Gender differences in cyberbullying perpetration on Facebook: the role of empathy, callous unemotional traits, and moral disengagement

Despite extensive research on cyberbullying, the interplay between gender, personality factors, and cyberbullying perpetration behaviours on social networking sites remains underexplored, particularly among young adults. This study aims to examine gender differences in cyberbullying perpetration on...

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Main Author: Eleftherios Baltzidis
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: UCOPress 2024-11-01
Series:Psychology, Society & Education
Subjects:
Online Access:https://journals.uco.es/psye/article/view/16997
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author Eleftherios Baltzidis
author_facet Eleftherios Baltzidis
author_sort Eleftherios Baltzidis
collection DOAJ
description Despite extensive research on cyberbullying, the interplay between gender, personality factors, and cyberbullying perpetration behaviours on social networking sites remains underexplored, particularly among young adults. This study aims to examine gender differences in cyberbullying perpetration on Facebook and, guided by the General Aggression Model as the theoretical framework, to explain how individual factors such as empathy, callous-unemotional traits, and moral disengagement, as moderated by the number of Facebook friends, contribute to cyberbullying perpetration on Facebook. This study investigates this complex association among a community sample of 171 participants aged 18 to 35 years (57.9% female), selected through convenience sampling and the snowball recruitment method. The findings revealed no significant interaction effects of the number of Facebook friends in the association between personality factors and cyberbullying perpetration on Facebook. More, results showed no significant gender differences in the frequency of cyberbullying perpetration. However, distinct gender patterns emerged in the association between personality traits and cyberbullying perpetration on Facebook. Males demonstrated stronger associations between moral disengagement, cognitive empathy, and cyberbullying perpetration on Facebook, while females exhibited significant associations between cognitive and affective empathy and cyberbullying perpetration on Facebook. The implications of these findings are thoroughly discussed in relation to existing literature.
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spelling doaj-art-178f0881c8374d32a0ea15fc23e375f72024-12-02T09:11:45ZengUCOPressPsychology, Society & Education1989-709X2024-11-0116310.21071/pse.v16i3.16997Gender differences in cyberbullying perpetration on Facebook: the role of empathy, callous unemotional traits, and moral disengagementEleftherios Baltzidis0University of Kent, Canterbury (United Kingdom) Despite extensive research on cyberbullying, the interplay between gender, personality factors, and cyberbullying perpetration behaviours on social networking sites remains underexplored, particularly among young adults. This study aims to examine gender differences in cyberbullying perpetration on Facebook and, guided by the General Aggression Model as the theoretical framework, to explain how individual factors such as empathy, callous-unemotional traits, and moral disengagement, as moderated by the number of Facebook friends, contribute to cyberbullying perpetration on Facebook. This study investigates this complex association among a community sample of 171 participants aged 18 to 35 years (57.9% female), selected through convenience sampling and the snowball recruitment method. The findings revealed no significant interaction effects of the number of Facebook friends in the association between personality factors and cyberbullying perpetration on Facebook. More, results showed no significant gender differences in the frequency of cyberbullying perpetration. However, distinct gender patterns emerged in the association between personality traits and cyberbullying perpetration on Facebook. Males demonstrated stronger associations between moral disengagement, cognitive empathy, and cyberbullying perpetration on Facebook, while females exhibited significant associations between cognitive and affective empathy and cyberbullying perpetration on Facebook. The implications of these findings are thoroughly discussed in relation to existing literature. https://journals.uco.es/psye/article/view/16997General Aggression ModelSocial Networking SitesPersonality factorsOnline behaviour
spellingShingle Eleftherios Baltzidis
Gender differences in cyberbullying perpetration on Facebook: the role of empathy, callous unemotional traits, and moral disengagement
Psychology, Society & Education
General Aggression Model
Social Networking Sites
Personality factors
Online behaviour
title Gender differences in cyberbullying perpetration on Facebook: the role of empathy, callous unemotional traits, and moral disengagement
title_full Gender differences in cyberbullying perpetration on Facebook: the role of empathy, callous unemotional traits, and moral disengagement
title_fullStr Gender differences in cyberbullying perpetration on Facebook: the role of empathy, callous unemotional traits, and moral disengagement
title_full_unstemmed Gender differences in cyberbullying perpetration on Facebook: the role of empathy, callous unemotional traits, and moral disengagement
title_short Gender differences in cyberbullying perpetration on Facebook: the role of empathy, callous unemotional traits, and moral disengagement
title_sort gender differences in cyberbullying perpetration on facebook the role of empathy callous unemotional traits and moral disengagement
topic General Aggression Model
Social Networking Sites
Personality factors
Online behaviour
url https://journals.uco.es/psye/article/view/16997
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