The correlation between parental communication pattern, self-esteem, and moral disengagement with cyberbullying behavior in early adolescents: A cross-sectional study

Abstract

Introduction: Cyberbullying has become a new case in young millennials that can lead to being a serious problem if it is not faced properly. Many cases cannot be resolved because the victims did not tell the truth clearly to their parents and teachers. It may cause a lack of self-esteem among the students and also make the perpetrator become morally disengaged. The purpose of this study was to identify the correlation between parental communication patterns, moral disengagement, and self-esteem with cyberbullying behavior in junior high school. Methods: A cross-sectional study was performed with 362 junior high school students in Indonesia using purposive sampling. Variables in this study were moral disengagement, self-esteem and parental communication patterns with cyberbullying behavior. The data were collected with the Rosenberg self-esteem scale, the cyberbullying behavior scale, the moral disengagement scale and the family communication pattern scale. Bivariate analysis with Chi-square was used to analyze the data. Results: This study found out that there were 223 students, 61.6% were female, and 43.6% were aged 14 years. There were 187 students (51.7%) who had mild cyberbullying behavior. The study revealed that there were significant correlations among cyberbullying behavior with moral disengagement (p = 0.005, self-esteem (p = 0.008), and parental communication pattern (p = 0.019). Conclusions: Parental communication, moral disengagement and self-esteem have a correlation with cyberbullying behavior. It was expected that the schools need to implement a training to improve social skills in junior high school students.

Impact of Social Media and Peer Pressure on Moral Disengagement among Secondary School Students in Onitsha North LGA, Anambra State

“…The finding on the positive impacts of social media on students' moral disengagement behavior is also supported in literature. For example, the current research outcome supports the finding made by Octavia et al, (2022) 2021) also disclosed that there is a significant relationship between moral development and dark triad influence on social media intent. This is also supported by the Fissel et al, (2021) findings which showed that cyber stalking perpetration among young adults significantly affects self-control and moral disengagement behavior.…”