The last straw: Exploring COVID-19 anxiety, bullying victimization, and teacher emotional violence in Chinese adolescents' perpetrators cyberbullying

Abstract

The positive relationship between coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19)-related psychological distress and adolescents' cyberbullying behaviours has garnered attention. Although the global COVID-19 pandemic has ended, examining adolescents' cyberbullying behaviours in the context of this disaster and revealing the potential complex interaction effects of COVID-19 anxiety and peer and teacher factors on adolescents' cyberbullying behaviours, especially in non-Western cultural contexts, hold inspirational value for developing more effective prevention or intervention programs for future disasters. We examined the moderation effects of bullying victimization and teachers' emotional violence (TEV) on the association between COVID-19 anxiety and cyberbullying among adolescents in China. Data were collected from a recruited sample of 514 junior high school students in Beijing, China. Adolescent anxiety about COVID-19 was positively correlated with cyberbullying. The moderating effects of the TEV and bullying victimization on the association between COVID-19 anxiety and cyberbullying among adolescents were significant. The positive link between COVID-19 anxiety and cyberbullying was stronger among adolescents with high bullying victimization and TEV. This study offers preliminary evidence on the risk of TEV and bullying victimization in the association between COVID-19 anxiety and cyberbullying in Eastern cultures. Please refer to the Supplementary Material section to find this article's Community and Social Impact Statement.