Hardly any research has been conducted regarding coping strategies that children can use in response to negative news, although they are frequently exposed to and emotionally affected by such news. Chat conversations with peers about the news could be a coping strategy for children in this regard. To investigate this, children (N = 307; 46.3% girls; M_age = 10.51; SD_age = 0.98; range 8–13 years old) participated in a preregistered experiment in which their emotions were measured before and after exposure to a news video on a smartphone and also after a postexposure activity (i.e., chatting about the news as an experimental condition versus chatting about something else or solving a puzzle as control conditions). The results showed that the decrease in negative emotions and the increase in positive emotions were weaker for children who chatted about the news than for those in the control conditions. Thus, seeking social support in online chat conversations did not have the anticipated effect—and might even have an adverse effect.

尽管儿童经常暴露于此类新闻并在情感上受到影响，但几乎没有进行任何有关儿童应对负面新闻时可以使用的应对策略的研究。在这方面，与同龄人关于新闻的聊天对话可能是儿童的应对策略。为了对此进行调查，儿童（N  = 307；女孩46.3％；M_年龄 = 10.51；SD_年龄 = 0.98; 年龄介于8到13岁之间）参加了一项预先注册的实验，该实验的目的是测量他们在接触智能手机上的新闻视频前后的情绪，以及在暴露后的活动之后（即，以新闻为实验条件谈论新闻而不是谈论某些事情）的情绪否则或解决难题作为控制条件）。结果表明，聊天消息的孩子的消极情绪减少和积极情绪的增加较对照组的弱。因此，在在线聊天对话中寻求社会支持并没有达到预期的效果，甚至可能产生不利的影响。