The Relations Between Parenting Style,Moral Disengagement And Cyberbullying Among Junior School Students

With the pervasive use of the internet and development of information and communication technology (ICT), cyberbullying appears as a new form of bullying. Cyberbullying is defined as any aggressive behavior performed via electronic or digital media by individuals or groups who intentionally and repeatedly go against a victim who cannot easily defend him or herself. Over the past decade, scholars from many countries had paid attention to the field of cyberbullying and had some researches about basic characteristics and effects of cyberbullying. Meanwhile, the study of cyberbullying by Chinese scholars was still in its infancy. So, it is necessary to study Chinese junior school students’cyberbullying behaviors.In this study, the sample was made up of506junior school students. Questionnaire was used to investigate the general characteristics of cyberbullying and explored the environmental factor and individual factor (parenting style and moral disengagement) and the mechanism of junior school students’cyberbullying, which provided psychological basis for intervention of cyberbullying. The study results are as follows:(1) Cyberbullying and cyberbullied among junior school students had a high incidence,48.8%and62.8%, respectively; cyberbullying incidents happened mostly in social networking sites.(2) Junior school students who spent more time online may be more likely to become involved in cyberbullying; most students had access to the internet at home; students would probably use smart phones to surf the internet except computers, which brings about more possible for students to be exposed to internet, thereby conducting more students to be involved in cyberbullying.(3) Both cyberbullying and cyberbullied behaviors showed significant gender differences, boys were significantly more likely to be cyberbullies or cybervictims.(4) Junior school students’ perceptions of maternal parenting style was significantly higher than paternal parenting style, indicating that maternal parenting style had a stronger influence on children’s outcomes. (5) Negative parenting style was positively associated with cyberbullying, and maternal parenting style had a greater impact on junior school students’cyberbullying behaviors.(6) Junior school students’ moral disengagement was positively associated with cyberbullying. The higher level of moral disengagement to be, the more frequently would cyberbullying occur.(7) Negative parenting style was positively associated with moral disengagement, The more negative parenting style was, the higher level of moral disengagement of the students would be.(8) Moral disengagement of junior school students had mediating effect on the relation between maternal parenting style and cyberbullying, that is to say moral disengagement could mediate the relation between maternal parenting style of rejection and cyberbullying, and moral disengagement could also mediate the relation between maternal parenting style of overprotection and cyberbullying.