Wayne A Warburton

Macquarie University · Department of Psychology

Many theories of development suggest that playing violent video games would not impact all adolescents the same way, yet empirical research is sparse. To date there have been no within-subjects analyses that examine which adolescents are most at risk for developing aggression after playing violent video games and under what context, and no longitud...

Introduction Characterised by both exploration and engagement in risky behaviours, late adolescence and emerging adulthood are periods of particular vulnerability to dysregulated behaviours. One such behaviour less well explored is that of problematic Internet pornography (IP) viewing, despite viewing explicit online material becoming increasingly...

A growing body of research suggests that free heterosexual internet pornography (IP) often depicts violent, coercive, and degrading acts by men against women. This has raised concerns that IP may be fostering the development of gendered, coercive, and aggressive sexualized beliefs and attitudes toward women, with the potential for these to influenc...

The viewing of Internet Pornography (IP) by young adults is a largely normative pastime but few studies have explored what type of IP they choose to view, why and how they make these choices and if this affects their sexual beliefs and behaviors. It is also unclear if there are specific emotional and sexual states associated with the decision to vi...

Attribution theory seeks to explain why an individual experiences a given emotion in a certain situation. This process occurs intrapersonally, with individuals seeking to identify the factors that led them to experience a given emotional state, with difficulties in this process potentially constituting a component of emotional dysregulation. It was...

Objectives A widely used measure of emotion dysregulation, the Difficulties in Emotion Regulation Scale (DERS), may insufficiently cover a number of potentially important aspects of emotional dysregulation. A new measure of emotional dysregulation, the Emotional Dysregulation Questionnaire (EDQ) was therefore developed based upon an eight‐factor mo...

The aim of this study was to examine trajectories of pathological video game symptoms over a 6-year period from adolescence to emerging adulthood. We also examined a number of predictors and outcomes for different trajectories. Participants included 385 adolescents (M age = 15.01 at the initial time point) who completed multiple questionnaires once...

A dialectical behaviour therapy (DBT) group has been conducted for a number of years at a public outpatient clinic for adolescents suffering with emotional regulation difficulties and their families. A detailed account of the rationale, design, and content of both the adolescent and parent groups are provided. Data from these groups adds to the lim...

There is increasing concern about family homelessness. Homeless mothers and their children are one of society’s most disadvantaged and at-risk populations. However, very little Australian research exploring mothers’ views on their homelessness experiences exists. Using semi-structured interviews with 14 mothers and four agency staff, this study exp...

Although links have been found between parents’ and teachers’ (caregivers’) attitudes about aggressive behavior, their responses to aggressive behaviour in children, and those children’s own use of aggressive behaviour, most research has focused on primary and secondary school contexts and has examined the influence of parents and teachers separate...

Violence in screen entertainment media (ie, television, film, video games, and the Internet), defined as depictions of characters (or players) trying to physically harm other characters (or players), is ubiquitous. The Workgroup on Media Violence and Violent Video Games reviewed numerous meta-analyses and other relevant research from the past 60 ye...

Cultural generality versus specificity of media violence effects on aggression was examined in seven countries (Australia, China, Croatia, Germany, Japan, Romania, the United States). Participants reported aggressive behaviors, media use habits, and several other known risk and protective factors for aggression. Across nations, exposure to violent...

A number of theories have been proposed to account for the development of borderline personality disorder (BPD). The biosocial model considers emotional dysregulation to be central to the disorder, caused in turn by an emotionally vulnerable child being raised in an invalidating environment. This aetiological model is potentially too broad, as many...

In responding to the published comments on our SPSSI Research Summary on Media Violence, we note that several key themes emerge. In assessing the media violence research evidence, it is more informative and less biased to draw conclusions based on the full range of findings than to emphasize findings from individual studies. Using the full range of...

This research examined differences in beliefs about the acceptability of aggression and behavioral responses to aggression of preschool-aged children. Two groups, identified from teacher ratings, participated in the research. One group of children exhibited relationally aggressive behaviors, and a comparison group was identified with non-aggressive...

For over seven decades social psychological theories advanced understanding of aggressive behavior. The most recent major model – the General Aggression Model (GAM) – integrates prior theories, thereby encompassing the broadest range of aggressive phenomena. GAM is built on research about factors within a person that predispose them to aggression;...

Media use among children has increased sharply in recent years, due, in part, to a significant increase in multimedia portable devices. On average, U.S. children aged 8-18 spend more than 7 hours a day engaging with media. Governments, professional bodies, and citizens have become increasingly concerned about the social and personal impact of media...

Children, from infancy through adolescence, now spend more time consuming media content than they do in school, with parents or engaging in any activity other than sleep. Parents, educators, and policy-makers are concerned, confused and overwhelmed, since the media we use and how we use them influence virtually every aspect of our lives. The Harva...

Research on mothers in child protection families has revealed that they often have a history of childhood abuse. Research has also shown that a considerable proportion of child maltreatment co-occurs with intimate partner violence (IPV) towards the mother. However, there is a dearth of research on the childhood histories and IPV victimization exper...

We summarize the main findings of Bushman, Gollwitzer, and Cruz (this issue), highlight its empirical contributions, and note interesting patterns and implications for future research. The results demonstrate the invalidity of the common claim that no consensus exists among experts on the reality of harmful media violence effects on children and ad...

We sought to test the Biosocial Theory of borderline personality disorder (BPD) that posits that borderline traits are due to emotional dysregulation, caused by the interaction between childhood emotional vulnerability and invaliding parenting. A total of 250 adults (76% female, median age = 32.06 years) from a nonclinical population completed self...

Young’s Schema Theory provides a theoretical framework that relates temperament, coping styles and Early Maladaptive Schemas to social anxiety and Social Anxiety Disorder (SAD). The current study explored the relationship between these variables in a sample of 360 non-clinical adults. Results indicated that individuals higher in social anxiety disp...

Although much is known about ‘parents’ in child protection families, very little research has specifically examined fathers in these families. The scant extant research indicates that child welfare workers in many countries tend to have negative stereotypes of these men, assuming them to be uncommitted and uninvolved parents, and unable to cease dr...

In this comment on Elson and Ferguson (2013), areas of agreement are noted in terms of the need to thoroughly and scientifically document the boundary conditions under which violent video games most impact players. However it is argued, in contrast to Elson and Ferguson, that violent media generally (and violent video games specifically) can and do...

Despite recent growth of research on the effects of prosocial media, processes underlying these effects are not well understood. Two studies explored theoretically relevant mediators and moderators of the effects of prosocial media on helping. Study 1 examined associations among prosocial- and violent-media use, empathy, and helping in samples from...

This literature review draws from a wide array of interdisciplinary research to argue that fathers need to be included in child welfare practice and research to the same extent as mothers. Social work and child maltreatment literature highlight that fathers are often overlooked and viewed more negatively than mothers in child welfare practice. Ther...

Five decades of research have shown clear links between exposure to violent visual media and subsequent aggression, however there has been little research that directly compares the effects of exposure to violent visual versus auditory media, or which has experimentally tested the effect of violent song lyrics with musical ‘tone’ held constant. In...

This paper profiles meta-cognitive (affect-dysregulation, empathy and identity-concerns) and interpersonal difficulties in both overt (ON) and covert (CN) narcissism. It explores mediation effects of meta-cognition in interpersonal difficulties. Participants (n=177) completed self-report measures of ON and CN, affect-dysregulation, empathy, identit...

This paper profiles meta-cognitive (affect-dysregulation, empathy and identity-concerns) and interper-sonal difficulties in both overt (ON) and covert (CN) narcissism. It explores mediation effects of meta-cog-nition in interpersonal difficulties. Participants (n = 177) completed self-report measures of ON and CN, affect-dysregulation, empathy, ide...

Recent research on social rejection has emphasised the power of its effects. Some accounts argue that such rejection causes evolutionary-based pain signals in the brain that override individual differences and situational constraints. This chapter reviews emerging evidence and recent data suggesting that both individual differences and situational...

Recent research suggests that negative schemas (i.e., core beliefs) that are not directly related to eating, shape and weight may play an important role in bulimia's manifestation (Jones, Harris & Leung, 2005). Since these schemas may be prevented from awareness due to defensive processes, subliminal stimulation may be an effective means for treatm...

When angered, alcohol and rumination increase aggression toward the source of a subsequent minor annoyance. Little is known about individual differences that moderate this phenomenon. One hundred university students (47 men, 53 women) were provoked and given either alcohol or placebo and subsequently induced to ruminate or engage in distraction. Pa...

Introduction “A man is hurt not so much by what happens to him as by his opinion of what happens.” Montaigne, 16th century As a rule, human beings neither seek nor enjoy the experience of pain. By definition, pain involves suffering, and given the choice, we would rather go through life without it. Fortunately, we have no such choice – fortunately,...

It is well established that exposure to violent visual media is associated with increases in aggressive thoughts, feelings and behaviours. However, research regarding the effects of exposure to violent music is more scarce and has returned inconsistent findings. In their review of the literature, Roberts, Christenson and Gentile (2003) suggested th...

There is a growing literature that links the narcissistic personality style with aggressive behaviour, but apart from ego-threat sensitivity, there are few factors that have been examined as potential mediators of this effect. In addition, most of the research to date has examined the more overt/grandiose aspects of narcissism, with almost no resea...

We hypothesized that increasing or decreasing levels of control in an ostracized individual could moderate aggressive responding to ostracism. Participants were either ostracized or included in a spontaneous game of toss, and then exposed to a series of blasts of aversive noise, the onsets over which they had either control or no control. Aggressio...

INTRODUCTION, In a recent investigation into the causes of 15 school shootings in the United States, Leary, Kowalski, Smith, and Phillips (2003) found that acute or chronic rejection in the form of ostracism, bullying, or romantic rejection was a significant factor in all but two cases, and concluded that these rejection experiences had motivated m...