Mental health memes: beneficial or aversive in relation to psychiatric symptoms?

Composed of an image and short caption, internet memes visually depict an element of a culture or behavioural system, in a humorous way that contextually relates to a particular demographic. Typically, they are rapidly shared, with many variations of the original. Online interaction with internet memes has become a crucial psychosocial aspect of digital culture, which have recently become well established in popular media by consistently maintaining culturally topical and socially salient references.

Internet memes related to the COVID-19 pandemic as a potential coping mechanism for anxiety.

This study examined whether significantly anxious individuals differed from non-anxious individuals in their perceptual ratings of internet memes related to the Covid-19 pandemic, whilst considering the mediating role of emotion regulation. Eighty individuals presenting clinically significant anxiety symptoms (indicating ≥ 15 on the GAD-7) and 80 non-anxious controls (indicating ≤ 4) rated the emotional valance, humour, relatability, shareability, and offensiveness of 45 Covid-19 internet memes. A measure of emotion regulation difficulties was also completed.

Eye tracking and attentional bias for depressive internet memes in depression.

Previous research highlights the potential benefits of engaging with depressive internet memes for those experiencing symptoms of depression. This study aimed to determine whether: compared to non-depressed controls, individuals experiencing depressive symptoms were quicker to orient and maintain overall attention for internet memes depicting depressive content relative to neutral memes. N = 21 individuals were grouped based on the severity of reported depression symptoms using the PhQ-9.

Emotion dysregulation mediates the relationship between nightmares and psychotic experiences: results from a student population.

Sleep disruption is commonly associated with psychotic experiences. While sparse, the literature to date highlights nightmares and related distress as prominent risk factors for psychosis in students. We aimed to further explore the relationship between specific nightmare symptoms and psychotic experiences in university students while examining the mediating role of emotion dysregulation.

Exploratory study on the role of emotion regulation in perceived valence, humour, and beneficial use of depressive internet memes in depression.

This study examined whether individuals experiencing significant depressive symptoms would differ from non-depressed controls in their interpretation of internet memes related to depression, whilst incorporating the mediating role of emotion regulation difficulty. Forty-three individuals presenting clinically significant depressive symptoms (indicating ≥15 on the PHQ-9) and 56 non-depressed controls (indicating ≤4) rated the emotional valance, humour, relatability, shareability, and mood improving potential of 32 depressive and control (depicting general neutral or positive social commentaries) internet memes. Measures of depression and emotion dysregulation were also completed.

Investigating the role of executive attentional control to self-harm in a non-clinical cohort with borderline personality features.

Self-injurious behavior (or self-harm) is a frequently reported maladaptive behavior in the general population and a key feature of borderline personality disorder (BPD). Poor affect regulation is strongly linked to a propensity to self-harm, is a core component of BPD, and is linked with reduced attentional control abilities. The idea that attentional control difficulties may provide a link between BPD, negative affect and self-harm has yet to be established, however.

Self-esteem and other-esteem in college students with borderline and avoidant personality disorder features: An experimental vignette study.

An experimental study investigated self-esteem and other-esteem responses to either fully supportive or less supportive interpersonal feedback in college students with avoidant and borderline personality disorder features (APD and BPD respectively). Disturbances in self-esteem and in evaluations of others are central to definitions of both APD and BPD, but the extent to which such interpersonal appraisals are responsive to contextual features, such as evaluative feedback from others, is not yet clear. In theory, we would expect that individuals with pronounced PD features would show more inflexible and more negative self-evaluations and others- evaluations than those without PD features.