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Hopkins SW, Stark AM, Zinoviev D, Tousignant OH, Fireman GD. College student expression on Twitter during the COVID-19 pandemic. JOURNAL OF AMERICAN COLLEGE HEALTH : J OF ACH 2024; 72:722-730. [PMID: 35427217 DOI: 10.1080/07448481.2022.2055434] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/31/2021] [Revised: 01/27/2022] [Accepted: 03/13/2022] [Indexed: 06/14/2023]
Abstract
Objective:The current study longitudinally examines college student Twitter patterns throughout initial phases of the COVID-19 pandemic. This study aims to better understand psychological impact and online personal communication during the pandemic. Participants:A dataset consisting of ∼720,000 tweets posted by students from universities throughout the United States during the 2020 spring semester was analyzed according to structural and sentimental analysis. Methods:Using a data-driven approach, three time periods emerged which reflected the transition to online learning. Results:Significant changes in structure and sentiment of tweets were observed across phases. Conclusions:Changes in Twitter patterns revealed important features of this unprecedented transition to online learning for college students.
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Affiliation(s)
- Sarah W Hopkins
- Department of Psychology, Suffolk University, Boston, Massachusetts, USA
| | - Abigail M Stark
- Department of Psychology, Suffolk University, Boston, Massachusetts, USA
- Harvard Medical School, McLean Hospital, Belmont, Massachusetts, USA
| | - Dmitry Zinoviev
- Department of Mathematics and Computer Science, Suffolk University, Boston, Massachusetts, USA
| | | | - Gary D Fireman
- Department of Psychology, Suffolk University, Boston, Massachusetts, USA
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2
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de Roos MS, Veldhuizen-Ochodničanová L, Hanna A. The Angry Echo Chamber: A Study of Extremist and Emotional Language Changes in Incel Communities Over Time. JOURNAL OF INTERPERSONAL VIOLENCE 2024:8862605241239451. [PMID: 38515296 DOI: 10.1177/08862605241239451] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 03/23/2024]
Abstract
Involuntary celibates, or incels, are part of a growing online subculture. Incels are men who are unable to engage in a sexual relationship with a woman and who experience significant distress and anger as a result. In recent years, high-profile incidents of violence perpetrated by incels or those who share incel ideology have increased research attention. Incels communicate online and share several characteristics with other online extremist groups. While only a fraction of incels engage in such violence, a broader spectrum of violence should be considered, including online harassment or general violence against women. This study sought to examine how ongoing engagement on an online incel forum affects changes in incel comments in terms of expressed anger and sadness and use of incel violent extremist language. We collected comments made on an incel forum over a 3-month period. We then identified prolific users and included their comments in our analysis. To assess how their language changed, we used a text-processing program (LIWC: Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count) to assess the extent to which anger, sadness, and incel violent extremist language were expressed in the comments. Our findings indicated that incels express more anger in their comments than users on other platforms such as Reddit, Facebook, and Twitter. However, they did not express greater sadness. Further, we found that incels are already quite angry and sad when they join the forum, and they already use a fair amount of incel vocabulary. Initially, these aspects of their language increase, but they flatten over time. This pattern suggests that introduction to and embracing of incel ideology occurs elsewhere on the Internet, and prior to people joining an incel forum. Implications in terms of prevention of online radicalization and future directions are discussed.
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3
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Weaving M, Alshaabi T, Arnold MV, Blake K, Danforth CM, Dodds PS, Haslam N, Fine C. Twitter misogyny associated with Hillary Clinton increased throughout the 2016 U.S. election campaign. Sci Rep 2023; 13:5266. [PMID: 37002316 PMCID: PMC10066361 DOI: 10.1038/s41598-023-31620-w] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/23/2022] [Accepted: 03/14/2023] [Indexed: 04/03/2023] Open
Abstract
Online misogyny has become a fixture in female politicians' lives. Backlash theory suggests that it may represent a threat response prompted by female politicians' counterstereotypical, power-seeking behaviors. We investigated this hypothesis by analyzing Twitter references to Hillary Clinton before, during, and after her presidential campaign. We collected a corpus of over 9 million tweets from 2014 to 2018 that referred to Hillary Clinton, and employed an interrupted time series analysis on the relative frequency of misogynistic language within the corpus. Prior to 2015, the level of misogyny associated with Clinton decreased over time, but this trend reversed when she announced her presidential campaign. During the campaign, misogyny steadily increased and only plateaued after the election, when the threat of her electoral success had subsided. These findings are consistent with the notion that online misogyny towards female political nominees is a form of backlash prompted by their ambition for power in the political arena.
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Affiliation(s)
- Morgan Weaving
- School of Historical and Philosophical Studies, The University of Melbourne, Parkville, VIC, Australia.
- Melbourne School of Psychological Sciences, The University of Melbourne, Parkville, VIC, Australia.
| | | | - Michael V Arnold
- Computational Story Lab, Vermont Complex Systems Center, MassMutual Center of Excellence for Complex Systems and Data Science, University of Vermont, Burlington, VT, USA
| | - Khandis Blake
- Melbourne School of Psychological Sciences, The University of Melbourne, Parkville, VIC, Australia
| | - Christopher M Danforth
- Computational Story Lab, Vermont Complex Systems Center, MassMutual Center of Excellence for Complex Systems and Data Science, University of Vermont, Burlington, VT, USA
| | - Peter S Dodds
- Computational Story Lab, Vermont Complex Systems Center, MassMutual Center of Excellence for Complex Systems and Data Science, University of Vermont, Burlington, VT, USA
| | - Nick Haslam
- Melbourne School of Psychological Sciences, The University of Melbourne, Parkville, VIC, Australia
| | - Cordelia Fine
- School of Historical and Philosophical Studies, The University of Melbourne, Parkville, VIC, Australia
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4
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Schweitzer S, Dobson KSH, Waytz A. Political Bot Bias in the Perception of Online Discourse. SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGICAL AND PERSONALITY SCIENCE 2023. [DOI: 10.1177/19485506231156020] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 03/02/2023]
Abstract
Four nationally representative studies ( N = 1,986; three preregistered) find evidence for a bias in how people perceive opposing viewpoints expressed through online discourse. These studies elucidate a political bot bias, where political partisans (vs. their out-party) are more likely to view counter-ideological (vs. ideologically consistent) tweets to be social media bots (vs. humans). Study 1 demonstrates that American Democrats and Republicans are more likely to attribute tweets to bots when those tweets express counter-ideological views. Study 2 demonstrated this bias with actual bot tweets generated by the Russian government and comparable human tweets. Study 3 demonstrated this bias manifests in the context of real recent elections and is associated with markers of political animosity. Study 4 experimentally demonstrates the consequences of bot attribution for perceptions of online political discourse. Our findings document a consistent bias that has implications for political discussion online and political polarization more broadly.
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Affiliation(s)
| | | | - Adam Waytz
- Northwestern University, Evanston, IL, USA
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5
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Desbuleux JC, Fuss J. Is the Anthropomorphization of Sex Dolls Associated with Objectification and Hostility Toward Women? A Mixed Method Study among Doll Users. JOURNAL OF SEX RESEARCH 2023; 60:206-220. [PMID: 35904521 DOI: 10.1080/00224499.2022.2103071] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 06/15/2023]
Abstract
Both the ownership and development of sex dolls and robots are passionately debated, with skeptics suspecting that their increasing human-likeness and the accompanying anthropomorphization (i.e., attributing human-likeness) reinforce the objectification of, and hostility toward, women. As empirical data are largely lacking, we scrutinized this hypothesis in a pre-registered study among doll owners (N = 217), comparing two user groups: "toy group" (n = 104; doll as sex toy) and "partner group" (n = 113; doll as partner). We related their objectification tendencies (i.e., seeing women merely as objects, e.g., to promote sexual desire) as well as their hostility toward women, to the anthropomorphization of their doll. Additionally, we collected qualitative data on how participants perceived their doll usage affected their attitudes toward women. The partner group expressed greater levels of hostility and anthropomorphization, moderate in magnitude. Objectification mediated the influence of anthropomorphization on hostility and a higher percentage described a change in attitudes toward women in response to doll use. These data provide the first empirical evidence that the tendency to anthropomorphize dolls is related to negative attitudes toward women. Given the ongoing development of sex robots designed to surpass dolls in human-likeness and anthropomorphization, this finding seems highly significant.
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Affiliation(s)
- Jeanne C Desbuleux
- Institute of Forensic Psychiatry and Sex Research, Center for Translational Neuro- and Behavioral Sciences, University of Duisburg-Essen
| | - Johannes Fuss
- Institute of Forensic Psychiatry and Sex Research, Center for Translational Neuro- and Behavioral Sciences, University of Duisburg-Essen
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Douglass MD, Stirrat M, Koehn MA, Vaughan RS. The relationship between the Dark Triad and attitudes towards feminism. PERSONALITY AND INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCES 2023. [DOI: 10.1016/j.paid.2022.111889] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Submit a Manuscript] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/27/2022]
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7
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Levels of Well-Being Among Men Who Are Incel (Involuntarily Celibate). EVOLUTIONARY PSYCHOLOGICAL SCIENCE 2022. [DOI: 10.1007/s40806-022-00336-x] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 10/14/2022]
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Brooks RC, Blake KR, Fromhage L. Effects of gender inequality and wealth inequality on within-sex mating competition under hypergyny. EVOL HUM BEHAV 2022. [DOI: 10.1016/j.evolhumbehav.2022.08.006] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/15/2022]
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9
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Dandapat S. Is gender-based violence a confluence of culture? Empirical evidence from social media. PeerJ Comput Sci 2022; 8:e1051. [PMID: 36091979 PMCID: PMC9454862 DOI: 10.7717/peerj-cs.1051] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/15/2022] [Accepted: 06/30/2022] [Indexed: 06/15/2023]
Abstract
Gender-based violence (GBV) has been plaguing our society for long back. The severity of GBV has spurred research around understanding the causes and factors leading to GBV. Understanding factors and causes leading to GBV is helpful in planning and executing efficient policies to curb GBV. Past researches have claimed a country's culture to be one of the driving reasons behind GBV. The culture of a country consists of cultural norms, societal rules, gender-based stereotypes, and social taboos which provoke GBV. These claims are supported by theoretical or small-scale survey-based research that suffers from under-representation and biases. With the advent of social media and, more importantly, location-tagged social media, huge ethnographic data are available, creating a platform for many sociological research. In this article, we also utilize huge social media data to verify the claim of confluence between GBV and the culture of a country. We first curate GBV content from different countries by collecting a large amount of data from Twitter. In order to explore the relationship between a country's culture and GBV content, we performed correlation analyses between a country's culture and its GBV content. The correlation results are further re-validated using graph-based methods. Through the findings of this research, we observed that countries with similar cultures also show similarity in GBV content, thus reconfirming the relationship between GBV and culture.
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Affiliation(s)
- Sourav Dandapat
- Department of Computer Science and Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology Patna, Patna, India
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10
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Griffiths S, Cowley-Court T, Austen E, Russo-Batterham D, Blake K. "Spring is the best time to lose weight": Evidence that dieting is seasonal and reaches peak intensity during Spring. Body Image 2022; 41:406-416. [PMID: 35526351 DOI: 10.1016/j.bodyim.2022.04.011] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Submit a Manuscript] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/21/2021] [Revised: 04/19/2022] [Accepted: 04/24/2022] [Indexed: 10/18/2022]
Abstract
Does dieting intensify during Spring? Previous research suggests that body dissatisfaction is seasonal and peaks during Summer. Extending these findings to seasonal dieting, we contend that individuals' apprehensions about heightened Summertime body dissatisfaction motivate Springtime dieting. To detect seasonal dieting, we examined the seasonal frequencies of 69 dieting hashtags within a database of 564 million tweets originating from the United States and spanning eight calendar years (2012-19). In total, we detected 628,355 dieting hashtags. Of these, 30% occurred during Spring, 20% during Autumn/Fall, and 25% during each of Summer and Winter. During Spring, there were ~64,000 additional dieting hashtags compared with Autumn/Fall, and ~32,000 additional hashtags compared with Summer and Winter. Of the nine most common dieting hashtags that together accounted for 96% of the total, all nine peaked during Spring (ps < 0.0001). This Spring-centric pattern was apparent for both appearance-oriented diets (e.g., "atkins" and "weightwatchers") and ostensibly non-appearance-oriented diets (e.g., "vegan" and "glutenfree"), suggesting that non-appearance-oriented diets might nonetheless be co-opted for appearance-oriented purposes. In conclusion, we found credible evidence that dieting intensifies during Spring. Future research should examine whether eating disorders and muscle dysmorphia also intensify during Spring because dieting is intrinsic to both these conditions.
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Affiliation(s)
- Scott Griffiths
- Melbourne School of Psychological Sciences, University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Australia.
| | - Tessa Cowley-Court
- Melbourne School of Psychological Sciences, University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Australia
| | - Emma Austen
- Melbourne School of Psychological Sciences, University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Australia
| | - Daniel Russo-Batterham
- Melbourne School of Psychological Sciences, University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Australia
| | - Khandis Blake
- Melbourne School of Psychological Sciences, University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Australia
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11
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Brooks RC, Russo-Batterham D, Blake KR. Incel Activity on Social Media Linked to Local Mating Ecology. Psychol Sci 2022; 33:249-258. [PMID: 35015599 DOI: 10.1177/09567976211036065] [Citation(s) in RCA: 15] [Impact Index Per Article: 7.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/16/2022] Open
Abstract
Young men with few prospects of attracting a mate have historically threatened the internal peace and stability of societies. In some contemporary societies, such involuntary celibate-or incel-men promote much online misogyny and perpetrate real-world violence. We tested the prediction that online incel activity arises via local real-world mating-market forces that affect relationship formation. From a database of 4 billion Twitter posts (2012-2018), we geolocated 321 million tweets to 582 commuting zones in the continental United States, of which 3,649 tweets used words peculiar to incels and 3,745 were about incels. We show that such tweets arise disproportionately within places where mating competition among men is likely to be high because of male-biased sex ratios, few single women, high income inequality, and small gender gaps in income. Our results suggest a role for social media in monitoring and mitigating factors that lead young men toward antisocial behavior in real-world societies.
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Affiliation(s)
- Robert C Brooks
- Evolution & Ecology Research Centre, University of New South Wales
| | | | - Khandis R Blake
- Evolution & Ecology Research Centre, University of New South Wales
- Melbourne School of Psychological Sciences, The University of Melbourne
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12
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Xu H, Zeng J, Tai Z, Hao H. Public Attention and Sentiment toward Intimate Partner Violence Based on Weibo in China: A Text Mining Approach. Healthcare (Basel) 2022; 10:healthcare10020198. [PMID: 35206813 PMCID: PMC8871728 DOI: 10.3390/healthcare10020198] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/31/2021] [Revised: 01/16/2022] [Accepted: 01/17/2022] [Indexed: 11/16/2022] Open
Abstract
The mobile internet has resulted in intimate partner violence (IPV) events not being viewed as interpersonal and private issues. Such events become public events in the social network environment. IPV has become a public health issue of widespread concern. It is a challenge to obtain systematic and detailed data using questionnaires and interviews in traditional Chinese culture, because of face-saving and the victim’s shame factors. However, online comments about specific IPV events on social media provide rich data in understanding the public’s attitudes and emotions towards IPV. By applying text mining and sentiment analysis to the field of IPV, this study involved construction of a Chinese IPV sentiment dictionary and a complete research framework. We analyzed the trends of the Chinese public’s emotional evolution concerning IPV events from the perspectives of a time series as well as geographic space and social media. The results show that the anonymity of social networks and the guiding role of opinion leaders result in traditional cultural factors such as face-saving and family shame for IPV events being no longer applicable, leading to the spiral of an anti-silence effect. Meanwhile, in the process of public emotional communication, anger often overwhelms reason, and the spiral of silence remains in effect in social media. In addition, there are offensive words used in the IPV event texts that indicate misogyny in emotional, sexual, economic and psychological abuse. Fortunately, mainstream media, as crucial opinion leaders in the social network, can have a positive role in guiding public opinion, improving people’s ability to judge the validity of network information, and formulating people’s rational behaviour.
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Affiliation(s)
- Heng Xu
- School of Management, Henan University of Technology, Zhengzhou 450001, China;
- Correspondence:
| | - Jun Zeng
- School of Management, Henan University of Technology, Zhengzhou 450001, China;
| | - Zhaodan Tai
- School of Foreign Languages, Henan University of Technology, Zhengzhou 450001, China;
| | - Huihui Hao
- Faculty of Agribusiness and Commerce, Lincoln University, Lincoln 7647, New Zealand;
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