Cyber-Victimisation: The Association Between Help-Seeking Behaviours and Self-Reported Emotional Symptoms in Australia and Austria

Abstract

Many young people who are bullied do not tell anyone. School staff therefore are often unaware of which students are being victimised and when to provide support or assistance. A critical strategy to overcome this problem is to encourage victimised students to seek help and report this bullying. This study aims to examine the relationship between help-seeking behaviours and self-reported emotional symptoms in young people from Australia (n = 5959; M age = 12.36 years, SD = 1.46 years) and Austria (n = 1530; M age = 12.68 years, SD = .84 years) who reported being victimised (via cyber and traditional bullying). In both countries, students who were cyber-victimised compared to those who were victimised in more traditional methods were less likely to seek help. Girls in both countries were significantly more likely to seek help and endorse more emotional symptoms than boys. No relationship was found between help-seeking and emotional symptoms in students who had been cyber-victimised. These preliminary results have important implications for the types of strategies used to enhance the approachability of school staff and families to provide appropriate help and support for young people who are being bullied.

Self-Harm, Suicidal Behaviours, and Cyberbullying in Children and Young People: Systematic Review (Preprint)

“…It may be that the persistent and pervasive nature of cybervictimisation may lead to feelings of hopelessness, which are associated with suicidal behaviours in adolescents [60]. Students who are cybervictimised are less likely to report and seek help than those victimised by more traditional means [61,62], therefore it is important for staff to encourage help-seeking in relation to this issue.…”

Identifying, Understanding and Preventing Cyber Bullying

“…This figure for cyber victims had risen to 19% by middle school and 26% in the final years. Price and Dalgleish's study [27] of 548 Australians found that cyber bullying occurred mostly in the period of transition from primary to secondary school. Their participants experienced cyber bullying at multiple ages when growing up, with the range being from 10 to 16 years.…”

“…Australian cyber bullies used mostly text messages, followed closely by chat rooms and then by electronic mailing [27]. Price and Dalgleish [28] also surveyed Australian students, with email (21%), online chatrooms (20%), social networking sites (20 %), mobile phones (19% ) and internet website (8%) used for cyber bullying in the sample of 548 participants.…”

“…For example, although 892 out of 1,566 children across Grade 4 to 8 had received hurtful comments, 548 were threatened and 657 were bullied online or with mobile communication tools, most (58 %) did not tell their parents or another adult [18]. Dooley, Gradinger, Strohmeier, Cross and Spiel [27] found in a study of 7489 young people with a median age of 12.52 years that girls were significantly more likely to report incidents and seek help than boys. They hypothesis that the majority of cyber bullying is relatively mild (compared to other bullying behavior) and that victims may have had the skills to deal with these incidents by themselves and therefore sought no help.…”

Cyberbullying from the perspective of choice theory

“…Female victims of cyberbullying are more likely to have emotional symptoms than male victims. However, females tend to ask for help more than males (Dooley et al, Cross and Spiel, 2010).…”