Factors associated with early adolescents’ anticipated emotional and behavioral responses to ambiguous teases on Facebook

• We examine early adolescents’ responses to ambiguous teases on Facebook.
• Females had a more negative emotional response to the teases than did males.
• Negative attitudes toward teases predicted a negative emotional response to teases.
• Negative experiences with teases predicted a negative emotional response to teases.
• A negative emotional response to teases predicted negative behavioral responses.

A total of 69 sixth- through eighth-grade students rated their experiences with antisocial and prosocial teases as well as their general attitudes toward teases. Subsequently, the participants read hard copies of four ambiguous teases, one at a time, posted on a simulation of “their” Facebook wall by four different, hypothetical acquaintances. After reading each tease, the participants were asked to complete a questionnaire that assessed their emotional and behavioral response to the tease. Consistent with Weiner, 1980 and Weiner, 1995 cognitive (attribution)–emotion–action model of motivated behavior, path analyses revealed that the participants’ negative experiences with teases and negative attitudes toward teases were predictive of a negative emotional response to the ambiguous teases on Facebook which, in turn, was predictive of various negative behavioral responses to the ambiguous teasers. Therefore, consistent with the prior finding of a hostile attribution bias in some children’s reactions to ambiguous face-to-face teases (Barnett, Barlett, Livengood, Murphy, & Brewton, 2010), the early adolescents in the present study with relatively negative experiences with and attitudes toward teases appear to display a hostile attribution bias whereby teases on Facebook with an uncertain intent are viewed as if they were meant to be antagonistic and antisocial.