Full length articleTrait anger and cyberbullying among young adults: A moderated mediation model of moral disengagement and moral identity
Introduction
Cyberbullying is a growing phenomenon in our society with the technological advances that are occurring. It can transpire at all hours via text message, email, or social networking sites (Crosslin & Golman, 2014). Despite the advances gained in cyberbullying research, much of previous research has been conducted among adolescents and the number of investigations on young adults is still relatively small (Balakrishnan, 2015, Doane et al., 2014). This is a significant limitation of literature as approximately 90% of young adults spend time online (Wright & Li, 2013b). In fact, cyberbullying in high school can also lead to further cyberbullying in college (Kraft & Wang, 2010), and the prevalence of cyberbullying ranges from 8% to 28% for young adults (Francisco et al., 2015, MacDonald and Roberts-Pittman, 2010, Schenk and Fremouw, 2012, Schenk et al., 2013, Selkie et al., 2015). Most importantly, cyberbullying can have a significant psychological effect on the victims including adolescents and young adults (Fisher et al., 2016, Kowalski et al., 2014), by leading to problem behaviors (e.g., violence, delinquency, antisocial behavior, substance use) (Guo, 2016, Mitchell et al., 2007), mental health problems (e.g., anxiety, depression) (Bannink et al., 2014, Kowalski et al., 2016, Perren et al., 2010, Selkie et al., 2015), or even suicide ideation and attempts (Bonanno and Hymel, 2013, van Geel et al., 2014). Given the negative consequences, it is of theoretical and practical importance to explore those factors that may contribute to an increase in cyberbullying.
However, to date, most research on young adults' cyberbullying focuses on characteristics of cyberbullies (Gibb and Devereux, 2014, Schenk et al., 2013), the prevalence of cyberbullying (Francisco et al., 2015, MacDonald and Roberts-Pittman, 2010, Schenk and Fremouw, 2012, Schenk et al., 2013, Selkie et al., 2015), and the negative outcomes for both victims and cyberbullies (Bonanno and Hymel, 2013, Kowalski et al., 2016, Na et al., 2015, Selkie et al., 2015). To our knowledge, for young adults, only a small number of studies have focused on exploring those factors that may contribute to an increase in their cyberbullying, such as empathy and attitudes (Doane et al., 2014), psychological needs (Dilmac, 2009), and psychopathy (Gibb & Devereux, 2014). Although some protective and risk factors have been identified, it is less clear whether young adults with higher levels of trait anger are more likely to engage in cyberbullying.
Trait anger is a personality construct that refers to stable individual differences in the propensity to experience anger as an emotional state (Owen, 2011, Wilkowski and Robinson, 2008, Wilkowski and Robinson, 2010). Feelings of anger are more likely to foster participation in cyberbullying (Patchin & Hinduja, 2011). One explanation for these effects may be that individuals with anger respond aggressively to various stimuli more frequently and are more likely to engage in cyberbullying (den Hamer & Konijn, 2016). Some empirical studies suggest that anger is one of the main predictors of cyberbullying not only for adolescents (den Hamer et al., 2014, Lonigro et al., 2015, Patchin and Hinduja, 2011) but also for young adults (Ak, Özdemir, & Kuzucu, 2015). One meta-analysis also shows that anger is positively related to cyberbullying, with r = 0.20 (Kowalski et al., 2014). These findings highlight the value of decreasing anger in reducing cyberbullying.
It is important to note, however, that previous studies have focused primarily on the direct relation between anger and cyberbullying. The mediating mechanism (i.e., how trait anger relates to cyberbullying?) and moderating mechanism (i.e., when the link is most potent?) underlying this relation remain largely unknown. Answers to these questions are essential for a better understanding of the etiology of cyberbullying and the development of targeted intervention programs. Therefore, the current study utilized a sample of young adults to examine a moderated mediation model in which, first, moral disengagement mediated the relation between trait anger and cyberbullying; second, the direct and indirect relations between trait anger and cyberbullying through moral disengagement was moderated by moral identity.
What possible mediating processes can account for the effects of trait anger on cyberbullying? Drawing from the general aggression model (GAM) (Anderson and Bushman, 2002, DeWall et al., 2011), we proposed moral disengagement as a variable that might mediate the relation between trait anger and cyberbullying. The GAM provides a parsimonious account of why people act aggressively in terms of three levels: personal and situational factors, internal states, and outcomes of appraisal and decision-making processes. Personal factors interact with situational factors to create internal states which influence aggression and cyberbullying (García-Sancho et al., 2016, Kowalski et al., 2014). Specifically, the GAM states that trait anger may influence individuals' propensity to aggress and bully via several mechanisms, such as priming aggressive thoughts and scripts, providing a justification for aggressive retaliation, and interfering with higher-level cognitive processes (Anderson and Bushman, 2002, Gresham et al., 2016). Thus, considering the mechanism of moral disengagement which can serve as a means to justify aggression and cyberbullying (Wang, Lei, Liu, & Hu, 2016), trait anger, as a personal factor, may affect cyberbullying via the mechanism of moral disengagement. Moral disengagement refers to a variety of cognitive distortions that lead to view aggression and cyberbullying as proper and legitimate in the pursuit of self-interest (Caprara et al., 2013, Caprara et al., 2014). Consistent with this theoretical framework, many empirical studies have demonstrated that moral disengagement can mediate the associations of personal factors including callous-unemotional traits, empathy, hostile rumination, and irritability with cyberbullying and aggression (Caprara et al., 2013, Caprara et al., 2014, Kokkinos et al., 2016, Wang et al., 2017). More specifically, one study found that moral disengagement acts as a mediator between anger and physical aggression, as well as anger and verbal aggression (Rubio-Garay, Carrasco, & Amor, 2016). Although not yet tested, it is reasonable to expect that moral disengagement would mediate the relation between trait anger and cyberbullying. In the following section, previous research findings would be reviewed to support this argument.
First, individuals with higher levels of trait anger usually have defective self-regulatory capacities in resolving anger (Aricak & Ozbay, 2016). Consequently, trait anger sets the conditions for cognitive distortions conducive to justify cyberbullying. Specifically, the more individuals have trait anger, the more they are prone to experience and act upon feelings of vengeance and bullying and the more they are likely to activate cognitive distortions by which self-blame, guilt, shame and anticipatory punishment may be eluded. Therefore, trait anger may contribute to moral disengagement. Furthermore, some empirical studies have shown that the sensation of anger can affect cognitive distortion and facilitate the activation of moral disengagement mechanisms (He and Harris, 2014, Rubio-Garay et al., 2016, Tanrikulu and Campbell, 2015b).
Second, moral disengagement has been well documented as one of the most examined predictive variables of cyberbullying (Chen et al., 2016, Gini et al., 2014, Kowalski et al., 2014, Wang et al., 2014). According to moral disengagement theory, although most people have developed personal moral standards to guide good behavior and deter bad behavior as a self-regulation process (Bandura, Barbaranelli, & Caprara, 1996), the above process can be deactivated selectively through moral disengagement. Through moral disengagement, individuals can be freed from the self-sanction and the accompanying guilt and shame that would ensue when behavior violates internal standards. That is, cyberbullying can be cognitively reconstructed via moral disengagement so as to make it appear less harmful or not harmful at all to others (Meter and Bauman, 2016, Wang et al., 2016). Though often debated, a large body of empirical evidence supports the idea that individuals who have higher levels of moral disengagement are more likely to engage in cyberbullying (Wang et al., 2016). Numerous cross-sectional studies have shown a robust correlation between moral disengagement and cyberbullying (Lazuras et al., 2013, Orue and Calvete, 2016, Pornari and Wood, 2010, Robson and Witenberg, 2013), even after controlling for grade, gender, Machiavellianism, and knowledge of cyberbullying moral standards (Bussey et al., 2015, Meter and Bauman, 2016, Wang et al., 2016). In addition, four meta-analyses show that moral disengagement is positively related to cyberbullying, with the overall mean effect size ranging from 0.27 to 0.31 (Chen et al., 2016, Gini et al., 2014, Kowalski et al., 2014, Wang et al., 2014).
In fact, one study had specifically examined the effects of trait anger and moral disengagement on cyberbullying (Tanrikulu & Campbell, 2015a). However, the study assumed that the two variables operated independently and treated cyberbullying as a categorical variable. Unlike Tanrikulu and Campbell's (2015a) study, we took into account the potential association of trait anger with moral disengagement and tested the mediating role of moral disengagement in the relation between trait anger and cyberbullying. Nevertheless, to our knowledge, no research to date has examined this mediating effect.
Although trait anger may affect cyberbullying through the mediating role of moral disengagement, not all individuals who are predisposed to anger homogeneously experience higher levels of moral disengagement (He & Harris, 2014) and show cyberbullying behavior. Heterogeneity of outcomes may originate from individual characteristics that moderate (i.e., buffer or exacerbate) the effect of trait anger on moral disengagement and cyberbullying, for example, moral identity. Moral identity refers to “the degree to which being a moral person is important to an individual's identity” (Hardy & Carlo, 2011). That is, those individuals who feel that moral values are central for defining their personal identity would have a strong moral identity. Moral identity can motivate more prosocial interactions with others (Winterich, Aquino, Mittal, & Swartz, 2013). As a consequence, individuals with a stronger moral identity are more likely to engage in prosocial behavior and less likely to engage in antisocial behavior (Hertz & Krettenauer, 2016). This claim is supported by many empirical studies. Numerous cross-sectional studies have shown that moral identity is positively associated with prosocial behavior (Aquino and Reed, 2002, Hardy et al., 2015) and concern for outgroup members (Aquino and Reed, 2002, Reed and Aquino, 2003, Winterich et al., 2009), and is negatively related to antisocial behavior including aggression (Hardy et al., 2012, Hardy et al., 2015, Kavussanu et al., 2015). One longitudinal study also showed that moral ideal self, a similar notion to moral identity, can negatively predict aggression (Hardy, Walker, Olsen, Woodbury, & Hickman, 2014). Furthermore, a meta-analysis indicated that moral identity is positively related to avoidance of antisocial behavior (Hertz & Krettenauer, 2016).
Moreover, moral identity may moderate the direct and indirect relations between trait anger and cyberbullying. According to Aquino and Reed's (2002) social-cognitive model of moral identity, a strong moral identity enhances the accessibility of knowledge structures and schemata that guide self-regulation and foster moral action (Chowdhury and Fernando, 2014, Hertz and Krettenauer, 2016). Based on this view, moral identity can render mechanisms of moral disengagement less effective (Aquino et al., 2007, Hardy et al., 2015). Therefore, the indirect relations between trait anger and cyberbullying via moral disengagement would be much weaker for young adults with higher levels of moral identity. Two reasons underlie our argument for moral identity as a moderator. First, individuals routinely establish psychological group boundaries. Those with high moral identity are more likely to feel a stronger moral obligation to show concern for the needs and interests of out-groups than those with low moral identity (Aquino et al., 2007, Reed and Aquino, 2003, Winterich et al., 2009). Second, high moral identifiers are indeed more likely to expand their circle of moral regard (Aquino et al., 2007) and are also more willing than low moral identifiers to take into account the suffering that cyberbullying inflicts on others. Empirical studies have supported this hypothesis. For instance, moral identity can moderate the relation between moral disengagement and aggression, such that the positive link between moral disengagement and aggression is weaker at higher levels of moral identity (Aquino et al., 2007, Hardy et al., 2015). Similarly, moral identity can moderate the effect of moral judgment on cheating behavior (Aquino, Freeman, Reed, Lim, & Felps, 2009). Moreover, the link between anger and aggression is moderated by other moral variables (Colasante et al., 2015, He and Harris, 2014). To our knowledge, however, no previous studies have examined whether moral identity is a protective factor that buffers the adverse effect of trait anger on cyberbullying via moral disengagement.
Taken together, the aims of the present study were twofold. First, the present study tested whether moral disengagement would mediate the relation between trait anger and cyberbullying. Second, the present study tested whether the direct and the indirect relations between trait anger and cyberbullying through moral disengagement would be moderated by moral identity. These two research questions form a moderated mediation model (see Fig. 1), which can address both mediation (i.e., how does trait anger lead to cyberbullying?) and moderation (i.e., when the link is most potent?) mechanisms underlying the relation between trait anger and cyberbullying. Based on the literature review, we proposed the following hypotheses: Hypothesis 1 Moral disengagement would mediate the relation between trait anger and cyberbullying. Hypothesis 2 Moral identity would moderate the direct and indirect relations between trait anger and cyberbullying via moral disengagement. Specifically, the direct and indirect relations between trait anger and cyberbullying would be much weaker for young adults with higher levels of moral identity.
Section snippets
Participants
This study was conducted in 2015 at two universities in Taiyuan, a mid-sized city in the middle of China. Initial data revealed the total number of participants to be 475, however after data cleansing was administered the final sample size was reduced to 464. The participants consisted of 302 females and 162 males. The mean age of the participants was 20.75 (SD = 1.59), ranging from 17 to 25.
Trait anger
Trait anger was measured using the 10-item Trait Anger subscale of the State-Trait Anger Expression
Preliminary analyses
Means, standard deviations, and the inter correlations for the variables utilized in each analysis can be found in Table 1. As expected, both trait anger and moral disengagement were positively correlated with cyberbullying. In contrast, moral identity was negatively correlated with cyberbullying. In addition, trait anger was positively correlated with moral disengagement, whereas trait anger was negatively correlated with moral identity. Moral disengagement was negatively correlated with moral
Discussion
The effect of anger on cyberbullying has garnered considerable empirical support (Ak et al., 2015, den Hamer et al., 2014, Kowalski et al., 2014, Lonigro et al., 2015, Patchin and Hinduja, 2011). However, questions regarding the mediating and moderating mechanisms underlying the relation between trait anger and cyberbullying remain largely unanswered. The current study formulated a moderated mediation model to test whether trait anger would be indirectly related to cyberbullying via moral
Acknowledgment
The present study was supported by the Outstanding Innovative Talents Cultivation Funded Programs 2016 of Renmin University of China, the Key Research Institute in Humanities and Social Sciences of the Ministry of Education (Academy of Psychology and Behavior, Tianjin Normal University) (14JJD190005), the Key Project of Social Science Fund of Beijing, China (15SHA005), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (71531012), and the Ministry of education of Humanities and Social Science
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