Full length articleCyberbullying and self-esteem: An Italian study
Introduction
Bullying describes a pervasive form of aggressive and intentional behaviour within a situation of an imbalance of power against a victim unable to defend himself (Li, 2007, Slonje and Smith, 2008, Smith et al., 2008). Usually, bullying manifests itself repeatedly over time in two ways: direct (physical behaviours such as hitting, pushing, kicking, and stealing) or indirect (verbal behaviours such as calling names, provoking, threatening, insults, spreading rumours, excluding, or isolating socially), (Olweus, 1993). This form of aggressive behaviour is mainly problematic for the school setting and in particular for the students’ well-being, leading it to be studied in many countries (Menesini et al., 2012). In schools, victims of bullying show low educational achievements and emotional problems, and are at a higher risk of depression and low self-esteem (Kim & Leventhal, 2008). Over the past few years, a new form of bullying has emerged, gathering the attention of researchers and teachers. At the same time, the huge progresses in digital technology are becoming more and more widespread. Mobile devices and other Internet applications given to adolescents not only new communication opportunities, but also have brought some negative social interactions known as cyberbullying. Many large-scale, cross-sectional studies demonstrate that cyberbullying is a significant problem for adolescents (Berson et al., 2002, El Asam and Samara, 2016, Ybarra and Mitchell, 2004).
Cyberbullying is generally defined as using electronic media (e.g., social networking site, e-mail, chat rooms, SMS, MMS, etc.) to harm another person who cannot defend themselves. In contrast to traditional bullying, cyberbullying reaches a far wider audience at a rapid speed, transcending boundaries of time as well as both physical and personal space (Kowalski et al., 2008, Smith et al., 2008). Students who were cyberbullied reported feelings of sadness, anxiety, and fear as well as an inability to concentrate at school (Beran & Li, 2005). Some studies even underline that victims of cyberbullying have low social status within their peer group, problematic relationships with their parents, and low self-esteem (Katzer, Fetchenhauer, & Belschak, 2009). Research has also shown that depression, substance abuse, and delinquency are significantly higher among the youth who report experiencing cyberbullying or online sexual solicitation (Mitchell, Ybarra, & Finkelhor, 2007).
The present research explores the gap between cyberbullying and self-esteem, which has not been completely explored and discussed in previous studies (Brighi et al., 2012, Patchin and Hinduja, 2010). Previous Italian studies have focused on cyberbullying and on the use of the different technological instruments such as the mobile telephone, personal computer, and emotional profile (Ortega et al., 2012) or on victimization predictors (Brighi et al., 2012). Therefore, this study attempts to increase the knowledge in the current research field by examining the association between cyberbullying risks in young students and the role of the self-esteem considered as a protective factor. In addition, based on this relationship, the current study explores the function of other variables such as gender, age, and parental control on Internet usage, specifically, in order to prevent interpersonal maltreatment in the cyberspace.
Rosenberg (1965) defined self-esteem as “a favourable or unfavourable attitude toward the self” (p. 15). Self-esteem is a personal belief or perception of how an individual is appreciated in the social world. A person with high self-esteem is usually assertive, pleased, and self-respecting, whereas those who have low self-esteem are anxious, lacking confidence, and self-critical. Whereas, people with low self-esteem show social problems and their self-concepts are inconsistent. In general, self-esteem tends to rise when a subject experiences positive life events such as success and favourable opinions among peers.
Previous studies have demonstrated an association between victimization experience and low self-esteem. Initially, O'Moore and Kirkham (2001) found that, among school students aged 8–18 years, high self-esteem protects children and adolescents from involvement in bullying. Furthermore, Seals and Young (2003) found no significant differences between self-esteem and groups of bullies and non-bullies. In a recent study, Patchin and Hinduja (2010) explored the relationship between an adolescent's experience with cyberbullying and their level of self-esteem. They found that victims of cyberbullying, when compared to normal subjects, showed lower levels of self-esteem. Among a number of risk factors in cyberbullying, a previous study indicated that positive feedback given on an adolescents' friend in Social Network Sites (SNSs) enhanced their self-esteem and well-being, whereas negative feedback decreased their self-esteem and well-being (Valkenburg, Peter, & Schouten, 2006).
A recent study on the effect of information technology usage and self-esteem showed that children who played video games more had lower self-esteem than children who played them less (Jackson, Fitzgerald, von Eye, Zhao, & Witt, 2010). Additionally, Williams and Guerra (2007) examined the relations among self-esteem, normative belief, and school climate. The results of their study underlined that, in schools with a negative climate, high self-esteem is a predictor of a higher level of bullying perpetration. In contrast, when the school climate was positive, a high level of self-esteem indicated a reduced problem of aggressive behaviour. Other studies have found that cyberbullying victimization among youths is a prediction of psychological distress and low self-esteem (Cénat et al., 2014). Others studies, for example, consider the self-esteem as an important predictor of personal and social well-being (Orth et al., 2012, Orth et al., 2014).
However, the current literature review underlines that the association between cyberbullying and self-esteem is not fully explained. In order to cover this gap, the current study aims at investigating in an Italian adolescent sample the protective role of self-esteem to reduce the risk of cyberbullying. More specifically, we considered that lower levels of self-esteem, and a reduced parental control over the subjects could increase risk of deviant behaviours such as cyberbullying in their use of Internet services.
Cyberbullying often occurs within the social-relational context (Hoff & Mitchell, 2008) by using short messaging service (e.g. SMS) between known people, or using social networking websites between “friends” in contrast with the commonly held assumption that it is anonymous (Hinduja and Patchin, 2008, Hinduja and Patchin, 2009, Kowalski and Limber, 2007, Patchin and Hinduja, 2006, Shariff, 2009).
Some previous studies have identified the risk factors of cyberbullying in demographic variable. Respect to the gender, in the traditional bullying, boys have more likely to be involved compared to girls (Jolliffe & Farrington, 2006) while in the cyberbullying behaviour, the studies are conflicting. Some studies, for instance, does not show gender differences for cyberbullies but found that boys are more involved as cyberbully (Li, 2006) and girls as cybervictim (Calvete et al., 2010, Dehue et al., 2008, Li, 2007, Smith et al., 2008). However, an evidence from a study showed that girls are more interested in cyberbullying than traditional bullying probably for their greater involvement in indirect aggression rather than direct one (Whittaker & Kowalski, 2015).
Recent studies (Mishna et al., 2011, Whittaker and Kowalski, 2015) suggest that cyberbullying tends to increase with the age and older boys are more likely to call someone names or threaten someone online. Instead, younger boys were more likely than younger girls to send unwelcome sexual words or photos to other subjects by online services.
Other findings show that children growing up in families with low or middle socioeconomic status (Kim et al., 2009, Wolke et al., 2001), and those that live in families with few social activities, have a high risk of victimization (Stevens, De Bourdeaudhuij, & VanOost, 2002).
In the past few years, studies have investigated the relationship between cyberbullying and family suggesting as young people have created an interactive virtual world away from adult supervision (Floros et al., 2013, Mishna et al., 2011). Internet services are easily accessible to the majority of young people at home and in educational settings worldwide. Often, young people are alone while surfing on the Internet, which may increase the risk to experience the role of bully or victim. Different studies underlined that cyberbullying (perpetration and victimization) is related to a subject's high computer competences and frequent use of the Internet or communication technologies in general (Huang and Chou, 2010, Katzer et al., 2009, Mesch, 2009, Vandebosch and Van Cleemput, 2009). Patchin and Hinduja (2006) found that adolescents used their computers in the privacy of their own bedrooms, thereby reducing, or even eliminating, the presence and supervision of their parents. This explains why cyberbullying can be highly correlated with a lack of parental control (Ybarra & Mitchell, 2004).
According to Livingstone and Bober (2004), parents exert less control because they believe that the virtual world is less dangerous than the real one. For parents, the Internet is a real challenge, which is why it is one of the few contexts in which they have less competence than their children. Some studies evidenced a relationship between parental knowledge about their children's whereabouts and discussions about online behaviour, and a lower frequency of cyberbullying victimization (Taiariol, 2010, Wade and Beran, 2011). Despite some parents' efforts to monitor their children's online behaviours, some studies found that many adolescents are hesitant to disclose being cyberbullied to a trusted adult (Ybarra & Mitchell, 2004). Therefore, it is assumed that a minor parental control on Internet use increase the risk of experiencing cyberbullying effects in young people.
Section snippets
Participants
The current study involved 438 students, of which 250 were females (57.1%) and 184 were males (42%) aged 10–20 years old (M = 15.17; SD = 2.22 years). The mean age was 15.08 years for males (SD = 2.25) and 15.23 years for females (SD = 2.18). Only four students did not specify their gender (0.9%), but they were included for the final statistical analyses because all their answers fulfilled the parameters correctly. The participants were recruited from four public schools (one middle school and
General aspects
Regarding the total sample, 11% of students were involved in cyberbullying as a perpetrator (occasional, 9%; severe, 2%), and 15.4% of the students as a victim (occasional, 13.1%; severe, 2.3%). Considering gender, males were involved as perpetrators 14% (occasional, 10.8%; severe, 3.2%), and as victims 14.9% (occasional, 12.8%; severe, 2.1%). Females were involved as perpetrators 8.9% (7.8% occasional and the 1.1% as severe), and as victims 15.6% (occasional, 13.3%; severe, 2.3%).
Concerning
Discussion
This study analysed the role of self-esteem in relation to the risk of cyberbullying in a sample of Italian adolescents. Moreover, other variables were considered such as gender, parental control, and school level. Regarding the gender variable, the analyses show that there are no significant differences in adolescents involved in cyberbullying, but male subjects appear more involved as perpetrators. This result is consistent with previous investigations, which found that boys are more
Conclusions, limitation and further research
The main objectives of the current study were to investigate two aspects of the cyberbullying risks: self-esteem level and the role of parental control. The results obtained in this study are consistent with previous investigations (Perren and Gutzwiller-Helfenfinger, 2012, Sticca et al., 2013). In particular, we found that subjects with a low level of self-esteem are more likely to be involved in cyberbullying risks. Other significant results are related to parental control. In fact, subjects
References (60)
- et al.
Cyberbullying in adolescents: Modalities and aggressors' profile
Computers in Human Behavior
(2010) - et al.
Cyberbullying, pshycological distress and self-esteem among youth in Quebec schools
Journal of affective disordes
(2014) - et al.
Cyberbullying and the law: A review of psychological and legal challenges
Computers in Human Behavior
(2016) - et al.
Personal information of adolescents on the internet: A quantitative content analysis of MySpace
Journal of adolescence
(2008) - et al.
An analysis of multiple factors of cyberbullying among junior high school students in Taiwan
Computers in Human Behavior
(2010) - et al.
Timetrends, trajectories, and demographic predictors of bullying: A prospective study in Korean adolescents
Journal of Adolescent Health
(2009) - et al.
Electronic bullying among middle school students
Journal of Adolescent Health
(2007) Social bonds and Internet pornographic exposure among adolescents
Journal of Adolescence
(2009)- et al.
The association of parenting style and child age with parental limit setting and adolescent MySpace behavior
Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology
(2008) - et al.
Prevalence and predictors of Internet bullying
Journal of Adolescent Health
(2007)
Cyber-harassment: A new method for an old behavior
Journal of Educational Computing Research
Emerging risks of violence in the digital age: Lessons for educators from an online study of adolescent girls in the United States
Journal of School Violence
Predictors of victimisation across direct bullying, indirect bullying and cyberbullying
Emotional and Behavioural Difficulties
Victimization in traditional bullying and cyberbullying among Italian preadolescents. An investigation in Emilia Romagna, Tuscany and Calabria
Giornale di Psicologia dello Sviluppo - Journal of Developmental Psychology
Bullying and self-esteem in adolescents from public schools
Jornal de Pediatria
Ethical principles for medical research involving Human subjects
Cyberbullying: Youngsters' experiences and parental perception
Cyberpsychology Behavior
Adolescent online cyberbullying in Greece: The impact of parental online security practices, bonding, and online impulsiveness
Journal of School Health
European project on bullying and cyberbullying granted by Daphne II programme
Journal of Psychology
Comparative aspects of cyberbullying in Italy, England and Spain
Bullying, cyberbullying, and suicide
Archives of Suicide Research
Cyberbullying: Causes, effects, and remedies
Journal of Educational Administration
The digital divides in the U.S.: Access, broadband, and nature of Internet use
Examining the relationship between low empathy and bullying
Aggressive Behavior
Cyberbullying: Who are the victims?: A comparison of victimization in internet chatrooms and victimization in school
Journal of Media Psychology: Theories, Methods, and Applications
Bullying and suicide. A review
International Journal of Adolescent Medicine and Health
The handbook of psychological testing
Cyberbullying: Bullying in the digital age
Cyberbullying in schools: A research of gender differences
School Psychology International
Bullying in the new playground: Research into cyberbullying and cyber victimization
Australasian Journal of Educational Technology
Cited by (104)
Influence of cyber-victimization and other factors on depression and anxiety among university students in Bangladesh
2023, Journal of Health, Population and NutritionCyberbullying Roles and the Use of Psychoactive Substances: A Systematic Review
2023, Adolescent Research Review
- 1
These authors contributed equally to this current paper.