Speakers - 2025

Abstract

Cyberbullying is a serious issue in this digital era. Cyber-victims are often anxious or depressed, moreover, some angry, frustrated cyber-victims may use maladaptive emotion regulation strategies to strike out and cyberbully others (cyclic process model, Den Hamer & Konijn, 2016), which may perpetuate a vicious cycle of cyberbullying. Emotion regulation involves strategies to increase, maintain, or decrease emotional responses. One adaptive strategy is cognitive reappraisal, where individuals reinterpret emotion-eliciting situations to modify their emotional impact (Gross & John, 2003). However, few studies have examined the relationship between cyber-victimization and cyberbullying moderated by emotion regulation in a Chinese population. To fill this gap, this study argues that cyber-victims who employ cognitive reappraisal are less likely to cyberbully others. A total of 291 college students (Mean of age = 22.2,24% males) from Hong Kong, China, completed a questionnaire with validated scales measuring their past experiences of cyber-victimization, bullying (Leung & Chiu,2023), and cognitive reappraisal tendencies using the Emotion Regulation Questionnaire (ERQ; Gross & John, 2003). The frequency of cyberbullying was regressed on cyber-victimization, moderated by cognitive reappraisal. Results indicated a significant interaction effect, F(1,287) = 19.85, p < .001, showing that individuals who use cognitive reappraisal more frequently are less likely to cyberbully others. Findings bring implications for future interventions which aim at promoting cognitive reappraisal strategies among cyber-victims to prevent them from becoming cyberbullies.

Acknowledgement: The work presented is partially supported by a grant from the Research Grants Council(RGC) of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, China, Project No. EdUHK18601223.