“Gaining an understanding of cyberbullying. The importance of the role group factors play in an account of cyberbullying between teenagers”

Abstract

To establish the importance of group level accounts in relation to cyberbullying, group norm and group membership we assessed. The effect of these group factors had on action tendencies would provide an understanding of the process which are involved in a cyberbullying incident. The Participants were assigned to one of the three groups ; Perpetrator group, Third party group or the Target group. The perpetrator group norm was then manipulated to either be kind or unkind. These manipulations were carried out before the participants read through a hypothetical incident of cyberbullying and asked the questionnaire, involving their opinion and the actions they would take as a result of the cyberbullying. The third-party enhanced our understanding of group-level process concerning an incident of cyberbullying. They stated they would ‘join in with nasty messages’ and this highlights the significance this group membership plays on an incident of cyberbullying. The perpetrator group also shown significant results for behaving differently, this strengthens our understanding further. The limitations could account for the other action tendencies lacking significant results. The hypothesis was proven in this study as the group norm and group membership affected the action tendencies of the participants.