Cyber victimization and cyber aggression among high school students: Emotion regulation as a moderator

Adolescents of Bangladesh today are facing significantly higher rates of stressors with differing severity and frequency of anxiety, depression, internalizing, and externalizing problems to mention a few (cited in Mullick et al., 2019). Many of them use cyberspace where their limited capacity for emotion regulation may put them at the risk of cyber aggression as well as cyber victimization. However, the true dynamics of the relationship between cyber aggression, cyber victimization, and emotion regulation are largely unknown. The present study is therefore undertaken to address the issue by testing the effect of two components of emotion regulation on the relationship between cyber victimization and cyber aggression. A questionnaire package including Bangla translated versions of Cyber-Victimization Questionnaire for Adolescents (CYVIC), Emotion Regulation Questionnaire (ERQ), Cyber-Aggression Questionnaire for Adolescents (CYBA), and Personal Information Form (PIF) was administered to a purposive-convenience sample of 250 high school students (48% boys and 52% girls). The students were between the ages of 11 through 17 years with a mean age of 14.77 years (SD = 1.41). Independent sample t-tests revealed significant gender differences in all major variables; hence subsequent analyses were conducted on subsamples of boys and girls. Pearson product-moment correlation showed a significant association between key variables where the association of expressive suppression with cyber victimization and cyber aggression was negative for girls and positive for boys. Hierarchical regression analyses manifested buffering effect of both cognitive reappraisal and expressive suppression weakening the relationship between cyber victimization and cyber aggression for girls. A similar pattern was observed for boys where cognitive reappraisal only weakened the relationship between cyber victimization and cyber aggression but not for expressive suppression in boys. The findings have been interpreted in the light of past studies.