Network Anonymity and Cyberbullying among Chinese Adolescents: A Moderated Mediation Model

Abstract

Cyberbullying is an important issue which prevails among children and adolescents. The present study aimed to investigate the association between network anonymity and cyberbullying behavior and examine the mediating role of network morality and the moderating role of self-control in the linkage of network anonymity and cyberbullying behavior. A total of 620 participants were recruited from three high schools in southeast China and were required to complete a questionnaire measuring network anonymity, cyberbullying behavior, network morality, and self-control. A moderated mediation model was conducted by using PROCESS Macro for SPSS 3.5. The results showed that network anonymity was negatively associated with cyberbullying behavior among Chinese adolescents. Network morality mediated the association and self-control moderated the indirect association between network anonymity and cyberbullying behavior via network morality. These findings indicate that improving the network morality and self-control of adolescents with the joint efforts of individuals, families, government, and society as a whole may be an effective intervention strategy for cyberbullying behavior under the framework of digital citizens.

The Effects of Covert Narcissism on Chinese College Students Cyberbullying: The Mediation of Hostile Attribution Bias and the Moderation of Self-Control

“…Inconsistent with research hypothesis, the current study found that self-control did not moderate the relationship between hostile attribution bias and cyberbullying. Although the results revealed that self-control was negatively correlated with hostile attribution bias and cyberbullying, which is consistent with previous studies, 64,71 this correlation cannot explain the role of self-control in the mediation pathway of covert narcissism and cyberbullying. Covert narcissists have hypersensitivity to hostility, 89 and once they feel hostility from the outside world, it is not easy to regulate their emotions or behavior.…”

“…Prior studies have also concluded that self-control and aggression are associated: individuals with high levels of self-control show less aggressive behavior; 59,60 low self-control can predict cyberbullying. [61][62][63][64] Moreover, a recent study has found that self-control moderated the association of narcissism with antisocial tendencies. 65 That is, high narcissists who lack self-control are predisposed to aggression, 66 whereas narcissists with moderate to high self-control should have low antisocial tendencies.…”

The Language of Cyber Gender Anonymity on Hololive Virtual Youtubers

“…Hololive protects its talent's privacy by giving them unreal names and avatars, but somehow the doxxing keeps coming for them. It is similar to the concept of cyberbullying (Zhao et al, 2022). Then, how is the language of cyber gender anonymity characterized on the privacy of Hololive Virtual YouTubers?…”

“…Their main ideas are focusing on the language of entertainment, not as such victims of intrusion to people's privacy. If they make a mistake, whether intentional or not, the corporation will blame them according to the terms and applicable contract (Zhao et al, 2022). Some people still do doxxing Hololive's talents just for fun, and some of them are curious about VTuber's real identities.…”

The impact of strain, constraints, and morality on different cyberbullying roles: A partial test of Agnew’s general strain theory

“…In the previous studies, Zhao et al (2022) used a total of 620 high school participants from southeast China to investigate the association between morality and cyberbullying behavior. They found that morality was negatively associated with cyberbullying behavior.…”