Moral Disengagement and Risk Prototypes in the Context of Adolescent Cyberbullying: Findings From Two Countries.

Lambros Lazuras,Antonella Brighi,Haralambos Tsorbatzoudis,Vassilis Barkoukis,Annalisa Guarini,Maria Luisa Genta

doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2019.01823

Abstract

Cyberbullying is associated with a wide range of mental health difficulties and behavioral problems in adolescents and research is needed to better understand psychological correlates of this behavior. The present study used a novel model that incorporated Social Cognitive Theory and the prototype/willingness model to identify the correlates of behavioral willingness to engage in cyberbullying in two countries. Adolescent students were randomly selected from secondary schools in Italy (n = 1710) and Greece (n = 355), and completed anonymous measures of moral disengagement, descriptive norms, risk prototype evaluations and behavioral willingness to engage in cyberbullying. Hierarchical linear regression analyses showed that willingness to engage in cyberbullying was associated with moral disengagement, prototype evaluations and descriptive social norms in Italy, and with gender, moral disengagement and descriptive social norms in Greece. Regression-based multiple mediation modeling further showed that the association between moral disengagement and cyberbullying willingness was mediated by prototype evaluations in Italy and by descriptive norms in Greece. The implications of our findings are discussed in the context of self-regulating cyberbullying perpetration in adolescents and informing school-based policies and interventions to prevent cyberbullying behavior.

Highlights

Cyberbullying is defined as the voluntary use of information and communication technology and social media to virtually attack a person or a group of people, and shares common features with traditional, face-to-face bullying, such as intentionality and goal-directedness
Similar findings were reported for willingness toward cyberbullying (χ2 (4) = 41.22, p = 0.0000, CFI = 0.957, RMSEA = 0.095, SRMR = 0.034), whereas measurement invariance was not supported for risk prototype favorability
The model was an extension of previous research on cyberbullying (Lazuras et al, 2013), and it was hypothesized that moral disengagement will be positively associated with willingness to engage in cyberbullying (Hypothesis 1), and that this association would be partly explained by prototype/willingness model (PWM) constructs, namely descriptive social norms and risk prototype favorability (Hypothesis 2)

Summary

Introduction

Cyberbullying is defined as the voluntary use of information and communication technology and social media to virtually attack a person or a group of people, and shares common features with traditional, face-to-face bullying, such as intentionality and goal-directedness (i.e., intending to harm the victim; Campbell, 2005; Li, 2007; Juvonen and Gross, 2008; Pyzalski, 2011; Slonje et al, 2013). Cyberbullying shares common features with indirect bullying, which is typically based on rumor spreading, social exclusion, and denigration of the victim, and does not require physical proximity between the victim and the perpetrator (Smith et al, 2002; Smith, 2004; Slonje and Smith, 2008). There is a paucity of research on theorydriven process-models of cyberbullying that can explain how the different correlates of this behavior are meaningfully linked together and reflect common processes across contexts, cultures and populations

Methods

Results

Conclusion