Cyberbullying and its Psychological Effects on Young People

This article discusses the psychological effects of cyberbullying on young people and explores possible hypotheses to reduce its occurrence. It also highlights the gender differences in cyberbullying.

Running Head: PSYCHOLOGY
Principles of Psychology
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

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Table of Contents
Introduction................................................................................................................................2
Research on Cyberbullying........................................................................................................2
Discussion..................................................................................................................................3
Conclusion..................................................................................................................................3
References..................................................................................................................................4

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Introduction
With the advancement of technologies internet has become an important part of day to
day life in the recent times. On one side internet has connect people across the globe, helped
in education and financial transactions. On the other hand it has caused detrimental effects in
our life. These detrimental effects are internet addiction, cyber bullying, isolation and
suicides (Diomidous et al., 2016). This article will mainly focus on the cause of cyber
bullying stated as hypothesis and till what extent the hypothesis are true.
Research on Cyberbullying
Cyberbullying is defined as an aggressive behavior caused over internet. Due to
cyberbullying young people often feel lonely, develops mental illness and other
psychological problems. Mostly young person are subjected to cyberbullying. The person
often lose confidence, starts self-doubt and isolates themselves from family and friends. In
worst cases this can cause suicide (Kowalski & Giumetti, 2017). Approximately 20-40% of
adolescent person committee suicide due to cyberbullying (Aboujaoude et al., 2015).
Forssell (2018), conducted a study to explore the possible hypothesis which can
reduce the occurrence of cyberbullying. The hypothesis stated in this study are as follows.
Hypothesis 1: Influence over work can reduce cyberbullying.
Hypothesis 2: Workplace having good social climate can reduce cyberbullying.
Hypothesis 3: Cyberbullying can be reduced by social support given by the managers.
Hypothesis 4: Cyberbullying also be reduced by social support given by colleagues.
The study was conducted in South Sweden over 140,000 individuals having age group
from 25 to 65 years. Individuals were randomly selected and was sent cyberbullying behavior

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questionnaires. Among which only 3371 individuals responded to the questionnaires (51%
men and 49% women). This study included both people at the age of retirement and young
people recently joined a job.
1542 respondents were subjected to cyberbullying out of 3317 individual who
responded to the questionnaire. 371 and 200 respondents were male and female managers.
468 and 500 respondents were male and female non-managers (Forssell, 2018).
Discussion
From the above performed study it was deduced that hypothesis 1 was not true as
there was no significant relationship between an individual’s work and cyberbullying. It was
also deduced that poor social climate can cause cyberbullying in all the four groups which
was studied, thus supporting hypothesis 2. Hypothesis 3 and hypothesis 4 were partly
supported because, there was a difference in cyberbullying in terms of gender. Women
managers had no relation between lacks of support from managers thus stating hypothesis 3
partly correct. Woman managers got less support from their colleague thus stating hypothesis
4 partly correct (Forssell, 2018).
Conclusion
With increase in the use of internet and social media cyberbullying is increasing.
Individual should be aware sharing personal information shared over social media. This is
also the leading cause of suicide among young people. From this study it can be deduced that
cyberbullying has mostly occurred in case of women than men. Although this study did not
clearly indicate the source of bullying. For this reason further studies needs to be done.

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References
Aboujaoude, E., Savage, M. W., Starcevic, V., & Salame, W. O. (2015). Cyberbullying:
Review of an old problem gone viral. Journal of adolescent health, 57(1), 10-18.
Forssell, R. C. (2018). Gender and organisational position: predicting victimisation of
cyberbullying behaviour in working life. The International Journal of Human
Resource Management, 1-20.
Diomidous, M., Chardalias, K., Magita, A., Koutonias, P., Panagiotopoulou, P., & Mantas, J.
(2016). Social and psychological effects of the internet use. Acta informatica
medica, 24(1), 66.
Kowalski, R. M., & Giumetti, G. W. (2017). Bullying in the digital age. In Cybercrime and
its victims (pp. 167-186). Routledge.