Abstract Importance Bullying is increasingly understood as a social process in which peers influence whether it persists. Anti-bullying policies and programs often encourage bystanders to intervene directly, yet direct defending can carry social costs for defenders, and evidence that it reduces later victimization is mixed. Some interventions already target the peer rewards that sustain bullying, but participant-role classifications tend to absorb deliberate non-reinforcement into outsider behavior or passive bystanding. Objective This paper argues that withdrawing social reinforcement, the deliberate withholding of social rewards that peers confer on bullying, such as attention, approval, amplification, or audience participation, should be conceptualized as a distinct bystander response. Methods This conceptual analysis draws on the social-ecological framework, participant role theory, social cognitive theory, and evidence that the outsider category is internally heterogeneous. Results Withdrawing social reinforcement is functionally positive when it reflects a refusal to endorse bullying and reduces the social rewards available to the student who bullies. It differs from uninvolved passivity in intent and social function, and from indirect defending in primary target, because these responses act on different points in the social process of bullying. When enacted collectively, it may also signal reduced peer endorsement of bullying and shift perceived peer norms. Conclusions Helpful bystander responding should not be defined only by direct intervention. Bystanders can also target the social rewards that sustain bullying, and responses grouped as passive bystanding differ in whether they sustain or withhold those rewards. Future research should test whether withdrawing social reinforcement can be reliably distinguished from uninvolved passivity and indirect defending, and whether it reduces reinforcement for students who bully. Implications for Practice Withdrawing social reinforcement requires less public confrontation than direct defending, offering students who cannot or will not confront the student who bullies another way to respond. Schools can teach this method as an explicit option alongside upstanding.
As AI virtual influencers (AIVIs) proliferate, understanding human-AI emotional engagement is vital for advancing affective computing. To examine whether AIVIs evoke comparable affective responses to human influencers (HIs), we analyzed 156,918 Instagram comments that received 12+ million likes, integratinglarge language model (LLM)-derived knowledge graphs, emotion analysis, and machine learning. HI-directed discourse shows more differentiated emotional expression and a pattern consistent with more cohesive semantic networks than AIVI-directed discourse. AIVI-directed comments are less likely to express positive affect (24.8% vs. 41.5%) and also less likely to express negative affect (5.8% vs. 9.3%), indicating reduced affective expression of either valence rather than heightened negativity. This group-level tendency is not uniform: affective engagement varies substantially across AIVIs, and that variation is more closely associated with positive than with negative expression. Our Multi-Signal Embedding Network (MSEN), incorporating behavioral metrics and OpenAI semantic embeddings, classified influencer types from behavioral, affective and semantic features (F1 = 0.89), outperforming baselines including a state-of-the-art zero-shot LLM. These findings identify a boundary condition for the Computers Are Social Actors (CASA) paradigm: human-like appearance can elicit social responses without producing affective and semantic response patterns as rich as those elicited by HIs.
With the World Health Organization (WHO) estimating 720,000 deaths from suicide each year, the phenomenon of suicide is a priority in public health policy. International policy frameworks highlight the need to adopt biopsychosocial perspectives in order to understand the phenomenon of suicide; however, in practice, it is noted that social components play a minor role in policy design, with a preference for a biopsychological and clinical approach. This paper seeks to answer the question: Does Spanish public policy on suicide prevention operationalize the biopsychosocial model of suicide in its strategic implementation? To answer this question, a documentary analysis of public policies is carried out using the READ method. Current suicide policies in force in Spain are examined at three levels: transnational framework documents, national policies, and regional public policies. In the 15 policies analyzed, a lexicometric analysis is combined with a thematic qualitative policy analysis. The results show that, as one moves down to policies closer to the population, a gap emerges between the discursive use of the biopsychosocial model and its practical application. It is concluded that at the transnational and national policy levels, the biopsychosocial model predominates in the understanding of suicide, while in Spain’s autonomous communities, the psychobiological approach tends to be prioritized over social causes. This has an impact on the types of measures proposed, which have limited intersectional scope, a narrow view of the community-based approach, and prioritize healthcare resources to address the phenomenon of suicide.
Ageism is a widespread but often overlooked form of discrimination that can manifest both positively and negatively in healthcare. In clinical practice, discriminatory attitudes towards older adult can impact the quality and equality of medical care. Empathy plays a crucial role in mitigating such biases among physicians. This study aimed to evaluate the attitudes of family physicians toward age discrimination and to assess the relationship between these attitudes and physicians’ empathy levels, along with the influence of various sociodemographic factors. A descriptive, cross-sectional survey was conducted between May and August 2021 among family physicians, residents, and specialists working in Samsun, Turkey. Data were collected via online, phone, or face-to-face surveys using the Attitude Scale of Age Discrimination (ASAD) and the Jefferson Scale of Physician Empathy – Health Professional version (JSPE-HP). A total of 299 physicians participated. Participants exhibited high levels of empathy (mean JSPE: 81.6±9.49) and generally positive attitudes toward older adults (mean ASAD: 88.19±8.65). Age, gender, and professional experience significantly influenced both empathy and ageism scores. Older, female, and more experienced physicians showed more empathetic and less ageist attitudes. A statistically significant, low-level positive correlation was found between empathy and positive attitudes toward older adults.
Nature-based extreme sports are often framed through sensation seeking, thrill, and voluntary exposure to risk, yet this framing can obscure the meanings participants attach to prolonged engagement with demanding natural environments. This study explored how experienced South African participants interpreted the relationship between nature-based extreme sport participation and eco-sensitivity. In this article, eco-sensitivity refers to participants' reported environmental attention, affective connection with nature, recognition of ecological dependence, concern about degradation, and efforts to reduce personal impact. A qualitative design using interpretative phenomenological analysis was applied to semi-structured interviews conducted between 29 April and 4 July 2019 with 10 experienced participants, five men and five women, who represented 11 nature-based extreme sport activities and reported two to 22 years of experience. Four interconnected themes were identified: risk as a managed component of participation; connection rather than conquest; sensory sensitivity and experiences consistent with mindfulness and flow; and eco-sensitivity and self-reported pro-environmental orientation. Participants described risk as something to calculate and manage through competence, preparation, and situational judgement. They also described respect for natural forces, heightened bodily and environmental attention, and a stronger sense of ecological dependence. Reported pro-environmental practices were self-reported and were not independently observed. The findings provide an interpretive account of how participants made sense of environmental meanings within prolonged outdoor sport involvement. They do not establish a causal developmental mechanism. The results suggest propositions for athlete education, outdoor recreation management, environmental learning, and future longitudinal research. Keywords: eco-sensitivity; extreme sport; interpretative phenomenological analysis; nature connectedness; pro-environmental behaviour; risk management.
Abstract Educational innovation requires strategies that promote participation, social interaction, and the collective construction of learning. The objective was to analyze the perceptions of educational stakeholders regarding intergenerational play-based strategies as a pedagogical resource related to cognitive and socioemotional dimensions. The theoretical framework integrated play-based learning, intergenerational learning, and socioemotional development. A quantitative, non-experimental, descriptive-correlational, and cross-sectional study was conducted with 502 participants from the educational community. A structured survey was administered, and frequencies, percentages, and associations among categorical variables were analyzed. 96.0% considered intergenerational participation to be important or very important; 89.2% felt comfortable or very comfortable interacting with people of other ages; 93.2% rated their ability to work in teams favorably; and 88.0% rated their memory and concentration skills as good or excellent. A higher frequency of recreational activities was associated with greater cognitive stimulation (76.2% vs. 38.0%; χ²=74.63; p<0.001; V=0.386), and frequent stimulation was linked to a favorable perception of memory and concentration (94.0% vs. 79.4%; χ²=24.35; p<0.001; V=0.220). It is concluded that there is a favorable predisposition toward intergenerational activities, although the cross-sectional design does not allow for the establishment of causality.
Transphobia can be understood as a set of practices that produce discrimination, exclusion, and violence against transgender people and transvestites, selecting their behavioral repertoires under aversive control. In the field of Behavior Analysis, Brazilian production on the subject remains limited and poorly systematized. This study aimed to integrate behavioral analysis research on the contingencies to which transgender people are subjected in Brazil. A systematic review of the literature was conducted according to PRISMA 2020, with searches in journals in the field and on Google Scholar. After applying the eligibility criteria, six studies were included. The findings indicate convergence in the understanding of transphobia as a process sustained by coercive contingencies that produce functional effects such as escape, avoidance, and psychological distress. It is concluded that Behavior Analysis offers relevant contributions to the functional understanding of transphobia and points to the need to expand socially committed research and interventions.Keywords: transphobia; behavioral-analysis; gender; LGBTQIA+; review
Introduction Digital romantic media may shape young adults' beliefs about intimacy, yet existing measures rarely assess relationship beliefs that jointly address autonomy, non-coercion, equality, and mutual growth. This study developed and validated the Sustainable Intimate Relationship Beliefs Scale (SIRBS) among Chinese college students. Methods An online survey yielded a final analytic sample of 2,008 participants, which was randomly divided for exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses. Reliability, factor-level convergent and discriminant evidence, measurement invariance, criterion-related associations, mediation, and moderation were also examined. Results The final 12-item scale comprised three correlated but conceptually distinct dimensions: Non-materialistic Relationship Beliefs, Low Control Tolerance, and Egalitarian Growth Beliefs. Confirmatory factor analysis supported the correlated three-factor model (CFI = 0.995, TLI = 0.993, RMSEA = 0.036, SRMR = 0.026). Internal consistency was satisfactory (Cronbach's alpha = 0.845; McDonald's omega total = 0.91), and composite reliability ranged from 0.878 to 0.967. Omega hierarchical (0.59) and explained common variance (0.39) indicated limited saturation by a single general factor. Approximate measurement invariance was supported across male-female gender groups and romantic relationship experience groups. SIRBS scores were positively associated with media literacy and negatively associated with unsustainable romantic-script internalization. Discussion The findings support the three subscale scores as the primary basis for construct-specific interpretation. The total score may be used as a secondary broad composite but should not be interpreted as a strictly unidimensional trait.
Socially complex peer play may provide opportunities for children to coordinate perspectives, negotiate roles, and respond to others' needs, but its association with prosocial judgment may differ according to children's social-cognitive resources. This small-scale longitudinal study examined whether mental state knowledge assessed at age 4–5 conditioned the concurrent association between socially complex peer play and prosocial judgment assessed at age 5–6. Participants were 35 children from a private nursery school in Japan. Mental state knowledge was assessed using a false-belief task. At age 5–6, children completed helping and sharing judgment tasks, and their free play was observed naturalistically across repeated focal-child observations. Socially complex peer play was indexed by the combined proportion of associative and cooperative play. Hierarchical regression analyses showed that the interaction between earlier mental state knowledge and socially complex peer play significantly predicted sharing judgment. The corresponding interaction for helping was positive but did not reach the conventional significance threshold. Sensitivity analyses using heteroskedasticity-consistent standard errors supported the sharing result. Given the modest sample size, the findings should be interpreted as preliminary. They suggest that the association between socially complex peer play and prosocial judgment may differ according to children's earlier social-cognitive resources.
The aim of this study was to identify the latent profiles of young adults based on their levels of cyber victimization, perceived social support, self-compassion, and difficulties in emotion regulation (DER), and to examine whether these profiles differed according to gender and academic year. The study included 425 young adults enrolled at a public university in Türkiye. Data were collected using the Cyber Victimization Scale, the Multidimensional Scale of Perceived Social Support, the Self-Compassion Scale–Short Form, and the Difficulties in Emotion Regulation Scale. Latent Profile Analysis (LPA) and the R3STEP procedure were used to analyze the data. The findings revealed four distinct latent profiles: The Protective Resources Profile, Low Self-Compassion / High DER Profile, Moderate Psychosocial Adjustment Profile, and High Self-Compassion / Average DER Profile. The R3STEP analysis indicated that gender was significantly associated with latent profile membership, whereas academic year showed limited associations. Specifically, compared with male students, female students were less likely to belong to the Low Self-Compassion / High DER Profile and the High Self-Compassion / Average DER Profile rather than the Protective Resources Profile, but were more likely to belong to the Moderate Psychosocial Adjustment Profile rather than the Low Self-Compassion / High DER Profile. Additionally, fourth-year students were more likely than first-year students to belong to the Low Self-Compassion / High DER Profile rather than the Protective Resources Profile.
Introduction Deception elicits measurable cognitive and linguistic changes, yet accurately identifying deceptive language in high-stakes environments remains a persistent challenge. Although natural language processing (NLP) and machine learning (ML) techniques have shown promise in detecting misinformation and low-stakes deception, their performance on spontaneous, stress-induced speech remains poorly understood. This study investigates linguistic markers of deception and evaluates the performance of supervised ML models and a knowledge-grounded language model, FranklinAsk™, across both synthetic and real-world datasets. Methods Linguistic analyses were conducted on responses from a National Center for Credibility Assessment (NCCA) military training exercise involving truthful and deceptive participants. A synthetic dataset was generated using MOSTLYAI to provide a balanced corpus for ML training. Linguistic features were extracted using pretrained NLP models, and supervised classifiers, including logistic regression, Random Forest, Naïve Bayes, and Support Vector Machine (SVM), were trained using LIWC-22 features with 10-fold cross-validation. The FranklinAsk™ RAG system was evaluated using the same participant responses to compare knowledge-grounded reasoning with statistical learning. Results Two linguistic features, cardinal numbers (nominal p = 0.041) and particles (nominal p = 0.0486), reached the unadjusted significance threshold, each with a moderate effect size ( d = 0.55); neither remained statistically significant after Benjamini-Hochberg FDR correction (adjusted p = 0.668 for both). No significant sentiment differences were observed. On the synthetic dataset, logistic regression performed best (F1 = 0.930; ROC AUC = 0.978), but all supervised models showed substantial performance declines when applied to the real-world dataset. In contrast, FranklinAsk™ achieved the highest F1-score (0.519), highest accuracy (0.487), and second-highest recall (0.700) on the military exercise data. Discussion These findings highlight the limited generalizability of synthetic-trained deception models to real-world, high-stakes communication and motivate further investigation of knowledge-grounded language models as an alternative approach when labeled real-world training data are limited. Future research should prioritize expanding ecologically valid datasets and exploring hybrid approaches that combine statistical modeling with knowledge-grounded reasoning.
Introduction This study examines sympathy as a socially organized emotion in Arabic-language digital discourse about suicide. Drawing on the sociology of emotions, suicide stigma, and digital death studies, it investigates how public Facebook comment cultures distribute compassion, blame, and moral worth after suicide. Methods A quantitative content analysis was conducted on 2,132 publicly visible comments responding to three highly discussed suicide cases. Comments were coded for inferred public gender presentation, emotional orientation, reported case context, and dominant interpretive frame. Pearson chi-square tests were calculated from raw counts; Cramer’s V , 95% Wilson confidence intervals, and sensitivity analyses are reported. Results Comments from accounts inferred as female were more often sympathetic than comments from accounts inferred as male (60.0% vs. 40.5%; V = 0.15), and commenter composition differed across the three cases ( V = 0.29). Religious framing was the most common interpretive repertoire (48.6%) and could accompany both mercy and condemnation. Discussion The study develops the concept of a moral economy of sympathy to describe the social rules through which digital publics allocate compassion after suicide. Because each case combines a particular person, national setting, reported circumstance, and media framing, the findings are case-specific and should not be generalized to Arab publics.
Abstract Education, and mandatory schooling in particular, is a central mechanism for governments to improve life outcomes and prevent the accumulation of disadvantage across generations. Yet educational sociology research suggests that education can also entrench patterns of inequality, with children from immigrant backgrounds facing barriers to equal opportunity. Policy reforms to reverse such disadvantage include delaying the tracking age and offering free or subsidised daycare places to immigrant children. However, we know little about public support for such policies. In this article, we argue that one’s own experience of educational equality impacts micro-level preferences for equality-enhancing policies (EEPs). Using a survey experiment fielded in 2024 in Switzerland, our findings suggest that support for EEPs is a function of the one’s satisfaction with equal opportunities at school: Those who did not perceive their schooling to be fair and who attended school in less egalitarian cantons show the strongest support for reforming the system to become more egalitarian. We conclude that negative experience of schooling may have an, albeit indirect, effect on support for policies that reduce educational inequality. .
Transformations in contemporary higher education require a reconsideration of the theoretical and practical foundations of student socialization management. Digital transformation, hybrid learning environments, growing student diversity, changing labour-market expectations, and participatory governance have made socialization a strategic issue in university management. The article aims to systematize contemporary models of student socialization management, identify their managerial potential and limitations, and propose an integrated structural–functional model based on theoretical synthesis. The study employs theoretical and comparative analysis, systematization, generalization, and pedagogical modelling. It argues that effective socialization management cannot be reduced to students’ adaptation to the university environment; rather, it should encompass academic and social integration, a sense of belonging, social and professional competences, professional identity, digital citizenship, self-regulation, and social agency. The proposed model integrates systemic, ecological, student-centred, competence-based, participatory, and digital-ecosystem approaches, thereby providing a more holistic, measurable, and manageable framework for student socialization.
Education in Yenagoa LGA, Bayelsa State, faces persistent vulnerability to environmental, infrastructural and socio-economic shocks-annual floods, riverine isolation, poor school infrastructure, and weak community ownership-leading to disrupted learning continuity and low retention. The paper contends that resilient education extends beyond the confine of a school-centric model and requires a robust, strengthened learning ecosystem. Through an integrative review of literature and the theoretical synthesis of Bronfenbrenner, Ecological System Theory, Epstein, Overlapping Spheres of Influence, and Resilient Theory, conceptualized as Yenagoa Resilient Learning Ecosystem Model (YRLEM). The model places the learner at the Centre of six interconnected pillars/layers: Immediate Learning Environment/Resilient learner: (1) Community Engagement Pillar, (2) Technology and Digital Access Pillar, (3) Environment and Climate Resilience Pillars (4) Infrastructure and Schools Pillars (5) Governance and Policy Pillars (6) Livelihood and Skills Pillars. It argues that by intentionally engaging indigenous institutions-traditional rulers, CDCs, women and youth groups, and SBMCs-and fostering structured multi-stakeholder collaboration between government, oil and gas companies, tertiary institutions, NGOs, and faith based-organizations, educations can be transformed from a fragile service into a community owned resilient system. The paper contributes a context-specific framework for policymakers, the Bayelsa State Universal Basic Education Board, and development partners, and advances propositions for future empirical validation in the Niger delta context
A couple of questions in media effects research have generated many empirical tasks and as little consensus as the link between violent video game play and real-world aggression. Public argument consistently conjures up the medium after mass shootings, while scholarship has actually produced meta-analyses reaching contrary conclusions from overlapping proof. This review synthesizes experimental, longitudinal and population-level research released between 1961 and 2020, making use of twenty peer-reviewed sources situated in Web of Science, Scopus and PsycINFO that report a quantitative estimate linking violent media exposure to an aggression-related outcome. Short-term experiments find tiny rises in aggressive affect, cognition and laboratory-measured behavior, however, these estimates reduce when publication bias is modelled and rest on outcome measures of contested validity. Longitudinal designs yield effects in the exact same tiny range, with the biggest prospective meta-analysis reporting a standardized coefficient of 0.11. Population-level analyses of crime data discover no positive association between violent media consumption and violent offending. A reanalysis that anchors these contested syntheses to a common analytical scale reveals consistent yet extremely small adverse effects. Collectively, the literature supports a modest association with aggressive behavior, while failing to substantiate the causal claim linking exposure to serious violence—a narrative that disproportionately dominates public discourse.
Social deduction games require people to identify the truth-tellers and liars based on limited and vague information. This exploratory study investigated the relationship between agreeableness, neuroticism and accuracy of deception judgment in a structured social-deduction task. Sixty-three participants aged 15-35 completed a 120-item Big Five personality inventory and then observed the materials from a Werewolf game before making five judgments, three hidden-role judgments and two truth-value judgments. The results showed that neuroticism was negatively correlated with the accuracy of judgment (r = -0.294, p = .019, 95% CI [-0.505, -0.050]), and agreeableness was not significantly related to accuracy (r = -0.128, p = .317, 95% CI [-0.364, 0.124]). Exploratory analysis of trait combinations also showed that the mean accuracy of the agreeableness and neuroticism groups was different. Therefore, it is proposed that neuroticism may be linked to differences in the judgement of deception among individuals, but agreeableness alone was not significantly associated with performance in the current task. As an exploratory correlational study, the results provide an initial indication of personality differences in deception judgment under the circumstances of structured social interaction.
Fundamental frequency (F0) is a salient acoustic cue in voice perception, but how F0-related attractiveness judgments vary across listeners with different sexual orientations remains insufficiently understood. This study examined attractiveness ratings under controlled F0 manipulation in Mandarin voice stimuli produced by one male and one female announcer. Eighty adults were recruited: 20 heterosexual male, 20 heterosexual female, 20 homosexual male, and 20 homosexual female participants. An adaptive three-alternative forced-choice pretest with 12 listeners established a group-level F0 just-noticeable difference (JND) of 0.215 ERB. Seven F0 levels, from −3 to +3 JNDs around each speaker’s own baseline, were then presented three times in the main experiment. Because each listener group rated only the target-voice sex that matched its presumed attraction pattern, the study compares two observed listener–target configurations rather than fully crossing listener sex, sexual orientation, and target-voice sex. Linear mixed-effects models showed that attractiveness ratings for the male voice decreased as F0 increased in both heterosexual female and homosexual male listeners, with no reliable difference in slopes. For the female voice, ratings increased with F0 in both heterosexual male and homosexual female listeners, while the homosexual-female group additionally showed a significant nonlinear component, with a fitted maximum near +2.4 JND. These findings indicate that, within these two listener–target configurations and these two controlled source voices, F0-related attractiveness judgments generally followed target-sex-related directions, whereas between-group variation was more evident in response strength and curve shape. The study contributes to experimental research on social voice perception and provides a controlled Mandarin-language baseline for future cross-linguistic comparisons of vocal social evaluation; it does not itself test intercultural variation.
The present study examined differences in the desire to become a celebrity versus a hero in Iran and Afghanistan and investigated whether admiration of one’s favorite celebrity was associated with these aspirations. Participants completed an online questionnaire including a 7-item version of the Celebrity Attitude Scale (CAS-7) and measures of desire to become a celebrity or hero. In Iran, participants reported significantly greater interest in becoming a hero than a celebrity, whereas this difference was not significant in Afghanistan. CAS-7 scores were positively associated with the desire to become a celebrity in both Iran and Afghanistan. These findings suggest that the desire to be a hero, rather than a celebrity, extends well beyond American borders.
The exclusion and bullying targeting minority groups--including sexual minorities, individuals with disabilities, and orphans--have become observable social phenomena in Chinese campus settings. This review examines, from a social psychological perspective, how the herd effect operates within physical campus environments to trigger, amplify, and consolidate prejudice and discrimination held by majority groups toward minority students. Adopting a literature review methodology, this paper synthesizes Asch's conformity experiments, behaviorist theory, Freudian individual unconscious, Jungian collective unconscious, and empirical studies on school bullying and peer conformity published over the past two decades. The central argument proposes a "three-tiered ladder" through which the herd effect function: first, linguistic stigmatization transforms neutral identity labels such as "gay" and" Tang"(a colloquial abbreviation for Down Syndrome in Chinese, used similarly to offensive slurs like "mong" in English) into tools of humiliation; second, social isolation dismantles the victim's support network; and third, peer pressure escalates into physical violence and property damage. This mechanism is significantly amplified within the Chinese collectivist educational context, where the physical inseparability of fixed-class systems extends conformity pressure from temporary behavior into chronic survival anxiety.
