The Impacts of Reactive Aggression and Friendship Quality on Cyberbullying Behaviour

Abstract

With the advancement of communication tools, the incident of cyberbullying has become a social issue (Edwina, 2014). Anouk et al. (2014) have developed a Cyclic Process Model with the aims to examine the underlying mechanisms of cyberbullying behavior pertaining to the process how victims become cyberbullies. It examines the interplay between peer victimization, anger/frustration, exposure to antisocial media content and cyberbullying behaviour among the adolescents (Anouk et al., 2014). However, this model does not provide sufficient understanding to what extent the reactive aggression and friendship quality affect the transformation of cyberbullying behaviour from the stage of peer victimization. In addition, there are relatively few investigators who have examined the impacts of reactive aggression and friendship quality to cyberbullying behaviour. The purpose of this research would like to investigate the relationships among the peer victimization, anger/frustration, exposure to social media content, reactive aggression, friendship quality and cyberbullying behaviour. A quantitative research was conducted among the addressed within the age group of 18 to 22 years old that have experienced certain extent of cyberbullying. A total of 520 questionnaires were distributed via judgmental sampling technique. The finding of this research concluded that peer victimization, anger/frustration, exposure to antisocial media content and reactive aggression are the key determinants of cyberbullying behavior. Two mediation effects were discovered in which exposure to antisocial media content mediates the relationship between anger/frustration and cyberbullying behavior as well as reactive aggression mediates the relationship between peer victimization and cyberbullying behavior. However, the study did not support the role of friendship quality in moderating the relationship between anger/frustration and cyberbullying behavior.