The perception of cyberbullying and cybervictimization by university students in terms of their personality factors

Abstract

Due to the rapid growth in technology and easy access to internet, people are involved in sending nasty text messages, emails, photos or videos about another person, without being aware of the potential harm they are causing to another person however bullying in any form can have a negative effect on a person's life. With the emergence of new forms of communication in cybertechnology, real world bullies have been applied to cyberspaces by those who tend to be aggressive, thus brought out new problems called cyberbullying and cybervictimization which has become an intriguing area for academics and practitioners. This study aims at explaining university students' perceptions of cyberbullying and cybervictimization in terms of its relationship with their personality factors. Eysenck Personality Questionnaire, Cyber Bully / Victim Scale, Rank Scale for Cyberbullying Indexes were given to 136 university students. The most important finding of the study is being either a cyberbullying offender or to be a victim was related to be psychotism. Regarding the participants' gender, male university students were significantly more likely to be cyberbullies than females. And male university students perceived cyberbullying behaviors more harmless than females. (C) 2013 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.