Citation

Li M, He Q, Zhao J, Xu Z, Yang H. Acta Psychol. 2022; 226: e103588.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2022, Elsevier Publishing)

DOI

10.1016/j.actpsy.2022.103588

PMID

35427930

Abstract

Previous studies suggested that childhood maltreatment was associated with cyberbullying. However, it's not clear the internal cognitive processes of how maltreatment causes cyberbullying. Therefore, the current study aims to explore the effect of childhood maltreatment on cyberbullying and the mediating effects of hostile attribution bias and anger rumination. A sample of 528 college students completed the measures of childhood maltreatment, cyberbullying, hostile attribution bias, and anger rumination. Multiple mediation analysis and bootstrapping showed that hostile attribution bias and anger rumination mediated the link between child maltreatment and cyberbullying. The results of this study suggested that childhood maltreatment increased the risk of cyberbullying, which was caused by a co-effect of hostile attribution bias and anger rumination, and it provides an intervention direction for effectively preventing the cyberbullying in abused individuals.

Language: en

Keywords

Childhood maltreatment; Anger rumination; Cyberbullying; Hostile attribution bias