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A Comparative Analysis of Adolescents' Emotions and Emotion Regulation Strategies When Witnessing Different Cyberbullying Scenarios
Abstract
The search for greater popularity and acceptance by peers increases the use of social networks that may cause cyberbullying. The high number of adolescents who observe this phenomenon may help reduce the negative impact on the victims. Emotion regulation is an important predictor of adolescents' psychological adjustment and social competence to adopt a prosocial behavior. Bystanders of these incidents may misinterpret what they see, due to specific cyberbullying characteristics which may influence emotion regulation negatively. Studies about emotions and emotion regulations in bystanders are scarce. Therefore, this study aims to investigate the emotional reactions and emotional regulation strategies of bystanders while witnessing various cyberbullying scenarios (posting photographs, direct threats, offences to integrity, threats to share personal information), as well as to focus on different behavior, victim characteristics, aggressor traits, and spectator reactions. A convenience sample of 143 adolescents (from 12 to 17 years old) was used. Results showed that worry and sadness were the most expressed emotions in all scenarios (mainly for girls) and posting a photograph was considered more concerning for girls and boys both. To regulate emotions, participants used distraction (especially seven graders) and rumination strategies. Nonetheless, when posting a photo without permission, they all adopted prosocial behavior (boys and girls) because they considered it more serious. Seventh graders adopted less prosocial behavior than eighth graders. In short, girls were more prosocial than boys. Boys may have more difficulty in regulating emotions properly and it may contribute to not intervening. Also, younger adolescents may have experienced less emotional maturity. Therefore, developing programs based on socio-emotional skills, which increase awareness of the seriousness of cyberbullying, can teach youth how to deal with emotions in order to regulate them effectively, thus increasing emotional maturity.
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Using a process model of emotion, a distinction between antecedent-focused and response-focused emotion regulation is proposed. To test this distinction, 120 participants were shown a disgusting film while their experiential, behavioral, and physiological responses were recorded. Participants were told to either (a) think about the film in such a way that they would feel nothing (reappraisal, a form of antecedent-focused emotion regulation), (b) behave in such a way that someone watching them would not know they were feeling anything (suppression, a form of response-focused emotion regulation), or (c) watch the film (a control condition). Compared with the control condition, both reappraisal and suppression were effective in reducing emotion-expressive behavior. However, reappraisal decreased disgust experience, whereas suppression increased sympathetic activation. These results suggest that these 2 emotion regulatory processes may have different adaptive consequences.
Increased interest in emotional expressivity has led to a proliferation of conceptions and measures. It is unclear, however, whether they all refer to the same construct and whether the domain of emotional expressivity is best conceptualized as unidimensional or multifaceted. Study 1 examined 6 common expressivity questionnaires, yielding 5 factors: Expressive Confidence, Positive Expressivity, Negative Expressivity, Impulse Intensity, and Masking. To develop a nomological network for these factors, the factors were related to broader personality taxonomies and their differential relations to sex and ethnicity were tested. Study 2 provided further evidence of discriminant validity in relation to (a) typical emotion expression in peer relationships, (b) ability to pose emotions in the laboratory, (c) likability, and (d) regulation of emotion and mood. These findings support a hierarchical model of individual differences in emotional expressivity.
I propose that the ways people respond to their own symptoms of depression influence the duration of these symptoms. People who engage in ruminative responses to depression, focusing on their symptoms and the possible causes and consequences of their symptoms, will show longer depressions than people who take action to distract themselves from their symptoms. Ruminative responses prolong depression because they allow the depressed mood to negatively bias thinking and interfere with instrumental behavior and problem-solving. Laboratory and field studies directly testing this theory have supported its predictions. I discuss how response styles can explain the greater likelihood of depression in women than men. Then I intergrate this response styles theory with studies of coping with discrete events. The response styles theory is compared to other theories of the duration of depression. Finally, I suggest what may help a depressed person to stop engaging in ruminative responses and how response styles for depression may develop.
Cyberbullying is a form of behavior that harms, disrupts, and threatens the safety of other users on social media. Cyberbullying is crucial to explore, considering that most research focuses on victims and less on perpetrators. The present study aimed to examine the role of emotion regulation in moderating cyber-victimization and cyberbullying. This correlational study involved 103 respondents (38 males and 65 females). They are aged 19-24, in the second to fourteenth semesters, and indicated as a perpetrator of social media. Data were collected using the Emotion Regulation Questionnaire (ERQ) and the Cyberbullying Inventory (CB-I). The data analysis techniques applied in this study were descriptive, correlational, cluster, and regression-based moderator analyses. The moderator analysis used the PROCESS syntax in IBM SPSS. This study showed that emotion regulation predicted decreasing cyberbullying, whereas cyber-victimization strongly correlated with cyberbullying. Furthermore, the negative correlation between cyber-victimization and cyberbullying increased when emotion regulation was low. This study confirmed that most perpetrators experienced cyber-victimization, and emotion regulation strategically reduced those circumstances.
Adolescents involved in experiences of cybervictimization and cyberbullying are at increased risk of psychological maladjustment and ill-being. However, not all adolescents involved in cyberbullying roles experience similar consequences and cognitive emotion regulation (CER) might be a key factor. Despite growing interest in the role CER strategies play in cyberbullying behaviours, little is known about the predictive utility of these strategies in predicting cybervictimization and cyberbullying over time. Therefore, the aim of this prospective study was to test the incremental predictive validity of specific CER strategies in cybervictimization and cyberbullying in a sample of adolescents. To this end, data were collected in two waves four months apart from a sample of 841 adolescents (466 females) aged 12 to 18 (MageT1 = 13.77, SDT1 = 1.34; MageT2 = 13.71, SDT2 = 1.31). Participants filled out a set of questionnaires measuring cybervictimization, cyberbullying, and CER strategies. Main results showed blaming others as the unique strategy showing incremental predictive value to both cybervictimization and cyberbullying four months later, above and beyond previous cybervictimization and cyberbullying experiences. Overall, the results highlighted the need to account for CER strategies, such as blaming others, in relation to the potential initiation and development of cyberbullying and cybervictimization behaviours. These findings suggest possible future avenues for intervention efforts targeting the maintenance of online aggressive behaviours and victimization across time.
The presence of unsuitable coping and emotion regulation strategies in young populations with gambling disorder (GD) and in those who have experienced cyberbullying victimization has been suggested. However, this association has not been explored in depth. In this study, our aim was to analyze individual differences in emotion regulation, coping strategies, and substance abuse in a clinical sample of adolescents and young adult patients with GD (n = 31) and in a community sample (n = 250). Furthermore, we aimed to examine the association between cyberbullying and GD. Participants were evaluated using the Cyberbullying Questionnaire-Victimization, the Canadian Adolescent Gambling Inventory, the Coping Strategies Inventory, the Difficulties in Emotion Regulation Scale, the Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test and the Drug Use Disorders Identification Test. Structural Equation Modeling was used to explore associations between these factors in a community sample and in a clinical group. In both groups, exposure to cyberbullying behaviors was positively associated with higher emotion dysregulation and the use of maladaptative coping styles. Our findings uphold that adolescents and young adults who were victims of cyberbullying show difficulties in emotion regulation and maladaptive coping strategies when trying to solve problems. The specific contribution of sex, age, gambling severity, emotion regulation, and coping strategies on cyberbullying severity is also discussed. Populations at vulnerable ages could potentially benefit from public prevention policies that target these risk factors.
Purpose
This study aims to investigate students’ perceptions regarding the causes and effects of cyberbullying among university students. The study also establishes whether or not there would be statistically significant differences among cyberbullying victims, perpetrators, victim-perpetrators and bystanders in their thoughts on the causes and effects of cyberbullying on students’ social lives from a developing country perspective.
Design/methodology/approach
This study uses quantitative approach and cross-sectional survey design to collect primary data from 1,374 undergraduate students sampled from selected public universities in Ghana. Descriptive statistics and analysis of variance analyses were carried out using statistical package for the social sciences.
Findings
The study reports popularity among friends, extortion, retaliation, stress, trauma and low self-esteem as causes of cyberbullying. Also, cyberbullying resulted in difficulty trusting people, low self-esteem and increased stress. The study also found statistically significant differences among cyberbullying victims, perpetrators, victim-perpetrators and bystanders in their thoughts on the causes and effects of cyberbullying on students’ social lives.
Practical implications
The study’s findings imply that cyberbullying has some fairly significant negative effects on students’ lives in Ghana and must be taken more seriously. Conditions must be created to ensure that perpetrators and victims are given the support needed to curb this menace. Detailed remediating measures are provided in the study.
Originality/value
This paper contributes to the existing literature by studying cyberbullying perceptions among students from a relatively bully-tolerant culture.
Bystanders of cyberbullying play an important role in the resolution of such situations and therefore, it is beneficial to promote self-regulation strategies that enable them to engage in prosocial behavior in these contexts. We propose that serious game-based psychosocial interventions with profile-based social agents can encourage prosocial bystander behavior in cyberbullying. A pilot quasi-experimental study with repeated and pre/post measurements was performed. We randomly assigned 194 7th and 8th graders to three conditions, namely experimental condition (n = 103, Mage = 13.91, SD = 1.02, 53.3% male); alternative condition (n = 37, Mage = 14, SD = 0.86, 54.1% female) and control condition (n = 54, Mage = 13.92, SD = 0.85, 50.9% female). An analysis of covariance showed that players revealed higher levels of prosocial assertive behavior when compared to other participants. Through multilevel modelling of longitudinal log-file data, we found that those who did not experience the game tended to interpret the cyberbullying situations more as non-serious, avoid assuming responsibility for intervening, and engage in aggressive behavior toward the victim. Players tended to support more and were less aggressive with victims from their in-group than those from the out-group. Insights for the development of games to promote prosocial behavior in bystanders of cyberbullying are presented.
Cyberbullying is a growing problem, especially among the adolescent population. This phenomenon warrants scientific research that aims to explain it in as many aspects as possible, including emotions. In this context, this research deals with the analysis of anger in adolescents involved in cyberbullying situations. A study with qualitative design and the phenomenological-hermeneutic method was conducted, in which 31 adolescents between the ages of 12 and 17 were interviewed, involved in cyberbullying situations in the roles of victims or bystanders. Victims of cyberbullying feel angry, especially when the assaults come from people they considered their friends. This emotion is experienced along with other affections such as sadness and shame. For bystanders, anger is associated with situations of injustice and the perception that aggressors have no empathy for the victims. Adolescents recognize the negative effects that cyberbullying has on people's image in digital environments. Understanding the place of emotions in ICT-mediated aggressions is essential to generate knowledge that serves as the basis for the design and implementation of psychosocial intervention programs in cyberbullying, and to promote spaces for reflection on what intimacy, friendship, and trust mean in the digital age.
The aim of the present study was to investigate the use of specific coping strategies by bullied adolescents, taking account of the distinction between pure victims and bully-victims, as well as gender-specific patterns. Participants were 967 adolescents aged 11–16 years, who responded to self-report questionnaires on school bullying victimization, cognitive coping, and situational coping. Adolescents in the pure victim, bully-victim, and noninvolved groups did not differ in their use of approach coping. However, pure victims and bully-victims used more avoidance coping than noninvolved adolescents. Compared with the latter, pure victims reported greater use of avoidance coping strategies such as internalizing and self-blame, while female pure victims also reported greater use of rumination. Both male and female bully-victims were characterized by higher use of blaming others and self-blame strategies, compared with the noninvolved group. In addition, rumination, catastrophizing, cognitive distancing, and externalizing scores were higher for male bully-victims than for either noninvolved participants or pure bullies. Identifying these differing coping strategies may be useful in developing more effective counselling strategies for the victims of bullying.
Serious games are an effective and highly motivational educational tool that has proved to be capable of changing users’ attitudes and raising awareness in a great variety of fields, including mental health. A couple of decades ago, new technologies in general, and serious games, in particular, started to be incorporated into prevention programs, serving as both prevention and detection tools. This article presents a review of the serious games found through a systematic literature review focused on the use of video games as tools for the prevention and detection of bullying and cyberbullying. With this review, we aim to determine: (1) the benefits of using video games as tools against bullying; (2) the mechanics and types of games used to address it; (3) the type of users on which they focus; (4) the type of studies and the number of users with which these games are evaluated; and (5) the availability of these tools, to determine to what degree society can benefit from their potential. The results show a wide variety of video games, using in turn very different strategies to deal with (cyber)bullying; and also that most of these games are not currently available. The different initiatives found confirm that serious games can be used effectively to raise awareness, create empathy, and teach new strategies to address both bullying and cyberbullying.
(1) Cyberbullying has gained increased attention from society and researchers due both to its negative psychosocial consequences and the problems that have risen relating to the misuse of technology. Despite the growing number of scientific studies, most research has focused on victims of cyberbullying rather than on the cyberbullies. This study examines the predictive value of personal resources (emotional intelligence, gratitude, and core self-evaluations) and risk factors (cybervictimization, problematic Internet use), and parental control in online activities on adolescents’ involvement in cyberbullying perpetration. (2) A total of 2039 Spanish adolescents between 12 and 18 years of age took part in this research (53.9% females). (3) Twenty-two percent of the sample was engaged in cyberbullying behaviors (more male adolescents). Insults and online social exclusion were the most frequent types of cyberbullying perpetration. Age, cybervictimization, problematic Internet use, and deficits in the use and regulation of emotions were the best predictors of cyberbullying perpetration. (4) Cyberbullying is a social reality in which personal and family variables converge on a particularly vulnerable age group. Our findings suggest that both well-known predictors of cyberbullying (cybervictimization and problematic Internet use) along with others less studied dimensions (i.e., emotional abilities) need to be taken into account in future school-based interventions aimed to prevent cyberbullying perpetration.
Social and emotional competences are considered to have a crucial role in cyberbullying as, e.g., difficulties concerning emotion regulation and empathy can characterize both cyberbullies and cybervictims. Although, the dynamics of socio-emotional processes underlying cyberbullying are still open for research, as e.g., there are contradicting results concerning the role of empathy in cybervictimization. Thus, the aim of our study was to explore the specific maladaptive emotion regulation strategies characterizing cybervictims and to clarify the role of empathy in cybervictimization. Furthermore, another goal was to explore whether moral disengagement characterizes cyberbullies in absence of empathic and adaptive emotion regulation skills. 524 students (214 males, aged 12–19 years) participated in our research. We used self-report questionnaires to measure cyberbullying perpetration and cybervictimization, adaptive and maladaptive emotion regulation strategies, moral disengagement, affective, cognitive empathy, and intention to comfort. Our main findings show that cyberbullying is associated with difficulties in socio-emotional competences. Cyberbullies and bully-victims demonstrate less empathic responsiveness and display higher moral disengagement than noncyberbullies. On the other hand cybervictims tend to use both adaptive and maladaptive emotion regulation strategies to cope with their negative emotions. In addition, cybervictims have higher cognitive and affective empathy than cyberbullies and bully-victims. Our findings confirm and extend the research on the relationship among socio-emotional skills and cyberbullying as well as cybervictimization. Moreover, our results have important implications for prevention programs targeting emotion regulation and empathy.
Introduction
This systematic review and meta‐analysis examined the associations between social media use and risky behaviors during adolescence, and evaluated study characteristics (e.g., sample age, type of social media platform assessed) that may moderate these relationships.
Methods
A comprehensive search strategy identified relevant studies from PsycInfo, PubMed, Google Scholar, and Proquest Dissertations and Theses Global.
Results
The final sample included 27 independent cross‐sectional studies with a total of 67,407 adolescents (Mage = 15.5, range: 12.6–18.0 years; 51.7% girls; 57.2% White). Results from random effects models indicated that there were positive, small‐to‐medium correlations between social media use and engagement in risky behaviors generally (r = 0.21, 95% CI = 0.16‐0.25), substance use (r = 0.19, 95% CI = 0.12‐0.26), and risky sexual behaviors (r = 0.21, 95% CI = 0.15‐0.28). There were an insufficient number of independent samples available to conduct a random effect models for violence‐related behaviors (k = 3). Moderator analyses suggested that studies assessing solely early social media platforms (e.g., Facebook/MySpace only) in relation to substance use had smaller effect sizes than substance use studies assessing a broader range of contemporary social media platforms. In addition, younger samples had larger effect sizes for studies focused on social media use and risky sexual behaviors.
Conclusions
The positive links identified between social media and risky behaviors during adolescence in this meta‐analysis suggest that developmental theories of risk taking would benefit from incorporating the social media context. Longitudinal studies are needed to clarify directionality and make more specific practice and policy recommendations so that social media is a safe place in which adolescents can thrive.
In the current study, we tested the relations between cyberbullying roles and several psychological well-being outcomes, as well as the potential mediation effect of perceived social support from family, friends, and teachers in school. This was investigated in a cross-sectional sample of 1707 young adolescents (47.5% girls, aged 10–13 years, self-reporting via a web questionnaire) attending community and private schools in a mid-sized municipality in Sweden. We concluded from our results that the Cyberbully-victim group has the highest levels of depressive symptoms, and the lowest of subjective well-being and family support. We also observed higher levels of anxiety symptoms in both the Cyber-victims and the Cyberbully-victims. Moreover, we conclude that some types of social support seem protective in the way that it mediates the relationship between cyberbullying and psychological well-being. More specifically, perceived social support from family and from teachers reduce the probability of depressive and anxiety symptoms, and higher levels of social support from the family increase the probability of higher levels of subjective well-being among youths being a victim of cyberbullying (i.e., cyber-victim) and being both a perpetrator and a victim of cyber bullying (i.e., cyberbully-victim). Potential implications for prevention strategies are discussed.
Many things play a role in the tendency to engage in cyberbullying. This study aimed to identify the determinant factors of the tendency to engage in cyberbullying by adolescents in Java. A sample of 1038 teenagers aged between 12 and 18 who used internet-connected electronic information and technology equipment. The measuring instruments used in this study included a cyberbullying tendency scale, an empathy scale, a self-esteem scale, a friendship quality scale, and an emotion regulation scale. Path analysis was used to process the data. The data showed that self-esteem served as a predictor of cyberbullying tendency whose relationship was negative only when it was mediated by emotion regulation. Friendship quality was a predictor of cyberbullying tendency both in a direct fashion and mediated by empathy.
Com o aparecimento das novas tecnologias, também
novas formas de foram surgindo, nomeadamente o .
Atualmente, já são muitos os estudos sobre esta recente forma
de agressão. No entanto, ainda não são suficientes para abranger
todas as suas vertentes. Assim sendo, este estudo pretende
focar-se nas repercussões emocionais do , mais especificamente
nas emoções negativas provenientes da vitimização do mesmo.
Nesta investigação qualitativa foram utilizados autorrelatos de
vítimas de , dos quais foi retirada informação sobre as emoções
reportadas pelas vítimas, de modo a cruzar essa informação
com outra investigação na área. A amostra utilizada foi
de 15 participantes, sendo a sua maioria pré-adolescentes
e adolescentes. Os resultados mostraram que, em grande
parte dos casos, é possível encontrarem-se várias emoções
interligadas. Concluiu-se, também, que as duas emoções mais
reportadas pelas vítimas são a tristeza e o medo. Este estudo
traz uma melhor compreensão das consequências emocionais
negativas provocadas pelo , pois expande o espectro das
repercussões emocionais nas vítimas.
The Bystander Intervention Model by Latané and Darley (1970) describes the stages necessary for a bystander to intervene in an emergency and can be used to explain bystander behavior in the case of bullying. Social-cognitive and affective reactions to bullying such as empathy with the victim, moral disengagement, feelings of responsibility, defender self-efficacy and outcome expectancy are supposed to determine whether a bystander passes through all stages of the intervention model and are thereby crucial for the behavioral response. These mental reactions were compared between school bullying and cyberbullying in a sample of 486 German students (56% girls, age: M = 12.95) from 28 classes with a newly developed questionnaire covering the five Social-Cognitive and Affective Reactions to Bullying (SCARB) for school context and cyber context separately. Confirmatory factor analysis showed an acceptable fit and internal consistency coefficients were acceptable to good. In line with our hypotheses, for cyberbullying as compared to school bullying students reported higher moral disengagement and lower feelings of responsibility and self-efficacy. However, no significant difference was found for empathy. The level of negative outcome expectations was lower for cyberbullying than for school bullying. Results confirm that the context of bullying matters for the social-cognitive and affective reactions of bystanders.
Research on cyberbullying has boomed in the past two decades. Findings from studies among adolescents suggest that they can be classified into distinct groups based on their cyberbullying experience, and that cyberbullying seems to be related to poor emotion regulation. So far, only a few studies have examined cyberbullying among adult workers and it is unclear whether cyberbullying develops similarly in that population. Therefore, in this study cyberbullying victimization was assessed in adolescents and adult workers simultaneously to address three aims: (1) to explore which groups can be distinguished based on their cyberbullying experience; (2) to analyze the associations of group membership with the way people regulate their emotions; and (3) to examine whether the results are comparable in adolescents and adults. Latent class analysis was used to analyze data from 1,426 employees and 1,715 adolescents in the first year of secondary education (12–13 years old). In each population, three profiles differing in their patterns of cybervictimization were identified: no cybervictimization (80%), work‐related cybervictimization (18%), and pervasive cybervictimization (3%) for adults, and no cybervictimization (68%), similar‐to‐offline cybervictimization (27%), and pervasive cybervictimization (4%) for adolescents. Furthermore, these profiles differed in their use of emotion regulation strategies, with pervasive cyber‐victims suppressing their emotions significantly more than other groups. Future research is needed to clarify the role of emotion regulation in cyberbullying as an antecedent or consequence of victimization.
Elucidating personal factors that may protect against the adverse psychological outcomes of cyberbullying victimisation might help guide more effective screening and school intervention. No studies have yet examined the role of emotional intelligence (EI) and gender in adolescent victims of cyberbullying and how these dimensions might interact in explaining cybervictimisation experiences. The main aim of this study was to examine the relationship between EI and cybervictimisation, and the interactive link involving EI skills and gender as predictors of cyberbullying victimisation in a sample of 1,645 Spanish adolescents (50.6% female), aged between 12 and 18 years. Regarding the prevalence of cybervictimisation, our results indicated that over 83.95% of the sample were considered non-cybervictims, while 16.05% experienced occasional or severe cybervictimisation. Additionally, findings indicated that deficits in EI and its dimensions were positively associated with cybervictimisation in both genders, but were stronger in females. Besides, a significant emotion regulation x gender association was found in explaining cybervictimisation experiences. While no interaction was found for males, for females the deficits of emotion regulation were significantly associated with greater victimisation. Our findings provide empirical support for theoretical work connecting EI skills, gender and cybervictimisation, suggesting emotion regulation skills might be considered as valuable resources, as well as their inclusion in new gender-tailored cybervictimisation prevention programmes.
The objective of this article is to analyze the predictive capacity of some individual, family, and community variables concerning the likelihood that a teenager will engage in aggressive behavior toward others using a mobile phone or the Internet, occasionally or intensely, controlling for the effect of potential confounding variables. To that end, the CyberAggression Questionnaire for Adolescents (CYBA) as well as previously validated scales for the evaluation of the potential indicators analyzed were applied to 3,059 adolescents 12 to 18 years of age (M = 14.01, SD = 1.39). The aforementioned
scales include sociodemographic variables (age and sex) and variables referring to the use of the Internet (social networks, instant messaging programs, and the Internet for non-school tasks), parental control (behavioral control, rules for the use of the Internet, Internet use monitoring, and affection and communication), personality (impulsivity and empathy), antisocial behavior (frequency of aggression toward others at school, antisocial behavior outside the school, and antisocial friendships), and frequency of cyber-victimization. Multivariate regression analyses highlight the predictive capacity
of impulsivity, aggression at school, and cyber-victimization as risk factors of cyber-aggression. They also suggest the existence of indirect or even spurious relationships between some of the variables analyzed and cyber-aggression. We discuss the practical implications of these results.
Cyberbullying has been linked to social, physical and psychological problems for adolescent victims but there has been no analysis of the specific role of emotional intelligence in protecting against the negative symptoms associated with cyberbullying victimization. This study examined the interaction between cyberbullying victimization and emotional intelligence (EI) as predictors of psychological maladjustment (operationalized as high suicidal ideation and low self-esteem) in 1,660 Spanish adolescents. We also investigated whether levels of EI moderated the relationship between cyberbullying victimization and mental health problems. The cyberbullying victimization x EI interaction contributed to variance in suicidal ideation and self-esteem in our sample of adolescent victims. Adolescent victims of cyberbullying with high EI scores reported lower suicidal ideation and higher self-esteem than their less emotionally intelligent counterparts. Thus, our data provide empirical support for theoretical and conceptual work connecting victimization, EI abilities and mental health associated with cyberbullying. This suggests that alone, but also in combination, EI may be particularly relevant in leading to increased levels of mental health issues in cyberbullying victims. Finally, the theoretical implications of our findings on the relationship between these variables and the mental health issues of adolescent victims of cyberbullying are discussed.
Objetivo. Evaluar el impacto de un programa de competencias emocionales sobre las puntuaciones de cyberbullying en una muestra de bachilleres. Método. Se realizó un estudio cuasiexperimental, con pretest-postest y grupo control, en 82 alumnos mexicanos de bachillerato. En el pretest y el postest se aplicó el Cyberbullying Questionnaire y para la intervención se diseñó un programa de competencias emocionales. Resultados. El pretest confirmó igualdad estadística intergrupal; el postest detectó diferencias y un tamaño del efecto mediano en las puntuaciones de victimización (p = 0.003, r = 0.33 d de Cohen = 0.7) y justificación (p = 0.002, r = 0.35 d de Cohen = 0.7). La comparación entre grupos indicó diferencias y un tamaño del efecto mediano: en el grupo control aumentó la victimización (p = 0.014, r = 0.27 d de Cohen = 0.6) y en el experimental disminuyó (p = 0.046, r = 0.22 d de Cohen = 0.5). Conclusión. El programa produjo un impacto positivo, significativo y un tamaño del efecto mediano sobre los puntajes de cyberbullying en alumnos de bachillerato y mostró eficacia en la prevención e intervención.
Many of the most serious challenges that teachers face through their work in schools are related to violence, bullying and harassment among their students. Indeed, together, these challenges have come to define a growing literature in the psychological and educational sciences. This literature encompasses both physical and psychological variants of these social phenomena. This chapter focuses on bullying. The development of information and communication technology over the last two or three decades has allowed bullying to be even more destructively expressed in the school context by the use of social media. This chapter looks at cyber-bullying in the school context. Its focus is teachers and their role, at the front line, in handling this problem. It begins by discussing what is and what is not cyber-bullying and then presents a narrative review of the evidence on the risk that it poses to student well-being, broadly defined, and performance. It establishes the prevalence of the problem, although the data are very varied, and the nature and magnitude of its effects. In doing so, it notes the growing but small literature on the cyber-bullying of teachers themselves. It argues that teachers need to understand the nature of the risk so that they can deal with it through the use of prevention and management strategies. It provides a brief account of the legal and policy contexts, in the U.K. and U.S., for action at school-level. Finally, it looks at the emergent literature on intervention strategies and concludes with a suggestion for a four-point generic strategy based on the information that is currently available.
Presents an integrative theoretical framework to explain and to predict psychological changes achieved by different modes of treatment. This theory states that psychological procedures, whatever their form, alter the level and strength of self-efficacy. It is hypothesized that expectations of personal efficacy determine whether coping behavior will be initiated, how much effort will be expended, and how long it will be sustained in the face of obstacles and aversive experiences. Persistence in activities that are subjectively threatening but in fact relatively safe produces, through experiences of mastery, further enhancement of self-efficacy and corresponding reductions in defensive behavior. In the proposed model, expectations of personal efficacy are derived from 4 principal sources of information: performance accomplishments, vicarious experience, verbal persuasion, and physiological states. Factors influencing the cognitive processing of efficacy information arise from enactive, vicarious, exhortative, and emotive sources. The differential power of diverse therapeutic procedures is analyzed in terms of the postulated cognitive mechanism of operation. Findings are reported from microanalyses of enactive, vicarious, and emotive modes of treatment that support the hypothesized relationship between perceived self-efficacy and behavioral changes. (21/2 p ref)
The purpose of this study was to understand how adolescent cybervictims perceive their school climate and whether telling school community members, such as teachers, play a significant role in these perceptions. Another objective was to understand whether age and gender played a significant role in the relation between whom cybervictims told and their perceived school climate. The Cybervictims Scale for Adolescents and Children and the Perceived School Climate Scale were applied to 3525 Portuguese students of whom 218 were cybervictims attending 6th, 8th(,) and 11th grades. Results showed that even though adolescent cybervictims reported cybervictimization more to friends and parents, those who told teachers about their experience, tended to report more positive perceptions of their school climate. Gender and age did not play a significant role in the relationship between cybervictimization and perceived school climate. Implications of the findings are discussed with regards to the role of teachers and in-service training in preventing cyberbullying.
The objective of the present work is to analyse the prevalence of cyber-aggression and cyber-victimization among adolescents in Asturias (Spain) and to identify possible gender differences. To this end, 3,175 adolescents aged 12 to 18 years were randomly selected from the student population attending compulsory secondary education in Asturias and assessed. They completed three self-reported tests: an ad hoc questionnaire on sociodemographic data and communication technologies management; the "Cyber-aggression Questionnaire for Adolescents" (CYBA), to assess how frequently adolescents acknowledge having exercised various cyber-aggressive behaviours in the previous three months; and the "Cyber-victimization Questionnaire for Adolescents" (CYviC), to assess how frequently adolescents acknowledge having been a victim of various types of cyber-aggression in the previous three months. The results obtained show a high variation in prevalence based on the type of cyber-aggression or cyber-victimization analysed. verbal cyber-aggression and online exclusion are more common than impersonation and visual cyber-aggression. There are generally no statistically significant differences between boys and girls. When differences do appear, boys generally tend to be more aggressive than girls, while girls are more likely to be victims. However, these differences are either small or very small. The implications of these results for future research and educational treatment of the problem are discussed.
Two experimental studies investigated whether the exposure to cyberbullying situations produces in bullied youth, and in young people in general, higher levels of stress, negative emotions, and attention levels, in comparison to other peer interactions, including bullying. In both studies, participants’ physiological activation (Study 1 and 2) and behavioral data (Study 2) were recorded while watching four 1-minute videos representing cyberbullying, face-to-face bullying, prosocial, and neutral interactions. Self-report questionnaires assessed participants’ emotional responses to the videos, and victimization. Sixty-one adolescents (65.7% girls) participated in Study 1; 35 young adults (60% girls) participated in Study 2. Results indicate that cyberbullying causes higher stress and negative emotions than prosocial and neutral peer interactions, but not than bullying. Cyberbullying also elicited higher levels of stress and negative emotions in victims than non-victims, but only for adolescents.
Neste artigo, apresenta-se uma parte do estudo extensivo do projeto Cyberbullying – um diagnóstico da situação em Portugal, com a aplicação de um questionário a 3.525 adolescentes no 6.º, 8.º e 11.º níveis de escolaridade. Com vista à caracterização do cyberbullying, pretendeu-se contribuir para a identificação e interpretação das emoções experienciadas pelos jovens envolvidos, quer como vítimas, quer como agressores em situações de cyberbullying. Os dados revelam que a tristeza, a vontade de vingança e o medo são as emoções mais frequentes das vítimas, enquanto a satisfação, a indiferença e o alívio são aquelas que os agressores mais vivenciam. Revelam ainda diferenças significativas entre as emoções experienciadas pelas vítimas e aquelas que os agressores lhes atribuem, o que, podendo ser um indicador da falta de empatia destes últimos, requer o desenvolvimento de uma educação emocional dos jovens. Verificam-se algumas diferenças significativas em relação ao nível de escolaridade, sexo, escola e município, nomeadamente: na maior incidência de emoções como a tristeza, o medo, a insegurança e a vontade de vingança nas vítimas do sexo masculino; mais sentimentos de insegurança, de alívio, de confusão e desorientação nas jovens agressoras; emoções associadas a impotência e falta de apoio, experimentadas pelos jovens no papel de vítimas, mais numas escolas do que noutras. Esses dados levam-nos a refletir sobre formas de agir no sentido da prevenção do cyberbullying.
The Oxford Handbook of Media Psychology explores facets of human behavior, thoughts, and feelings experienced in the context of media use and creation. Divided into six sections, chapters in this volume trace the history of media psychology; address content areas for media research, including children's media use, media violence and desensitization, sexual content, video game violence, and portrayals of race and gender; and cover psychological and physical effects of media such as serious games, games for health, technology addictions, and video games and attention. A section on meta-issues in media psychology brings together transportation theory, media psychophysiology, social influence in virtual worlds, and learning through persuasion. Other topics include the politics of media psychology, a lively debate about the future of media psychology methods, and the challenges and opportunities present in this interdisciplinary field.
Evidence suggests that cyberbullying among school-age children is related to problem behaviors and other adverse school performance constructs. As a result, numerous school-based programs have been developed and implemented to decrease cyberbullying perpetration and victimization. Given the extensive literature and variation in program effectiveness, we conducted a comprehensive systematic review and meta-analysis of programs to decrease cyberbullying perpetration and victimization. Our review included published and unpublished literature, utilized modern, transparent, and reproducible methods, and examined confirmatory and exploratory moderating factors. A total of 50 studies and 320 effect sizes spanning 45,371 participants met the review protocol criteria. Results indicated that programs significantly reduced cyberbullying perpetration (g = −0.18, SE = 0.05, 95% CI [−0.28, −0.09]) and victimization (g = −0.13, SE = 0.04, 95% CI [−0.21, −0.05]). Moderator analyses, however, yielded only a few statistically significant findings. We interpret these findings and provide implications for future cyberbullying prevention policy and practice.
This study examined whether experiencing a multiplayer serious game could foster cognitive empathy in adolescent bystanders of cyberbullying, empathic concern for these situations and affective empathy towards those involved during game play. We also explored the players’ self-reflections about cyberbullying scenarios in the game. A quasi-experimental design was used. While participants in an alternative intervention group read the game’s storyline and filled in activities on paper, players in the experimental group interacted through a fictitious social network on themes related to organizing a school field trip and other activities. The control group had their regular classes. Quantitative (ANCOVA and Multilevel) and qualitative (Content analysis) results from 221 7th and 8th-graders recorded in classroom settings, showed that overall players reveal higher levels of cognitive empathy, empathic concern and affective empathy than those who did not play the game. Players referred appraisals and factual cognitions against cyberbullying, empathy towards the victim. Our game can help improve adolescents’ cognitive empathy and prosociality in cyberbullying.
The Barlett Gentile cyberbullying model (BGCM) posits that correlated anonymity perceptions
and the belief in the irrelevance of muscularity for online bullying (BIMOB)
predict positive cyberbullying attitudes to predict subsequent cyberbullying perpetration.
Much research has shown the BGCM to be the only published theory that differentiates
traditional and cyberbullying while validly predicting cyberbullying. So far, however, the
cross‐cultural ubiquity has gone understudied. Thus, 1,592 adult participants across seven
countries (USA, Australia, Brazil, China, Germany, Japan, and Singapore) completed
measures germane to the BGCM. Supporting the BGCM, the variables were significantly
correlated for the entire sample, participants from independent cultures, and participants
from interdependent cultures. However, the relationship between BIMOB and positive
cyberbullying attitudes as well as the relationship between positive cyberbullying attitudes
and cyberbullying perpetration were stronger for independent cultures. These
results suggest that the BGCM postulates are mostly universal, but several relations
appear to be culturally different. Theoretical implications are discussed.
KEYWORDS
anonymity, cross‐cultural differences, culture, cyberbullying, cyberbullying attitudes
The cognitive–developmental theory of ‘levels of emotional awareness’ (LEA) addresses an individual's capacity to experience and express emotion, a capacity highly relevant to psychotherapy. Previous papers on LEA and psychotherapy addressed the aspect of LEA theory pertaining to the ‘trait’ (i.e. enduring) aspects of an individual's emotional functioning over time. LEA theory also applies to the construction of emotional experience at any given moment, in which levels emerge or disappear in a process of microgenetic construction as a function of arousal and other variables. This state‐related perspective is supported by recent research showing that people vary in their LEA from moment to moment. Momentary changes in LEA correspond to the variations in lived experience that occur in relationships, including the therapy relationship, and provide the context for corrective emotional experiences that promote change. In this paper, the construction of emotional experience at different levels of organisation is discussed separately in relation to clients and therapists. Key phenomena relevant to psychotherapy include the transition from bodily sensations to specific differentiated emotional feelings, the ability to be aware of multiple feelings that may be contradictory or counter‐intuitive, and the appreciation of how complex combinations of feelings may differ in self and other. This perspective adds to the literature on how the integration of emotion and cognition contributes to change in psychotherapy. The clinical and research implications of this perspective are discussed.
Recent research has ascertained some risk factors for cyberbullying. However, few studies have investigated the potential influence of difficulties in emotion regulation (DER) on cyberbullying, and there is little knowledge about the mediating mechanisms underlying this association. This study investigated whether DER would be significantly related to adolescent cyberbullying and whether loneliness and depression would sequentially mediate the link between DER and adolescent cyberbullying. A sample of 719 Chinese middle school students completed measures regarding demographics, DER, loneliness, depression, and cyberbullying. After controlling for the demographic covariates, the results showed that (a) DER was positively associated with adolescent cyberbullying; (b) loneliness and depression sequentially mediated the relation between DER and adolescent cyberbullying. This study emphasizes the underlying mediating mechanisms between DER and adolescent cyberbullying, which is of great significance for the prevention and intervention of adolescent cyberbullying in the digital age.
Those in the teaching profession are facing additional challenges when responding to
cyberbullying due to the unique features of publicity and severity. Such features are known to negatively impact on young people’s cyberbullying experiences. Teachers’ views on publicity and severity of cyberbullying are currently unknown. The current research draws on data from 10 focus groups with 63 teachers (10 males) who taught across primary, secondary, and college educational levels in the UK. Reflexive thematic analysis identified three themes: (a) role of severity, (b) differential roles of publicity, and (c) bystander intentions. Participants discussed the role of severity, where visual acts of cyberbullying were perceived more severe than written forms, suggesting the type of cyberbullying is an important indicator in perceived severity. Participants acknowledged how cyberbullying can transition from private, semi-public, and public incidents, which influenced their perceived intervention strategies. Finally, levels of publicity were discussed regarding young people’s bystander intentions, with public incidents of cyberbullying instigating positive and negative bystander intervention. The findings are discussed in relation to practical implications, especially the need to promote awareness for teachers on the issues of publicity and severity in cyberbullying.
In recent years children and adolescents lead their social lives in the virtual world no less than in the real one. Social networking sites such as WhatsApp play a major role as popular social communication platforms. More than 97% of Israeli youth use WhatsApp and are members of WhatsApp classmate groups. The growing use of WhatsApp is accompanied by increased frequency of cyberbullying, that is, intended and repeated aggressive online behavior aimed to inflict harm. Cyberbullying victimization has received a fair amount of attention due to its association with serious psychosocial, affective, behavioral, and academic problems. Although much has been written about cyberbullying on Facebook, literature about WhatsApp and cyberbullying is scarce. Based on a large-scale survey that examined the prevalence and expressions of cyberbullying the current cross-sectional study provides a detailed description of cyberbullying victimization in WhatsApp classmate groups across grade level and gender among Israeli school-age children and adolescents. The study included 4,477 elementary, middle, and high school students in Israel who completed questionnaires regarding cyberbullying victimization in their WhatsApp classmate groups. According to the study findings, approximately 30% of all survey participants report personal victimization from cyberbullying in their WhatsApp classmate groups, and almost double that report victimized aggression at least once in the recent past. Demographic variables such as school grade level and gender appear to moderate cyberbullying. Increased cyberbullying was found in elementary school compared with middle and high school, and more female compared with male students were victims of cyberbullying in WhatsApp classmate groups. The article outlines several areas of concern in cyberbullying research and discusses issues that future research might address. Education policy guidelines and implications for intervention are also discussed.
This book describes innovative ways to do research about, and design interventions for, cyberbullying by children and adolescents. It does this by taking a narrative approach. How can narrative research methods complement the mostly quantitative methods (e.g. surveys, experiments, ….) in cyberbullying research ? And how can stories be used to inform young people about the issue and empower them? Throughout the book, special attention is paid to new information and communication technologies, and the opportunities ICTs provide for narrative research (e.g. as a source of naturally occurring stories on cyberbullying), and for narrative health interventions (e.g. via Influencers).
The book thus integrates research and insights from the fields of cyberbullying, narrative methods, narrative health communication, and new information and communication technologies.
The purpose of this review was to present a comparative summary of literature of the risk and preventative factors related to school bullying (SB) and cyber-bullying (CB), while identifying research gaps.Literature on bullying appears to disagree whether CB should be considered as a different form of bullying or as a sub-type of SB. Researchers, in an attempt to understand bullying, examined in depth numerous risk and preventive factors. Based solely on previous research papers, fourteen risk and preventative factors related to SB and likewise to CB, were selected on the basis that are most commonly indicated as strong factors in preceding works; each factor was searched for in relation to SB and CB separately, allowing a comparison of how each factor relates to SB and likewise to CB. Findings present a comparative picture of the factors related to SB and CB and provide a direction in the area of factors for fellow researchers wishing to develop anti-bullying strategies in the future. As expected the present study found that some factors are similarly related to SB as to CB, and others differentiate. Details of findings, limitations and implications are further discussed.
Cyberbullying is a social phenomenon which can bring severe harm to victims. Bystanders can show positive bystander behavior (e.g. defending) and decrease cyberbullying and its harm, or negative behavior (e.g. passive bystanding, joining) and sustain cyberbullying and its negative effects. Few interventions have currently targeted bystanders and evaluated results on their behavior or its determinants. The intervention consisted of a serious game specifically targeting cyberbullying bystander behavior. A cluster-randomized controlled trial was conducted among 8th graders (n = 216) in two schools. Measurements were taken at baseline, immediately after the intervention and at 4-week follow-up. The serious game intervention resulted in significant improvements in self-efficacy, prosocial skills, and the intention to act as a positive bystander. These are mainly predictors of positive bystander behavior. No significant effects were found for predictors of negative bystander behavior. The intervention also increased witnessing of cyberbullying incidents, potentially a measure of awareness of cyberbullying taking place, and quality of life. No effects were found on behavior itself, bullying or cyberbullying prevalence. This brief serious game intervention affected determinants of bystander behavior and quality of life among adolescents. Further efforts are needed to address (negative) bystander behavior and cyberbullying involvement.
As cyberbullying research advances, many researchers have focused on identifying factors that might reduce the negative consequences associated with cyberbullying victimisation. One prominent factor receiving attention is the role of parental mediation in digital technology use, and how such mediation reduces the risk of cybervictimisation. Parents utilise different mediation strategies (i.e. restrictive, co‐viewing, instructive), which could potentially contribute to differential patterns in the relationships between cyberbullying victimisation and the associated psychosocial adjustment difficulties (i.e. depression, loneliness, anxiety). The present study investigated this proposal among 568 US (53% female) adolescents in the eighth grade (age ranging from 13–15 years), utilising a longitudinal design. Cyberbullying victimisation was related positively to restrictive mediation and Time 2 depression, anxiety and loneliness, while such associations were negative for co‐viewing mediation and instructive mediation. High levels of co‐viewing mediation and instructive mediation made the relationship of cyberbullying victimisation to Time 2 (1 year later) depression more negative. The results of this study are discussed in terms of the supportive role of parents in adolescents' digital technology use. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
‘Identifying factors that might reduce the negative consequences associated with cyberbullying victimisation’
Key Practitioner Messages
Cyberbullying victimisation is linked positively to depression, anxiety and loneliness as well as restrictive mediation.
Cyberbullying victimisation is related negatively to co‐viewing mediation and instructive mediation.
Co‐viewing mediation and instructive mediation buffer against adolescents' depression and anxiety resulting from cyberbullying victimisation.
‘Co‐viewing mediation and instructive mediation buffer against adolescents' depression and anxiety resulting from cyberbullying victimisation’
Victims of bullying tend to become cyberbullies themselves. The Cyclic Process Model describes the processes underlying the relationship between victimization and cyberbullying behavior. The current study examined whether all bullied adolescents experience these processes or that some bullied adolescents are more susceptible for these processes than others. We specifically investigated whether the way an adolescent deals with his/her anger affects the processes of the Cyclic Process Model. It was hypothesized that negatively regulating feelings of victimization-based anger would increase cyberbullying behavior, whereas positive emotion regulation would decrease this behavior. These hypotheses were tested using longitudinal data (N = 1005; three waves). Using positive emotion regulation strategies to cope with anger did not result in a reduction in cyberbullying behavior. However, negatively coping with anger did result in higher levels of cyberbullying behavior. More specifically: adolescents were more inclined to perform cyberbullying behavior when they blamed others (or themselves) or constantly thought about the negative experience. This research highlights the importance of training adolescents how to constructively cope with their anger.
The purpose of the present study was to examine whether (repeated) exposure to cyberbullying as a bystander has an impact on early adolescents' moral evaluations in terms of a decrease in empathy and a shift towards a more tolerant attitude towards cyberbullying. A two-wave panel study with a 6-month time interval was conducted among a sample of 1412 adolescents aged 10-13. Cross-lagged panel analysis was used to investigate relationships over time between being a bystander of cyberbullying, empathic responsiveness towards distressed others, and the attitude towards cyberbullying, while taking into account involvement in cyberbullying as a victim or a perpetrator. The results indicate a negative relationship between standing by at Time 1 and empathic responsiveness at Time 2. In other words, exposure to cyberbullying as a bystander at Time 1 predicted subsequent lower levels of empathic responsiveness at Time 2. The attitude towards cyberbullying at Time 2 was not influenced by seeing more cyberbullying acts at Time 1. Further implications of the results for prevention and intervention, and for future research are discussed.