Social Costs and Benefits of Cyber Aggression-Victimization: A Latent Class Analysis

• In Event: 3-154 - The Adaptive Nature of Adolescent Aggression

Integrative Statement

Bullying research has extensively studied traditional bullying-victimization status groups, including bullies, victims, and bully-victims (a bully and victim; Lovegrove et al., 2014). Evolutionary psychological research suggests that while bullies often attain reproductively relevant benefits and victims often experience internalizing problems which may hinder survival and reproduction (Volk et al., 2012), the case of bully-victims is less clear. Many studies suggest that bully-victims experience more problems and fewer benefits than bullies, but recent findings suggest that bully-victims may experience benefits, like dating (e.g., Dane et al., 2017).
Since cyber aggression and victimization tend to co-occur to a greater degree than does traditional aggression and victimization (e.g., Varjas et al., 2009), and due to the indirect and potentially anonymous nature of cyberspace (Kowalski et al., 2014), differences in status groups between cyber and traditional contexts are expected. Using Latent Class Analysis (LCA), this study assessed adolescents’ typical involvement patterns across proactive and reactive cyber aggression and cyber victimization. Involvement in cyber aggression and victimization was predicted to co-occur and to differ based on frequency (e.g., uninvolved, moderately, and highly involved), as seen previously (Schultze-Krumbholz et al., 2015). In line with evolutionary psychological theories of aggression like resource control theory, wherein coercive strategies involve trade-offs, with gains (e.g., social status, dating and sexual behavior) being offset by costs (e.g., poorer relationship quality or cooperation) (see Volk et al., 2012), cyber aggression has been linked with greater perceived popularity (Wegge et al., 2016) but lower social preference amongst peers (Wright, 2014). To further examine cyber aggression and victimization in relation to a range of social costs and benefits, we assessed how cyber involvement was related to adolescents’ dating and sexual behavior, as well as friendship and partner anxiety and avoidance.
It was predicted that as frequency of cyber involvement increases, so would the costs, and moderate cyber involvement would be associated with more reproductively relevant benefits in comparison to no involvement and high involvement. Participants completed self-report measures of cyber aggression and victimization, dating and sexual behaviors, social dominance and resource control, and attachment to friends and romantic partners. In a sample of 401 adolescents (232 females; ages 12 to 18, M = 14.72, SD = 1.68), the three-class model had the best fit and interpretability. From the overall sample, 63.4% were placed in class 1 (uninvolved), 30.1% were placed in class 2 (moderate cyber aggressor-victims), and 6.4% were placed in class 3 (high cyber aggressor-victims). Post-hoc analyses indicated that moderate cyber aggressor-victims reported significantly more girlfriends/boyfriends and dating than the uninvolved group. Regarding the costs of cyber involvement, both moderate and high cyber aggressor-victims reported significantly lower levels of alliance formation than the uninvolved group. Additionally, moderate cyber aggressor-victims reported significantly more friendship anxiety than the uninvolved group. These findings are consistent with evolutionary psychological perspectives on aggression, and links to both costs and benefits suggest the importance of research into prosocial alternatives to coercive, goal-directed behavior (Hawley 2003; Ellis et al., 2015).

Authors

• Kiana LaPierre, Brock University
  Presenting Author

• Andrew Dane, Brock University
  Non-Presenting Author