Cyberbullying, psychopathic traits, moral disengagement, and school climate: the role of self-reported psychopathic levels and gender

Abstract

Little research evidence exists for the mechanisms through which cyberbullying develops and is maintained. The purpose of the present was to investigate a social-ecological diathesis-stress model for cyberbullying. The study examined the unique and interactive effects of psychopathic traits, moral disengagement and school climate on cyberbullying and cybervictimization. A sample of 407 adolescents aged 15–18 years completed the Youth Psychopathic Inventory, the Moral Disengagement Scale, the School Climate Bullying Survey and the Personal Experiences Checklist. The structural equation models performed provided support for a social-ecological diathesis-stress model for cyberbullying and cybervictimization. Different effects were present for participants differing in the levels of self-reported psychopathy and gender. Implications for research and practice are discussed.

Keywords:

• Cyberbullying
• cybervictimization
• psychopathic traits
• moral disengagement
• school climate

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 The third sub-scale of SCBS referring to the school climate, namely ‘prevalence of teasing and bullying’ was not used because of indications from preliminary statistical tests that it was not able to measure this construct validly in the Cypriot context.

2 Some authors consider Willingness to seek help an outcome of school climate (Eliot et al., 2010).

3 The labelling of the three sub-samples is done according to the level of psychopathy in the sample population and not to pre-defined criteria.

Additional information

Funding

This research was supported by internal grants from the University of Cyprus.