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Shayna DaCuha

Dr. Holtzman

CEP 603

7 December 2017

Cyberbullying: Summary and Annotated Bibliography

Summary of Cyber bullying

Over the past decade or so, there has been a dramatic increase in technology and

social media usage among not only adults, but also adolescents. These advances have

had an effect on human behavior and culture in which an individual belongs to. Those

who have the newest, most advanced devices, such as computers, cell phones, tablets,

etc., now have the ability to use the Internet freely, and to the intent to which they please.

Cell phones have a greater function than just making phone calls these days, like

connecting to the Internet, and recording videos. These technological advances have

played a role in changing violent behavior and have enabled the harm of people at greater

distances with greater speed (Sugarman, 2013). Acts of violence have expanded from

bullying in the schoolyard, to cyber bullying on the Internet.

These advances in technology and communication tools are particularly

influential on our youth, who use these tools regularly; whether it is text message, chat

rooms, or social networking. Research states that children spend an average of 2-4 hours

online everyday and it is suggested that the majority of these children view their

electronic communication as an essential too for their social interaction (Mishna, 2010).

Children using the Internet and different technological communication forms put

themselves at risk for cyber bullying. Cyber bulling is, willful and repeated harm
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inflicted toward another and includes the use of e-mail, cell phones, text messages, and

Internet sites to threaten, harass, embarrass, socially exclude, or sexually harass

(Mishna, 2010). Anything that is put on the Internet becomes a public domain,

something that can be seen repeatedly, can be viewed by anyone, and it is something that

is hard to get rid of.

The question of whether cyber bullying is more harmful than traditional bullying

now comes into play. A study by Bauman and Newman (2013) was done to compare the

degree of distress experienced by incidents of traditional and cyber bullying that were

similar in all respects other than the method of perpetration (Bauman, 2013). Cyber

bullying is having an increase impact on students that is now affecting their performance

in school and attendance. In their research, they found other research on victims of cyber

bullying reported fear of attending school, disrupted school friendship, and even suicidal

thoughts. The study resulted in the distress children were having from being victims of

cyber bullying is based on the severity of the incident itself rather than the method of how

it is delivered.

I believe that cyber bullying is underestimated and due to it being an outside of

school kind of bullying, it is believed that it does not have a major effect on students

performance, and social interactions in school. It has been found that both bullies and

victims show lower levels of health and well-being, and report higher levels of

depression, anxiety, suicide, and mental/emotional symptoms compared to students who

are not involved. Also, they show more school absence, feel less safe at school, and have

lower academic achievements (Gradinger, 2017). In a study done by Mishna et al.

(2010), about half of the student participants had indicated they had been bullied online
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within the previous 3 months. They all fell under different types of cyber bullying such

as, rumors, threats, sexual harassment, and more. More than half of these participants

who were cyber bullied stated that they did not do anything about it, nor did they tell

anyone about it. (Mishna, 2010). In my opinion, I believe students shouldnt feel the need

to keep things hidden, such as something as serious as cyber bullying, but there has to be

a reasoning behind why they are not telling anyone about it. Are students just afraid of

the consequences from the one bullying them if they tell a teacher, a counselor, or a

parent or are some students feeling they dont have someone they feel comfortable

enough to talk to about a situation like this? Schools with faculty and administrators that

are knowledgeable about cyber bullying, with intervention programs, and involving

parents, will have a good grasp on what is going on in their childrens lives and how to

recognize cyber bullying. Boyd (2014) makes a statement about children, but they

need to know that caring adults are behind them and supporting them whenever they go

(Underwood, 2017)

Bullying is a major health problem and a threat to childrens education system

and economy. Therefore, interventions and preventions of bullying should be put in

place in all schools. It is important for all individuals to understand the effects bullying

has on children and how it is something that can happen at any given time. It is shown

through research that intervention programs containing teacher and parent training are

more effect than programs without (Gradinger, 2017).

As adolescents are so involved in social media, and online forms of

communication, there are going to many that are going to be attacked and be effected by

it in ways that adults may not think about. Cyber bullying can be done in multiple
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different ways, such as exclusion, or verbal, online text abuse. It is now up to

psychologists to get involved in studying adolescents digital communication, testing

theories and developing new ones if needed, and giving individuals and understanding of

the online lives of children (Underwood, 2017).

A problem that seems to be occurring is that as cyber bullying is a relatively new

form of bullying that is starting to receive more attention, there is still relatively little that

is know about the motivations or goals of those who are cyber bullies, the long-term

impacts, of being cyber bullied, and the extent of there difference between traditional

face-to-face bullying and cyber bullying (Dooley, 2009). The issues of power,

motivation, and repetition in cyber bullying are main functions that need to be addressed.
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Annotated Bibliography

Barlett, C. P., & Helmstetter, K. M. (2017). Longitudinal Relations Between Early Online

Disinhibition and Anonymity Perceptions on Later Cyberbullying Perpetration: A

Theoretical Test on Youth. Psychology Of Popular Media Culture,

doi:10.1037/ppm0000149

This articles main focus is explaining the psychological mechanisms that are used in

helping predict cyberbulling. This can help to create or even revise interventions that

will help to reduce the destructive behaviors of cyberbullying. A study was done using a

learning-based social model, Barlett and Gentile Cyberbullying Model (BGCM) on US

children, average age of 14 to predict those involved in performing cyberbullying, based

on their attitudes, anonymity perceptions, belief that physical stature is irrelevant online.

Results showed that anonymity perceptions, the belief that ones physical stature is

irrelevant in the online world, and cyberbullying attitudes are important and can explain

why people may attack one another online. The BGCM suggests anonymity perceptions

and the belief that physical stature is irrelevant online are developed from early

cyberbullying experiences. Lastly, it showed online disinhibition did not predict

cyberbullying attitudes longitudinally.

Bauman, S., & Newman, M. L. (2013). Testing assumptions about cyberbullying:

Perceived distress associated with acts of conventional and cyber

bullying. Psychology Of Violence, 3(1), 27-38. doi:10.1037/a0029867

The objective of this study was to determine if the hypothesis of cyber bullying being

more harmful than traditional, in person bullying. A total of 588 students were used and

they used an online questionnaire assessing behaviors and experiences between both
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traditional and online bullying. The results showed that the pain of bullying in

individuals depended on the severity of the incident rather than what form of bullying it

was. They found significant gender differences across all subscales, finding that females

reporting distress more often than males. A discussion on interventions that can reduce

all types of bullying was given.

Dooley, J. J., Pyalski, J., & Cross, D. (2009). Cyberbullying versus face-to-face

bullying: A theoretical and conceptual review. Zeitschrift Fr

Psychologie/Journal Of Psychology, 217(4), 182-188. doi:10.1027/0044-

3409.217.4.182

The purpose of this paper was to review the theoretical and empirical literature that has

been done to examine the similarities and differences between cyberbullying and face-to-

face bullying. As both cyberbullying and face-to-face bullying are two distinct groups of

behaviors, the overlap between them both is indicated. They wanted to start improving

peoples understanding of cyberbullying and to bring about approaches to developing

prevention and intervention strategies.

Gradinger, P., Strohmeier, D., & Spiel, C. (2017). Parents and teachers opinions on

bullying and cyberbullying prevention: The relevance of their own childrens or

students involvement. Zeitschrift Fr Psychologie, 225(1), 76-84.

doi:10.1027/2151-2604/a000278

Parents and teachers play a significant role in the lives on school-aged children. The goal

of this present study was to get an inside look on parents and teachers opinions on

bullying and cyber bullying. They wanted to know their opinions on how to prevent it

and to examine their involvement in bullying affects their opinions. A total of 959 adults,
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a pretty even split between parents and teachers participated in voicing their opinions. A

majority of the participants agreed that bullying was in fact a very important topic,

however they saw cyber bullying not as severe as physical, face-to-face bullying.

Ninety-five percent of parents and 90% of teachers agreed that they would be in favor of

a bullying prevention program.

Katzer, C., Fetchenhauer, D., & Belschak, F. (2009). Cyberbullying: Who are the

victims?: A comparison of victimization in internet chatrooms and victimization

in school. Journal Of Media Psychology: Theories, Methods, And

Applications, 21(1), 25-36. doi:10.1027/1864-1105.21.1.25

This article describes how bullying doesnt only happen face-to-face in schools, but also

happens online and the types of verbal aggressions that children use. Their focus was to

get answers to their questions about cyberbullying in children: How often does bullying

occur online, who are the victims, and what are the causes of abuse online. There was a

total of 1700 male and female students used for this study, from grades 5 to 11, average

age of 14. A standardized survey, a short version of the Olweus Bully/Victim

Questionnaire was given to students during a school lesson. Their results displayed a

strong relationship between online abuse and in school abuse, and those who were

victims in school are considerably online victims as well. The reasonings behind both

online and school victimization had common factors such as gender, self-concept, child-

parent relationship, as well as differences such as social integration, popularity, and

bullying behavior.

Low, S., & Espelage, D. (2013). Differentiating cyber bullying perpetration from non-
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physical bullying: Commonalities across race, individual, and family

predictors. Psychology Of Violence, 3(1), 39-52. doi:10.1037/a0030308

This study was used to determine the prevalence of bullying by race and gender, to

examine the longitudinal relations between family, and individual risk and protective

factors on bullying behavior, and to assess if these relations are affected by race and

gender. One thousand and twenty three students from 5th 7th grade participated,

completing a questionnaire based on bullying participation, family conflict, parental

monitoring, anger, depressive symptoms, empathy, and alcohol/drug use. The results

showed an overlap in cyberbullying and nonphysical bullying, as well as parental

monitoring associated with higher levels of cyberbullying via alcohol/drug abuse.

Nonphysical bullying was associated with both high family violence and lower partental

monitoring, which explained anger in white males and depressive symptoms in African

American males.

Mehari, K. R., & Farrell, A. D. (2016). Where Does Cyberbullying Fit? A Comparison of

Competing Models of Adolescent Aggression. Psychology Of Violence,

doi:10.1037/vio0000081

In this study, the authors wanted to examine how cyberbullying goes together with

adolescent aggression. They used 677 adolescents from 3 different public schools, ages

ranging from 11 to 15, and each child did a self-report on how often they used physical,

verbal, or social aggression and how often they partook in cyberbullying. The results

indicated that cyberbullying is related to the aggression and that cyber bullying is a new

form of aggression in adolescents.

Mishna, F., Cook, C., Gadalla, T., Daciuk, J., & Solomon, S. (2010). Cyber bullying
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behaviors among middle and high school students. American Journal Of

Orthopsychiatry, 80(3), 362-374. doi:10.1111/j.1939-0025.2010.01040.x

This study was done to examine the frequency of cyber bullying, the impact it has on

children, and the difference experiences children have with it. They used a large, diverse

sample of students, a total of 2,186 from the middle school and high school in urban area.

The survey assessed their technology use, the behaviors of cyber bullying, and the

psychosocial impact. Results found that just about half of the participants stated they

have been bullied before online, and a little less than half stated they had been the one

bullying others online. Participants who were being bullied most of the time did not tell

anyone they were victims of cyber bullying, and they reported feelings of anger, sadness,

and depression. Those who were initiating the cyber bullying did it for popularity,

power, and feeling like they were funny. More attention to this major subject is needed

in order to stop cyber bullying.

Sugarman, D. B., & Willoughby, T. (2013). Technology and violence: Conceptual issues

raised by the rapidly changing social environment. Psychology Of Violence, 3(1),

1-8. doi:10.1037/a0031010

This article describes the increase in technology and the link that violence and technology

have, and provides some possible future direction for research and policy. As there is an

increase in technology, the online web is a huge place, with different forms of

communication and visual stimuli. People are now being exposed to more violent

stimuli. With these advances, bullying in both schools and workplaces has now made it

way to cyberspace.

Underwood, M. K., & Ehrenreich, S. E. (2017). The power and the pain of adolescents
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digital communication: Cyber victimization and the perils of lurking. American

Psychologist, 72(2), 144-158. doi:10.1037/a0040429

As social media has recently increasingly emerged into the lives of many adolescents and

it is now psychologists job to delve into more research on this new world for adolescents

and examining their online usage and communication. By doing so, they can get an

understanding of the impact it is having on cyber aggression and the effects it can have

on children. The purpose of this article is for psychologists to study how often

adolescents are engaging with social media and digital communication. It concludes with

recommendations for clinicians, scientists, educators, and parents on how to guide

children to use their social media and online communication in a positive manner.