional
words by Nagae, & Moscovitch (2002)
챔피언
벽
죽음 똑똑한 생일
선물
고막
쟁반
벽돌
블록
납치
거리
살인
연휴
친구
긴급
암
발목
방학
파티
총
나무
도둑 숟가락
부자
전쟁
실패 활기찬
울타리 폭탄
Research Method - Measures
④ Video Taping
• Recorded students’ face and hands movement with camcoder
• 3 experts made coding
• Coding sheet followed concepts of the new Facial Action Coding
System (FACS) by Paul Ekman, Wallace V. Friesen, and Joseph C.
Hager (2002)
• positive movement and negative movement.
• eyes (eg. a smile with eyes vs. a sneer with eyes), lips (eg. a smile
with lips vs. a sneer with lips), head (eg. nodding vs. moving
slantwise), and hands (eg. agreeing with hands vs. hiding a mouth
or a face with hands)
Research Procedure
Experiment 3
Experiment 1
• Cyberbullying
Manipulation
• Positive Mood Induction
• Cyberbullying
Manipulation
Experiment 2
• Positive Mood Induction
Research Procedure - experiment 3
Results
EXPERIMENT 3 RESULT
Research Results
Experiment 3 – Cyberbullying, Mood induction
FIGURE 16
Experiment 3_Feeling adjective selection
30.0
25.5
25.0
20.0
17.1
15.8
15.0
10.0
5.9
7.5
13.1
5.0
5.0
7.0
12.4 12.7
8.7
27.2
23.1
10.1
6.9
5.2
3.7
8.1
0.0
control group
mood induction
experiment group
cyberbulling
anxiety
pre
mood induction
cyberbulling
pre
mood induction
cyberbulling
pre
depression
positive feeling
Research Results
Experiment 3 – Cyberbullying, Mood induction
Using Wilks’ lambda, multivariate significance for the group classification main
effect was established, F(6,57)= 11.320, p<.001
TABLE 15
Experiment 3_Repeated measures MANOVA of feeling adjective selection
Mean Square
df
F
depression
501.735
2
9.659***
anxiety
338.094
2
5.367**
positive feeling
3125.906
2
33.712***
***p<.001, **p<.01, *p<.05
Research Results
Experiment 3 – Cyberbullying, Mood induction
FIGURE 17
Experiment 3_ Photo facial expression assumption
3.50
2.88
2.69 2.84 2.63
3.00
2.50
2.00
2.25
1.97
1.50
2.13
1.78
1.19
1.000.91
0.81
1.00
0.50
negative
control group
mood induction
cyberbulling
experiment group
pre
positive
mood induction
cyberbulling
pre
0.00
Research Results
Experiment 3 – Cyberbullying, Mood induction
FIGURE 18
Experiment 3_ Negative assumption frequency
no. of participants
12
10
10
9
8
8
7
7
6
6
5
4
experiment
control
4
3
2
1
1
0
0
1
2
3
4
5
no. of negative
assumptions
Research Results
Experiment 3 – Cyberbullying, Mood induction
TABLE 19
FIGURE 19
MANOVA
Emotional words memory test
8.00
7.22
7.00
6.38
Wilks’ Lambda was .836 [F(3,60) =
3.922, p<.05]
6.00
5.00
4.00
3.00
2.00
Mean
Square
df
F
no. of positive
words
20.250
1
9.049**
no. of negative
words
3.516
1
2.364
no. of total
words
11.391
1
2.108
3.44
2.31
1.91
2.38
1.00
0.00
no. of positive no. of negative
words
words
experiment group
no. of total
words
control group
**p<.01, *p<.05
Research Results
Experiment 3 – Cyberbullying, Mood induction
TABLE 20
FIGURE 20
MANOVA
% of memorized words
60.00
50.00
40.00
Wilks’ Lambda was .901 [F(2,61) =
3.361, p<.05]
47.94
36.41
36.36
27.16
30.00
20.00
10.00
Mean
Square
df
F
% of positive
words
20.250
1
9.049*
% of negative
words
3.516
1
2.364*
*p<.05
0.00
pos_%
experiment group
neg_%
control group
Research Results
Experiment 3 – Cyberbullying, Mood induction
FIGURE 21
Experiment 3_ facial and hands expression
3.50
3.03
3.00
2.00
2.38
2.28
2.50
1.97
1.69 1.78
1.63
1.50
1.00
0.50
0.22
0.00
0.50
0.38
0.06
negative
control group
mood induction
cyberbulling
experiment group
pre
mood induction
cyberbulling
pre
positive
0.66
Research Results
Experiment 3 – Cyberbullying, Mood induction
Using Wilks’ lambda, multivariate significance for the group classification main
effect was established, F(4,59)= 6.236, p<.001
TABLE 22
Experiment 3_Repeated measures ANOVA of facial and hands expression
Mean Square
df
F
positive expressions
33.167
2
9.515***
negative expressions
7.292
2
2.298
***p<.001
Discussion
 The negative effects of cyberbullying were revealed from
experiment 1 and 3
 self report feeling adjectives selection, emotional words memory and
recording faces and hands movement
 cyberbullying make students socially anxious, loneliness, frustration,
sadness, and helplessness (Geller, Goodstein, Silver, & Sternberg, 1974;
Kowalski, Limber, & Agaston, 2008; Leary, 1990; Rigby, 2008; Williams,
Cheung, & Choi, 2000)
 facial expression photo interpretation - numbers of negatively biased
interpretation of both groups were not significantly different.
Discussion
 The positive effects of positive mood induction were
revealed from experiment 2 and 3
 self report feeling adjectives selection, emotional words memory and
recording faces and hands movement
 positive affect generation makes students recover quickly from their
stressful events (e.g. Fredrickson, 1998; Fredrickson, Mancuso,
Branigan, & Tugade, 2000; Kirschenbaum, Tomarken, and Humphery,
1985)
 facial expression photo interpretation - numbers of negatively biased
interpretation of both groups were not significantly different.
• frequency data shows a little difference
Limitation & Further Research
 tested only middle school students, and conducted the experiment
in 30 minutes.
 other students (e.g. elementary school students) for general conclusion
 experiment time was a little short
 Facial photo - not only frequency test but also intensity test (for a review, see
Matsumoto, & Ekman, 1988, 1989).
 need to think about how to induce positive affect in counseling
situation.
 cognitively self-referent statement and feedback methods
 more sophisticated methods for our clients
 real cyberbullying situation should be conducted.
 driven by experimental situation
 in real situation, there might be more extra variables which I cannot control
 we need to test the effect of positive affect to really cyberbullied students.