Cyberpsychology
Cyberpsychology is an emerging online term. So what is cyberpsychology? Follow me to read about cyberpsychology and I'm sure it will inspire you.
I. Network: as a psychological and behavioral existence of the ? Third space?
The use of tools for human evolution has always been the most important theme for philosophers and evolutionary researchers when exploring the dynamics of the progress of human civilization. The Internet is arguably the most complex and far-reaching tool in human history, and as such, it has far exceeded its significance and value as a human tool. It has not only comprehensively changed the way individuals behave, but also profoundly changed the way interpersonal interaction and group behavior is organized.
The Internet comprehensively transcends the traditional tools of mankind, as manifested in its *** enjoyability, intelligence and permeability. The essence of the role of the Internet is embodied in the exchange and *** enjoyment of individual ideas and group wisdom; the fundamental basis of the Internet on the effectiveness of human behavior is the impact of its intelligent attributes, which can partially replace the human to complete the very complex information processing functions; the Internet has such a wide range of impact on human behavior, because of the role of its way to be able to play a role in the various fields of human activity in the omnipresent penetration.
Bernard Stiegler, a contemporary French philosopher, wrote in his famous book, "The Internet is not a tool for the development of human behavior. Stigler, in his famous book Technology and Time, put forward a hypothesis from the perspective of technological evolution: ? There is a third class of beings between the inorganic objects of physics and the organic objects of biology, namely, the organicized inorganic objects belonging to the class of technological objects. These organicized inorganic objects are permeated by characteristic dynamics, which are related to both physical and biological dynamics, but cannot be reduced to the two? sum? or? product? In our view, the Internet is just such a ? third type of being? The Internet is firstly dependent on computer and network hardware, but its supporting and controlling software and the generation and operation of information content constitute a self-contained system with its own dynamic evolutionary mechanism. The so-called ? Cyberspace? is the third space between physical space and mental space. The so-called "cyberspace" is the "third space" between the physical space and the mental space.
Psychology in-depth Internet, it is to explore the third space in the human psychology and behavior of the way of existence and evolution of the law. With the rapid development of Internet technology and applications, network psychology is in the process of rapid breeding and formation, and will certainly become an important area of psychological science development of unlimited creativity. The development of technology has transformed cyberspace from a textual environment to a multimedia environment, and from human-computer interaction to social interaction, making it a more colorful virtual world. In this new social and psychological environment of the third space, new laws reflecting human behavioral styles and inner experiences, including related physiological reactions, behavioral manifestations, cognitive processes, and emotional experiences, are bound to be derived.
After entering the mobile Internet era, the popularity of personal terminals and network coverage such as cell phones, tablet computers, and so on, has brought about the convenience in time and space, and it is easy for people to see the cyberspace as an extension of their own thoughts and personalities at a deep psychological level. With the amplification effect produced by network interaction, people may even feel that their own thoughts and others' thoughts can be easily connected, or even mixed and reconstructed as one. The boundaries between individual thoughts are blurred, and fusion wisdom is becoming a new form of existence and expression in the history of human thought, and is also rewriting the history of human thought. Changes in human behavioral patterns occurring from the many areas of human production and life will also be continuous. Exploring such changes and their effects at the level of human behavioral patterns is a research problem as exciting and challenging as the Web itself.
II. Psychological Properties of Cyberspace: A Basis for Behavioral Reconstruction
For individual mental activities, the psychological properties of cyberspace are embodied in the basic spatial, temporal, interpersonal, and egoic properties, which correspond to the transversal, asynchronous, anonymous, and de-inhibited nature of cyberspace, respectively. In terms of the attributes of human behavior, these four attributes are also new attributes of human behavior brought about by the combination of the network and human beings, which are not available in traditional environments and spaces. These new properties are the baseline for re-examining and analyzing the structure of human behavior in the network environment.
Spanning
The spanning nature of the network is reflected in the spanning of spatial distance, and the influence of spatial distance factors on behavior is greatly reduced in cyberspace. Convenient multimedia delivery in the network allows people to interact and connect across geospatial barriers and physical barriers, including information sharing and exchange, commodity trading, and emotional connection. Such convenience on the one hand expands the breadth of an individual's life, allowing him or her to obtain goods, information, or interpersonal relationships that were previously unavailable; on the other hand, it also changes the individual's orientation towards his or her relationship with the world, allowing him or her to deal with work- and life-related matters anytime, anywhere, and allowing the self-perception to have a greater scope of influence. Therefore, on the one hand, transversality makes individuals no longer confined to the division of physical space, which brings great convenience to life, and on the other hand, it also invariably expands the scope of individual's psychological space and behavior.
Asynchronicity
In reality, interpersonal communication and interaction are basically synchronized. But one of the major features of the Internet is precisely the provision of asynchronous communication through e-mail, forums, personal homepages, blogs and even instant messaging tools. Asynchronous communication, although partly less timely, provides individuals with more optionality and control. Individuals can terminate or start communication at any time based on this feature; at the same time, it also gives individuals enough time and space to choose how to respond without worrying about the possibility of making mistakes due to panic, bringing interpersonal damage; asynchronicity allows individuals to carry out multiple social interactions at the same time, and to feel more controllability and autonomy in communication. More importantly, asynchronicity is based on network storage technology, which can form a huge amount of group intelligence with multiple forms of big data. Individuals can mentally face the presence of group intelligence at any time, extracting information or contributing their own creations. Asynchronicity allows the relationship between the individual and human intelligence activities to change, which is important for the evolutionary development of human intelligence and the progress of civilization activities.
Anonymity
Anonymity refers to the fact that individuals can hide their personal characteristics in cyberspace, including gender and identity information, appearance characteristics and even personality tendencies, reflecting a new way of interpersonal interaction characterized by a new way of behavior. Individuals can change their personal characteristics at will in cyberspace, and they can also control when and to what extent they reveal their personality information. The anonymity of the Internet is particularly attractive to adolescents in the period of self-identity development, enabling them to use the Internet to conduct self-identity experiments and contributing to the exploration and acquisition of their self-identity. At the same time, such characteristics can be selectively presented to those who are limited in reality by their external characteristics, thus facilitating relationship building.
Deinhibition
According to Zimbardo, disinhibition can be defined as a behavior that is constrained by self-consciousness, awareness of social influences, and concern about public perception. According to this definition, disinhibition can be described as a lack of these factors; or, from the opposite perspective, disinhibition can be seen as a diminished sense of public ****, which leads to a reduced concern for the perceptions of others. And the anonymity techniques and behavioral patterns in the online environment bring about the ? de-inhibition effect? The effect of this characteristic may manifest itself in two directions: one is that people may use it to display unpleasant actions or emotions, usually behaviors such as verbally abusing others or committing cyberbullying; the other scenario is that it may allow people to honestly and openly face certain personal issues that cannot be discussed in face-to-face interactions. As a result of de-inhibition, individuals are then likely to make stranger and more unique statements, present a more standardized costume, share unique insights or experiences, and even share their lives, etc., in the network. This kind of online? s sunshine? and? show? s demonstrative nature has become a characteristic of network behavior.
The above four psychological properties of cyberspace can be used as basic dimensions for describing online behavior. When a behavior is placed in this system of properties, we can see more clearly the characteristics and differences of behaviors in the network, and understand the interconnections of behaviors in the network more y.
Three types of psychological and behavioral research on the Internet: a reconstruction of the behavioral research system
Gosling and Mason classify Internet research in psychology into three categories: (1) translational research, which refers to the application of traditional psychological research methods to the Internet, such as online surveys; (2) phenomenological research, which refers to research on behaviors motivated by the Internet-inspired or Internet-based behaviors, e.g., cyberbullying; and (3) emergent type of research, which refers to the use of new methods to study existing topics, e.g., rumors. This categorization clearly shows the value of the Internet for psychological research, especially the methodological value.
From a more macroscopic point of view of the relationship between the Internet and psychological research, research in cyberpsychology can be categorized into three types: research based on the Internet, research originating from the Internet, and research melting into the Internet. This classification is actually a reconstruction of the category of human behavior based on the Internet. Network-based research? refers to the use of the Internet as a tool and method for studying human psychology and behavior, and as a platform for collecting data and testing models, such as conducting online surveys and online assessments.
? Research originating from the Web? refers to the view of the network as a factor affecting human psychology and behavior, is based on the traditional psychological perspective to examine what impact network use has on human psychology and behavior. The Internet is a brand-new influencing factor in the evolution of human behavior, capable of influencing human behavior in all aspects, from the basic mechanism of discourse processing to the infinite possibilities of group intelligence, the Internet is changing the process of human behavior evolution. Network-derived research aims to explore the mechanisms by which networks change behavior.
? Network-originated research? refers to the network as an independent space that can host and display human psychological activities and behavioral performance, to explore the unique psychological and behavioral laws of individuals and groups in cyberspace, as well as the interaction of psychological and behavioral inside and outside the network, which includes interpersonal relationships in social networking sites, reflecting the style of network self-expression? This kind of research includes interpersonal relationships in social networking sites, online self-expression style?
These three types of research have reconstructed the network and behavior from different starting points and behavioral levels. Such a research system of behavioral reconstruction can help to explore more systematically and y the different attributes and characteristics of behavior in the network era.
Developing Cyberpsychology: The Field Practice of Behavioral Reconstruction
Cyberpsychology refers to the field of psychology or the branch of psychology that researches on the psychology and behavioral laws of people in the use of the Internet, and from the beginning of the birth of cyberpsychology to the present flourishing development, cyberpsychology has gone through a process of constant revision in defining and reconstructing the behavior. A process of constant revision.
In 1984, Sherry Turkle published Second Life: Computers and the Human Spirit, which can be considered the first academic work to systematically explore the relationship between computer technology and humans. After that, Elwork and Gutkin proposed behavioral science research in the computer age, and a series of studies further explored the related research methodology, and the research field was also expanded, from educational psychology, information processing, to emotional management and mental health, all involved. 1985, Computers in Human Behavior was founded, and began to publish the journal In 1985, the journal Computers in Human Behavior was founded, and began to publish research papers related to computers, networks, and human behavior, which marked the importance and recognition of cyberpsychology in the academic world.
To date, more than 20 academic journals have published papers on cyberpsychology and behavior. The number of publications per year is in the thousands, and its influence is increasing. Yan and Zheng use the developmental stages of an individual's life as a metaphor for the development of cyberpsychology, arguing that cyberpsychology is currently in the? Adolescence. stage. This is because, on the one hand, the field has been developing for more than two decades. Childhood period, has developed the basic knowledge and methodological basis, with the basic ability to transition from childhood to adolescence; but on the other hand, it is not yet fully mature intellectually, and has not yet been widely recognized as an independent branch of the discipline, and still has a broad space and prospects for development in the future.
Among all the research topics in cyberpsychology, there are some that have received particular attention from researchers and the public, including (1) new problem behaviors such as cyberaddiction and cyberbullying that have emerged due to the rapid spread of the Internet, which have attracted the attention of researchers, educators, and clinicians because of their high incidence among the younger generation and the possible existence of unique mechanisms. ; (2) popular network function use behaviors such as online social networking, online games, online trading, and online pornography are currently the most concerned behaviors among network use behaviors due to their large use groups, huge market revenue and industrial chain, and potential high-risk addiction tendencies, from their behavioral characteristics to their impact on individuals; (3) teaching and learning in the context of the network not only allows traditional teaching interaction can be expanded, and a variety of new online learning methods have been developed, so what unique characteristics exist in the process of teaching and learning in the network, how to maximize the effect of network teaching and learning, and what factors may promote learning, etc. have aroused the interest of researchers and teaching practitioners; (4) the use of network platforms to actively expand the existing psychological services to the community, including how to use traditional psychological counseling through the network platform to make the social services more accessible to individuals. The use of network platforms to actively expand the existing psychology service function of society, including how to make the traditional psychological counseling network platform so that more people benefit, how to combine network technology and information technology to maximize the effect of mental health education and intervention and other issues have become a research hotspot.
Domestic research on cyberpsychology started late. 2011, China's first Ministry of Education Key Laboratory of Adolescent Cyberpsychology and Behavior passed the preparatory demonstration at Huazhong Normal University. The Chinese Psychological Association has been formally established? The Chinese Psychological Association has formally organized a branch of cyber psychology. At present, the study of network psychology has become a new hot branch of psychology research in China.
V. Challenges and Opportunities of Cyberpsychology
Two aspects of the need to make cyberpsychology research is full of vitality. On the one hand, the existing psychological science knowledge used in the network environment needs to be tested and transformed, the traditional psychological knowledge and technology can be strengthened and improved; on the other hand, people's network behavior shows some new phenomena different from the real behavior, the need to put forward a new psychological concepts and theories to explain the formation of a new theoretical and technical system.
The research content of cyberpsychology needs to be y integrated with traditional psychology
The relationship between cyberpsychology and traditional psychology research is a major challenge for cyberpsychology research. On the one hand, many traditional psychology research topics, research methods and paradigms can be transplanted into the research of network psychology, providing a large number of research topics and methodological basis for network psychology. On the other hand, these traditional research topics have their unique characteristics and significance in the network. There are also differences in the measurement of corresponding research variables and the impact on individual development and adaptation. Taking cyberbullying as an example, traditional bullying is characterized by the obvious bullying of the strong over the weak, and both the bully and the bullied exist in a specific physical space, which is relatively clear. In contrast, the relationship between the strong and the weak between cyberbullying and the bullied becomes more ambiguous, and the bullied may not know who the bullies are, and a single bully can even be bullied by hundreds or thousands of people. At the same time, due to the anonymity and wide dissemination of the Internet, the impact of cyberbullying can have a significant impact on the bullied and their families in a short period of time.
Therefore, traditional research themes and variables cannot simply be transplanted into the network, and the measurement of research variables, the collection of data, the characteristics and impact after-effects of the variables, and the unique significance and value of the corresponding variables in the network are all worthy of serious exploration and reflection. According to the existing research themes, literature and methods of network psychology, the following aspects may need to be explored in depth regarding the relationship between network psychology research and traditional psychology research.
First, are the cyberpsychological variables uniquely ? network? attributes and characteristics. Second, how do network psychological variables relate to their traditional psychological counterparts. Again, whether the measurement of web-based psychological themes and variables is reliable and credible. Finally, what is the unique value and significance of network psychological variables? Can unique research themes in the Web be further explored and discovered in addition to traditional psychological variables and research themes?
In short, the unique charm and potential characteristics of the network and its impact should be y explored under the premise of clarifying the core connotation of network psychological themes and variables.
Behavioral Complexity and Methodological Challenges Brought about by the Dual Development of Network Technology and Behavioral Subjects
Network technology is changing day by day, and individuals and groups of different ages as behavioral subjects are also growing up and showing changes and differences. While the Internet has comprehensively changed the lives of contemporary people, it also serves as an environmental space that is shaping or changing the growth of the younger generation. The group of people who have been in the online environment from birth and have been using the Internet along with their individual growth are called ? digital natives? and those who have grown up to a certain point before they start using the Internet are called "digital immigrants". digital immigrants. The degree and pattern of behavioral shaping in such an environment can vary from group to group. Therefore, it is of great theoretical and practical significance to explore the changes and development of human psychology and behavior in the network as the network changes.
The evolution of the Web itself has affected people in different ways. Before the internet was so popular, individuals might have been able to make sense of the internet as a new? virtual? platform to construct a different self, and there was little overlap between an individual's online and offline social circles, which facilitated the exploration and enhancement of an individual's online identity and personality. However, as the Internet penetration rate increases year by year, the boundaries between online and offline become more and more blurred, and for most individuals, online interactions may only be an expansion and extension of their offline interactions, and individuals may no longer seek to re-establish and shape a different personality and identity in the Internet from that of their offline counterparts. Thus, with the development of the Internet and the depth of research, there is increasing evidence of the unity of individuals' self-presentation and personality expression both online and offline.
There may be differences in the impact of the Web on digital natives and digital immigrants, and the impact of the Web on post?60?to?00? The impact of the internet varies across generations. Sociocultural theory suggests that individuals develop through the tools provided by culture. Different peers are influenced by the socio-cultural influences of their respective generations, and there are significant differences in their reliance on and use of online technology as a tool. For example, it has been found that people's online social circles gradually shrink with age, and the number of friends on older people's social networking sites is significantly less than that of younger people; at the same time, the majority of people on older people's social networking sites are real-life friends, while a significant portion of friends on younger people's social networking sites are strangers or people they are less familiar with. Comparing the differences in Internet use across peers and its impact on their development and life adaptations is an urgent topic in the field of cyberpsychology.
At the same time, the way people use the Web is changing as Web technologies evolve. To some extent, some early (e.g., a decade ago) findings may not be appropriate for today's research situation, and may even be diametrically opposed to current findings. Taking the use of social networking sites as an example, early users may have used social networking sites to establish a lot of new relationships, but on the whole, the number of friends in social networking sites was not too high, and individuals did not neglect offline social interactions because of their investment in social networking sites. Therefore, the use of social networking sites may have reduced individuals' loneliness and enhanced their well-being. However, as social networking sites play an increasingly important role in people's lives, many individuals may become more passive in their use of social networking sites and neglect offline relationship building and development due to online social interactions, and thus the use of social networking sites may reduce individuals' well-being. Therefore, early findings should not be blindly fetishized and caution should be exercised as to whether current findings can be generalized to a few years down the road. This is one of the major challenges of the knowledge life cycle facing cyberpsychology. Some of the contradictory findings in the field of cyberpsychology can be analyzed and explained from the perspective of the development of network technology itself.
The development of cyberpsychology faces the challenge of research ethics
Psychology research is mostly conducted with human subjects, and the ethical issues of the research have always been of great concern and controversial. The ethical issues in cyberpsychology research are a major challenge in this field. On the one hand, the lower environmental and experimental control of online platforms, and the difficulty of identifying participants, have brought about a series of ethical problems. On the other hand, cyberspace has gradually become an important infrastructure for maintaining the normal functioning of the state and society, and has become the fifth-dimensional national security field beyond land, sea, sky, and space, and the impact of attacks, sabotage, steganography, and sensing activities targeting cyberspace has become increasingly significant, and cyberspace security has become one of the important components of national security. How to carry out large-scale network data analysis and research without affecting the network network network cultural security and network information security is also an ethical challenge facing cyber psychology.
At the same time, big data has become a hot word in the field of information science, including psychology. Precisely because big data is closely related to individual behavior, this has also led to the development of big data to a stage where it is in conflict with the privacy protection needs of citizens. In the game of big data and privacy, we can learn from the problems and experiences of the United States and save for a rainy day, before the abuse of big data becomes a catastrophe to effectively monitor and control the development of big data under the premise of balancing big data and privacy protection. As a scientific researcher, although the data obtained is only used for research, but only for research is obviously not a green pass. The complexity of the network big data management has brought certain challenges, which data can be open and **** enjoy, which data can not be used for research need to have a clear regulation and management approach.
Opportunities for cyberpsychological research brought about by information and network technologies
Internet applications are sensitive to changes in emerging technological tools, and at the same time are constantly shaping new manifestations of psychology and behavior. Big data and smartphones are becoming two of the major tools influencing the future of cyberpsychological research. The existence of big data allows psychology to reduce its reliance on physical sample data and to present individual psychological and behavioral patterns more objectively, and even to extract and organize existing results from a higher level. And the sensing capabilities of smartphones are able to detect the surrounding environment (noise, light, other people around) and record an individual's behavior online as well as offline, providing timely and automatic adjustments. This can balance the bias of online big data and fulfill the expectation of evaluative mobility. Big data and mobile connectivity technologies present significant opportunities for psychology and the social sciences as a whole in the study of the continuum of individual behavior and the large-scale properties of group behavior.
Bottlenecks and innovations in cyberpsychology
Throughout the study of cyberpsychology at home and abroad, especially in China, there are relatively obvious bottlenecks, which are manifested in the following aspects.
First, the research theme is relatively narrow. In the international field of network behavior research, Facebook Psychology almost occupies the network psychology ? half of the river mountain? For the country, Internet addiction has been the most active and prolific topic in the field of cyberpsychology. The extensive attention paid to these fields partly explains their own importance and the degree of social concern, extensive and in-depth research is not to be faulted, and there is still a lot of room for research to expand in these two fields. However, the diversity of research topics in the field of network psychology is not reflected enough, ? A hundred flowers blossom, a hundred schools of thought contend? The situation needs to be further developed.
Second, the value orientation is relatively single. A large number of researchers have focused on the negative impact of online media on youth development (e.g., Internet addiction, cyberbullying, etc.), and few studies have explored the positive value and significance of the Internet. The influence of the Internet on human beings is a double-edged sword, there are advantages and disadvantages, and there are positive effects and negative after-effects. Researchers should explore the two sides of the Internet from a more objective perspective.
Finally, cyberpsychology has developed with the development of the Internet and computing science and technology, the development of technology is relatively fast, but the pace of updating research is relatively slow, and there is an obvious lag in the current research of cyberpsychology. This is limited by the objective environment and conditions, but also puts forward higher requirements for researchers of network psychology. Researchers in cyberpsychology should pay attention to the current hot topics and themes of the Internet on the one hand, but also pay attention to the themes or media platforms that may become more prominent in the next few years, and try to realize? the evolution of consciousness and technology*** together. Of course, a higher requirement is that researchers in cyberpsychology can extract as much as possible from the development of the Internet some unchanged or less changed elements, and explore the impact of these elements on human psychology and behavior.
The essential role of the Internet is reflected in the exchange and ****enjoyment of individual ideas and group wisdom. The fundamental basis of the influence of the Internet on the effectiveness of human behavior lies in its intelligent attributes. With the ? Internet+? era, many aspects of people's social life will be greatly transformed, the network will further penetrate into all levels and areas of human life. These aspects are the basis for innovative research in network psychology and the direction of future efforts. Themes such as the formation mechanism of collective intelligence in the network, the psychological motivation of network resource **** enjoyment, the mathematical model of network economic behavior, network search keywords and personality expression, network intelligence and human intellectual development, etc. should receive further attention.
;