Cyberbullying and self-esteem in Australian adults

Brack, Kerryn, and Caltabiano, Nerina (2014) Cyberbullying and self-esteem in Australian adults. Cyberpsychology: Journal of Psychosocial Research on Cyberspace, 8 (2). 7.

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Abstract

Cyberbullying research is currently focused on identifying personal factors which increase the risk of an individual being involved in the behaviour. Recent findings indicate that within the web of cyberbullying culture a large group of individuals are both cyberbullies and victims. This group of cyberbully/victims has been shown to differ from pure cyberbullies or victims on various factors during adolescence; particularly self-esteem. However, little research to date has investigated cyberbullying behaviour in adults. The current study examined the prevalence of cyberbully typologies and their relationship with self-esteem within a convenience sample of 164 Australian young adults (72% being females; 17-25 years). Results found that the largest group identified were cyberbully/victims (62%), followed by individuals not involved (17%), cyberbullies (11%) and cybervictims (10%) respectively. The ratio of males and females in each of the four cyberbully typologies was similar. Contrary to previous research, all four cyberbully typologies reported similar levels of self-esteem. These findings suggest that research should examine cyberbullying behaviour across all age groups to determine if this is related to different factors in adolescence compared to adulthood. Limitations and future recommendations are discussed.

Item ID: 34403
Item Type: Article (Research - C1)
ISSN: 1802-7962
Keywords: cyberbullying, cybervictimisation, cyberbully typologies, self-esteem, adults
Additional Information:

The articles in Cyberpsychology: Journal of Psychosocial Research on Cyberspace are open access articles licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License which permits unrestricted, non-commercial use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the work is properly cited.

Research Data: https://research.jcu.edu.au/researchdata/default/detail/216407e662d0c6f107eeefa5a0b0793b
Date Deposited: 25 Feb 2015 22:52
FoR Codes: 17 PSYCHOLOGY AND COGNITIVE SCIENCES > 1701 Psychology > 170113 Social and Community Psychology @ 100%
SEO Codes: 97 EXPANDING KNOWLEDGE > 970117 Expanding Knowledge in Psychology and Cognitive Sciences @ 100%
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