Examining cognitive & neural mechanisms associated with online harmful behaviours: development of an intervention to reduce cyberbullying and trolling

随着技术的进步，从事网络欺凌和拖钓等在线有害行为的人数有所增加，其中网络欺凌涉及发送伤害性、威胁性或攻击性信息，拖钓涉及通过在线发布恶意信息以破坏性和破坏性方式行事。据报告，这些行为的受害者患有各种心理健康问题，从社交焦虑到自杀。理论背景表明，道德脱离（为不道德行为辩护的过程）允许个人相信他们的网络欺凌和拖钓行为在道德上是可以接受的。该项目旨在研究与在线行为相关的道德和情感场景处理的认知和神经机制，以及这些机制如何受到与参与在线有害行为相关的某些人格特征的影响。另一个目标是制定一项干预措施，防止人们成为网络欺凌者和网络巨魔，该项目旨在扩大我们对人格特征与网上有害行为之间联系的理解，方法是使用更隐式的方法，例如监测参与者的眼球运动和脑电活动，以研究描述有害网上行为的文本场景处理过程中的认知和神经机制。眼动追踪使研究者能够检查阅读背后的即时认知过程。使用事件相关电位（ERP）检查脑电活动提供了一个直接的指示，涉及语言理解的神经机制。因此，这些方法将使我们能够研究为什么具有某些人格特质的人更有可能从事在线有害行为（例如，由于处理道德或情感相关信息的缺陷）。

Advancements in technology have seen an increase in the number of people engaging in online harmful behaviours, such as cyberbullying and trolling, where cyberbullying involves sending hurtful, threatening, or offensive messages, and trolling involves behaving in a destructive and disruptive manner through posting malicious messages online. Victims of these behaviours are reported as suffering from a variety of mental health problems, ranging from social anxiety to suicide. The theoretical background suggests moral disengagement (the process of justifying immoral behaviour) allows individuals to believe their cyberbullying and trolling behaviours are morally acceptable. This project aims to investigate the cognitive and neural mechanisms underlying the processing of moral and emotional scenarios relating to online behaviour, and how these mechanisms may be influenced by certain personality traits that have been associated with engaging in online harmful behaviours. A further aim is to develop an intervention to prevent people from becoming cyberbullies and trolls.This project aims to expand our understanding of the links between personality traits with online harmful behaviours by using more implicit methods, such as monitoring participants' eye movements and electrical brain activity, to examine the cognitive and neural mechanisms underlying the processing of textbased scenarios describing harmful online acts. Eye-tracking enables the researcher to examine the moment-to-moment cognitive processes underlying reading. Examiningelectrical brain activity using event-related potentials (ERPs) provides a direct indication of the neural mechanisms involved in language comprehension. Therefore these methodologies would allow us to examine why people with certain personality traits are more likely to engage in online harmful behaviour (e.g., due to deficits in processing moral or emotion-related information).