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Psychology professor quoted in article about cyberbullying

John P. Vincent, Psychology

Clinical Psychology graduate program director John P. Vincent was quoted in the Nov. 8 issue of the Houston Chronicle in a story about online bullying.

The story "Cybertrolls pile on mourners' pain," written by Peggy O'Hare for the newspaper's City and State section, focuses on the act of bombarding online forums — especially memorial pages — with negative comments about the deceased as well as obscene and offensive messages and images.

Here is an excerpt from the article:

"John Vincent, a professor and director of the University of Houston's clinical psychology doctoral program, suspects the trolls' have darker motives than rebelling against media hype and public displays of grief on the Web.

'I think there's certainly a sadistic element — the idea that, 'I can inflict pain, I can do something where I can act out my aggression,' in this case through a cybermedium,' Vincent said of the trolls' attacks.

'The kind of people who do that often are angry, they're not happy. I would suspect many of them are loners. I would suspect they spend a lot of time glued in front of a computer screen,' he said."

Read more information about the Clinical Psychology graduate program.