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Cyberbullying and Its Relation to Right and Left Authoritarianism, Trait Victimhood, and Mental Illness

April 2023
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Many policymakers, advocates, and the general public perceive online discourse as having become aggressive, with widespread issues related to cyberbullying and harassment. However, not all individuals engage in noxious online behaviors equally. The current study sought to identify correlates of cyberbullying behaviors in a community sample of 361 adults (range 18–69). All methods and analyses were preregistered. Results suggested that cyberbullying was related to trait victimhood and directly to right-wing authoritarianism. In exploratory analyses, trait victimhood was itself related to both right- and left-wing authoritarianism, as well as to general mental health symptoms. It is concluded that cyberbullying is related to a tendency to report mental health issues, along with perceiving oneself as a victim and with a willingness to embrace authoritarian worldviews, particularly from the right. By contrast, trait victimhood is related to both right and left authoritarianism.

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Cyberbullying and Its Relation to Right and Left Authoritarianism,

Trait Victimhood, and Mental Illness

Christopher J. Ferguson

Department of Psychology, Stetson University

Many policymakers, advocates, and the general public perceive online discourse as having become aggressive,

with widespread issues related to cyberbullying and harassment. However, not all individuals engage in noxious

online behaviors equally. The current study sought to identify correlates of cyberbullying behaviors in a com-

munity sample of 361 adults (range 18–69). All methods and analyses were preregistered. Results suggested that

cyberbullying was related to trait victimhood and directly to right-wing authoritarianism. In exploratory analy-

ses, trait victimhood was itself related to both right- and left-wing authoritarianism, as well as to general mental

health symptoms. It is concluded that cyberbullying is related to a tendency to report mental health issues, along

with perceiving oneself as a victim and with a willingness to embrace authoritarian worldviews, particularly

from the right. By contrast, trait victimhood is related to both right and left authoritarianism.

Public Policy Relevance Statement

Online bullying remains a common experience for many. The current research highlights that a combi-

nation of traits, speciﬁcally both left- and right-wing authoritarianism, mental health problems, and trait

victimhood, work together to increase the risk of cyberbullying perpetration. By understanding better

who most engages in cyberbullying, we can examine policies to reduce these behaviors.

Keywords: cyberbullying, authoritarianism, mental health, trait victimhood

Across the political spectrum, there is widespread concern that

online discourse has become increasingly abrasive, polarizing,

and mean-spirited, in some cases to the point of cyberbullying

and harassment. However, consistent with myside bias (the ten-

dency for people to be more generous to arguments consistent

with their own worldviews rather than opposing worldviews),

each broad side of the political spectrum, left and right, tends to

view the other pole as more responsible for this phenomenon

(Stanovich et al., 2013). The experience of cyberbullying and

harassment is widespread among both men and women, with

men experiencing more threats and women experiencing more sex-

ual harassment (Vogels, 2021). Yet, it is unclear how best to under-

stand the phenomenon of online bullying and harassment and, in

particular, which individuals are most prone to engaging in this

phenomenon. Recent scholarship has suggested that individuals

with certain mental health disorders, those who have personality

traits related to perceived victimhood (i.e., trait victimhood), and

those who embrace more authoritarian worldviews may be partic-

ularly prone to cyberbullying. This study sought to address this

issue of how personality and mental health related to cyberbullying

using an online sample collected during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Given apparent relationships between sociopolitical beliefs and

bullying online, it is important to understand how internal person-

ality characteristics, including the tendency to adopt victimhood

status and concurrent authoritarian beliefs, may contribute to

online bullying behaviors.

Understanding cyberbullying can be important to reducing peo-

ple’s exposure to this phenomenon online. As of yet, relatively little

interaction has examined pathways between mental health, political

authoritarianism on left and right, and how perceptions of victim-

hood inﬂuence aggressive cyberbullying behaviors online. This

issue is particularly relevant in the current age, where considerable

turmoil occurs online around political polarization, issues of free

speech, and self-proclaimed oppressed status.

Cyberbullying can be deﬁned as intentionally aggressive behavior

directed at individuals or groups designed to cause harm or shame,

and which occurs online. Cyberbullying may include behaviors such

as spreading untrue rumors about someone, saying mean things to

someone with an intent to harm (as opposed to friendly “smack

talk”), attempting to ostracize people from online social groups, or

making false accusations against someone, implying they are

immoral. In this sense, cyberbullying can be considered distinct

from trolling (in which a user posts content designed to get a nega-

tive reaction from often random/anonymous others), but may over-

lap considerably with ﬂaming, in which individuals or groups

bombard others with insulting, hostile messages.

This article was published Online First April 27, 2023.

Christopher J. Ferguson https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0986-7519

The author thanks Seth Schwartz and Cory Cobb for theircomments on an

earlier daft. This study has been preregistered, and the preregistration can be

found at https://aspredicted.org/ie4n2.pdf. Data for the study can be found at

https://osf.io/jgbw8 (Ferguson, 2023).

Christopher J. Ferguson served as lead for conceptualization, data curation,

formal analysis, investigation, methodology, project administration, writing–

original draft, and writing–review and editing.

Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to

Christopher J. Ferguson, Department of Psychology, Stetson University,

421 North Woodland Boulevard, DeLand, FL 32729, United States.

Email: CJFerguson1111@aol.com

Psychology of Popular Media

ISSN: 2689-6567 https://doi.org/10.1037/ppm0000473

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