The current study examined gender-based harassment in early adolescence and the characteristics of individuals who perpetrate such harassment (specifically, experiences with witnessing gender-based harassment and gender identity). Students in seventh and eighth grade (n = 483; 247 girls, 236 boys) completed surveys containing measures of gender identity (perceived same and other-gender typicality, felt pressure to conform to gender norms, and gender contentedness), and questions about witnessing and perpetrating teasing, bullying, and rejection because of a peer’s gender typicality or atypicality. Results revealed that the more GBH an individual had previously witnessed in their classroom, the more likely they were to report perpetrating GBH themselves. Additionally, boys high in other-gender typicality reported perpetrating more GBH than boys low in other-gender typicality. For girls, same-gender typicality interacted with felt pressure to conform to gender norms to predict GBH perpetration. For girls low in felt pressure, same-gender typicality negatively predicted GBH perpetration. For girls high in felt pressure, same-gender typicality positively predicted GBH perpetration.

Overweight and obesity are important public health issues in the United States with more than 60% of US adults overweight or obese. The social consequences of being overweight and obese are serious and pervasive. Individuals who are overweight and obese are often the targets of bias and stigma and thus susceptible to negative attitudes. Obesity and weight stigma have been linked to low self-esteem, higher rates of depressive symptoms, body dissatisfaction and poor psychological adjustment. Although weight stigma is a problem in the general population, it is more consequential among adolescents due to mental and physical developmental changes. Therefore college students were used in this study because they are considered older adolescent (ages 18-21). The goals of this study were to examine the association between weight status, weight stigma, self-esteem, body dissatisfaction and depressive symptoms. These associations were examined using multiple linear regression and linear meditational analysis. This study found (1) that overweight and obese individuals experience more stigma than their normal weight and underweight counterparts, (2) weight stigma has a negative effect on body dissatisfaction and depressive symptoms among overweight and obese individuals, (3) self-esteem differed based on perceived weight status, and (4) weight stigma differed among overweight and obese individuals based on self-esteem. Overall, the psychosocial outcomes of weight stigma are greater for individuals at higher levels of weight. It was found that state self-esteem strongly mediated the relationship between weight and stigma in the prediction of depressive symptoms and body dissatisfaction with the greatest impact for depressive symptoms. Low self-esteem and social support reveal that individuals with low self-esteem experience greater negative psychosocial outcomes as well as those with little or no support unable to buffer stigmatizing experiences and have greater negative psychosocial outcomes. In general, the consequences of weight stigma are as real as the medical consequences of obesity. We are called to protect the psychosocial health of college students.

The current study examined whether adolescents’ gender-based victimization experiences (i.e., teasing, bullying, and rejection) mediated the association between gender typicality and psychological well-being. The current study also investigated whether daily experiences with the three types of gender-based victimization negatively impacted adolescents’ immediate emotional reactions. Participants were 570 seventh and eighth grade students (49.5% boys, 50.5% girls). During four visits over the course of two weeks, participants completed surveys about their own gender typicality, their psychological well-being (i.e., depression, anxiety, self-esteem, and body image), their experiences with gender-based teasing, bullying, and rejection, and their emotional responses to experiencing this victimization. Results indicated that experiences with gender-based teasing, bullying, and rejection mediated the association between gender typicality and psychological well-being. In addition, adolescents with worse initial psychological well-being and who experienced more rejection reported experiencing more negative emotional responses after victimization. The implications of these findings are discussed.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--State University of New York at Binghamton, Department of Psychology, 2009. / Includes bibliographical references.

Body image refers to how individuals experience and perceive their bodies and can be affected by many factors, including peers and family members. Adolescence is a time when body image concerns are emphasized due to the bodily changes of puberty as well as increased internalization of cultural ideals and pressure to adhere to those ideals. Appearance-related teasing is one particular sociocultural factor that is gaining attention in the research field due to the emphasis placed on appearance during adolescence. The current study examined how appearance-related teasing by peers, parents, and siblings affected young adolescents' body image both directly and indirectly via social comparison. Further, because body image is a multidimensional construct and can include body dissatisfaction and drive for muscularity, the present study examined both of these constructs separately. I collected self-report questionnaires from 73 adolescent girls and 67 boys in middle school. I used Pearson correlations, linear regression, and mediation analyses to examine these hypotheses. First, I hypothesized that adolescents who were teased about their appearance by at least one of their parents would also have siblings who teased them. I found significant correlations between both fathers' and mothers' teasing and siblings' teasing, suggesting that parents are modeling teasing behaviors to their children. Second, I hypothesized that appearance-related teasing by fathers, mothers, peers, and siblings would each be associated with body dissatisfaction for girls and drive for muscularity for boys. My findings indicated that mothers', fathers', peers', and siblings' teasing predicted girls' body dissatisfaction and that mothers' and fathers' teasing predicted boys' drive for muscularity. Therefore, appearance-related teasing appears to be detrimental behavior that negatively influences adolescents' body image. Third, I hypothesized that appearance-related social comparison would mediate the relationship between appearance-related teasing from all sources and body dissatisfaction among girls and drive for muscularity among boys. Appearance-related social comparison fully mediated the relationship between fathers' teasing and girls' body dissatisfaction and the relationship between mothers' teasing and boys drive for muscularity. My findings suggest that boys and girls who were teased about their appearance were more likely to engage in social comparison, which negatively impacted their body image. Therapists need to be aware of the role family members' and peers' appearance-related teasing play in the development of adolescents' body image in order to address the occurrence and negative effects of teasing. In addition, researchers will need to conduct future studies further investigating appearance-related teasing by family members and peers and design intervention and prevention programs to address teasing and social comparison among the family and peer contexts.

Playful teasing is an ancient form of interaction that now occurs through computer-mediated communication. Teasing through short message service texting is examined conceptually and empirically in this dissertation. Teasing and computer-mediated communication are framed in the theoretical lens of social information processing in Chapter 1. The development of study materials and stimuli to examine teasing through texting, using iterative focus groups and online pilot data collection, are detailed in Chapter 2. The two studies that examined message features, social context, and rejection sensitivity in the context of playful teasing via texting are presented in Chapter 3. The influence of two commonly used message features (the “winking face with tongue” emoji and the “lol” initialism) on teasing text message interpretation, compared to unadorned texts, were investigated in Study 1. Rejection sensitivity was also examined in relation to interpretation. Texts with the emoji contributed to more positive interpretations compared to texts with the “lol” initialism or unadorned texts, providing the first evidence that emoji and initialism function differently in the context of teasing. The influence of social context (the sender-receiver relationship) on the interpretation of teasing texts, and the relationship between message interpretation and rejection sensitivity were examined in Study 2. Teasing texts sent by close friends were rated more positively than those from acquaintances. In both studies, higher rejection sensitivity was related to more negative interpretations of teasing texts, however, teasing texts with the emoji did not show this pattern. The studies’ findings are discussed in Chapter 4 in the context of social information processing theory and in practice, examining implications for individuals with rejection sensitivity and practices for text message composition.

Cruel teasing can be pernicious for targets' psychological health. In this thesis I examined the extent to which trait mindfulness might mitigate the negative psychological effects associated with cruel teasing. Correlation results confirmed cruel teasing history related significantly and directly, and mindfulness inversely, to poorer psychological health. Moderated regression analyses confirmed that among targets of frequent cruel teasing those with high levels of mindfulness did not evidence the detrimental psychological effects as did those low in mindfulness. Subsequent moderated regression analyses with cruel teasing history, mindfulness, and sexual identity status suggest that when people are low in mindfulness cruel teasing experiences affect their psychological health systematically regardless of sexual identity. Discussion focuses on the role of mindfulness for well-being, particularly in mitigating the negative effects of cruel teasing for psychological health, the individual and social implications for promoting mindfulness, and other directions for future research.

Appearance-related commentary can be positive or negative. Such commentary has been shown to negatively affect the mental health and well-being of women in a well-documented body of research. There is limited research on this topic pertaining to males. The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of appearance-related commentary in men. Results indicate that men who receive more negative commentary are more likely to experience eating pathology, body dissatisfaction, distress from commentary, and participate in compulsive exercising and appearancechange behaviors. However, men that receive positive commentary are likely to experience more positive outcomes, reporting less dissatisfaction and pathology but more appearance-change behaviors. It appears that men are affected by negative, appearance-related commentary in the same ways that women are, but that they experience positive commentary in a more direct and appropriate manner. Additionally, self-objectification, a covariate found to interact in similar relations with women, was not found to account for any of the variance between appearance-related feedback and outcomes.

Study One aimed to provide a current understanding of pupils’ attitudes towards people who are overweight and the prevalence and significance of weight-based unkindness in school. Methods: The study followed a mixed method, sequential qualitative and quantitative research design. Part One of the study used exploratory focus groups to ascertain that weight-based unkindness was a valid concern for children and young people, when compared against unkindness of other content. The focus group also ensured that the vignettes used in the survey (Part Two) were ecologically valid. Part Two included an existing measure of weight-stigma (attitude scale) and three sets of vignette-based questions to measure pupils’ perceptions of the frequency and severity of different incidents of unkindness. Part Two, was administered to 214 participants via a computerised survey. Results: The majority of pupils (61%) judged the overweight characters to be the least accepted. Participants also perceived significantly greater hurt, anger, embarrassment and humour to follow episodes of weight-based unkindness. Study Two aimed to better understand why, how and what is ‘different’ about pupils’ understanding of weight-based unkindness when compared to other types of unkindness. Methods: This study adopted an explorative approach to hear the lived experiences of six teachers and 29 children in two South West Primary Schools. Data was collected via semi-structured interviews, administered through focus groups (pupils) and paired interviews (teachers). Data was analysed using latent thematic analysis (Braun & Clarke, 2006). Results: The study found that pupils used the language of personal choice to attribute personal responsibility to overweight CYP, whilst teachers attributed this blame to their parents. Teachers espoused acceptance for the overweight whilst their behaviours implicitly reinforced the ‘thin-ideal’. Key findings are discussed from a theoretical perspective and their implication for supporting attitude change is highlighted.

This work deals with irony in popular television genre, entertaining talk show. The first partdefines the basic concepts which we work with (public communication, cooperative principle, politeness, irony). In the second part there is characterized the media dialogue, specifically talk show. The third part deals with particular public television's talk show - Všechnopárty. This thesis examines, on selected examples, how irony works in the show, how it manifests itself and how it is used by participants in talk show. The main finding is that irony in Všechnopárty is used as a communication game, mostly as a specific variant of irony called teasing (banter). It is a communication acting describable as pretended threatening of face of communication partner or of your own face, resp. communication which intentionally and transparently for the viewer violates Leech's courtesy maxima (most often tactfulness and modesty maxima).Teasing irony in Všechnopárty is used as a fun element increasing attractiveness of the show for spectators and participants of the talk show are usually knowingly involved in it. KEYWORDS communications, media dialogue, talk show, cooperative principle, politeness, irony, teasing