The interplay of negative experiences, emotions and affective styles in adolescents' cybervictimization: A moderated mediation analysis

Abstract

Cyberbullying research has uncovered several contextual and personal risk factors for cybervictimization, but their interaction has not received much attention. However, the combined influence of several individual and situational factors and the interplay between them may have a different influence on the risk of cybervictimization than each factor separately. Therefore, this longitudinal moderated mediation study, conducted among a large sample of early adolescents, examined how the events adolescents experience in daily life influence their risk of being victimized online via the emotions they experience, and whether this process is moderated by differences in adolescents' habitual tendencies to regulate their emotions (affective styles). The results indicated that negative events were directly and indirectly, via experiencing negative emotions, related to later cybervictimization. Furthermore, the association between negative events and emotions was moderated by concealing and tolerating affective styles: Adolescents who habitually concealed or tolerated their emotions were more likely to experience negative emotions associated with negative events, especially when they experienced few negative events. These findings illustrate the importance of taking person-environment-interactions into account when studying cyberbullying and support the implementation of prevention and intervention programs that assist students in developing adaptive emotion regulation and coping skills.