The Impact of Gossip on Children's Feelings of Belongingness

八卦对儿童归属感的影响

• 批准号: 10600279
• 负责人: Nazli Meltem Yucel
• 金额: $ 6.91万
• 依托单位: DUKE UNIVERSITY
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 财政年份: 2023
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2023-07-01 至 2026-06-30
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10600279
• 关键词: 7 year old; Acute; Address; Adolescent; Adult; Affect; Age; Anxiety; Child; Childhood; Chronic; Clinical Psychology; Code; Communication; Data; Data Set; Development; Distress; Drug usage; Experimental Designs; Feeling; Friends; Friendships; Genetic Transcription; Goals; Lead; Link; Literature; Long-Term Effects; Maps; Measures; Mental Health; Methods; Moral Development; Pathway Analysis; Peer Group; Play; Policies; Research; Research Personnel; Risk; Schools; Social Development; Social Network; Social Psychology; Testing; Training; Video Recording; Well in self; Work; age group; boys; career; depressive symptoms; developmental psychology; early childhood; experience; experimental study; member; novel; peer; programs; skills; social; social observations; statistics

PROJECT SUMMARY/ABSTRACT Having a sense of belonging is vital to children’s and adults’ psychological health. In fact, lack of belonging is detrimental to children’s psychological health, causing acute and chronic distress and increasing risk for later anxiety/depressive symptoms and drug use. This fundamental need to belong can be undermined or strengthened by social experiences, such as gossiping (i.e., negative or positive talk about others). The effects of gossiping are well-studied in both adults and adolescents; members of both age groups who are associated with negative gossip feel less connected in their friend groups than those who are associated with positive gossip. Yet, no study to date has investigated the immediate and long-term effects of gossip on feelings of belonging at younger ages. The present proposal aims to address this gap. To understand the link between early childhood gossip and children’s social and psychological well-being, we aim to identify how spreading gossip or being the target of gossip impacts children’s feelings of belonging. The overall objectives will be achieved through two lab studies (Studies 1 and 2) and one naturalistic study (Study 3). Study 1 will use a novel experimental paradigm to identify the immediate effects of spreading gossip on children’s belonging and distress by testing the hypotheses that 1a) Children will feel closer to their conversation partners and feel less distressed if they gossip with them, and 1b) Children will feel closer to the peers who were the targets of positive gossip than peers who were the targets of negative gossip. Study 2 will use a similar experimental design to identify the immediate effects of being the target of gossip on children’s belonging and distress, by testing the hypothesis that 2) Children who are the targets of negative gossip will experience lower belonging and feel more distressed than the children who are the targets of positive gossip. In a novel analysis of an already collected observational social network dataset from classrooms, Study 3 will map long-term social network implications of children’s gossip over the course of an entire school year. Study 3 will test the hypotheses that 3a) Children who have higher connectedness (i.e., belonging) among friends will be less involved in spreading negative gossip and have lower likelihood of being a target of negative gossip, and 3b) Children who are more centrally connected to the friend group will be more involved in spreading positive gossip and have higher likelihood of being a target of positive gossip. The proposed research and training aims will identify the functions and impact of gossip on children’s feelings of belonging and distress and help the Candidate in furthering their career goals to lead their own lab as an independent PI. The findings can contribute to programs and policies to support healthy social development by increasing children’s feelings of belonging.

项目摘要/摘要 拥有归属感对儿童和成年人的心理健康至关重要。事实上，缺乏归属感是 不利于儿童的心理健康，造成急性和慢性痛苦，并增加以后的风险 焦虑/抑郁症状和药物使用。这种归属感的基本需求可能会被破坏，或者 被社会经历所强化，如流言蜚语(即对他人的负面或正面评论)。其影响 流言蜚语在成年人和青少年中都得到了很好的研究；这两个年龄段的成员都有联系 与积极八卦的人相比，负面八卦的人在朋友群中感觉更少联系 八卦。然而，到目前为止，还没有研究过八卦对情绪的即时和长期影响 从小就有归属感。本提案旨在解决这一差距。要了解其中的联系 在儿童早期八卦和儿童的社会和心理健康之间，我们的目标是确定 传播流言蜚语或成为流言蜚语的目标如何影响儿童的归属感。 总体目标将通过两项实验室研究(研究1和研究2)和一项自然主义研究来实现 (研究3)。研究1将使用一种新的实验范式来确定传播八卦的直接影响 通过检验以下假设来探讨儿童的归属感和苦恼：1)儿童会感到更亲近他们的 如果他们与他们闲聊，他们会感觉不那么痛苦，以及1)孩子们会感到更亲近 成为正面八卦目标的同龄人要比成为负面八卦目标的同龄人多。研究2将 使用类似的实验设计来确定成为八卦目标对儿童的直接影响 归属感和痛苦，通过检验以下假设：2)成为负面八卦目标的孩子会 与成为正面八卦目标的孩子相比，他们的归属感更低，感觉更痛苦。 在对已经从教室收集的观察性社交网络数据集的一项新分析中，研究3将 绘制孩子们在整个学年中八卦的长期社交网络影响图。学习 3将检验以下假设：3a)在朋友之间具有较高连接性(即，归属感)的孩子将 较少参与传播负面八卦，成为负面八卦目标的可能性较低， 和3b)与朋友群联系更集中的儿童将更多地参与传播 积极的八卦，有更高的可能性成为积极八卦的目标。拟议的研究和 培训目标将确定八卦对儿童归属感和忧郁感的作用和影响 并帮助应聘者实现他们的职业目标，作为一名独立的PI领导自己的实验室。调查结果 可以通过增加儿童的情感，为支持健康社会发展的计划和政策做出贡献 归属感。