The proportion of cyberbullying amongst school violence is steadily increasing, and as most of middle school students use smart phones, cyber bullying which uses text messages, mobile messengers, and SNS(Social Networking Service) is rising as a sever...
The proportion of cyberbullying amongst school violence is steadily increasing, and as most of middle school students use smart phones, cyber bullying which uses text messages, mobile messengers, and SNS(Social Networking Service) is rising as a severe social problem (Ministry of Education, 2014; Song, 2016; Lee, Shin, 2014). Earlier studies have shown that cyberbullying experience of juveniles negatively affects the bullies, victims and bully-victims (Cho, 2013; Seo & Cho, 2013; Beran & Li, 2008, Hinduja & Patchin, 2009; Hoff & Michell, 2009; Parris, Varjas, Meyers & Cutts, 2012; Rigby, 1996; Völlink, Bolman, Dehue & Jacobs, 2013), calling for a countermeasure towards cyberbullying.
Effective coping strategy of victims against cyberbullying is important because the strategy of victims can mitigat the negative effects of cyberbullying (Raskauskas & Huynh, 2015). Nevertheless, according to the results of domestic and international studies, victim students are known for not coping cyberbullying quite effectively (Oh, Song, Kim, Yoon, 2015; Machackova, Cerna, Sevcikova, Dedkova & Daneback, 2013; Völlink, Bolman, Dehue & Jacobs, 2013).
Domestic studies on coping strategies against cyberbullying are insufficient, and only recently a few international studies dealt with this issue. Also there are still lack of domestic/international studies for specific coping strategies against cyber bullying types. Especially, there are few studies regarding cyberbullying coping strategy differences in terms of individual psychological characters. So, it is needed to clarify effective coping strategy regarding to cyberbullying types recognized by students, and how individual psychological factors affect coping strategy.
Therefore this study aimed to clarify what an effective coping strategy is, according to types of cyberbullying that middle school students recognize. After categorizing cyberbullying into 3 types(verbal/extortion/exclusion bullying), each of them was again categorized into 3 situations(public/limitedly public/closed situations) to confirm the differences of coping strategies in total 9 cases. Also, this study aimed to clarify what individual psychological variables affected coping strategies against cyberbullying. As psychological factors, empathy, attribution types(bullies, victims, bully-victims), depression·anxiety, social support, and social competence were selected, which are known for relevant psychological factors of bullying based on previous literature, and total 8 coping strategies of technical defense, direct aggression, indirect aggression, seeking support, ignorance, avoidance, passive response, and assertive response were selected to review how various psychological factors affect coping strategies. In addition, this study analysed whether there are gender differences in coping strategies to the 9 types of cyber bullying.
The purpose of current the study was two folded. First, it was investigated if there was difference in coping strategy according to cyber bullying categories. Second, individual psychological variables that affected cyberbullying coping was examined. For this, middle school students of adolescence that was identified to show increased cyberbullying victim ratio compared with other age group were chosen as study subjects. This study surveyed 600 students of each grade from three middle schools of Daegu area via convenience sampling, and analyzed data of 541 students except 59 insincere respondents, using frequency analysis, correlation analysis, and multiple regression analysis.
As a result of the study, first, a frequency analysis identified that coping strategies were differently used respective to cyberbullying types. Also, as result of using Chi-square test in order to identify difference of coping strategies according to gender in each situation, it was identified that in 8 out of 9 situations, there were significant differences according to gender, except exclusion-public situation. Generally, it was identified that female students tend to use more positive coping strategies(technical defense, assertive response), less tend to use aggressive coping strategies(direct, indirect) and cope more reasonably than male students.
Second, as the result of t-test to identify whether psychological variables differ according to sex, it was identified that there was significant difference in variables of empathy, attacker attribution, and depression·anxiety. Among psychological variables, female students showed more empathy and depression·anxiety than male students, and thinking the attacker responsible for the bullying was also higher in females than males.
Third, as a result of multiple regression analysis to identify the influence of psychological variables that affect use of cyberbullying coping strategy, it was shown that psychological variables differ in affecting each strategy. Also, sexual difference was identified in types of psychological variables that affect each strategy. To summarize, a victim uses negative coping strategies such as aggression(direct, indirect), ignorance, avoidance if empathy is low, and positive strategies such as technical defense, assertive response, seeking support if empathy is high. Also, a victim tends to use negative coping strategy such as ignorance, passive response, and avoidance when competence is low. It was identified when victim's attribution is high, a victim tends to use aggression(direct, indirect), passive response and avoidance. When victim's attributions is low, a victim tends to use positive coping strategy such as seeking support. And, it was identified that a victim tends to use positive coping strategy such as technical defense, assertive response, seeking support when attacker attribution is high. Also, it was identified that a victim tends to use negative coping strategies such as passive responses. If victim's depression and anxiety level is high, a victim tends to use negative coping strategy like aggression(direct, indirect).
Conclusively, this study provided important implications for precautionary approach towards cyber bullying harms, and counseling method of middle school students for improving response ability as a victim by identifying multiple factors that affect cyberbullying coping strategy and effective coping strategies according to each type of cyberbullying that students recognize. Also, it provided baseline data in developing a student educational program for cyber bullying prevention and later studies.