Poster #86 - Examining the Links Between Social Anxiety, Social Exclusion, and Cyberbullying in Adolescents with Chronic Pain

• In Event: Poster Session 15

Abstract

Introduction: Adolescents with chronic pain experience many difficulties within their social relationships, including bullying (Forgeron et al., 2010). Bullying, in turn, has been linked to mental health problems, like social anxiety (Chiu et al., 2021). Somewhat surprisingly, there is a growing body of literature linking social anxiety to perpetration of aggression (Andrews, Brothers, et al., 2019). Objective: In this exploratory study, we wanted to know whether higher levels of social anxiety in youth with chronic pain would be linked to their experiences with bullying, both as a victim and as a perpetrator. Based on prior research, we expected that social anxiety might be linked to greater experience of relational bullying (i.e., social exclusion) as well as perpetration of more indirect forms of bullying (including relational and cyber-bullying). Methods: Participants were treatment seeking adolescents with mixed chronic pain conditions (n = 74). Adolescents ranged from ages 14 to 18 (M = 16.24, SD = 1.35) and were 80% female. Additionally, 81% of participants were Caucasian. 82.4% of participants reported daily pain during the preceding 3 months prior to the study with most participants reporting musculoskeletal pain (59.7%). Adolescents with chronic pain completed validated measures of social anxiety (Revised Children’s Anxiety and Depression Scale; Chorpita et al., 2000), relational victimization/perpetration (The Revised Peer Experiences Questionnaire; De Los Reyes & Prinstein, 2004), and cybervictimization/perpetration (Social Networking Peer Experiences Questionnaire; Landoll et al., 2013). After obtaining preliminary correlations, we tested a series of exploratory mediation models (using Hayes’s PROCESS macro) to test whether experiencing victimization might explain observed links between social anxiety and perpetration of aggression. Only significant models are reported. Results: A simple mediation analysis was conducted using Hayes’ PROCESS macro for SPSS. A shown in Figure 1, social anxiety was associated with relational victimization (B = .02, SE = .01, 95%CI [.0151, .0329], β = .40, p < .001), and relational victimization was associated with perpetration of cyberbullying (B = .04, SE = .01, 95% CI [.0235, .0661], β = .34, p < .001). Social anxiety was no longer a significant predictor of perpetration of cyberbullying after controlling for relational victimization, B = .0008, SE = .0007, 95% CI [-.0004, .0021], β = .11, p = .20, consistent with full mediation. The 95% bootstrapped confidence interval for the indirect effect (ab = .001) based on 10,000 bootstrap samples was entirely above 0 (.0004 to .0019). Discussion: Being socially excluded in real life may explain why more socially anxious adolescents with pain engage in cyberbullying. It is possible that such youth may displace their anger online—or cyberbullying may be retaliatory for in-person experiences. Findings help generate awareness surrounding the factors that contribute to cyberbullying perpetration in this population.

Authors

• Molly Roitman, Teachers College, Columbia University
  Presenting Author

• Magellan Rankin

• Esther Yun

• Jessica Fales