Aggressors and Victims in Bullying and Cyberbullying: A Study of Personality Profiles using the Five-Factor Model

Functional and dysfunctional impulsivity mediates the relationships between 'Dark Triad' traits and cyberbullying perpetration

BACKGROUND

Cyberbullying perpetration and victimisation have been associated with psychological distress, including depression and suicidal ideation. Prior studies have shown that the 'Dark Triad' personality traits (narcissism, Machiavellianism, and psychopathy) are associated with greater likelihood of perpetration, yet there is a research gap regarding potential mediators of this relationship.

AIMS

To test whether functional and dysfunctional impulsivity act as mediators between Dark Triad traits and cyberbullying perpetration.

METHODS

A cross-sectional online study was conducted, in which a sample of 141 university students (63% male) from Malaysia were recruited by online and local poster advertising inviting them to complete a questionnaire containing a series of psychometric scales, including measures of 'Dark Triad' personality traits, impulsivity and cyberbullying perpetration.

RESULTS

A relationship between cyberbullying perpetration and higher psychopathy scale scores was mediated by dysfunctional, but not functional, impulsivity. The relationship between cyberbullying and narcissism scores was not mediated by impulsivity. Higher Machiavellianism scores were similarly associated with cyberbullying, but there was no correlation at all between Machiavellianism and impulsivity scores.

CONCLUSION

Our findings add to the literature by showing that not only Dark Triad scale scores are associated with cyberbullying, but that difficulty in refraining from or controlling impulsive behaviours (dysfunctional impulsivity) may be a key component in this relationship. Given that our sample was of generally well-functioning people, our findings may not extend to those with serious cyberbullying problems. Yet, they provide avenues for identifying people at risk of such behaviours before problems become well-established and call for more nuanced approaches towards understanding and intervening with problematic cyberbullying.

Understanding Cyber-Racism Perpetration within the Broader Context of Cyberbullying Theory: A Theoretical Integration

The purpose of the current theoretical review is to argue for the theoretical integration of cyber-racism perpetration into the broader cyberbullying context-making note of the similarities between both types of nefarious online behavior that make this integration appropriate and the differences that make the integration less clear. Cyber-racism and cyberbullying victimization have been shown to be prevalent in youth and is related to poor psychological outcomes. Understanding both types of antisocial online behaviors have implications for the understanding and subsequent reduction of cyber-racism. Our review focuses on a cyber-racism model that proposes the importance of anonymity perceptions afforded to the online user to cause cyber-racism via several routes that focus on (a) online disinhibition, (b) deindividuation and group polarization, and (c) stereotypes. We discuss the tenets of this theory and the overlap with the Barlett Gentile Cyberbullying Model-a learning-based model that focuses on how anonymity eventually predicts cyberbullying via the development of positive cyberbullying attitudes. We believe that theoretical integration is necessary; however, future work needs to test several theoretical underpinnings of these models first. We end with a discussion of theoretical and intervention implications before discussing limitations and future work. Overall, we hope this review sparks interesting future research to understand cyber-racism and broaden the existing research on cyberbullying.

Personality Traits and Cyberbullying Perpetration Among Chinese University Students: The Moderating Role of Internet Self-Efficacy and Gender

Cyberbullying is a serious global problem that affects many teenagers and university students. Recent studies have explored the relationship between personality traits and cyberbullying, but the mechanism needs further research. This paper examines the impact of personality traits on cyberbullying perpetration of Chinese university students and the moderating role of Internet self-efficacy (ISE) and gender. By random cluster sampling, 549 university students (45.7% boys) participated in filling out the self-report questionnaires. The results revealed: (1) conscientiousness, agreeableness, and openness were significantly negatively correlated with cyberbullying perpetration. (2) The stratified regression showed that ISE moderated the relation between agreeableness and cyberbullying. Gender moderated the relationship between agreeableness and cyberbullying, and openness and cyberbullying.

Prevalence and factors associated with bullying phenomenon among pre-adolescents attending first-grade secondary schools of Palermo, Italy, and a comparative systematic literature review

Background

Bullying is recognized as one of the most significant social and health problems in the school environment for children and adolescents. In Italy, bullying involved 2 in 10 kids between 11–17 years that referred to have been bullied two or more times in a month. In Sicily, the estimated prevalence of children aged 11 to 15 that suffered at least one act of bullying in the last two months was 14% in 2011.

Methods

A questionnaire consisting of 30 items investigating physical, verbal and indirect bullying, observers of bullying, resiliency, and prosociality was administered to preadolescents of ten first-grade secondary schools within the Palermo Province in order to analyze prevalence and factors associated with bullying phenomenon. Also, a systematic literature review (SLR) analyzing manuscripts that reported prevalence of the bullying phenomenon worldwide was conducted.

Results

Survey: a total of 867 students, belonging to 35 s and 31 third classes of ten different schools in Palermo, Italy, were recruited in the survey. The values of physical bullying are included between the 4% of the single question method and the almost forty percent detected by the score of 7 method. Verbal bullying oscillates between 15.9% and 66.3%. Observers average values varies from 15.8% to 47.5%.

SLR: the estimated prevalence showed a considerable fluctuation. The occurrence of the bullying phenomenon was low in some Northern European countries, while in Anglo-Saxon countries it affected over a quarter of the middle school student population (28% in Maryland, USA and 21% in the UK).

Conclusions

The prevalence of the bullying phenomenon recorded by this survey with the three different methods used is similar to observations in international literature. In the Sicilian context, a higher prevalence of bullying phenomena was observed in pre-adolescents attending major classes and in schools with lower socio-economic index. Though it remains difficult to obtain univocal data that clarifies the prevalence of different type of bullying, the continuous investigation of prevalence and factors associated with the phenomenon is a necessary starting point to introduce interventions and preventive measures in Public Health programs.

Victimization in Childhood Influences Presenteeism in Adulthood via Mediation by Neuroticism and Perceived Job Stressors

BACKGROUND

Victimization in childhood profoundly influences the mental health of individuals in adulthood, causing depression, anxiety disorder, suicidality, and self-harm, which leads to productivity loss in the workplace, ie, presenteeism. However, the specific effects of victimization on presenteeism remain unclear. We hypothesized that victimization affects the presenteeism of workers through neuroticism and perceived job stressors and analyzed the association among these factors by path analysis.

METHODS

A questionnaire survey, including demographic and clinical data, Japanese versions of victimization scale in childhood, Brief Job Stress Questionnaire, and Work Limitations Questionnaire (WLQ), was administered to 443 adult volunteers between April 2017 and April 2018 in Tokyo, Japan. Multiple variables were analyzed by multiple regression analysis and path analysis. The Institutional Review Board of Tokyo Medical University approved this study.

RESULTS

Path analysis demonstrated that neuroticism and perceived job stressors had direct effects on presenteeism in the WLQ. Victimization indirectly increased presenteeism via neuroticism and its subsequent effects on perceived job stressors. This model accounted for 18% of the variability of presenteeism (R ² = 0.180).

LIMITATIONS

There may be possible recall bias owing to the self-administration of the questionnaire. In addition, this study had a cross-sectional design, and hence the causal associations among variables should be validated in a prospective study.

CONCLUSION

The present study indicates that the experience of victimization in childhood is a risk factor of adulthood presenteeism, and this effect is mediated by neuroticism and adverse effects on job stressors. These results suggest that multiple factors, including childhood victimization, neuroticism, and job stressors, should be considered when assessing and preventing presenteeism.

Impact of work demand constraints on psychological distress through workplace bullying and personality traits: A moderated-mediation model

Introduction

This study addressed the human aspects of sustainable development in organizations by applying work demand resource theory and the main focus of the study is to investigate the negative aspects of workplace bullying on human's mental health. This study investigated how the work demand constraints play a role in increasing psychological distress among employees through the mediation of workplace bullying. This study also considers personality traits that play a role in preventing psychological distress resulting from workplace bullying.

Methods

The authors collected data by means of a self-administered questionnaire. The questionnaire was distributed among 1000 employees selected using a systematic sampling technique, patronized among three service sectors: the health sector, education sector, and forest department in the city of Lahore in Pakistan. The data was analyzed by employing Partial Least Square Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM) using Smart PLS 3.3.3.

Results

Results of this study reveal that work demand constraints (WDC) play a significant role in workplace bullying and impact increasing psychological distress. Personality traits play a moderating role between work demand constraints and workplace bullying behavior on the one hand and psychological distress on the other hand; however, openness to experiences was found to have a moderating relationship between work demand constraints and workplace bullying. Meanwhile, agreeableness and openness to experiences were found to have a moderating relationship between work demand constraints (WDC) and psychological distress.

Discussion

This study also has practical implications for employers, such as providing psychological counseling, personality development training at the workplace etc. The relationship of work demand constraints with psychological distress and workplace bullying through direct and indirect moderating effects of personality traits in Pakistan's service sector are unique contributions of this study.

The Role of User Behaviour in Improving Cyber Security Management

Information security has for long time been a field of study in computer science, software engineering, and information communications technology. The term 'information security' has recently been replaced with the more generic term cybersecurity. The goal of this paper is to show that, in addition to computer science studies, behavioural sciences focused on user behaviour can provide key techniques to help increase cyber security and mitigate the impact of attackers' social engineering and cognitive hacking methods (i.e., spreading false information). Accordingly, in this paper, we identify current research on psychological traits and individual differences among computer system users that explain vulnerabilities to cyber security attacks and crimes. Our review shows that computer system users possess different cognitive capabilities which determine their ability to counter information security threats. We identify gaps in the existing research and provide possible psychological methods to help computer system users comply with security policies and thus increase network and information security.

Special Issue on Mental Health and Well-Being in Adolescence: Environment and Behavior

Psychological problems in children and adolescent populations range from 10% to 20% [...].

The Risk of Bullying and Probability of Help-Seeking Behaviors in School Children: A Bayesian Network Analysis

An increase in aggressive behaviors in adolescents has been observed for a few years. The participation in bullying is associated with many psychosocial difficulties in adolescent development. On the other hand, the help-seeking behavior can be one of the most important protective factors that reduce the risk for this type of violence. The study was aimed at estimating the risk factors, as well as the protective factors of school bullying, by using the Bayesian networks to build a model allowing to estimate the probability of occurrence of the aggressive and help-seeking behaviors among school children. The focus was on individual risk/protective factors related to EAS temperament (emotionality, activity, and sociability) and variables related to the family context (level of cohesion, flexibility, family communication, and family life satisfaction). Bayesian methods have not been particularly mainstream in the social and medical sciences. The sample comprised 75 students (32 boys and 43 girls), aged 13-15 (M = 13.82; SD = 0.47). Assessment comprised The EAS Temperament Questionnaire, Family Adaptability & Cohesion Evaluation Scales FACES IV-SOR (Family Rating Scale), and Survey questionnaire. The Bayesian networks were applied. Depending on the values of the identified variables, very high a posteriori probability of bullying and help-seeking behaviors can be predicted. Four EAS subscales (Distress, Fear, Activity, Sociability) and two SOR subscales (Balanced Flexibility and Balanced Cohesion) were identified as predictors of bullying. Moreover, two SOR subscales (Family Communication and Life Family Satisfaction) and one EAS subscale (Sociability) were identified as predictors of help-seeking behaviors. The constructed network made it possible to show the influence of variables related to temperament and variables related to the family environment on the probability of bullying or the probability of seeking help and support. The Bayesian network model used in this study may be used in clinical practice.

Multi-Class Imbalance in Text Classification: A Feature Engineering Approach to Detect Cyberbullying in Twitter

Twitter enables millions of active users to send and read concise messages on the internet every day. Yet some people use Twitter to propagate violent and threatening messages resulting in cyberbullying. Previous research has focused on whether cyberbullying behavior exists or not in a tweet (binary classification). In this research, we developed a model for detecting the severity of cyberbullying in a tweet. The developed model is a feature-based model that uses features from the content of a tweet, to develop a machine learning classifier for classifying the tweets as non-cyberbullied, and low, medium, or high-level cyberbullied tweets. In this study, we introduced pointwise semantic orientation as a new input feature along with utilizing predicted features (gender, age, and personality type) and Twitter API features. Results from experiments with our proposed framework in a multi-class setting are promising both with respect to Kappa (84%), classifier accuracy (93%), and F-measure (92%) metric. Overall, 40% of the classifiers increased performance in comparison with baseline approaches. Our analysis shows that features with the highest odd ratio: for detecting low-level severity include: age group between 19–22 years and users with <1 year of Twitter account activation; for medium-level severity: neuroticism, age group between 23–29 years, and being a Twitter user between one to two years; and for high-level severity: neuroticism and extraversion, and the number of times tweet has been favorited by other users. We believe that this research using a multi-class classification approach provides a step forward in identifying severity at different levels (low, medium, high) when the content of a tweet is classified as cyberbullied. Lastly, the current study only focused on the Twitter platform; other social network platforms can be investigated using the same approach to detect cyberbullying severity patterns.

Cybervictimization among secondary students: social networking time, personality traits and parental education

Background

Cyberbullying among children and adolescents is a major public health concern. However, research has not yet definitively identified the risk factors associated with cybervictimization. The purpose of this study was to determine the association of cybervictimization with use of social networks, personality traits and parental education in secondary students.

Methods

The study population consisted of 765 secondary students (56.5% girls) from Majorca (Spain) who were aged 15.99 years (grade 4). The data were from the 16 secondary school centers that participated in the ITACA Project, a multi-center, cluster randomized controlled trial. Cybervictimization was measured by the Garaigordobil Cybervictimization Scale, and the Big Five Questionnaire for Children was used to assess personality traits.

Results

Results showed that 39.9% of the students were cybervictims. Univariate analysis indicated that more girls than boys were cybervictimized (43.1% vs 35.7%). Cybervictims spent more time in social networking sites than non-victims (6 h 30 min vs. 5 h 16 min) and had greater emotional instability (0.16 vs. -0.23) and extraversion (0.11 vs. -0.09) and were less conscientious (− 0.001 vs. 0.20). Multivariable analysis indicated that social networking time was not significantly associated with cybervictimization after controlling for personality traits, but the same personality traits remained significantly associated.

Conclusions

Our findings indicate that cyberbullying is a frequent and relevant problem in adolescents. Big Five personality traits are related with cybervictimization. Possible ways to design interventions include promoting social leisure activities, encourage responsible attitudes and provide stress coping tools.

Psychometric Properties of the CYBVICS Cyber-Victimization Scale and Its Relationship with Psychosocial Variables

The main goal of the present study was to analyze the psychometric properties of the revised version of the Adolescent Cyber-Victimization Scale (CYBVICS). This scale is composed of 18 items that assess direct and indirect cyber-victimization. Two subsamples participated in the present study. Sample 1 included 1318 adolescents (47.4% boys) from 12 to 16 years old (M = 13.89, SD = 1.32). Sample 2 was composed of 1188 adolescents (51.5% girls) from 12 to 16 years old (M = 14.19, SD = 1.80). First, an exploratory factor analysis was conducted on sample 1. Results yielded a bifactor structure: direct cyber-victimization and indirect cyber-victimization. To confirm the structure of the CYBVICS, we selected sample 2 to perform confirmatory factor analysis and test its convergent validity with theoretically related measures. The results supported the reliability and validity of the two-factor model. In addition, measurement invariance was established. Related to convergent validity, positive correlations between cyber-victimization and peer victimization, depressive symptoms, and offensive communication with the mother and the father were found. Moreover, negative correlations were found between cyber-victimization and open communication with the mother and the father and family self-esteem.

Victimization In Childhood Affects Depression In Adulthood Via Neuroticism：A Path Analysis Study

BACKGROUND

Adverse experiences, such as low care, overprotection, or abuse in childhood increase the likelihood of depression via their effects on personality traits. Similarly, being victimized in childhood may affect the likelihood of depression via personality traits. In this case-control study, we hypothesized that being victimized in childhood is associated with depression in adulthood via its effect on neuroticism, and verified this hypothesis using path analysis.

SUBJECTS AND METHODS

Eighty-two major depressive disorder (MDD) patients and 350 age-and-sex matched healthy controls completed self-administered questionnaires of demographic data, Patient Health Questionnaire-9, neuroticism, and victimization. The association between victimization, neuroticism, and depressive symptoms or having major depression was investigated by path analysis.

RESULTS

Multiple group path analysis, in which depressive symptoms were considered as dependent variables, showed that the direct effect of victimization in childhood on depressive symptoms was not statistically significant in either healthy controls or MDD patients (standardized path coefficient: 0.079 and 0.084, respectively), but their indirect effects via neuroticism were statistically significant (standardized path coefficient: 0.059 and 0.141, respectively). Path analysis, in which the distinction between healthy controls and MDD patients was a dependent variable, showed that both direct effects and indirect effects of victimization in childhood via neuroticism on the distinction between healthy controls and MDD patients were statistically significant (standardized path coefficient: 0.186 and 0.164, respectively).

LIMITATIONS

Recall bias and the relatively small number of MDD patients are limitations of this study. Because it was a case-control survey, this study could not make any conclusions regarding causal associations.

CONCLUSION

This study suggests the possibility of causal associations between victimization in childhood and depressive symptoms or MDD in adulthood, and the mediation of this association by neuroticism.