Lenka Dedkova

Cyberbullying The Discriminant Factors Among Cyberbullies, Cybervictims, and Cyberbully-Victims in a Czech Adolescent Sample

Although the research on cyberbullying has increased dramatically in recent years, still little is known about how cyberbullying participant groups (i.e., cyberbullies, cybervictims, and cyberbully-victims) differ from one another. This study aims to discriminate between these groups at an individual and relational level by controlling for age and gender. Self-control, offline aggression, and self-esteem are analyzed as individual-level variables. Parental attachment and peer rejection are involved as relational-level variables. A total of 2,092 Czech adolescents aged 12 to 18 were enrolled from a random sample of 34 primary and secondary schools located in the South Moravian region of the Czech Republic. Discriminant function analyses indicated that the participant groups are discriminated by two functions. The first function increases the separation between cyberbullies and cyberbully-victims from cybervictims, indicating that cyberbullies and cyberbully-victims are similar to each other in terms of low self-control, offline aggression, and gender, and have higher scores on measures of low self-esteem and offline aggression. However, cyberbully-victims had the highest scores on these measures. The second function discriminates between all three groups, which indicates that those variables included in the second function (i.e., parental attachment, peer rejection, self-esteem, and age) distinguish all three involved groups.Although the research on cyberbullying has increased dramatically in recent years, still little is known about how cyberbullying participant groups (i.e., cyberbullies, cybervictims, and cyberbully-victims) differ from one another. This study aims to discriminate between these groups at an individual and relational level by controlling for age and gender. Self-control, offline aggression, and self-esteem are analyzed as individual-level variables. Parental attachment and peer rejection are involved as relational-level variables. A total of 2,092 Czech adolescents aged 12 to 18 were enrolled from a random sample of 34 primary and secondary schools located in the South Moravian region of the Czech Republic. Discriminant function analyses indicated that the participant groups are discriminated by two functions. The first function increases the separation between cyberbullies and cyberbully-victims from cybervictims, indicating that cyberbullies and cyberbully-victims are similar to each other in terms of low self-control, offline aggression, and gender, and have higher scores on measures of low self-esteem and offline aggression. However, cyberbully-victims had the highest scores on these measures. The second function discriminates between all three groups, which indicates that those variables included in the second function (i.e., parental attachment, peer rejection, self-esteem, and age) distinguish all three involved groups.

Effectiveness of coping strategies for victims of cyberbullying

Although cyberbullying is a well-studied online risk, little is known about the effectiveness of various coping strategies for its victims. Therefore, this study on 2,092 Czech children aged 12-18 examined which coping strategies were applied most often and to what extent victims of cyber aggression judged them to be effective. Effectiveness was measured in two ways: the extent to which the coping strategy buffered negative emotions, and the extent to which it stopped the cyber aggression. The subsample of 422 respondents (68% girls) who experienced online attacks was divided into two groups: victims of cyberbullying, who experienced long-term and severe victimization, and victims of less severe online harassment. The selection of strategies was compared between these groups and the most prevalent and effective strategies were identified. Overall, respondents in both groups used more than one strategy at once, but for victims of cyberbullying, most of the strategies proved less effective. Both groups showed similar patterns in their use of technical solutions, and both quite frequently sought social support. Also, both groups showed a low tendency for retaliation. Large differences were found in how respondents employed cognitive responses, such as trying to detach mentally from bullying incidents; these strategies were less frequent among victims of cyberbullying. In terms of effectiveness, victims of harassment considered technical solutions such as blocking contacts on social websites, seeking support, or ignoring the bully on purpose the most effective in stopping victimization, as opposed to victims of cyberbullying, who found them less effective, even though they used them as frequently as victims of online harassment. Differences in the effectiveness of coping strategies are discussed with regard to the intervention and prevention of cyberbullying.

Bystanders’ Supportive and Passive Responses to Cyberaggression

ABSTRACT Bystanders in cyberaggression can support the victim, join the aggressor, or remain passive. We examined how supportive and passive adolescent Czech cyberbystanders (N = 443, ages 12–18) differ in terms of individual characteristics, emotional responses, and contextual factors. The most substantial distinguishing factor between the two groups turned out to be whether they had received a request to help the victim. After such a request, cyberbystanders supported the victim; moreover, most of those who had not been asked reported that they would have actively reacted to a request for help. The findings also showed the significant role of immediate empathic response, which increased the odds of support even after controlling for individual characteristics. The results are discussed with regard to prevention and intervention efforts.

A large-scale comparative study of beta testers and regular users

Beta testers should represent a future products target users as much as possible.

Youth interaction with online strangers: experiences and reactions to unknown people on the Internet

ABSTRACT Previous research on youths’ experiences with online strangers has mostly utilized quantitative designs which may result in the omission of important parts of the youths’ experiences and perceptions. In this qualitative study, we adopt a child-centred approach and focus on the children’s and adolescents’ experiences with unknown people from the Internet. This is one of the most pronounced parental concerns, despite the fact that an online presence is now normative for most children. We use the data from focus-groups and individual interviews in nine European countries (N = 368) conducted with youths between the ages of 9 and 16 years. Participants were asked about their perceptions of potentially negative or problematic situations while using the Internet and digital technology. Using thematic analysis, we classified youths’ experiences and reactions related to interacting with online strangers in four themes: (1) non-verbal interaction; (2) initiation of contact; (3) communication; and (4) face-to-face meeting. In all four levels of interactions, children and adolescents reported a variety of positive and negative experiences and reactions. We interpret our findings with a co-construction model which perceives children and adolescents as active participants in the online world. We conclude that children are successfully making active decisions to initiate, continue, and stop interactions with unknown people from the Internet. These findings broaden the current perspectives of youths’ meetings with unknown people online.

Experimental large-scale review of attractors for detection of potentially unwanted applications

Abstract While malicious software (malware) is designed to disrupt or damage computer systems, potentially unwanted applications (PUAs) combine useful features with less desirable ones, such as adware or spyware. Unlike anti-malware solutions, removing PUAs can be controversial, for both the PUA owners and also the users who might wish to accept the PUA features. Thus, solutions for removing PUAs require users to make their removal decisions. In this paper we investigate the effectiveness of 15 screen variants that use different “security warning attractors” designed to encourage users to enable PUA detection when they are installing a security software solution from the online security software company ESET. Our live field study with close to 750,000 software installations by end users in 222 countries shows that a small change of switching the order of the options presented using radio buttons and offering the “enable detection” option first was the most effective (and was later set as the option of choice by ESET). The chosen approach led to a significant reduction of non-consenting users from 17.9% to 11.1%. Other features, such as the use of colours and pictorials, which have previously demonstrated their effectiveness with more traditional SSL security warnings, did not yield significant improvements for enabling PUA detection.

Editorial: Cyberpsychology has readers from 192 countries

We are honored to present the fourth issue of the 11th volume of Cyberpsychology: Journal of Psychosocial Research on Cyberspace. In this editorial, we will summarize the very successful year 2017. First, we will describe news from internationally important databases that cover our journal — the Web of Science and Scopus. Then we will focus on the visitors of Cyberpsychology and their country of residence. We will also present some journal statistics for 2017 – the number of submissions, the number of accepted articles, the number of rejections, and the time for internal decisions. Last, but not least, we will introduce the five articles which are included in this issue.

Editorial: Cyberpsychology has more submissions and citations

We are happy to present the second issue of the 10th volume of Cyberpsychology: Journal of Psychosocial Research on Cyberspace. This issue consists of six articles that utilize various methodological designs and analytical approaches: three quantitative surveys, an experiment accompanied by questionnaires, semi-structured interviews utilizing thematic analysis, and a content analysis of social media posts. The issue is also spread geographically with contributions from Europe (the United Kingdom, Germany, and Finland), the United States, and Thailand. In the editorial, we will briefly introduce each of these articles and then present our journal’s statistics, including a summary of last year’s submissions and the review process, and our current position in the Scopus database.

Editorial: How to get your manuscript accepted

We are delighted to present the fourth and final issue of 2016, which comprises of seven articles that cover a variety of topics, theoretical perspectives, and methodological approaches. Besides an article from the U.S., the research presented in this issue is primarily conducted by researchers in Europe. What we especially like to see is the international collaborations between researchers across nations – one of the studies, for example, brings together researchers from Norway, Germany, and the Netherlands. As internet researchers, we sometimes find ourselves alone in our departments, either because of being sort of aliens in relation to our academic discipline or because we run out of funding and have to dissolve our groups. Combining perspectives across disciplines and nations are, of course, other sound reasons for collaboration. Therefore, finding and/or inviting colleagues internationally may keep us in business and able to continue to investigate the different corners of cyberspace in the most fruitful ways.