The Relationship between Irrational Beliefs, Resilience, Psychological Needs, Cyberbullying and Cyber Victimization

Yunus Sabancı,Ali Çekiç

doi:10.13189/ujer.2019.070308

Abstract

The aim of this research is to reveal whether resilience, irrational beliefs and psychological needs are significant predictors of cyberbullying and cyber victimization in adolescents. The research sample consisted of 849 students that studied in a high school. Personal Information Form, Revised Cyberbullying Inventory, Irrational Beliefs Scale Adolescent Form, Child and Youth Resilience Scale Brief Form and New Psychological Needs Evaluation Scale were used for data collection. Results showed that, 14.9%, 18.6% and 8.9% of the students were cyberbullies, cyber victims and cyberbullies/ cyber victims, respectively. According to the results, boys who participated in the study showed that they experienced more cyber bullying (X =1.28) than girls (X =1.23). Similarly, the mean score of boys in cyber victimization (X =1.27) was higher than females (X =1.23). In terms of parental attitudes, students who are exposed to unrelated parental attitudes are more likely to be cyber bullies. On the other hand, students exposed to oppressive parental attitudes experience more cyber victimization. It was also found that irrational beliefs, resilience and psychological needs (success, dominance, autonomy and need for relationship) significantly predicted cyber bullying and victimization. The findings will provide a better understanding of cyberbullying behaviors of adolescents and other variables such as psychological needs and beliefs, which are a significant consequence of parental behavior and parent child interaction.

Highlights

Technology provides many opportunities especially for young people to talk to many different people that are outside their social circle, communicate with their family and friends with greater ease and frequency, and to establish social bonds that might be difficult to create in person [1]
It can be said that male students are both engaged in cyberbullying and experience cyber victimization at a more significant level
The difference between the cyber bullying and victimization scores was significant according to the educational status of mother [F(3, 845)=9.003, P= 0.000; F(3, 845)=4.729, P= 0.003, respectively]

Summary

Introduction

Technology provides many opportunities especially for young people to talk to many different people that are outside their social circle, communicate with their family and friends with greater ease and frequency, and to establish social bonds that might be difficult to create in person [1] The use of these new technologies in the field of education has increased social interaction among students and enabled cooperative learning. Today’s bullies continue to display such behaviors through various technological instruments such as e-mail, list servers, cell phones and websites This new and different style of bullying can provide bullies the ability to hide themselves and give them the opportunity to continue their abuses in the victims’ own homes. According to studies undertaken on the effects of cyberbullying on adolescents, adolescents are exposed to cyberbullying experience negative effects, such as low self-esteem, loneliness, frustration, mistrust in others, self-destruction, aggressiveness towards friends and family [8], and experience headaches, stomachaches

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