Portuguese Cyber Victims’ Self-Esteem and Gender in Young Adulthood

ABSTRACT

A growing body of evidence acknowledges that cyberbullying is a public mental health issue that extends to college settings. Current literature highlights the need to conduct further research on gender differences in mental health indicators proposed by cyberbullying theoretical models in young adulthood. This study examines the specific link between victimization, gender, and self-esteem through the General Aggression Model for cyber victimization. We surveyed 796 Portuguese college students (381 females, 415 males; age range: 18–25) with the Cyberbullying Questionnaire–Victimization and the Rosenberg Self-esteem Scale. Over half of our sample reported victimization experiences at a given point in their lives. Male and female young adults do not differ in their involvement as victims of cyberbullying. College cyber victims reported less self-esteem than non-involved students. Only self-esteem emerged as a significant predictor of cyber victimization. Current findings deepen our knowledge of the negative impact cyberbullying has on the mental health of college students and offer empirical support to the development of prevention and intervention strategies focusing on the psychological maladjustment of young adults regardless of their gender.

KEYWORDS:

• Cyberbullying
• online victimization
• peer violence
• general aggression model

Acknowledgments

The authors received no financial support for the research. We would like to express our gratitude to the reviewers for insightful comments on a previous version of the manuscript. A sincere thank you to Lanré Logan for proofreading the manuscript.

Disclosure Statement

The authors declare that they have no conflicts to report.

Ethical Standards and Informed Consent

All procedures followed were in accordance with the ethical standards of the responsible committee on human experimentation at the Instituto Universitário Egas Moniz and with the Helsinki Declaration of 1975, as revised in 2000. Informed consent was obtained from all participants for being included in the study.