Association between self-related cognitions and cyberbullying victimization in children and adolescents: A systematic review and meta-analysis

Self-efficacy, self-esteem, self-concept, and self-blame have been proposed as potential factors in the development and maintenance of cybervictimization in a unidirectional, but also in a cyclic paradigm. Our objective was to synthesize the existing evidence and assess potential moderators of the relationship between these self-related cognitions and cybervictimization. We searched five electronic databases (PsycINFO, PubMed, Scopus, Web of Science and Cochrane) from inception until October 2022. A total of 81 studies were included, encompassing a cohort of 110,095 children and adolescents with a mean age of 11.51 years. Nearly half of the studies were rated as having fair quality. Across the examined self-related cognitions, high level of cybervictimization was associated with low level of self-concept, low self-efficacy and low self-esteem. Cognitions related to self-blame were not statistically significantly associated with cybervictimization in our review. These findings included high heterogeneity and were consistent across sensitivity analyses. Meta-regression analyses revealed that the number of participants significantly moderated the relationship between self-esteem and cybervictimization, but the percentage of victims and mean age of participants did not exhibit significant moderation effects. This preregistered systematic review and meta-analysis showed modest yet statistically significant correlations between self-related cognitions and cybervictimization. The discussion addresses the implications for future research and anti-cyberbullying programs.

PROSPERO reference number CRD42021289512.