Project details

Project title

Cyberbullying as an act of revenge

Country or countries

Germany (DE)

Language(s) of report

English

Funder of research

PhD or Masters research

Date of fieldwork

2010

Main research focus

Target group studied

Children; Others (e.g. teachers)

Description of studied group

Age of children studied

11; 12; 13; 14; 15; 16; 17

Methodology

Quantitative

Size of sample

473

If survey, scope of sample

National

Access and use; Activities; Risks and harm

• In an online survey, 375 young people aged 11-25 were asked about their bullying experiences to determine (a) if victims of traditional bullying also become cyberbullies, and (b) if victims of traditional bullying choose their former perpetrators as victims. • 149 (83%) of the 179 victims of traditional bullying identified in the study reported having become cyberbullies. Of the 144 who actually answered the question of whether or not they had chosen a traditional perpetrator as their online victim, a majority (52%) reported that at least about a quarter of their victims were people who had bullied them before. • In addition, the frequency of victimisation was positively related to vengeful behaviour. A regression analysis supported that vengefulness as a trait significantly predicted the number of former perpetrators that later became targets of cyberbullying. • It is argued that cyber-revenge may best be interpreted from the perspective of fear of retaliation. Against this backdrop, the anonymity provided by the internet allows revenge while still avoiding direct confrontation with the target.

Relevant publications

König, A., Gollwitzer, M., & Steffgen, G. (2010). Cyberbullying as an act of revenge? Australian Journal of Guidance and Counselling, 20(2), 210-224.

Report accessibility

Journal article

URL of report

Dataset publicly available

Data available

Contact details of investigator

Georges Steffgen, University of Luxembourg, georges.steffgen@uni.lu