Peer Attachment and Cyberbullying Perpetration in Adolescents: Examining Interpersonal Sensitivity and Traditional Bullying Victimization As Sequential Mediators and Parental Monitoring As a Moderator

Background: Recent decades have witnessed rapid technological advancements that have significantly benefited society. However, these advancements have also given rise to new forms of aggression, notably cyberbullying. Evidence indicates a high prevalence of cyberbullying among children and adolescents across various countries, including China. Previous research has identified peer attachment as a crucial factor in predicting cyberbullying behaviors among adolescents, yet the underlying mechanisms of this association remain unclear. This study aims to investigate the mediating roles of interpersonal sensitivity and traditional bullying victimization in the relationship between peer attachment and cyberbullying perpetration. Additionally, we explore whether parental monitoring moderates the pathways within the conceptual model.

Methods: Participants were recruited from a city in one province of China using a multistage random cluster sampling approach. Our final sample comprised 2001 adolescents aged 12-18 years (51.3% boys and 48.7% girls), with a mean age of 16.07 years (SD = 1.38). Using a cross-sectional research design, participants completed several assessments: the Peer Attachment Subscale from the Inventory of Parent and Peer Attachment, Interpersonal Sensitivity Subscale from the Symptom Checklist-90-R (SCL-90-R), the Bullying Victimization Subscale from the Chinese version of the Olweus Bully/Victim Questionnaire (OBVQ), and the Cyberbullying Perpetration Subscale from the Cyberbullying Scale. We performed descriptive statistics, bivariate correlation analysis, and tested our hypotheses by using Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) in SPSS 26.0.

Results: The findings revealed that both interpersonal sensitivity (b = −0.031, bootstrapping 95% CI [−0.048, −0.015]) and traditional bullying victimization (b = −0.019, bootstrapping 95% CI [−0.035, −0.006]) independently mediated the relationship between peer attachment and cyberbullying perpetration. Moreover, they formed a sequential mediating pathway (b = −0.010, bootstrapping 95% CI [−0.017, −0.005]). Moderation analysis indicated that parental monitoring moderated the relationship between interpersonal sensitivity and cyberbullying perpetration, with the effect of interpersonal sensitivity being stronger for adolescents with low levels of parental monitoring (b = 0.340, p < 0.001) compared to those with high levels (b = 0.195, p < 0.001).

Implications: These findings elucidate the mediating mechanisms of interpersonal sensitivity and traditional bullying victimization in the relationship between peer attachment and cyberbullying perpetration among Chinese adolescents. Additionally, the results of the moderation analysis highlight the importance of parenting behaviors, particularly parental monitoring, in the context of interventions aimed at reducing cyberbullying among adolescents.