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Conference Program

Overview and details of the sessions of this conference. Please select a date or location to show only sessions at that day or location. Please select a single session for detailed view (with abstracts and downloads if available).

Daily Overview

Session

B.01. Building Inclusive and Democratic Schools Through Students’ Psychological Resources
Location: Edificio ex Tumminelli (C007): Aula 13

Convenor(s): Simone Zasso (Sapienza University of Rome, Italy); Clementina Comitale (Sapienza University of Rome, Italy); Camila Contreras (Sapienza University of Rome, Italy); Yuanhang Fu (Sapienza University of Rome, Italy); Alessia Teresa Virzi (Sapienza University of Rome, Italy)

Presentation 2

The Daily Emotional Impact of Online Hate Speech in Adolescence: The Role of Migrant Background

Serena Verbena¹, Giuseppe Corbelli², Di Brango Noemi³, Virzì Alessia³, Mariotto Michela⁴, Igor Marchetti¹, Di Bari Cosimo¹, Ioverno Salvatore⁴, Antonio Zuffianò³, Benedetta Emanuela Palladino¹

1: University of Florence, Italy; 2: UniNettuno University; 3: University of Roma La Sapienza; 4: University of Roma Tre

Online Hate Speech (OHS) is associated with reduced psychological well-being and other adverse outcomes, yet longitudinal evidence in adolescence remains limited (Wachs et al., 2025). Even less is known about the daily mechanisms linking OHS exposure to adolescents’ emotional experiences, particularly among youth with a migrant background, who often face additional discrimination-related stressors (Tynes et al., 2025). The present study examines the daily impact of OHS on negative emotions, namely sadness and anger, comparing adolescents with and without a migrant background.
By leveraging intensive longitudinal data, this study provides ecologically valid insights into how OHS exposure shapes adolescents’ emotions in everyday life. As part of a multicentric project, the study involves 84 high school classes in 9th and 10th grade across Italy, with data collection conducted between January and March 2025. Students completed two survey waves and a 27-day daily diary in between to assess OHS exposure and daily anger and sadness. Linear mixed-effects models were used to examine intra-individual fluctuations, focusing on adolescents with a migrant background, approximately 10 percent of the sample, and their majority-group peers. Extended OHS exposure measured at baseline, assessing exposure in the previous month, was positively associated with higher average daily sadness and anger. Additionally, for sadness, a significant three-way interaction emerged (b = -0.18, 95 percent CI [-0.34, -0.02], p = .03), indicating that the interaction between daily and extended exposure differed by migrant background. Specifically, a positive same-day association between daily OHS exposure and sadness was observed only among adolescents with a migrant background reporting low levels of extended exposure. For anger, a significant two-way interaction between daily and extended exposure was found (b = -0.11, 95 percent CI [-0.19, -0.04], p = .004), suggesting that daily OHS exposure was associated with higher anger only at lower levels of extended exposure. Overall, extended OHS exposure was associated with higher average daily sadness and anger across the sample, indicating that cumulative exposure to online hostility is emotionally burdensome for adolescents regardless of migrant background. At the same time, daily emotional effects were differentially shaped by cumulative exposure and migrant background, particularly for sadness. Among adolescents with a migrant background, the pattern may be consistent with a desensitization process, whereby repeated exposure attenuates same-day emotional reactivity. In contrast, anger was more reactive at lower levels of cumulative exposure, with diminished daily effects as exposure became more persistent. Although anger is often viewed negatively, it may also function as a mobilizing emotion in discriminatory contexts across the sample. Over time, sustained exposure and elevated negative affect may contribute to broader impacts on psychological well-being, especially when discriminatory content targets identity-relevant dimensions among adolescents with a migrant background. Future research should further examine these mechanisms and their longer-term implications. Overall, the results underscore the importance of educational practices that actively cultivate safe, inclusive, and identity- affirming digital spaces, promote critical media literacy, and foster school environments in which diversity is explicitly valued and protected.