Citation

Lapierre KR, Dane AV. Aggressive Behav. 2019; ePub(ePub): ePub.

Affiliation

Department of Psychology, Brock University, Ontario, Canada.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2019, International Society for Research on Aggression, Publisher John Wiley and Sons)

DOI

10.1002/ab.21864

PMID

31463960

Abstract

This study examined adolescents' cyberbullying, cyber aggression, and cyber victimization from an evolutionary perspective, extending previous research showing that traditional forms of bullying, aggression, and victimization are associated with reproductively relevant outcomes. Consistent with hypotheses based on theory and research linking bullying and aggression to intrasexual competition for mates, results indicated that cyber victimization was positively associated with a number of dating and sexual partners.

FINDINGS for cyber aggression were more complex, depending on the degree of cyber victimization experienced by the perpetrator, and the balance of power between the perpetrator and victim. Specifically, nonbullying cyber aggression by perpetrators with equal or less power than the victim had stronger positive relations with the number of dating or sexual partners when perpetrators experienced a high level of cyber victimhood. In contrast, cyberbullying by perpetrators with more power than the victim was negatively associated with the number of dating partners when the perpetrators' exposure to cyber victimization was low. Although cyber aggression and cyber victimization are new forms of aggression that involve the use of modern electronic devices, the results of this study demonstrate the usefulness of viewing this behavior from an evolutionary perspective and show that adolescents are likely to use cyber aggression against rivals in the context of intrasexual competition for mates.

© 2019 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Language: en

Keywords

cyber aggression; cyber victimization; cyberbullying; dating; evolutionary theory; sex