The true extent of the mental health implications of the COVID-19 pandemic are unclear, but early evidence suggests poorer mental health among those exposed to the pandemic. The Internet may have differential effects, by both connecting people with resources, or reinforce the constant checking of negative information. Moreover, locus of control becomes important in an uncontrollable pandemic. The current study aimed to examine whether exposure to COVID-19 would relate to greater symptoms of depression, anxiety and stress, and to examine the role of internet use and locus of control. Adults in the United States and five European countries (N = 1723) answered an online survey through the website Mturk. Results show elevated psychological symptoms among those who have become infected with COVID-19 or perceive themselves to be at high risk if infected. Experience using the Internet relates to fewer symptoms, but information seeking is associated with more symptoms. Internet social capital relates to fewer symptoms of depression. Having an external locus of control relates to greater symptoms. These findings suggest that public health officials need to focus on the mental health effects of the pandemic, and that internet use and locus of control could be targets to improve mental health in the population.

Personality factors, such as the Dark Tetrad personality factors (Machiavellianism, narcissism and sadism) relate to greater online trolling. Other personality factors, such as the Big Five Personality factors, honesty–humility and negative social potency, may also play a role in cyberbullying, which is an aggressive behavior similar to trolling. The purpose of this study was to predict Facebook trolling behavior based on personality factors. A total of 139 participants completed a survey on their online behavior and personality factors. Online trolling behavior positively correlated with sadism, psychopathy and Machiavellianism, and negatively correlated with agreeableness, conscientiousness and honesty–humility. A hierarchical linear regression showed that sadism, Machiavellianism and negative social potency were the only unique predictors of online trolling behavior. Trolling was unrelated to the frequency of Facebook use and the frequency of commenting. Enjoyment of trolling fully mediated the relationship between Machiavellianism and the trolling behavior. The results thus suggested that Facebook trolling behaviors may be motivated by enjoying the manipulation of others.

Agentic narcissism and vulnerable narcissism have been widely studied in relation to social media use. However, with research on communal narcissism in its early stages, the current study examines communal narcissism in relation to social media use. Specifically, the current study investigates whether communal narcissism is related to use and frequency of use of the popular social networking sites Instagram, Reddit and Twitter, and if communal narcissism relates to the importance of receiving feedback and to the quality-rating of self-presented content on those platforms. A total of 334 individuals were recruited from Amazon Mechanical Turk, with two-thirds being male (66.7%). A regression analysis showed that communal narcissism was related to increased use of Instagram and Twitter but not Reddit. Sharing content, the importance of feedback and better than average ratings had positive associations with communal narcissism. The relationship between communal narcissism and sharing on social media was fully mediated by wanting validation on social media and higher ratings of self-presented content. Communal narcissism had a notably strong relationship with wanting validation on all platforms and our results suggest that communal narcissism might be especially relevant in the context of social media use.

Fatigue is widespread in the population, particularly among working people. Exhaustion disorder (ED), a clinical manifestation of burnout, is common, but, after treatment, about one-third still experience fatigue and other physical symptoms. We propose that in some instances, fatigue as a persistent physical symptom (PPS) might be a more appropriate formulation of ED patients’ fatigue problems, and we suggest that ED patients who meet fatigue PPS criteria will differ from other ED patients in terms of psychological distress, non-fatigue PPSs and functional impairment. Questionnaires were sent to 10,956 members of a trade union of which 2479 (22.6%) responded. Of 1090 participants who met criteria for ED, 106 (9.7%) met criteria for fatigue as a PPS. Participants who met fatigue PPS criteria scored on average higher on measures of depression, anxiety and functional impairment and were more likely to have clinically significant scores. Moreover, they had 27 times higher odds of meeting other PPS subtypes and reported more non-fatigue PPS subtypes, suggesting a more complex health problem. Specific evidence-based interventions are available for both ED and PPSs, and therefore, it is crucial to accurately formulate the fatigue problem reported by patients to provide appropriate treatment.

Economic games have been shown to be an effective way to assess interpersonal impairment, which is associated with depression. Because trust is a key element in all social interaction, we tested whether trust, assessed with an economic game, is negatively associated with depressive symptoms. Participants (n = 163) took part in a distrust game and completed the Patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ-9), the Depression Anxiety and Stress Scales (DASS), and demographic questions. Multiple regression analysis estimated the relationship between the outcome of the distrust game and the cut-off scores of the PHQ-9, those of the DASS depression scale, and a depressive dichotomous score created using the cut-off scores from the PHQ-9 and the DASS depression subscale. The cut-off scores of the PHQ-9, the DASS depression scale, and the depressive dichotomous score separately predicted trust. The distrust game could be useful in further research into underlying mechanisms in interpersonal impairments and deficits in decision making in depression, which could lead to the development of interventions aimed at reducing the interpersonal impairments often associated with mental health.

The aim of the present study was to examine how negative emotion and sex affect self-generated errors as in fabrication set-up and later false recognition of those errors. In total, 120 university students volunteered to take part in the study. Participants were assigned at random into two equal sized groups (N = 60) depending on the type of event they received (negative emotional or neutral). We expected that fabrication and false recognition would be enhanced for the emotional event compared to the neutral one. We further hypothesized that both the willingness to fabricate and later false recognition would be enhanced for women compared with men. The results partly confirmed the hypotheses. The results showed that emotional valence (negative) affects both the willingness to fabricate about events that never took place, and the recognition of the fabrication as true at a later point. Women and men were equally likely to fabricate but women were more likely to recognize their fabrication, particularly for the emotional event. The results are discussed in the context of prior work.