What Makes a Bully a Cyberbully? Unravelling the Characteristics of Cyberbullies across Twenty-Five European Countries

Abstract

The characteristics of bullies who act face-to-face and those who do so in cyberspace were compared directly in one sample across twenty-five countries. The role of cross-country differences in technological infrastructure was also explored. Cyberbullies compared to face-to-face bullies were more likely to engage in risky online activities, spend more time online, and found it easier to be themselves online. Private access to the internet did not make a difference. Gender differences showed girls more likely to be cyber- than face-to-face bullies if they have a profile on a social networking site. Age and internet ability beliefs were also positively but not independently associated with cyberbullying. Cross-country differences were small and patterns remained mostly stable across countries, suggesting that individual and not country-level characteristics are pivotal in explaining cyberbullying.

Keywords:

• cyberbullying
• bullying
• internet
• adolescence
• aggression
• online harassment
• Europe
• cross-country analysis

Acknowledgements

This article draws on the work of the EU Kids Online network funded by the European Commission (DG Information Society) Safer Internet plus Programme (project code SIP-KEP-321803); see www.eukidsonline.net. We wish to thank Dr Lara Frumkin for her very helpful feedback.

Notes

^1. We note that the definition of cyberbullying specifies a power differential between bully and victim as well as the bully's intention that are not immediately apparent in the operationalization. However, in line with the literature we assume intention by the bully's awareness as indicated through assent to this question while the power differential in cyberbullying has been associated with computer literacy (Patchin & Hinduja, 2006) and the offender's anonymity (Ybarra & Mitchell, 2004b), which were assessed separately.

^2. Mobile phones were reported to be the most frequently used media for cyberbullying and this mostly in private (Smith et al., 2008).

^3. The routing procedures inherent in the EU Kids Online II survey do not permit the matching of predictor variables across all groups.