Vanessa Gordon’s research while affiliated with University of Duisburg-Essen and other places

Background REBOUND is a novel media-based life skills and risk education programme developed for 14- to 25-year olds in school, university or youth group settings. This paper outlines the programme’s rationale, curriculum and implementation. It provides information of relevance to researchers, programme developers and policymakers. Methods/design of the programme The programme is based on a form of cooperative learning. It is facilitated by teachers and other professionals and supported by peer mentors. The curriculum is centred around ‘explorative film work’ with short films/videos depicting risk behaviours and life challenges. The methodology aims to promote risk competence and positive norm-building in social groups. The programme consists of a course comprising 16 units, 10 of which focus on psychosocial strength (resilience) and 6 on risks of alcohol and other drugs. Implementation is supported by a mentoring system, a voluntary eLearning component and tools for organisational development. The programme has been evaluated with about 1,000 students in the intervention group of a controlled study using a mixed-method design involving structured stakeholder and peer feedback. Discussion REBOUND is one of the few health promotion/prevention programmes to have been entirely developed together with those (students, facilitators, school administrators) for whom the programme is intended.

Status updates represent a new form of one-to-many communication which is widely used among members of social networking sites (SNS). The present study investigated the question of who in particular uses the self-presentational opportunities of this feature and which users engage in riskier self-disclosures than others. Combining questionnaire and content analysis, we related self-reports on users’ personality traits (extraversion, narcissism, self-efficacy, need to belong, need for popularity) to the actual use of Facebook status updates. Results showed that higher degrees of narcissism led to deeper self-disclosures and more self-promotional content within these messages. Users with higher need to belong disclosed more intimate information in status updates, while perceived efficacy of self-presentation was negatively related to the mass suitability of postings. Findings extend prior research on personality and SNS usage with regard to dynamic features and content differences in online self-presentation.