Over the past decade or two, more and more adolescents in China have gradually gained frequent access to the Internet, due to the result of the continuous development and improvement of communication technologies. According to the 47th Statistical Report on the Development of the Internet in China released by the China Internet Network Information Centre (CNNIC) on 3 February 2021, the number of Chinese Internet users has reached 984 million in December 2020, which counted for 70.4% of the country’s entire population. Over 50% of the users were aged under 40. Students, which was the largest user group, accounted for 21.1% of the entire Internet user population in China (CNNIC, 2021). From the data, it is clear that more middle school students have gained access to the Internet and electronic devices for their daily communication. Thus, bullying, which once took places face to face, has now expanded into the virtual space. A new form of bullying, which is known as cyberbullying, has emerged.
Cyberbullying is an extension of traditional bullying on the Internet (Smith, 2010). It is defined as a series of prolonged and repeated deliberate aggression by a group or individual against another through a virtual space, e.g., the Internet, where it is often difficult for the victims to defend themselves. The victims of cyberbullying are usually peers of the persecutors, e.g., schoolmates and classmates. Typically, the victims are not fully developed physically or mentally. Such bullying can cause tremendous mental harm, which could be an obstacle for them to develop healthy personalities and may even make ineradicable changes to their grown-up lives. Research has shown that during cyberbullying, both the persecutors and the victims may experience a variety of problems, e.g., becoming suicidal, depressed, and anxious, feeling an increasing level of loneliness, drug and alcohol abuse, reduced life satisfaction, and having lower self-esteem and lower academic performances (Fu et al., 2020; Mitchell et al., 2018; Kowalski et al., 2012). Therefore, many researchers have argued that it is necessary to explore the internal mechanisms, to provide theoretical support, and thus prevent and intervene in adolescent cyberbullying.
1.1. The relationship between Cumulative Ecological Risk (CER) and adolescent cyberbullying
Most of the research on the antecedents of cyberbullying has explored a single factor with little consideration of the whole picture. However, the Bioecological Theory (BT) (Bronfenbrenner & Morris, 1998) suggested that human development is influenced by a variety of ecosystems, including family, peers, school, and community. An extensive amount of BT based research on these factors revealed that these factors do play very important roles in adolescent cyberbullying (Zhang & Wu, 2017). Masten et al. (2014) pointed out that the harm to the development of individuals is often left undiscovered when only a single factor is present. As the risk factors accumulate, their development may be exposed to an extreme degree of harm and impairment. In addition, the external risk factors do not act independently of each other. Instead, they act highly simultaneously, interactively, and the correlations between these factors are highly complicated (Xi & Zuo, 2009). Some researchers have hence proposed the concept of Cumulative Ecological Risk (CER), arguing that it is crucial to pay more attention to the risk factors in multiple domains during the research process. It portrays the reality of individual developments within the current situation better when examining the impact through cumulating risk factors (Li et al., 2016). In previous research, it is found that negative family environments (Moreno-Ruiz et al., 2019; Ybarra & Mitchell, 2004), poor peer relationships (Coelho & Marchante, 2018; Harris, 2009), negative school environments (Zheng et al., 2017; Esther et al., 2010), as well as the social environment have an impact on the emergence of cyberbullying (Menard et al., 2015; Wright et al., 2013). Similarly, cyberbullying brings both the persecutors and the victims a varying degree of negative impact (Quintana-Orts et al., 2020; Camerini et al., 2020; Turliuc et al., 2020; Peled, 2019; Chu et al., 2018).
In his Moral Disengagement Theory, Bandura suggested that when individuals are exposed to a relatively highly stimulating environment for a prolonged period, they are prone to a decreased self-control ability and an increased possibility of acting impulsively and exhibiting aggressive behaviour online. To sum up, in this study, it is hypothesised that CER could positively predict adolescent cyberbullying (Hypothesis 1).
1.2. The independent mediating effect of Rumination
Researchers have rarely explored the internal mechanisms of the relationship between CER and cyberbullying. According to the General Strain Theory, individuals who are exposed to multiple stressors are prone to negative emotions, e.g., anger and frustration, which inevitably increase their incidence of having deviant behaviour and the likelihood of committing violent crimes counteracting the stressor (Agnew, 1992). The Stress-Reactive Rumination Model (Robinson & Alloy, 2003) suggested that the underlying cause of Rumination is the various stressful events experienced by individuals. RUMINATION refers to the process that individuals are focused on the causes and consequences of their own negative emotions, thoughts, or behaviour repeatedly and uncontrollably, instead of actively finding ways to ameliorate the situation. They have lost the ability to extricate from their negative thoughts. Hence, some scholars suggested that Rumination is essentially a style of response to maladaptation (Nolen-Hoeksema, 1991).
According to the point of view of the Cognitive Load Theory (Chen & Feng, 2015; Watkins & Brown, 2002), the main reason for individuals to develop Rumination is the negative and difficult events they have encountered or encountering, in their daily lives. These events can occupy a large portion of their limited cognitive resources, which are supposed to be linked to their thoughts and behaviour. If one’s cognitive resources are over-occupied, it is inevitable that his or her executive and self-controlling abilities would be undermined. This leads to a failure of self-regulation, an increased level of activity, and a decreased range of attention, thus igniting their aggressive behaviour. As a negative way of thinking, Rumination forces individuals to focus solely on the negatives, draining their willpower and the ability to adapt (Nolen-Hoeksema, 2008). At the same time, Rumination not only impairs their problem-solving abilities or their access to social support but also amplifies their suicidal thoughts (Liu et al., 2014). Besides, research has shown that Rumination is also associated with individuals’ maladaptive behaviour. It has been found to be a variable that provides powerful and effective predictions of aggressive behaviour on the Internet and adolescent violence (Jin et al., 2018; Garcia-Sancho et al., 2016). Therefore, Rumination is a major reason for adolescent students to develop aggressive behaviour (Eisenlohr-Moul et al., 2016; Peters et al., 2015; McMahon et al., 2010). In addition, studies have shown that Rumination acts as a mediating variable for the relationship between cybervictimization and depression (Pasquale et al., 2021; Zhong, Lai & Tang, 2015; Feinstein et al., 2014), as well as that of relational aggression and depression (Mathieson et al., 2014). Based on the above, in this study, it is hypothesised that Rumination has a mediating effect on the relationship between CER and adolescent cyberbullying (Hypothesis 2).
1.3. The independent mediating effect of cybervictimization
As Bandura advised in his Social Learning Theory, all kinds of behaviour can be learned directly or through imitation. Therefore, the acquisition of aggressive behaviour is also closely linked to the experience of being bullied frequently. Research on cyberbullying persecutors’ experience has shown that the following factors could be used to effectively predict adolescent cyberbullying behaviour: a record of participating in traditional bullying as either a persecutor or a victim (Yang et al., 2013), commanding and authoritative parents (Makri-Botsari & Karagianni, 2014), a close relationship with peers who break the laws and have no public morals (Hinduja & Patchin, 2013), a low sense of belonging when at school (Wong et al., 2014), and frequent contact with violent media (Den Hamer & Konijn, 2015). On the other hand, for cyberbullying victims, frequent exposure to cyberbullying is also likely to trigger their aggressive and lawless behaviour (Cassiani-Miranda et al., 2021; Chandrashekhar et al., 2016). Studies have found that some people play a dual role during cyberbullying events (i.e., they could be both the persecutors and the victims at the same time) (Lee & Shin, 2017; Zhou et al., 2013; Vandebosch & Van Cleemput, 2009). Reemst et al. (2016) suggested in their research that if individuals are constantly bullied, their social information processing models would be altered in such a way that they would perceive bullying as permissible or even justifiable. In addition, cybervictimization is considered to be the second most important predictor of cyberbullying events (Kowalski et al., 2014), as individuals would choose to fight back correspondingly if they are bullied on the Internet (Francine et al., 2008). However, in a follow-up study by Barlett and Gentile (2012), a significant bidirectional predictive effect was found between cybervictimization and cyberbullying. Based on the above, in this study, it is hypothesised that CER and Rumination could positively predict adolescents cybervictimization, cybervictimization could positively and directly predict adolescent cyberbullying, and cybervictimization has a mediating effect on the relationship between CER and cyberbullying.
1.4. The serial mediating effects of Rumination and cybervictimization
In this study, Rumination and cybervictimization serve as two mediating variables. It is found in previous studies that Rumination is particularly positively correlated with cybervictimization (Pan, 2020; Quintana-Orts et al., 2020; Camerini et al., 2020; Feinstein et al., 2014). As a negative and pessimistic way of thinking, Rumination could cause individuals to be more vulnerable when participating in social activities (Valkenburg & Peter, 2007). In addition, according to the Response Style Theory, Rumination is often a precursor of depression, which means that the incidence of depression increases accordingly if Rumination takes place more frequently (Yang & Liu, 2016). Cybervictimization, on the other hand, is found to be able to positively predict the occurrence of depression (Chu et al., 2018) as it reinforces the negative emotions of individuals. Thus, it is noticeable that these two variables are somewhat antagonistic. External CER factors reinforce individuals’ Rumination, causing them to become even more disengaged from social activities. As targets of other violent individuals or groups, they are prone to cybervictimization, which can be even more severe than traditional face-to-face bullying. Affected by multiple sources of pressure, an individual is more likely to think and behave negatively, and this could cause his or her role as a victim in cyberbullying events to shift to that of a persecutor.
In summary, the effects of CER on adolescent cyberbullying is intended to be discussed in this study, along with the details (i.e. the independent and serial mediating effects of Rumination and cybervictimization). Please refer to Chart 1.4 for model specifications. It is hoped that the study will shed light on the internal mechanisms of CER affecting cyberbullying and provide the adolescents with more beneficial suggestions of stopping Internet misuse and easing their psycho-emotional burden