The Relationship between Perceived Negative Parenting, Cyberbullying Perpetration, and Depression Among Adolescents in South Korea: A Longitudinal Study

Background: Total of 98.9% of adolescence in South Korea have smartphones, with 1.31hours of use per day. The development of online communication in South Korea has brought convenience to our daily lives, but there are side effects such as cyberbullying. According to Korea Communications Commission, 23% of South Korean adolescents experienced cyberbullying, emphasizing the need for research in this field. Up to date, literatures on delinquent behavior has highlighted the relationship between delinquent behavior and depression. Specifically, studies attempted to examine the causal relationship between the two by hypothesizing the related models. Such includes the comparison of failure model (i.e., delinquency affects the development of depression) versus acting-out model (i.e., depression leads to increased delinquency). However, these studies have limitation in that they only focus on causal relationship of offline delinquency. Moreover, in case of online delinquency (cyberbullying), studies suggest negative parent-child relationship and parenting (rejection, chaos, and coercion) as a risk factor. However, despite the long-term impact of parenting on adolescents’ development, there is no study that examined the failure model versus acting-out model for cyberbullying with negative parenting as a predictor. Specifically, longitudinal study that explored the mechanism of how negative parenting effects cyberbullying and depression is lacking. Thus, present study aims to analyze the longitudinal relationship between cyberbullying and depression, with negative parenting as a predictor. In doing so, we utilized autoregressive cross-lagged model to examine the causal relationship between cyberbullying and depression.

Method: Present study utilized 1st and 2nd wave of Korean Children Youth Panel Study (KCYPS). Total of 2,430 adolescence (54% Male, 46% Female) who participated in both wave1(2018) and 2(2019) were included. Participants were in 1st grade of middle school in wave1. Negative parenting(W1) was measured by the questionnaire based on the motivational model by Skinner (α=.87). Cyberbullying includes 15 items, which was recoded into binary option (0=not at all, 1=at least once) and summed up. Depression was measured by SCL-R (α=.92 for both waves). Analysis includes Structural Equation Modeling (SEM). Based on cross-lagged model, current study explored the bidirectional relationship between adolescents’ depression and cyberbullying. Also, negative parenting was considered as a predictor for these variables.

Results: According to SEM, negative parenting(W1) was related to higher depression(W1) (β=.46, p<.001) and cyberbullying(W1) (β=.17, p<.001). Also, depression(W1) was positively associated with cyberbullying(W2) (β=.06, p<.01), and cyberbullying(W1) was positively related to depression(W2) (β=.06, p<.01). Interestingly, cyberbullying(W2) and depression(W2) was positively associated (β=.14, p<.001) even after considering the autocorrelation for each of wave 1. The model fit of SEM analysis were CFI=.86, TLI=.85, RMSEA=.06.

Conclusions: Present study revealed that negative parenting was related to cyberbullying and depression. Also, longitudinal analysis suggested the relationship between cyberbullying and depression as bidirectional, providing support for both the failure model and acting-out model. Therefore, future research to analyze the longitudinal relationship between depression and cyberbullying by partitioning more time-points is recommended. Finally, considering the relationship between negative parenting, depression, and cyberbullying, study suggests comprehensive and effective interventions for cyberbullying among adolescents, including adolescents’ internalizing problem and positive parent-child relationship.