Mediation of Moral Disengagement on Cyberbullying Perpetration Influenced by Emotional Intelligence and Anonymity of Indonesian Adolescents on Social Media

Introduction. The use of social media in a scope of adolescents confirms that without any sufficient digital literacy, it shall leads to an increased dysfunctional behavior. Adolescents who feel anonymous and think that attacking others on social media shall not violate morals will make them portrayed as the cyberbullying perpetrator, even though they have any good emotional intelligence as well. This research aims to examine the mediating role of moral disengagement on cyberbullying perpetration which is influenced by emotional intelligence and anonymity of Indonesian adolescents on social media. Methods. The measurement applied on this research uses Adolescent Cyber-Aggressor Scale, Schutte Self-Report Emotional Intelligence Test, Anonymity Scale, and Moral Disengagement Scale. All scales have good reliability and have been tested for validity using confirmatory factor analysis (CFA). The structural model was tested by path analysis using the Amos program and the mediating effect was tested by using the Sobel test. Results. The results show the goodness of fit structural model with Chi-square = 2.604 (p > 0.05), RMSEA = 0.068, GFI = 0.996, AGFI = 0.963, dan TLI = 0.916. The acceptance on the hypothesis shows that moral disengagement significantly mediates the effect of emotional intelligence and anonymity on cyberbullying perpetration, whereas moral disengagement has the strongest direct effect. Discussion. The mechanism of moral disengagement in cyberbullying perpetrators can occur at the behavioral, agency, effect, and victim locus. Instilling awareness of moral values and increasing digital literacy in adolescents is very important to do to suppress any cyberbullying perpetration.