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Does Sensation Seeking Lead to Adolescents’ Cyberbullying Perpetration? The Mediating Role of Moral Disengagement and The Moderating Role of Perceived Social Support

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Abstract

Based on the general aggression model, the current study examined the mediating role of moral disengagement in the association between sensation seeking and cyberbullying perpetration and the moderating role of perceived social support. A total of 2,286 Chinese adolescents aged 11–16 years completed the questionnaires regarding sensation seeking, cyberbullying perpetration, moral disengagement, and perceived social support. After gender and age were controlled, sensation seeking was significantly and positively associated with cyberbullying perpetration and this relationship was partially mediated by moral disengagement. Moderated mediation analysis further indicated that perceived social support moderated the relationship between sensation seeking and moral disengagement as well as sensation seeking and cyberbullying perpetration. These two relationships became weaker for adolescents with high perceived social support. Specifically, adolescents with higher levels of sensation seeking were more likely to develop moral disengagement and further engaged in cyberbullying perpetration, when they perceived less social support.

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Data Availability

The data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.

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Funding

The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This work was supported by grants from the Program for the Innovative Talents of Higher Education Institutions of Shanxi. We would like to thank all of the school partners and adolescents who participated in this study.

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  1. School of Educational Science, Shanxi University, No. 92 Wucheng Road, Taiyuan, 030006, China

    Xingchao Wang, Shiyin Wang & Xueqi Zeng

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  1. Xingchao Wang
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  2. Shiyin Wang
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Contributions

XW contributed to data collection, conceived of the study, performed the statistical analysis, and drafted the manuscript. SW and XZ contributed to data analyses and assisted with drafting the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

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Correspondence to Xingchao Wang.

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All procedures performed in the study involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards. This study was approved by Shanxi University Ethics Committee in Taiyuan, China.

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Wang, X., Wang, S. & Zeng, X. Does Sensation Seeking Lead to Adolescents’ Cyberbullying Perpetration? The Mediating Role of Moral Disengagement and The Moderating Role of Perceived Social Support. Child Psychiatry Hum Dev (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10578-023-01527-8

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