Profiles of participant roles in offline bullying and cyberbullying and normative beliefs among Korean adolescents

Abstract

This study identified patterns of bullying roles in offline and cyber contexts among Korean adolescents and investigated their relationships with normative beliefs about offline bullying and cyberbullying. Four distinct latent classes of participant roles in offline bullying and cyberbullying emerged through a person-centered latent profile analysis: (a) low involvement (54%), (b) bully/victim-nondefenders (9.9%), (c) defenders (17%), and (d) offline bully-cyber outsiders (19.1%). Adolescents in the defenders class reported the highest levels of defending behavior both online and offline compared with adolescents in the other classes, while adolescents in the bully/victim-nondefenders class reported the highest levels in all roles except for the defending role (i.e., bully, follower, outsider, and victim roles). The overall pattern of the results was similar for the bully/victim-nondefenders and the offline bully-cyber outsiders class, though these two classes have marked differences in cyberbullying scores. The results indicated unique differences regarding antecedents (normative beliefs about offline bullying and cyberbullying) tied to patterns of roles in offline bullying and cyberbullying. The findings suggest that preventive interventions against bullying are possible by changing personal beliefs about offline bullying and cyberbullying.