Question

Provide a major review of psychological research literature in *your* selected area of online behaviour. - address psychological processes relevant to topic Anecdotal and other non-technical sources (i.e., based on personal accounts rather than fact or research) may be used to illustrate issues but not relied on to support or build cases. E.g. you may choose to investigate a claim of the form that "many internet users seem to believe X". You should not use anecdotal evidence to establish whether such claims are plausible. Where possible draw on published, reputable research that uses methods recognisable within the science of psychology, and that address psychological phenomena.

Selected area of online behaviour is TROLLING

you will need to ensure that your review identifies:

the major issues in relation to the topic
details of major controversies or competing interpretations of psychologically relevant phenomena
justified conclusions that readers should be aware of after reading your review.






Marking Criteria



Opening Statement 20% This is the mark assigned to the introductory of opening statement that informs the reader of the specific topic that is being reviewed:



Psychological processes are introduced with good clear definitions and the importance or relevance of the phenomena is introduced in a way that is compelling and anticipates the need for a review of psychological concepts without presupposing detailed knowledge on the part of the reader. The introductory statement suggests a new integrative or critical perspective on the phenomenon that motivate close attention to the following review AND introduces the topic with an example or narrative device that makes it easy for the reader to access the material reviewed and to understand the importance of the phenomemon.





Coverage 40%This is the mark assigned for the depth of coverage of the literature:



Multiple psychological papers are reviewed and there is no reliance on textbook and entirely online sources to support arguments about psychological processes. The review provides multiple insights without errors or imprecisions in a way that is convincingly novel.



Conclusion 20% This is the mark assigned for the integrating and summarising segment of the review:

There is a clear integrative conclusion that flows from the reviewed literature and demonstrates a very high level of insight and balance and suggests an original. plausible perspective on the issue.





Referencing 20% This is the mark assigned for the reference list and in line references:



There is an exceptionally extensive reference list (relative to the amount of literature in the field reviewed)

Answer 1

The purpose of this study is to map the literature on mental health and well-being of university students using metadata extracted from 5,561 journal articles indexed in the Web of Science database for the period 1975–2020. More specifically, this study uses bibliometric procedures to describe and visually represent the available literature on mental health and well-being in university students in terms of the growth trajectory, productivity, social structure, intellectual structure, and conceptual structure of the field over 45 years. Key findings of the study are that research on mental health and well-being in university students: (a) has experienced a steady growth over the last decades, especially since 2010; (b) is disseminated in a wide range of journals, mainly in the fields of psychology, psychiatry, and education research; (c) is published by scholars with diverse geographical background, although more than half of the publications are produced in the United States; (d) lies on a fragmented research community composed by multiple research groups with little interactions between them; (e) is relatively interdisciplinary and emerges from the convergence of research conducted in the behavioral and biomedical sciences; (f) tends to emphasize pathogenic approaches to mental health (i.e., mental illness); and (g) has mainly addressed seven research topics over the last 45 years: positive mental health, mental disorders, substance abuse, counseling, stigma, stress, and mental health measurement. The findings are discussed, and the implications for the future development of the field are highlighted.

Introduction

The entrance to the university marks a period of transition for young people. Through this transition, students face new challenges, such as making independent decisions about their lives and studies, adjusting to the academic demands of an ill-structured learning environment, and interacting with a diverse range of new people. In addition, many students must, often for the first time, leave their homes and distance themselves from their support networks (Cleary et al., 2011). These challenges can affect the mental health and well-being of higher education students. Indeed, there is evidence that a strain on mental health is placed on students once they start at the university, and although it decreases throughout their studies (Macaskill, 2013; Mey and Yin, 2015), it does not return to pre-university levels (Cooke et al., 2006; Bewick et al., 2010). Also, the probabilities of experiencing common psychological problems, such as depression, anxiety, and stress, increase throughout adolescence and reach a peak in early adulthood around age 25 (Kessler et al., 2007) which makes university students a particularly vulnerable population.

The interest in mental health and well-being in university students has grown exponentially in the last decades. This is likely due to three interrelated challenges. First, although university students report levels of mental health similar to their non-university counterparts (Blanco et al., 2008), recent studies suggest an increase and severity of mental problems and help-seeking behaviors in university students around the world in the last decade (Wong et al., 2006; Hunt and Eisenberg, 2010; Verger et al., 2010; Auerbach et al., 2018; Lipson et al., 2019). Some researchers refer to these trends as an emerging “mental health crisis” in higher education (Kadison and DiGeronimo, 2004; Evans et al., 2018). Second, psychological distress in early adulthood is associated with adverse short-term outcomes, such as poor college attendance, performance, engagement, and completion (e.g., King et al., 2006; Antaramian, 2015), and others in the long term, such as dysfunctional relationship (Kerr and Capaldi, 2011), recurrent mental health problems, university dropout, lower rates of employment, and reduced personal income (Fergusson et al., 2007). Third, there is a widespread agreement that higher education institutions offer unique opportunities to promote the mental health and well-being of young adults as they provide a single integrated setting that encompasses academic, professional, and social activities, along with health services and other support services (Eisenberg et al., 2009; Hunt and Eisenberg, 2010). However, the majority of university students experiencing mental health problems and low levels of well-being are not receiving treatment (Blanco et al., 2008; Eisenberg et al., 2011; Lipson et al., 2019) and, while universities continue to expand, there is a growing concern that the services available to provide support to students are not developing at an equivalent rate (Davy et al., 2012).