Cyberbullying in Hong Kong Chinese students: Life satisfaction, and the moderating role of friendship qualities on cyberbullying victimization and perpetration

Cyberbullying is a serious concern among Internet users worldwide. Few studies have examined the variables that may moderate cyberbullying behavior, especially among the Chinese population. This study examined cyberbullying with 312 Hong Kong Chinese college students (Mage = 19.64). The goal was to understand the relative impact of cyberbullying experiences as measured by life satisfaction and to examine how friendship quality may moderate this relation differentially for males and females. The results showed that 58% of the participants reported cyberbullying others and of those 68% also reported being cyber-victimized. Cyberbullying victimization and cyberbullying perpetration were both negatively correlated with life satisfaction. Male students perpetrated more cyberbullying than female students. Cyberbullying victimization and perpetration were positively related for both males and females. Friendship closeness and security only moderated the relation between cyberbullying victimization and perpetration for female students. Interestingly, the two components of friendship quality moderated the relation in opposite directions. Specifically, friendship closeness buffered the relation between cyberbullying victimization and perpetration while friendship security enhanced the relation. These findings indicate that gender and subscales of friendship quality should be included when investigating the effect of friendship on cyberbullying behavior, cyberbullying involvement and life satisfaction. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.