Literature Review

Literature Review

Literature Review

The Definitions of Cyberbullying

To defining the term, cyberbullying, it is necessary to review how the term, bullying, has been defined (e.g., Beran, Rinaldi, Bickham, & Rich, 2012; Choi & Lee, 2017; Choi, Earl, Lee, & Cho, 2019; Hinduja & Patchin, 2013; Inchley et al., 2016; Lessne & Cidade, 2016; Li, 2006, 2007; Litwiller & Brausch, 2013; Rice et al., 2015; Slonje & Smith, 2008; Slonje, Smith, & Frisén, 2013; Smith et al., 2008; Tokunaga, 2010; Watts, Wagner, Velasquez, & Behrens, 2017). In existing bullying literature, the term had been inconsistently defined for individual study purposes until the U.S. federal government agencies developed a uniform definition of bullying in 2014 (see Gladden Gladden, Vivolo-Kantor, Hamburger, & Lumpkin,, 2014). Through a process of consulting with bullying experts and practitioners as well as the people from the federal partner agencies such as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the National Center for Injury Prevention and Control (NCIPC), and the Department of Education (ED), the term, bullying, was defined as the following:

any unwanted aggressive behavior(s) by another youth or group of youths who are not siblings or current dating partners that involves an observed or perceived power imbalance and is repeated multiple times or is highly likely to be repeated. Bullying may inflict harm or distress on the targeted youth including physical, psychological, social, or educational harm (see Gladden et al., 2014, p. 7).

In this definition, youth are school-aged individuals 5 to 18 years of age; the term, unwanted, means the targeted youth want to stop perpetrator(s)’ intentional use of aggressive behavior to harm against him or her, regardless of threatened or actual; the term, harm, means any physical, psychological, social and/or educational negative experiences or injuries including physical pain, feelings of distress, social damage of self-reputation at school, and/or limits or damages to educational opportunities (see Gladden et al., 2014, p. 8). According to this definition, cyberbullying was not directly defined or considered as a different type of bullying, but a subcategory of bullying locations occurred in cyberspace using electronic devices (see Gladden et al., 2014, p. 55).

In addition, the term, bullying, is somewhat differently defined in the three commonly used national surveys to measure the prevalence of bullying: (1) the Health Behaviors in School-age Children (HBSC), (2) the Youth Risk Behavior Survey (YRBS), and (3) the School Crime Supplement (SCS). For example, HBSC sees bullying as a student is being bullied when another student, or a group of students, say or do nasty and unpleasant things to him or her. It is also bullying when a student is teased repeatedly in a way he or she does not like or when he or she is deliberately left out of things. But it is not bullying when two students of about the same strength or power argue or fight. It is also not bullying when a student is teased in a friendly and playful way (Inchley et al., 2016, p. 197).

On the other hand, the YRBS defines bullying “when 1 or more students tease, threaten, spread rumors about, hit, shove, or hurt another student over and over again. It is not bullying when 2 students of about the same strength or power argue or fight or tease each other in a friendly way” (CDC, 2018, p. 7). Finally, in the SCS (2015), bullying happens when one or more students tease, threaten, spread rumors about, hit, shove or hurt another student. Bullies are usually stronger, or have more friends or more money, or some other power over the student being bullied. Usually, bullying happens over and over, or the student being bullied thinks it might happen over and over (United States Department of Justice, 2013, p.9). Starting in 2015, the SCS started to include the follow-up questions on repetition and power imbalance to estimate the percentage of bullying experience as outlined in the CDC uniform definition (Lessne & Cidade, 2016).

Instead of developing a new definition for cyberbullying, early studies placed space restriction from traditional bullying to cyberspace where one can access using electronic communication tools (Li, 2006, 2007; Slonje & Smith, 2008; Smith et al., 2008). Consequently, several bullying characteristics have been adopted to the cyberbullying definition such as the repetition of the act, the power imbalance, and the intent of embarrassing or damaging other individuals (Beran et al., 2012; Hinduja & Patchin, 2013; Rice et al., 2015; Slonje et al., 2013). In addition, cyberbullying most often involves abusive or hurtful texts, emails, posts, images, and videos as well as deliberately excluding others online and gossiping or spreading rumors in an attempt to imitate and humiliate targeted individuals (Tokunaga, 2010; Watts et al., 2017).

Due to the unique characteristics of cyberspace, such as no space and time restriction and perceived anonymity (Kowalski, Morgan, & Limber, 2012), defining cyberbullying is a challenging task. At the same time, such characteristics also led scholars to agree that cyberbullying can occur at any time in any place. Therefore, based on previous literature, the current study defines cyberbullying as any intentional harm delivered through electronic media, including emails, instant messaging or chat, texts, online gaming, and posts from social media, which may inflict psychological, social, educational and/or physical harm to the targeted youth.

Someone may wonder how cyberbullying can physically harm the youth. There might be no pushing, shoving, or tripping by others in cyberbullying cases, but victims can inflict self-harm as a response to their victimization. For example, from a large risk-behavior screening study with a sample of 4,693 public high school students, Litwiller and Brausch (2013) found that both cyberbullying and traditional bullying victims showed problems with substance use, violent and unsafe sexual behavior. More importantly, both bullying victims also showed suicidal behavior after victimization. Hinduja and Patchin (2010) also found that students who experienced both traditional and cyberbullying showed suicidal ideation or attempted to commit suicide. In cyberbullying cases, victims were almost twice more likely to have attempted suicide than those who were not cyberbullying victims.

Cyberbullying Literature Since the Mid 2000s

Since, its inception, many cyberbullying studies have compared the demographic characteristics of bullies and victims of both school bullying (a.k.a., traditional bullying) and cyberbullying (Baldry, Farrington, & Sorrentino, 2017; Li, 2006, 2007; Erdur-Baker, 2010; Slonje & Smith, 2008; Vieno, Gini, & Santinello, 2011; Waasdorp & Bradshaw, 2015), while others focused on psychological characteristics of bullies and victims of both school bullying and cyberbullying such as depression symptoms and suicidal ideation (Bauman et al., 2013; Gradinger et al., 2009; Kubiszewski et al., 2015; Pabian & Vandebosch, 2016). Besides, physical characteristics such as aggression (Gradinger et al., 2009; Mishna et al., 2020) and presence of coping or preventive factors, including peer influence, adult influence, and school safety measures (Charalampous et al., 2018; Meter & Bauman, 2018), were also examined by scholars in various fields.

Cyberbullying literature tends to focus on children and adolescent populations, but some studies also utilized college populations to demonstrate the impacts and factors of cyberbullying (Francisco, Simão, Ferreira, & das Dores Martins, 2015; Gaffney, Ttofi, Farrington, 2019; Goodboy & Martin, 2015; Menesini & Salmivalli, 2017). For example, according to the HBSC 2013/2014 data (Inchley et al., 2019), 10.6 percent out of 176,185 students experienced cyberbullying through messages (e.g., instant messages, emails, text messages) and unflattering or inappropriate pictures as well as by posting them online without permission (8.4 percent out of 178,935 participants). Furthermore, since cyberbullying is not an issue that is confined to one country, scholars worldwide demonstrated their interests and examined factors, impact, and prevention mechanisms regarding cyberbullies and victims. Such a trend of focusing on cyberbullies and victims then expanded to include bully-victims who experienced both spectra of bullying (Del Rey, Elipe, & Ortega-Ruiz, 2012; Vieno, Gini, & Santinello, 2011; Wang et al., 2019).

Even though the majority of cyberbullying literature is focused on the characteristics and factors surrounding bullies and victims, two different areas have emerged. First, widespread use of social networking services and innovative techniques in automated prediction led scholars to develop cyberbullying prediction models using automated detection programs incorporating personality traits and psychological features (Balakrishnan, Khan & Arabnia, 2020; Del Rey, Mora-Merchán, Casas, Ortega-Ruiz, & Elipe, 2018; Fazil & Abulaish, 2018; Rosa et al., 2019). The use of a prediction model is a new area of research that requires rigorous and continuous development as well as evaluation. Second, there is also an emerging trend of focusing on the bystander effects of cyberbullying (Pazzoli & Gini, 2020; Song & Oh, 2018). Studies on bystander effects focus on psychological and situational factors surrounding the bystander. Findings from these two areas are still in their infancy to generalize and require further assessment.

As defined by Gladden et al. (2014), it is obvious that the bullied suffer from social, educational, and psychological distress along with physical harms. Existing literature demonstrates how bullying inflicts harm or distress on the victim as well as what mechanisms effectively assist victims in being recovered from such distresses. Several studies have found that bullying victimization is related to externalizing and/ or internalizing problems (Cook et al., 2010; Reijntjes et al., 2011). For instance, bullying increases suicidal ideation and behavior (Holt et al., 2015; Kowalski et al., 2014; van Geel et al., 2014), depression (Hawker & Boulton, 2000; Kowalski et al., 2014; Trofi et al., 2014), anxiety (Kowalski et al., 2014), psychotic/psychosomatic/psychological symptoms (Albdour, Hong, Lewin, & Yarandi, 2019; Cunningham et al., 2015; Gini & Pozzoli, 2013; Van Dam et al., 2012), stress (Kowalski et al., 2014), drug and alcohol use (Kowalski et al., 2014; Trofi et al., 2011), emotional (Kowalski et al., 2014) and sleeping problems (van Geel et al., 2016). Additionally, bullying decreases self-esteem (Hawker & Boulton, 2000; Kowalski et al., 2014; Tsaousis, 2016), social-esteem (Hawker & Boulton, 2000), and academic achievement (Nakamoto & Schwartz, 2009).

Table 1 summarizes selected studies that test the impacts of emotional and psychological distresses on the victims of cyberbullying for the purpose of the current study. For example, Albdour, Hong, Lewin, and Yarandi (2019) examined a convenient sample of 150 Arab American adolescents on their cyberbullying experience and its impact on their health. Using the Children’s Somatization Inventory (CSI-24) and the Kassler Psychological Distress Scale (K10), they tested the severity of non-specific somatic symptoms, anxiety levels, and depression symptoms experienced by the adolescents who had cyberbullied (perpetrators) and/or had been cyberbullied (victims). Albdour et al. (2019) found that both cyberbullying perpetration and victimization were positively correlated with both physical complaints and psychological distress. However, by controlling the demographic variables, physical complaints were significantly related to cyberbullying perpetrators only (B = 11.02, p 7). With the fact that interpersonal and intrapersonal factors are more likely to influence self-esteem in its development, it is crucial to consider the robust study finding in the development of a victim assistance program for peer victimizations and how other individual characteristics and qualities play a role in bullying and its victimization (Tsaousis, 2016).

To assess if the strength of the association between peer victimization (bullying and peer aggression) and psychosomatic health problems relies on how to measure bullying or peer aggression, Hellström and her colleagues (2017) analyzed 2,578 Swedish adolescents aged 13 –15 years and found that adolescent victims have more significant psychosomatic problems than non-victims. While the impacts on psychosomatic health problems with each measure (bullying, occasional peer aggression, and frequent peer aggression) were not significantly different, the adolescents victimized by both measures (bullying plus occasional peer aggression; and bullying plus frequent peer aggression) showed higher levels of psychosomatic health problems (Hellström et al., 2017).

Table 1. Selected Multivariate Studies on Physical and Psychological Impacts of Cyberbullying

Several studies on bullying treatment and assistance focus on coping mechanisms, including the effect of social or emotional support (Collins & Laursen, 2004; House, 1981; Moss, 1973). Moss (1973) defined the term, social support, as the subjective feelings of being cared for, accepted, loved, needed, and belonged. House (1981) described emotional support as the perception of support conveyed to others, such as the provision of acceptance, reassurance, and encouragement in times of stress or difficulty. It is a widely known fact that positive parental supports and the perceptions of supportive relationships with parents are essential keys to adolescents’ wellbeing (Collins & Laursen, 2004). Parental support, however, may not be the most significant factor to prevent and reduce peer victimizations and to support adolescent victims because bullying and/or peer aggression most frequently occur in school settings. That is, other emotional and social support groups are needed for the victims in a school setting such as adult (e.g., teacher and school staff) and/or peer support groups.

A paucity of studies has examined the importance of emotional support groups for adolescent victims seeking help, particularly for the victims of cyberbullying. Yeung and Leadbeater (2010) examined the moderation effect of the three adult emotional support groups (father, mother, and teacher) on the relations between peer victimization and maladaptive outcomes (emotional and behavioral problems) with a total of 664 adolescents over a two-year period (N=664) in the first survey (2003, T1) and N=580 in the follow-up survey (2005, T2). The results showed that both physical and relational (i.e., peers tell lies about the victim) victimizations were positively significant on both emotional and behavioral problems among adolescents. And it was found that females were more emotionally and behaviorally distressed by victimizations than male adolescents (Yeung & Leadbeater, 2010). Particularly, the behavioral problems among female adolescents were positively significant with the relational victimization in T2. In other words, the study found that behavioral problems are caused by relational bullying experiences later years, especially among female victims. One interesting finding of the study was that the higher emotional support from father lowers adolescents’ emotional and behavioral problems both in T1 and T2, while their mothers’ emotional support significantly moderated their children’s emotional problems only in T1. Moreover, teachers’ emotional support significantly lowered adolescents’ relational problems in T1 and T2, while its significant moderation effects on emotional problems were found in T2. Yeung and Leadbeater (2010) constructed the temporal ordering from bullying to emotional and behavioral harms inflicted on adolescents. They also demonstrated moderated effect of fathers’ and teachers’ supports on reducing the harm caused by bullying.

Current Study

The current study extends previous research on cyberbullying victimization among youth by examining the impact of the presence of adult and peer support on the level of social and psychological harms. According to the National Crime Victimization Survey-School Crime Supplement (NCVS-SCS) data between 2011 and 2013, cyberbullying victims experience social harm 1.5 times more than traditional bullying victims, and experience twice more psychological harm compared to traditional bullying victims (NCVS-SCS, 2011; 2013). The literature on causes and preventive methods on reducing both social and psychological harm, however, is limited. Therefore, under the assumption that adult and peer support can reduce the level of both social and psychological harm, the current study hypotheses the following:

Hypothesis 1: Cyberbullying victims are less likely to experience social harm with adult support.

Hypothesis 2: Cyberbullying victims are less likely to experience social harm with peer support.

Hypothesis 3: Cyberbullying victims are less likely to experience psychological harm with adult support.

Hypothesis 4: Cyberbullying victims are less likely to experience psychological harm with peer support.