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The COVID-19 pandemic changed school contexts and social opportunities dramatically for adolescents around the world. Thus, certain adolescents may have been more susceptible to the stress of the pandemic as a function of differences in schooling. We present data from 1256 United States adolescents (ages 14–16) to examine how the 2020–2021 school context (in-person, hybrid, or virtual) related to feelings of school satisfaction and success, social connection, mental health, and media use. We also examine differences as a function of gender identity.

Men seek help for problems less often and more hesitantly than women across a wide range of contexts. While there are many potential sources for this gender discrepancy, one possibility is that masculine attitudes and behaviors discourage help-seeking behaviors and create help-seeking barriers. As the superhero genre often changes over time to reflect current social attitudes, the current study explores patterns, contexts, and rewards of help-seeking behaviors portrayed by men in a genre of media frequently consumed by men: superhero films.

School liking shows clear associations with academic success, yet we know little about how it changes over levels of schooling, what predicts liking school at each level, or how attending alternative schools like Montessori might impact liking. To better understand school liking across time and education settings, we surveyed adults about how much they remember liking elementary, middle, and high school, and identified key school features that predicted higher school liking at each level.

This paper examines depictions of SES in Disney animated films to learn about the stereotypes of different socioeconomic status (SES) groups that these films reinforce or dispel. As Disney films are frequently watched by children, and may have important developmental implications for the internalization of stereotypes. Sixty-one animated Disney films were coded f (323 characters). Characters were coded for their SES and various roles and behaviors.

Although Montessori is the most common unconventional education model, no multi-state study has compared standardized test proficiency of Montessori schools with districts. Here we report on this for the 10 states/regions with the most public Montessori schools (n = 195). In 3rd grade, Montessori schools were less proficient in math but more proficient in ELA. In 8th grade they were also more proficient on ELA and showed a trend to greater proficiency in math.

Magical thinking describes beliefs and reasoning processes that defy generally accepted principles of logic and causality. Researchers have identified a link between strength of identification with a favorite sports team and superstition, an expression of magical thinking. Research on fans of fictional narratives has suggested magical thinking more broadly may play a role in being a fan. The authors posed the question, what is the link between sports fanship and two specific types of magical thinking: magical ideation and sympathetic magic?

Fans of fictional texts engage with the texts of which they are fans in ways that are powerful and complex. What motivates fans to attend to their preferred texts, however, is as yet unclear. In a survey of U.S. adults, participants answered questions about their fan behaviors, the degree to which they identify as fans, and the motives that drive their attention to their preferred texts. Results indicate that fans are motivated by both hedonic and eudaimonic motives, and that stronger motives are associated with stronger fan identification.

Vaccine misinformation online may contribute to the increase of anti-vaccine sentiment and vaccine-hesitant behaviors. Social network data was used to identify Twitter vaccine influencers, their online twitter communities, and their geolocations to determine pro-vaccine and vaccine-hesitant online communities. We explored 139,433 tweets and identified 420 vaccine Twitter influencers—opinion leaders and assessed 13,487 of their tweets and 7,731 of their connections. Semantic network analysis was employed to determine twitter conversation themes.

Public polling indicates that vaccine uptake will be suboptimal when COVID-19 vaccines become available. Formative research seeking an understanding of weak vaccination intentions is urgently needed.

Nationwide online survey of 804 U.S. English-speaking adults. Compensated participants were recruited from the U.S. through an internet survey panel of 2.5 million residents developed by a commercial survey firm. Recruitment was based on quota sampling to produce a U.S. Census-matched sample representative of the nation with regard to region of residence, sex, and age.

We hypothesized that magical thinking, a persistent constellation of beliefs about causality that defy logic and reason, is a driver of fanship among fans of fictional texts. In a survey of 259 adults’ fanship for fictional narratives, links were observed between a tendency to engage in magical thinking and strength of fan identification, text-based fan behavior, and fan community-based fan behavior.