Cyberbullying

Abstract

Although the research on cyberbullying has increased dramatically in recent years, still little is known about how cyberbullying participant groups (i.e., cyberbullies, cybervictims, and cyberbully-victims) differ from one another. This study aims to discriminate between these groups at an individual and relational level by controlling for age and gender. Self-control, offline aggression, and self-esteem are analyzed as individual-level variables. Parental attachment and peer rejection are involved as relational-level variables. A total of 2,092 Czech adolescents aged 12 to 18 were enrolled from a random sample of 34 primary and secondary schools located in the South Moravian region of the Czech Republic. Discriminant function analyses indicated that the participant groups are discriminated by two functions. The first function increases the separation between cyberbullies and cyberbully-victims from cybervictims, indicating that cyberbullies and cyberbully-victims are similar to each other in terms of low self-control, offline aggression, and gender, and have higher scores on measures of low self-esteem and offline aggression. However, cyberbully-victims had the highest scores on these measures. The second function discriminates between all three groups, which indicates that those variables included in the second function (i.e., parental attachment, peer rejection, self-esteem, and age) distinguish all three involved groups.

“Am I at risk of cyberbullying”? A narrative review and conceptual framework for research on risk of cyberbullying and cybervictimization: The risk and needs assessment approach

“…Low communication with parents is a risk factor for cyber victimization.Özdemir (2014) found a positive association between cyber victimization and less communication with parents by surveying 337 Turkish students aged 15-18 years. Also parental attachment was found to be a risk factor for cyber victimization, as reported byBayraktar et al (2014). The study found that cyber victimization is associated with poor parental attachment.…”

“…Who the children hang around with and the lack of prosocial peer influences were found predictors in the Canadian longitudinal study of Cappadocia, Craig, & Pepler (2013) of future cyberbullying involvement. This is true also for peer rejection, with cyberbullies more likely to be rejected than noncyberbullies (Bayraktar et al 2014;Wright & Li, 2013) and experiencing greater social isolation as well as lack of perceived peer support, found in the systematic review (Kowalski et al, 2014), and specifically also in the Spanish (Calvete et al, 2010) and US (Williams & Guerra, 2007) studies. Clearly peer factors can be considered dynamic risk factors that can change in time or with tailored intervention.…”

“…Also peer rejection is associated with cyber victimization. Bayraktar et al (2014) and Katzer, Fetchenhauer, & Belschak (2009) in studies conducted respectively with 2.092 students aged 12-18 years and 1.700 5-11 grade students, report a positive relationship between cyber victimization and high levels of peer rejection. Perceived peer support: Kowalski et al (2014) in their review of 131 studies concluded that cyber victimization and low levels of perceived peer support are significantly correlated.…”

“…Cyberbullies also reported lower levels of self-control compared to non-cyberbullies when asked about several aspects of their lives in Czech Republic (Bayraktar et al 2014). According to Modecki, Barber and Vernon (2013) cyberbullies in Australian students also present a so called 'early depressed mood'.…”

“…, in Australia, and Wang, Iannotti, & Nansel (2009) in the US, reported that parents of cyberbullies provide less support and lack also emotional bonding (Ybarra & Mitchell, 2004a). These parents are reported as having poor parental attachments (Bayraktar et al, 2014), but also the family management in general is reported as lacking some kind of rules and any forms of monitoring of the children's life and online activities specifically. This is reported not only in the overall review by Kowalski et al, (2014), but also in the Australian longitudinal study by and in Ybarra & Mitchell's (2004a) survey.…”