Above-and-below-average effects are well-known phenomena that arise when
comparing oneself to others. Kruger (1999) found that people rate themselves
as above average for easy abilities and below average for difficult
abilities. We conducted a successful pre-registered replication of Kruger’s
(1999) Study 1, the first demonstration of the core phenomenon
(N = 756, US MTurk workers). Extending the
replication to also include a between-subject design, we added two
conditions manipulating easy and difficult interpretations of the original
ability domains, and with an additional dependent variable measuring
perceived difficulty. We observed an above-average-effect in the easy
extension and below-average-effect in the difficult extension, compared to
the neutral replication condition. Both extension conditions were perceived
as less ambiguous than the original neutral condition. Overall, we conclude
strong empirical support for Kruger’s above-and-below-average effects, with
boundary conditions laid out in the extensions expanding both
generalizability and robustness of the phenomenon.
Bullying is closely associated with suicide. This study validates mixed evidence on whether young bullies, victims, bully-victims, and those uninvolved in bullying differ in suicidality, risk, protective factor profiles, and predictors of suicide. A total of 2004 Hong Kong adolescents and young adults completed the Hong Kong Online Survey on Youth Mental Health and Internet Usage in 2018. Bullies, victims, and bully victims, as opposed to the uninvolved, were found to possess higher tendencies of suicidal thoughts and behaviors. They had more distinct rather than overlapping risk and protective factor profiles yet shared psychological distress and diagnosis of a psychiatric disorder as common predictors of suicide. The results indicate that suicide screening assessments and training to detect common suicide predictors can benefit youngsters regardless of their bullying involvement. From the discussion, group-specific interventions include restorative justice approaches to promote reintegration and help-seeking among bullies, peer, and professional support programs geared towards lowering victim isolation and equipping gatekeepers such as teachers with skills to connect with both bullies and victims.
Much focus has been placed on mental health symptoms brought forth by the COVID-19 pandemic, yet limited discourse & evidence have evaluated how the closure of multiple venues under social distancing measures impacted people's patterns of help-seeking, which had traditionally been the very coping mechanism that buffered individuals from the consequences of those studied symptoms.
Using a two-wave (June-July 2019 and June-September 2020) panel data on youths aged 11-35 years old, the present study shows that under social distancing, a significant proportion of individuals who used to rely on their strong ties for support no longer sought help even after controlling for stress level changes & sociodemographic factors, and only those who were facing heavier distress ended up seeking their strong ties for support.
By simply closing off social contexts that had traditionally facilitated social support provision among strong ties and not providing people with alternative contexts, current social distancing measures appeared to have effectively increased the difficulty for many to receive social support, thereby leaving them vulnerable to mental health impacts of the pandemic. To prevent the current pandemic from turning into a mental health pandemic, the mantra "social distancing" should be revised to encourage society to remain socially close even while physically distant.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.