Can Different School Bullying Participant Behaviors Predict Cyberbullying Perpetration Behavior? The Mediating Role of Moral Disengagement

Bullying has become an increasingly serious social problem in China. There has been widespread societal attention directed toward the issue of school bullying and cyberbullying, but less attention has been paid to the internal mechanisms of the relationship.This paper examined the relationship between adolescents' school bullying participant behaviors and cyberbullying perpetration behavior, and the mediating effects of eight mechanisms of moral disengagement.The study encompassed a sample of 702 students in China. All eight mechanisms of moral disengagement, except for moral justification, partially mediate the relationships between the behaviors of bully, pro-bully, victim, outsider, and cyberbullying. Defender behavior shows no correlation with neither other school bullying participant behavior nor moral disengagement and does not influence cyberbullying. The results suggest that specific mechanisms of moral disengagement play diverse roles in the complex relationship between different school bullying participant behaviors and cyberbullying.