Divergent Perceptual Processes on Cyberbullying Between Victims and Aggressors: Construction of Explanatory Models

Abstract

Understanding the causes of adolescents' aggressive behavior in and through technological means and resources requires a thorough analysis of the criteria that they consider to be identifying and defining cyberbullying and of the network of relationships established between the different criteria. The present study has aimed at making a foray into the attempt to understand the underlying structures and mechanisms that determine aggressors' and victims' perceptions of the cyberbullying phenomenon. The sample consisted of 2148 adolescents (49.1% girls; SD = 0.5) of ages from 12 to 16 (M = 13.9; SD = 1.2). The data collected through a validated questionnaire for this study whose dimensions were confirmed from the data extracted from the focus groups and a CFA of the victim and aggressor subsamples. The analysis of the data is completed with CFA and the construction of structural models. The results have shown the importance and interdependence of imbalance of power and intention to harm in the aggressors' perceptual structure. The criteria of anonymity and repetition are related to the asymmetry of power, giving greater prominence to this factor. In its perceptual structure, the criterion “social relationship” also appears, which indicates that the manifestations of cyberbullying are sometimes interpreted as patterns of behavior that have become massively extended among the adolescent population, and have become accepted as a normalized and harmless way of communicating with other adolescents. In the victims' perceptual structure the key factor is the intention to harm, closely linked to the asymmetry of power and publicity. Anonymity, revenge and repetition are also present in this structure, although its relationship with cyberbullying is indirect. These results allow to design more effective measures of prevention and intervention closely tailored to addressing directly the factors that are considered to be predictors of risk.

Analysis of Moral Disengagement as a Modulating Factor in Adolescents’ Perception of Cyberbullying

“…Publicity and imbalance of power constitute the principal axes of these adolescents’ perceptive structure about cyberbullying, and both are closely related to intentionality. These results are in line with those of previous work (Nocentini et al, 2010; Fernández-Antelo and Cuadrado-Gordillo, 2018) that, in a cybernetic context, those who want to hurt others must have sufficient technical knowledge to impersonate identities, manipulate images or videos, or eliminate other people from distribution lists and contacts, for example, and that it is the diffusion of these aggressions which demonstrates this intentionality at the same time as reinforcing it. In sum, these results allow us to determine that there are principally three factors which articulate the perception victims have of cyberbullying: intentionality to hurt, imbalance of power, and publicity.…”

“…The instruments used for data acquisition were three questionnaires. The first was designed to identify cybervictims, and to determine their perceptions of cyberbullying on the basis of its defining criteria and the direct and indirect relationships that have been established between them (Fernández-Antelo and Cuadrado-Gordillo, 2018). A 4-value ordinal scale was used to calculate the prevalence of cybervictims: considering just the preceding 3 months, “never”, “once or twice”, “once a week”, and “several times a week.” An adolescent was considered to have been a victim of cyberbullying when they had been the object of one or more of the cyber-aggressions that were set out in the questionnaire at least “once or twice” in the preceding 3 months.…”

“…Researchers use a particular set of criteria to differentiate an episode of cyberbullying from an act of cyber-aggression – power imbalance, intentionality to hurt, repetition, publicity, and anonymity (Thomas et al, 2015). Adolescents have not only established a hierarchy of these criteria (Talwar et al, 2014; Barlett et al, 2016; Wright et al, 2017; Samoh et al, 2019), but have also constructed synergistic pairwise relationships among them (Nocentini et al, 2010; Palladino et al, 2017; Fernández-Antelo and Cuadrado-Gordillo, 2018). In this sense, studies indicate that although adolescents point to repetition of the aggression as being an identifying criterion for cyberbullying (Thomas et al, 2017), they generally consider it to be a second-order factor dependent on other primary factors such as publicity or intentionality to hurt.…”

“…Advances in the study of perceptions about cyberbullying have also revealed that the role which is played exerts a differential influence on which criteria are selected and prioritized (Dredge et al, 2014). While the victim emphasizes the intentionality to hurt, and associates it with the publicity of the abusive behavior, the aggressor stresses the imbalance and anonymity criteria (Compton et al, 2014; Crosslin and Golman, 2014; Fernández-Antelo and Cuadrado-Gordillo, 2018).…”

“…These results have very limited applicability, however, unless other factors that exert a determining influence on the prevalence of aggression and victimization and on the persistence of these roles are taken into account at the same time. We refer to the perception that young people have of the different types of cyberbullying (Menesini et al, 2012; Dredge et al, 2014; Fernández-Antelo and Cuadrado-Gordillo, 2018). Recent studies have explored the relation between moral disengagement and perceptions of cyberbullying.…”