Dark Personality and Cyber Aggression Presentation Accepted for SEPA

Atlanta Night Skyline Wallpaper
We just had a presentation proposal accepted for the 63rd Annual Meeting of the Southeastern Psychological Association, which will take place in Atlanta in March. Taylor Bolton a second-year master's student working in the Anger and Traffic Psychology Lab, will present research based on her master's project. Taylor's research focuses on the role of dark personality traits in electronic aggression among college students.

One of the challenges in this area of research involves the lack of consensus in how electronic aggression (aka, cyber aggression, cyberbullying) should be defined and measured (Berne et al., 2013). Taylor is using what appears to be one of the better self-report measures available for emerging adults, the Cyberbullying Experiences Survey (Doane et al., 2013). We anticipate that her findings will provide useful information about the relationship between electronic aggression and offline relational aggression and between various dark personality traits and electronic aggression.

Congratulations, Taylor!

How Mental Health Professionals Can Help With Bullying Prevention

Bully Free Zone
StopBullying.gov has assembled a useful training module on bullying prevention aimed at mental health professionals, Understanding the Roles of Mental Health Professionals in Community-Wide Bullying Prevention Efforts (.pdf file). It reviews information on bullying and its effects, explains many of the roles mental health professionals have in solving the problem of bullying, offers suggestions for how mental health professionals can involve others in their communities, and shares several helpful resources.

It is hoped that making information like this more accessible will allow mental health professionals to approach the complex subject of bullying in a more informed manner and to make a difference in their communities.