Do cyberbullies suffer too? Cyberbullies’ perceptions of the harm they cause to others and to their own mental health

Abstract

While it is recognized that there are serious sequelae for students who are victims of cyberbullying including depression, anxiety, lower self-esteem and social difficulties, there has been little research attention paid to the mental health of students who cyberbully. It is known that students who traditionally bully report they feel indifferent to their victims, showing a lack of empathy and that they themselves are at increased risk for psychosocial adjustment. However, there is scant research on the mental health associations for students who cyberbully or their awareness of their impact on others. The current study sought to ascertain from Australian students who reported cyberbullying others in school years 6 to 12 (10–19 years of age), their perceptions of their mental health and the harm they caused to and the impact their actions had, on their victims. Most students who cyberbullied did not think that their bullying was harsh or that they had an impact on their victims. They reported more social difficulties and higher scores on stress, depression and anxiety scales than those students who were not involved in any bullying. The implications of these findings for the mental health of the cyberbullies and for psychologists in schools who assist them, are discussed.

Gender Differences in the Association Between Cyberbullying Victimization and Perpetration: The Role of Anger Rumination and Traditional Bullying Experiences

“…Similar to previous studies (e.g., Campbell et al 2013;Hughes et al 2009), females perceived TB and CB to be more harmful than males. Furthermore, in general, participants found TB to be more harmful than CB, and as expected, victims perceived bullying more hurtful than perpetrators.…”

“…Most previous studies found that females are more likely to be a CB victim than males (e.g., DeHue et al 2008;Ortega et al 2009), while the reverse has been observed among TB victims (e.g., Huang and Chou 2010;Wang et al 2009). Campbell et al (2013) also reported of a higher proportion of female TB victims in their study and interpreted these higher rates as a possible consequence of using TB forms in the assessment that highly reflect indirect forms of aggression (e.g., exclusion) which are more prevalent among females (Hara 2002). The definition participants read of TB (Shaw et al 2013) in the present study also contained a considerable proportion of indirect forms of aggression (e.g., spreading rumors, not allowing someone to join in an activity).…”

“…Drawing on these findings, in the present study, it was expected that previous CB victims with repetitive experiences of TB as a bully (both past and recent) would be more likely to bully others in cyberspace irrespective of gender. However, taking into account that females appear to be more distressed by bullying experiences than males (Campbell et al 2013;Fenaughty and Harré 2013) and that females are more likely to engage in CB as a reaction to traditional forms of aggression (Yang et al 2013), it was expected that past CB victims with repetitive experiences of TB as a victim (i.e., who were bullied in the past) would have an increased risk of recent CB offending, and that the role of repeated TB victimization in this association would only be found among females.…”

Cyberbullying and Primary-School Aged Children: The Psychological Literature and the Challenge for Sociology

“…Behaviours consistently identified as cyberbullying include: threatening or nasty emails, mobile texts or Internet postings; social exclusion from the online community; impersonating another person or forwarding on the cyber victim's private information; posting derogatory or embarrassing pictures or videos; creating websites designed to hurt, intimidate or degrade victims; trolling or stalking; and harassing others in virtual environments or online games [2,10,[17][18][19].…”

A problémás internethasználat pszichoszociális háttértényezői és prevenciós lehetőségei

“…Akár a felnőttkorra is kihathatnak, a fiúk esetében a gyakori zaklatásnak való kitettség a későbbi évek során a szorongásos zavarok megjelenéséhez vezethet (Copeland, Wolke, Angold és Costello, 2013), illetve a cyberbullying a szociális zavarok és depresszió kialakulását is okozhatja (Campbell, Slee, Spears, Butler és Kift, 2013;Landoll, La Greca, Lai, Chan és Herge, 2015 …”