PsychDigest

Journal's special edition focuses on young people and the media

The current issue of the British Journal of Developmental Psychology focuses on young people and the media.

The goal of this special issue was to bring together current perspectives on the ways young people use (or sometimes avoid), live with, react to, learn from, and learn about the ubiquitous communication tools of 21st century life.

Articles in the issue include:

• Editorial Introduction, Professor Kevin Durkin Mark Blades
• Infant imitation from television using novel touch-screen technology, Dr Rachel Barr
• Just a talking book? Word learning from watching baby videos, Mr Michael Robb
• TV as storyteller: How exposure to television narratives impacts at-risk preschoolers' story knowledge and narrative skills, Dr Deborah L Linebarger
• Young children's ability to recognize advertisements in Web page designs, Dr Mark Blades
• Television alcohol advertising: do children really mean what they say? Dr Avril Nash
• The effectiveness of parental communication in modifying the relation between food advertising and children's consumption behavior, Dr Moniek Buijzen
• Predicting children's media use: Differences in cross-sectional and longitudinal analyses, Dr. Sook-Jung Lee
• Exploring the relationship between children's knowledge of text message abbreviations and school literacy outcomes, Dr Beverly Ann Plester
• Electronic mail, a new written-language register: A study with French-speaking adolescents, Olga Volckaert-Legrier
• Remote control, umbilical cord, and beyond: The mobile phone as a transitional object, Rivka Ribak
• Educational and interpersonal uses of home computers by adolescents with and without specific language impairment (SLI), Professor Kevin Durkin
• In their words: Connecting online weblogs to developmental processes, Professor Kaveri Subrahmanyam

For more information email the media centre at mediacentre@bps.org.uk.

Sources: 

British Psychological Society (BPS) (2009, February 26). Journal's special edition focuses on young people and the media. BPS Media Centre. Retrieved March 18, 2009, from http://www.bps.org.uk/media-centre/press-releases/releases$/british-journal-of-developmental-psychology$/journals-special-edition-focuses-on-young-people-and-the-media.cfm

Low self-esteem does not lead to aggression

Early adolescents with high self-esteem are more likely to react aggressively when they feel ashamed than their peers with lower levels of self-esteem. In contrast to conventional wisdom that low self-esteem underlies aggression, the study suggests that young teens with low self-esteem do not feel the need to protect their punctured egos.

For the study, the scientists involved 163 children between the ages of 10 and 13. A few weeks before participating in the on-line experiments, the youngster filled out a questionnaire designed to assess their levels of self-esteem and narcissism. The researchers measured self-esteem by assessing the degree to which participants were satisfied with themselves and the way they led their lives. Sample statements included, “Some kids like the kind of person they are,” and “Some kids are not very happy with the way they do a lot of things.” They were asked if they were like that.

Narcissism included grandiose views of themselves, inflated feelings of superiority and entitlement, and exploitative interpersonal attitudes, assessed by questions such as, “Without me, our class would be much less fun,” “Kids like me deserve something extra,” and “I often succeed in getting admiration.”

For the experiment, the children were told they would be competing on an Internet reaction-time game called FastKid! against an opponent of the same sex and age. In reality, there was no opponent; the computer controlled all events. Those who were randomly selected for the “shame condition” were told that their opponent was one of the worst players in the supposed tournament, and they should easily win; when they lost, their last-place ranking was displayed on a web site they believed that everyone could see.

The children were told they could blast their opponent with a loud noise after winning a trial. The narcissistic kids were more aggressive than others, but only after they had been shamed. “Narcissists seem highly motivated to create and maintain a grandiose view of self,” the researchers wrote. “They tend to interpret social situations in terms of how they reflect on the self, and they engage in self-regulatory strategies to protect self-esteem when they need to. As shameful situations constitute a threat to grandiosity, narcissistic shame-induced aggression can likely be viewed as defensive effort to maintain self-worth.”

The researchers found no support for the traditional view that low self-esteem underlies aggression. In fact, they found that high self-esteem increased narcissistic shame-induced aggression. “It could be that narcissistic kids with high self-esteem are more vulnerable to shameful events than are kids with low self-esteem,” they speculate. “Or, they may differ in the way they deal with those events.”

______________________________

Sources:

Thomaes, S., Bushman, B.J., Stegge, H., & Olthof, T. (2008, November/December). Trumping shame by blasts of noise: Narcissism, self-esteem, shame,a nd aggression in young adolescents. Child Development, 79(6). 1792–1801. Retrieved February 5, 2009, from Wiley Interscience at http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/-121521008/abstract. The full article can be accessed online for $29.95.

University of Michigan (2008, December 19). Shame on us: Shaming some kids makes them more aggressive. University of Michigan News Service. Retrieved February 5, 2009, from http://www.ns.umich.edu/htdocs/-releases/story.php?id=6901