Coping with Public and Private Face-to-Face and Cyber Victimization among Adolescents in Six Countries: Roles of Severity and Country.

This study investigated the role of medium (face-to-face, cyber) and publicity (public, private) in adolescents' perceptions of severity and coping strategies (i.e., avoidant, ignoring, helplessness, social support seeking, retaliation) for victimization, while accounting for gender and cultural values. There were 3432 adolescents (ages 11-15, 49% girls) in this study; they were from China, Cyprus, the Czech Republic, India, Japan, and the United States. Adolescents completed questionnaires on individualism and collectivism, and ratings of coping strategies and severity for public face-to-face victimization, private face-to-face victimization, public cyber victimization, and private cyber victimization. Findings revealed similarities in adolescents' coping strategies based on perceptions of severity, publicity, and medium for some coping strategies (i.e., social support seeking, retaliation) but differential associations for other coping strategies (i.e., avoidance, helplessness, ignoring). The results of this study are important for prevention and intervention efforts because they underscore the importance of teaching effective coping strategies to adolescents, and to consider how perceptions of severity, publicity, and medium might influence the implementation of these coping strategies.

Longitudinal Associations among Machiavellianism, Popularity Goals, and Adolescents' Cyberbullying Involvement: The Role of Gender.

Drawing on the social-ecological perspective, this longitudinal study investigated the potential moderating effect of gender in the relationships among Machiavellianism, popularity goals, and cyberbullying involvement (i.e. victimization, perpetration) among adolescents from China, Cyprus, India, and the United States. There were 2,452 adolescents (Mage = 14.85; SD = .53; 13-16 years old; 49.1% girls) from China, Cyprus, India, and the United States included in this study. They completed surveys on Machiavellianism, popularity goals, and cyberbullying victimization and perpetration during the fall of 2014 (Time 1). One year later, during the fall of 2015, adolescents completed surveys on cyberbullying victimization and perpetration. Findings revealed that Machiavellianism and popularity goals were both associated positively with Time 2 cyberbullying victimization and perpetration for all adolescents. The associations between Machiavellianism and Time 2 cyberbullying perpetration and between popularity goals and Time 2 cyberbullying perpetration were stronger for Chinese and Indian boys than girls. Opposite patterns were found for popularity goals and Time 2 cyberbullying perpetration for adolescents from the United States. Gender did not moderate any of the associations for Cypriot adolescents or for Time 2 cyberbullying victimization. The social-ecological perspective provides a useful understanding of how various contexts influence bullying.

Face-to-face and Cyber Victimization among Adolescents in Six Countries: The Interaction between Attributions and Coping Strategies.

The purpose of this study was to examine the impact of publicity (private, public) and medium (face-to-face, cyber) on the associations between attributions (i.e., self-blame, aggressor-blame) and coping strategies (i.e., social support, retaliation, ignoring, helplessness) for hypothetical victimization scenarios among 3,442 adolescents (age range 11-15 years; 49% girls) from China, Cyprus, the Czech Republic, India, Japan, and the United States. When Indian and Czech adolescents made more of the aggressor-blame attribution, they used retaliation more for public face-to-face victimization when compared to private face-to-face victimization and public and private cyber victimization. In addition, helplessness was used more for public face-to-face victimization when Chinese adolescents utilized more of the aggressor-blame attribution and the self-blame attribution. Similar patterns were found for Cypriot adolescents, the self-blame attribution, and ignoring. The results have implications for the development of prevention and intervention programs that take into account the various contexts of peer victimization.

Differences in Attributions for Public and Private Face-to-face and Cyber Victimization Among Adolescents in China, Cyprus, the Czech Republic, India, Japan, and the United States.

The authors' aim was to investigate gender and cultural differences in the attributions used to determine causality for hypothetical public and private face-to-face and cyber victimization scenarios among 3,432 adolescents (age range = 11-15 years; 49% girls) from China, Cyprus, the Czech Republic, India, Japan, and the United States, while accounting for their individualism and collectivism. Adolescents completed a questionnaire on cultural values and read four hypothetical victimization scenarios, including public face-to-face victimization, public cyber victimization, private face-to-face victimization, and private cyber victimization. After reading the scenarios, they rated different attributions (i.e., self-blame, aggressor-blame, joking, normative, conflict) according to how strongly they believed the attributions explained why victimization occurred. Overall, adolescents reported that they would utilize the attributions of self-blame, aggressor-blame, and normative more for public forms of victimization and face-to-face victimization than for private forms of victimization and cyber victimization. Differences were found according to gender and country of origin as well. Such findings underscore the importance of delineating between different forms of victimization when examining adolescents' attributions.