Junior High School Students' Cyberbullying And Depression:The Mediating Effect Of The Clarity Of Self-concept

In recent years,the Internet and electronic technology products have penetrated into human's lives.While enjoying the convenience brought by it,many traditional bullying behaviors have become "new",in terms and become a new bullying method-cyberbullying.In recent years,some symbol like the anxiety,loneliness,social withdrawal,withdrawal from school,and even depression and suicide,which caused by cyberbullying have attract serious attention of many researchers in the world.Research at home and abroad shows that there is a significant positive correlation between cyberbullying/bullying and depression,including many mediators and moserators.Teenagers,as one of the main users of the Internet,are at the critical stage of the second development of self-concept,are not mature enough for their peace of mind and have low ability to cope with online bullying.so their self-conself clarity are easy influenced by cyberbullying.However,the clarity of self-concept is closely related to the individual's mental health.Therefore,cyberbullying may be the impact and confusion on the self-concept of adolescents,which leads to a decrease in the clarity of the self-concept and further aggravate their depression.Therefore,the study hypothesized that cyberbullying/cyberbullied of adolescents will aggravate their depression and reduce their self-concept clarity,and that the self-concept clarity of adolescents has an intermediary role in the impact of cyberbullying/cyberbullyied and depression.In order to verify the hypothesis,the study use a questionnaire survey.Four junior high school students in Tianjin were randomly selected as subjects.The questionnaires used in this study including the Online Bullying Scale(including two subscales of cyberbullying and cyberbullied),the Self-concept Clarity Scale and the Center for Epidemiologic Studies-Depression Scale(CES-D).A total of 584 questionnaires were issued and 565 valid questionnaires were retrieved(effective rate was 96.75%),of which the ratio of males and females and grades were roughly balanced.The study found that:(1)There was a significant difference in the gender factor in cyberbullied,and there was no difference in cyberbullying,depression,and self-concept clarity.(2)There was no difference in the grade factor in each variable;(3)Both cyberbullying and cyberbullied were negatively correlated with self-concept clarity and positively correlated with depression.(4)Depression was significantly negatively correlated with self-concept clarity.(5)The self-concept clarity had mediating effect in both the relationship between cyberbullying/cyberbullyied and depression,with mediating effects accounting for 39.96%and 33,86%of the total effect respectively.The conclusions of the study are as follows:(1)The frequency of cyberbullying among junior high school boys is significantly higher than that of girls.(2)The higher the frequency of junior school students' cyberbullying/cyberbullied,the lower the level of self-concept clarity and the higher the level of depression.(3)junior high school students' cyberbullying/cyberbullied reducing their level of self-conceptual clarity,which was further aggravated their Depression.