Today, many individuals read the daily news from social media platforms. Research has shown that news with negative valence might influence the well-being of individuals. Existing research that examined the impact of headlines on individuals’ well-being has primarily focused on examining the positive or negative polarity of words used in the headlines. In the present study, we adopt a different approach and ask participants to categorize the headlines themselves based on the emotions they experienced while reading them and how their choice impacts their well-being. A total of 306 participants were presented with 40 headlines from main news sites that were considered popular based on the number of public reactions. Participants had to rate their emotional experience of the headlines following five emotional states (i.e., happiness, anger, sadness, fear, and interest). Emotion regulation strategies and resilience were also measured. In line with our hypotheses, we found that participants reported experiencing negative emotions more intensively while reading the headlines. Emotion regulation was not found to influence the emotional states of individuals, whereas resilience did. These findings highlight that individuals can experience heightened emotions without reading the entire news story. This effect was observed regardless of the headline’s emotional valence (i.e., positive, negative, or neutral). Furthermore, our study highlights the critical role of interest as a factor in news consumption. Interest significantly affects individuals’ engagement and reactions to headlines, regardless of valence. The findings underscore the complex interplay between headline content and reader engagement and stress the need for further research into how headlines are presented to protect individuals from potential emotional costs.

The article herein examines the multifaceted challenges of misinformation and disinformation in the media landscape, with a focus on strategies to enhance media literacy among adults. The primary objective of this study is to examine the prevalence, characteristics, and impact of disinformation and misinformation in media within the internet society, ultimately contributing to developing targeted educational programs and policy recommendations. To achieve this, a qualitative research design was carried out to explore the views and the broader societal experiences in media-related challenges. The research design utilized thematic analysis of data collected from focus groups and expert interviews, ensuring the representation of diverse perspectives. By focusing on the information landscape in Cyprus and Greece, the present article aims to address the unique local challenges and contribute to the literature gap. The findings reveal the critical importance of tailored educational programs and the cultivation of critical thinking skills in fostering media literacy and combating false information in an effort to put together in a unique study the various experiences, opinions, and needs of individuals who seek to navigate successfully in an information-rich world.

The current study investigates the grammatical development of toddlers acquiring Cypriot Greek as their first language. The MacArthur-Bates Communicative Development Inventory (CDI) was used to collect data from parents of children between 18 and 30 months of age. This is the first large-scale study presenting information on the grammatical development of children in Cyprus, as well as comparisons between grammatical development and other aspects of language development, such as lexical development. The data included information on several grammatical features, such as the formation of plural in nouns, or person in verbs, as well as children's utterance length (MLU3-w) as a measure of morphosyntactic abilities. The analysis showed a significant increase with age in children's grammatical complexity (the number of grammatical features produced by children), length of utterance as well as children's lexicons, with an overall advantage of girls over boys. Additionally, the different grammatical features were shown to develop at different times and pace, with an interesting increase at the end of the second and the beginning of the third year. Overall grammatical development is shown to be ‘piecemeal’, supporting usage-based accounts of morphological development.

Objectives: This study aimed to adapt and validate the Parents’ Evaluation of Aural/Oral Performance of Children (PEACH) questionnaire for Greek-speaking children aged 1 to 6 years. Key objectives included assessing the PEACH questionnaire’s reliability and validity and determining if children from Greece and Cyprus exhibit similar auditory performance, which would suggest they belong to a comparable population. Methods: This cross-sectional study involved 87 children from monolingual Greek-speaking households in Greece (N = 38) and Cyprus (N = 49), all full-term with typical hearing and no cognitive or language deficits. The children’s ages ranged from 12 to 82 months. The study used an independent samples t-test to compare PEACH Overall Scores between Greek and Greek–Cypriot children. Internal consistency was assessed with Cronbach’s alpha and item-total correlations for each country. Additionally, regression models examined the relationship between PEACH scores and age. Results: Greek–Cypriot children had significantly higher PEACH scores (92.09%) than Greek children (86.71%), t(85) = 2.31, p = 0.023. The Cronbach’s alpha for the Greek sample was 0.92, indicating a strong internal consistency, while the Greek–Cypriot sample had a lower alpha of 0.79, with item-total correlations ranging from 0.16 to 0.75. Normative curves showed that auditory performance in the Greek sample increased sharply until 40 months, then plateaued until 60 months. In contrast, the Greek–Cypriot sample’s scores rose sharply until 25 months and plateaued by 40 months. Conclusions: The Greek-translated PEACH questionnaire demonstrated strong reliability and construct validity for Greek children, consistent with other language adaptations. However, the Greek–Cypriot sample did not achieve similar reliability, and differences in scores suggest potential cultural, linguistic, or environmental factors impacting auditory development. These findings emphasize the importance of regional adaptations in standardized assessments. Further research is recommended to explore factors contributing to these differences for more accurate assessments of Greek-speaking children.

Background: The COVID-19 pandemic underscored the importance of understanding the psychological factors associated with engagement in recommended health behaviours. This study examines how decision regret and conspiracy mentality relate to vaccination engagement and protective health behaviours during the later stages of the COVID-19 pandemic in Cyprus. Methods: A total of 325 Greek-speaking adults completed an online questionnaire that included demographic questions, the Decision Regret Scale (DRS), the Conspiracy Mentality Questionnaire (CMQ), and a COVID-19 Preventive Behaviours Questionnaire developed by the authors. Results: The findings showed that: (a) greater vaccination engagement and protective health behaviours were associated with lower levels of decision regret; and (b) conspiracy mentality was associated with vaccination engagement but not with protective health behaviours. Conclusions: The findings highlight the potential relevance of emotional processes such as decision regret and belief-related factors, such as conspiracy mentality, in relation to engagement with recommended health behaviours. These findings may help inform public health communication strategies aimed at supporting engagement in recommended health behaviours during future health crises.

The multicultural Cypriot society is called upon to face its increasing diversity and manage the relations between its inhabitants (locals and immigrants) for peaceful coexistence. The present study compared acculturation processes of Ιmmigrant students to those of local primary school students aged 11–12 years regarding social adjustment, ethnic identity and self-esteem. Results showed a stronger orientation toward their Country of Origin for both Cypriot and Ιmmigrant students regardless of the nationality of immigrants’. Furthermore, Cypriots and Ιmmigrant students had more group contact with their compatriots than children from other countries. Lastly, the strategies of acculturation and the stages of forming ethnic identity were correlated to Ιmmigrants’ self-esteem levels. The findings highlight the need for new directions in educational policies in the country. The educational system must become flexible and effectively adaptable to the recent changes to form the foundation of cultural coexistence of all the island’s inhabitants, ensuring social cohesion.