Abstract
This paper explores the relationship between social connectivity and cybervictimization as it is mediated by psychosocial variables such as social identity and self-esteem. Likewise, it analyses the moderating role in that relationship played by adolescents’ perception of cyberbullying. The sample consisted of 2072 adolescents (48.7% girls) aged between 14 and 18 (Mean = 15.78, Standard Deviation = 1.02) years. Through the use of five questionnaires, an explanatory model is constructed that shows the direct and indirect relationships between the factors analysed, the predictive values that social connectivity can reach when applied to the virtual environment, and the perception of cyberbullying in the victimization processes. The results indicate that self-esteem and social identity are protective factors in the establishment of healthy virtual relationships and avoidance of cybervictimization situations. Moreover, the equation of cyberbullying with aggressive or maladaptive styles of humour has an indirect influence on the link between connectivity and cybervictimization.
Highlights
The phenomenon of cyberbullying is a public health problem that affects not just children and adolescents but adults as well, and its comprehension and intervention require a multidimensional approach
The results reveal that adolescents fundamentally resort to three criteria to identify cyber-aggressions as cyberbullying episodes: intent to harm, publicity of the aggressions, and power imbalance
The results show that many adolescents normalize aggressive behaviours and interpret them as harmless mechanisms and forms of social relationship that are characteristic of adolescence (Table 1)
Summary
The phenomenon of cyberbullying is a public health problem that affects not just children and adolescents but adults as well, and its comprehension and intervention require a multidimensional approach. One of the difficulties that researchers encounter when analysing the prevalence of cyberbullying and establishing its interrelationships with other variables (psychological, social, emotional, familial, etc.) is the perception that children and adolescents have of it. The criteria they use to classify aggressive cyber behaviour as episodes of cyberbullying have been explored in many studies over the last decade [1,2,3]. While researchers widely resort to five criteria that define cyberbullying (intent to harm, power imbalance, repetition, publicity, and anonymity) [3], adolescents only use some of these, establishing first- and second-order relationships between them [5], and incorporate others such as revenge [6]. It has been noted that some cyberbullying modalities are not interpreted as such by adolescents but rather as patterns of social interaction typical of their age [13,14], with this
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