The Longitudinal Associations With Cyberbullying Victimization And Cyberbullying Perpetration

In the past two decades,cyberbullying,as a new form of bullying,has been widely concerned.However,whether the role of cyberbullying will change or not and their internal mechanism are not clear.Therefore,based on the previous studies,the present study focuses on two issues of Chinese adolescents:(1)Whether cyberbullying victimization and cyberbullying perpetration changes longitudinally;(2)Whether person factors(anonymity of cyberbullying,strength differential of cyberbullying,self-efficacy of cyberbullying,hostile attribution of cyberbullying,internal attribution of cyberbullying and gender)plays a moderated role in the longitudinal prediction between cyberbullying victimization and cyberbullying perpetration.First of all,431 adolescents from a middle school in Wuhan were recruited as the participants of this study.The mean age of participants are 12.73 years old(SD=0.69)and 52.70%were boys.We conducted three-month longitudinal study,two repeated measurement were respectively obtained in September 2019 and December 2019.In each measurement,participants were asked to fill out a series of questionnaire to answer demographics,cyberbullying victimization,cyberbullying perpetration,anonymity of cyberbullying,strength differential of cyberbullying,self-efficacy of cyberbullying and attribution style of cyberbullying.Then,we used cross-lagged analyses to conform the longitudinal data to verify the longitudinal change between cyberbullying victimization and cyberbullying perpetration by mplus8.0.Next,we used the latent regulatory structural equation method to test the moderation effects of person factors(anonymity of cyberbullying,strength differential of cyberbullying,self-efficacy of cyberbullying,hostile attribution of cyberbullying,internal attribution of cyberbullying and gender)in the longitudinal prediction between cyberbullying victimization and cyberbullying perpetration.Finally,we got the following conclusions:(1)Cyberbullying victimization could predict cyberbullying perpetration longitudinally three months later,but cyberbullying perpetration could not predict cyberbullying victimization longitudinally three months later;(2)Adolescents’ perception of the Internet(anonymity of cyberbullying and strength differential of cyberbullying)played a moderated role in the longitudinal prediction between cyberbullying victimization and cyberbullying perpetration.The high level of anonymity of cyberbullying or the low level of strength differential of cyberbullying was more likely to predict the cyberbullying perpetration three months later;(3)The attributional style of adolescents to cyberbullying(hostile attribution of cyberbullying)played a moderated role in the longitudinal prediction between cyberbullying victimization and cyberbullying perpetration.The high level of hostile attribution of cyberbullying are more likely to predict the cyberbullying perpetration three months later,But the internal attribution of cyberbullying didn’t play a moderated role in the longitudinal prediction between cyberbullying victimization and cyberbullying perpetration.(4)The self-efficacy of cyberbullying and gender of could not play a moderated role in the longitudinal prediction between cyberbullying victimization and cyberbullying perpetration.This study helps to understand the dynamic development and internal mechanism of cyberbullying.Also,the conclusion of the study has important significance for prevention and intervention of adolescents’ cyberbullying.