Citation

Martínez-Monteagudo MC, Delgado B, García-Fernández JM, Ruiz-Esteban C. Front. Psychol. 2019; 10: e3074.

Affiliation

Department of Developmental and Educational Psychology, Faculty of Psychology, University of Murcia, Murcia, Spain.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2019, Frontiers Research Foundation)

DOI

10.3389/fpsyg.2019.03074

PMID

32038420

PMCID

PMC6985462

Abstract

Little scientific attention has been paid to the problem of cyberbullying in the university environment, compared to similar studies conducted on adolescents. This study attempts to analyze the predictive capacity of certain emotional problems (anxiety, depression, and stress) and university adaptation with respect to cyberbullying in victims and aggressors. The European Cyberbullying Intervention Project Questionnaire, the Depression Anxiety Stress Scale-21 and the Student Adaptation to College Questionnaire were administered to a sample of 1282 university students (46.33% male) aged between 18 and 46. The results suggest that high levels of depression and stress increase the probability of being a cyberbullying victim, while high levels of depression increase the probability of being a cyberbullying aggressor. Similarly, the personal-emotional and social adaptation of students are found to be predictor variables of being a cyberbullying victim, in that high levels of personal-emotional and social adaptation decrease the probability of being a victim, while high levels of personal-emotional, academic and institutional adaptation decrease the probability of being a cyberbullying victim. The results of this study are of special relevance, since they indicate that intervention programs should consider the influence of emotional intelligence, as well as the relevance students' adaptation to university.

Copyright © 2020 Martínez-Monteagudo, Delgado, García-Fernández and Ruíz-Esteban.

Language: en

Keywords

adaptation to university; anxiety; cyberbullying; depression; stress