First Advisor

Kelsey Henderson

Term of Graduation

Spring 2022

Date of Publication

5-11-2022

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Science (M.S.) in Criminology and Criminal Justice

Department

Criminology and Criminal Justice

Language

English

Subjects

Cyberbullying, College students, Peer pressure, Social groups

DOI

10.15760/etd.7862

Physical Description

1 online resource (iv, 77 pages)

Abstract

Technology has deeply engrained itself in our daily lives, leading us to develop a reliance on social media to interact with those in our inner circle and stay connected with what happens around the world. However, with all these changes in technology and how we socialize with one another, we find ourselves exposed to the dangers of cybercrime, cyberbullying. General Strain Theory (GST) could be a useful framework for understanding why cyberbullying exists and why it may be difficult to address it. I collected data through a survey, after recruiting college students, and conducted correlation, mediation, and multiple regression analyses to better examine how peer relationships and prior cyberbullying victimization (types of strain) are related to cyberbullying perpetration. The results suggest that cyberbullying victimization increases participants' risk to cyberbully others whereas positive peer relationships reduce the participants' risk. Depression and anger prove to be predictors of cyberbullying perpetration when examining its relationship to the quality of peer relationships, but no significant indirect effect was observed with cyberbullying victimization. Additionally, anxiety yielded no significant indirect effects with cyberbullying victimization or the quality of peer relationships. Age, race, and amount of time spent online did not increase a participant's likelihood of cyberbullying others. However, gender was revealed to be a predictor, as women were more likely to perpetrate and be victimized than men. Online activity also confirmed what has been discovered in past studies, those who spend more time online are more likely to be victimized.

Rights

© 2022 Taaj Weraphorn Orr

In Copyright. URI: http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/ This Item is protected by copyright and/or related rights. You are free to use this Item in any way that is permitted by the copyright and related rights legislation that applies to your use. For other uses you need to obtain permission from the rights-holder(s).

Persistent Identifier

https://archives.pdx.edu/ds/psu/37897

Download

Share

COinS