How is Online Disinhibition Related to Adolescents’ Cyberbullying Perpetration? Empathy and Gender as Moderators

Abstract

The present study examined the relationship between online disinhibition and adolescents’ cyberbullying perpetration and investigated whether empathy and gender would moderate this relationship. A total of 2407 Chinese adolescents aged 11–16 years completed the questionnaires to measure their online disinhibition, empathy, and cyberbullying perpetration. Results indicated that high levels of online disinhibition were associated with high levels of cyberbullying perpetration, even after controlling for key covariates related to cyberbullying perpetration. Empathy significantly moderated the relationship between online disinhibition and cyberbullying perpetration. Specifically, this relationship was not significant at high levels of empathy. Moreover, the impact of empathy was moderated by gender. For male adolescents, online disinhibition was significantly associated with cyberbullying perpetration only when their empathy was low. For female adolescents, the relationship between online disinhibition and cyberbullying perpetration became nonsignificant, regardless of whether they had a low or high level of empathy.