Understanding the Relations Among Being a Cyber Victim, Willingness to Tell a Friend About Being a Cyber Victim, and Peer Social Competence for Chinese Children
Abstract
Children may cope with cyber victimization in a variety of ways, including obtaining social support from friends. This research, with children in China (Grades 3–6, n = 462), examined associations among (a) willingness to tell a friend about being a cyber victim, (b) being a cyber victim, and (c) seven peer social competence variables: social self-competence, global self-competence, loneliness, peer optimism, number of mutual friends, peer liking nominations, and peer victimization nominations. All children enrolled in Grades 3–6 were invited to participate. Based on a multivariate analysis of variance, cyber victimization was associated with self-reported lower scores on global self-competence and peer optimism and with higher scores on loneliness; none of the peer-reported measures of social competence was significantly related. Using discriminant function analyses, social competence measures of peer optimism, self-competence (global and social), number of mutual friends, and classroom peer nominations for liked most significantly differentiated children willing to tell versus children not willing to tell a friend about being a cyber victim. Importantly, this differentiation was evident only for children who reported having been a cyber victim. These findings underscore the complex relation of factors associated with willingness to tell friends about being a cyber victim.
Publication Title
Psychology of Popular Media
Recommended Citation
Cohen, R., Deptula, D., Ray, G., & Zhou, Z. (2025). Understanding the Relations Among Being a Cyber Victim, Willingness to Tell a Friend About Being a Cyber Victim, and Peer Social Competence for Chinese Children. Psychology of Popular Media https://doi.org/10.1037/ppm0000596
