Full length articleLongitudinal associations among neuroticism, depression, and cyberbullying in early adolescents
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Credit author statement
The authors declare that they have no conflicts of interests.
Participants
Participants were recruited using a convenience sample from 13 elementary schools in a city located in southern China. These 13 elementary schools were coeducational, ordinary elementary schools and reasonably representative of such institutions in China. A total of 3961 students (56.1% boys; age: M = 10.85 years, SD = 0.75) took part in this study at baseline. The number of participants by age range was 1359 (34.3%) between ages 9 and 10, 2561 (64.7%) between ages 11 and 12, and 41 (1.0%)
Descriptive statistics
In Table 1, the means and standard deviations for the measures of neuroticism, depression, cyberbullying perpetration, and cyberbullying victimization are shown. The mean scores for the boys and girls were compared for neuroticism, depression, cyberbullying perpetration, and cyberbullying victimization using the independent sample t-test. At every time point, boys reported greater cyberbullying (perpetration and victimization) than girls. Furthermore, boys reported higher levels of neuroticism
Discussion
The overarching purpose of this study was to investigate the associations among neuroticism, depression, and cyberbullying (perpetration and victimization) in early adolescents through robust cascade models. Concurrent associations were found among neuroticism, depression, and cyberbullying (perpetration and victimization) at every time point in the study. Neuroticism and depression were reciprocally related to each other. Neuroticism directly predicted subsequent cyberbullying victimization,
Ethical approval
All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional research committee (School of Psychology Research Ethics Committee, South China Normal University) and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.
Informed consent
Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.
Declaration of competing interest
On behalf of all authors, the corresponding author states that there is no conflict of interest.
Acknowledgements
This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NO. 31971005), “13th Five-Year” Plan of Philosophy and Social Science Development in Guangzhou, 2018 (No. 2018GZGJ22), and the Major Program of the National Social Science Foundation of China (No. 19ZDA360).
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