Motivations, Propensities, and Their Interplays on Online Bullying Perpetration: A Partial Test of Situational Action Theory

Using data gathered from 757 college students in South Korea, the current study examines applicability of situational action theory (SAT) to online bullying perpetration (OBP). Specifically, the current study focuses on testing interplays between motivations in the criminogenic online setting (temptation and provocation) and individual propensities (morality and self-control) as well as interplay between two individual propensities on OBP. Results show that morality significantly buffers the effects of provocation on OBP as expected, while morality unexpectedly enhances effects of temptation on OBP. Moreover, the current study found no significant interaction between two propensities, morality and self-control. Thus, future studies should focus on examining how roles of morality vary depending on different types of offenses and contexts.