Cybervictimization, Social Support, and Psychological Distress Among Adolescents in Chinese Societies

Background and Purpose: Social support deterioration model suggested that experiencing bullying is a major trauma or stressor that can deteriorate one’s perception of social support and in turn negatively affect psychological health. To date, this model has been applied to explain psychological distress among adolescents who experience school violence and bullying in an offline or a face-to-face context. It has been argued that cyberbullying takes place in an online context where personal information is believed to be anonymous, which renders the applicability of social support deterioration model to explain psychological distress caused by cyber victimization less possible. Until now, empirical data on the application of this theoretical model to the outcomes of bullying victimization in cyberspace and online context is limited. Furthermore, it is not clear how three major sources of social support in adolescents’ lives (i.e., parental support, peer support, and teacher support) mediate the associations between cyber victimization and psychological distress. Finally, researchers advocate that greater attention must be given to internationally comparative perspectives to evaluate variables that influence associations between cyberbullying and mental health among adolescents, such as social support, using representative samples, the same research methods, and equivalent measurement, especially since international data on cyberbullying, particularly in Chinese/Asian contexts, are lacking. This paper examines a theoretical model of how adolescents’ perceptions of social support from parents, teachers, and peers mediate the associations between cyber victimization and psychological distress and further examines how the interrelationships of cyber victimization, perception of social support, and psychological distress differ between three major Chinese societies.

Methods: A cross-national random sample of 2,582 junior high school students was obtained from Taiwan (n=1,200), Hong Kong (n=650), and Tianjin in Mainland China (n=732). The overall response rate was over 95% for each society. Students were given a structured questionnaire, including items regarding basic demographics, social support, and cyberbullying experiences.

Results: The results of structural equation modeling analysis provided a good fit for the sample as a whole. The final model accounted for 24% of the variance in student psychological distress. Overall findings showed that student psychological distress is significantly associated with cyberbullying victimization; In addition, student psychological distress is indirectly associated with cyberbullying victimization, mediated through perception of parental support. However, student perception of teacher and peer support were not shown significant mediating effects between cyberbullying victimization and psychological distress. Similar findings were found for students from each society.

Conclusions and Implications: The findings imply that student perception of parental support plays an important mediating role between cyberbullying victimization and student psychological distress. The findings provide empirical evidence to support the relevance of social support deterioration model to the context of cyberbullying victimization. The findings also provide information to help school practitioners and policymakers justify developing or incorporating social support into prevention and intervention strategies. The findings suggest that interventions or policies promoting social support incorporated at a national level could be effective to alleviate school victimization across these three Chinese societies.