Cyberbullying and Resilience: Lessons Learned from a Survey

Abstract

Cyberbullying (CB) is a recurring, long-standing phenomenon that negatively affects people’s lives. Resilience is a personality trait that helps people to react to, cope with, and persist in the presence of obstacles such as cyberbullying. To determine variables and factors affecting coping with cyberbullying incidents, an original research survey was administered to 1317 undergraduate students who attended a large public university in Texas (n = 1086). Exploratory factor analysis revealed four relevant factors: Self-Efficacy, Religiosity, Friend and Social Engagement, and Culture. These findings show that factors supporting resiliency are helpful in achieving a positive behavioral response. The discriminant analysis provided a model verification for the theoretical model for these factors and led to a 79.9% predictability of the function.