The Investigation of Relationship among Relational-Interdependent Self-Construal, Cyberbullying, and Psychological Disharmony in Adolescents: An Investigation of Structural Equation Modelling.

Abstract

Abstract The aim of this study is to investigate the effect of relational-interdependent self-construal on cyberbullying anc the effect of cyberbullying on psychological disharmony. Participants were 258 high school students. In this study the Relational-Interdependent Self-Construal Scale, the Revised Cyberbullying Inventory, and the Depression Anxiety, Stress Scale were used. In correlational analysis, cyberbullying and cyber victimization were found negatively related to relational-interdependent self-construal. On the other hand, cyberbullying and cyber victimization were found positively related to depression, anxiety, and stress. The goodness of fit indices indicated that the model was fit. According to structural eguation modelling ISEM] results, relational-interdependent self-construal predicted negatively cyberbullying, and cyberbullying predicted psychological disharmony in a positive way. Key Words Relational-Interdependent Self-Construal, Cyberbullying, Psychological Disharmony. With the advancement in technology, mobile phones, social network sites, and internet have been important part of social life. According to Internet World Stats (2010), about 29 per cent of world's population have used internet, and percentage of internet users have increased by 445 % from 2000 to 2010. Turkey already has 35 million Internet users, the fifth highest in Europe and the 13th worldwide. Households Information and Communication Usage Survey indicated that 30 per cent of households have internet access (Turkiye Istatistik Kurumu [TUlK], 2010). These statistics display usage of common in worldwide. The explosion of internet and its use by adolescents has many potential benefits. This technology allows adolescents to communicate people simultaneously, quickly and easily assess information sources about a broad number of topics, and provides opportunities for adolescents to establish social connections. Nonetheless a potential risk of using internet heavily, impulsively, and unconsciously for personal development in adolescents has emerged (Colwell & Kato, 2003; Kerberg, 2005). With the advancement in communication and information technology, traditional bullying has moved into the virtual environment and transformed itself into a new form called cyberbullying (Scaglione & Scaglione, 2006; Yaman, Eroglu, & Peker, 2011). Cyberbullying is defined as the use of information and communication technologies to support deliberate, repeated, and hostile behaviour by an individual or group, that is intended to harm others (Belsey 2008). Willard (2007) defined cyberbullying as using information and communication technologies to send hurtful messages to others and act socially aggressive. Williams and Guerra (2007) defined cyberbullying as the wilful use of the communication technologies including internet, e-mail, and blogs to insult, denigrate, and make fun of others. Researches on prevalence of cyberbullying (Beran & Li, 2005; Campbell, 2005; Li, 2006; National Children's Home [NCH] & Tesco Mobile, 2005; Ras-kauskas & Stoltz, 2007; Smith, Mahdavi, Carvalho, & Tippett, 2006; Ybarra and Mitchell, 2004) have indicated that cyberbullying is common. Studies in Turkey (Akbulut, $ahin, & Eristi, 2010; Aricak, 2009; Aricak et al., 2008; Dilmac, 2009; Dilmac & Aydogan, 2010; Eroglu, 2011; Erdur-Baker & Kavsut, 2007; Peker & Eroglu, 2010) have displayed that cyberbullying and cyber victimization is common. Furthermore, researches in Turkey have been concerned with developing scales to measure cyberbullying and cyber victimization (Ayas & Hor-zum, 2010; Akbulut et al., 2010; Cetin, Yaman, & Peker, 2011; Topcu & Erdur-Baker, 2010). Cyberbullying differs from traditional bullying in various ways. Traditional bullying is done directly (Olweus, 1993) or indirectly (Bjorkqvist, Lager-spetz, & Kaukianien, 1992). Direct bullying involves a great deal of overt aggression such as pushing, hitting, teasing, angering, and threatening. …