Cyber bullying perpetration among adolescents in association with various social and emotional difficulties

Pages: 2088-2101
Damanjit Sandhu and Kirandeep Kaur (Department of Psychology, Punjabi University, Patiala, Punjab)

Cyber bullying takes up an appreciable fraction of all bullying among young people and there exists a cogent relationship between cyber bullying and negative health indices. The present study was carefully designed to understand the social emotional difficulties associated with cyber bullying perpetration among early adolescents (13-15 years), the primary objective of the current research was to study the association of cyber bullying perpetration with various social and emotional difficulties (viz., face-to-face bullying victimization, attachment with parents & peers, social emotional competence & mental health). For the said purpose, 600 early-adolescents (300 males & 300 females) of age ranging between 13 to 15 years were randomly selected from various urban schools of Patiala, Chandigarh and Amritsar (Punjab, India). Adolescents from the participant schools were screened for cyber bullying perpetration to obtain a sample of 191 (108 males, 83 females) cyber bullying perpetrators. Various psychological measures were administered to study their social and emotional well-being. Obtained data were analysed by applying Pearson Product Moment Correlation analysis and Stepwise Multiple Regression Analysis. The major findings revealed that cyber bullying perpetration is positively correlated with physical victimization and attacks on property, father alienation, mother alienation, peer alienation, emotional problems, conduct problems and peer problems in male adolescents and it is negatively correlated with father trust, peer trust, father communication, peer communication, self management, relationship management and responsible decision making in male adolescents. Considering the female adolescents, the results revealed that cyber bullying perpetration is positively correlated with social manipulation, verbal victimization, mother alienation, peer alienation, emotional problems and peer problems and it is negatively correlated with mother trust, peer trust, mother communication, peer communication, self awareness, self management and relationship management. Furthermore, stepwise multiple regression analyses revealed that self management, relationship management, peer trust, emotional problems, peer alienation, peer problems and conduct problems contributed significantly towards cyber bullying perpetration in male adolescents and together, these variables explained 74% of the total variance in the males sample. Considering the females sample, peer problems, mother alienation, verbal victimization, social manipulation, emotional problems, and self management contributed significantly towards cyber bullying perpetration in female adolescents and together, these variables explained 74% of the total variance in the females sample. Overall, cyber bullying perpetration in both male and female adolescents is associated with myriad social and emotional difficulties.