Responses to cyberbullying
Bullied victims' experiences differ by their ability to handle their own emotions

Date:
June 29, 2020
Source:
University of Tokyo
Summary:
It is well-known that victims of bullying can have higher risks
of future health and social problems. However, different victims
experience a broad range of responses and some may not suffer at
all. Researchers felt this implied there might be factors that
could protect against some consequences of bullying. In a study
of over 6,000 adolescents in Japan, they found a strong candidate
in the moderation of what is known as emotional competence.



FULL STORY ==========================================================================
It is well-known that victims of bullying can have higher risks of
future health and social problems. However, different victims experience
a broad range of responses and some may not suffer at all. Researchers
felt this implied there might be factors that could protect against some consequences of bullying. In a study of over 6,000 adolescents in Japan,
they found a strong candidate in the moderation of what is known as
emotional competence.


========================================================================== Online bullying, or cyberbullying, is not a new phenomenon, but as
the world becomes more dependent on online communication, it does
become a greater threat. Lead author Yuhei Urano, Associate Professor
Ryu Takizawa and Professor Haruhiko Shimoyama from the Department
of Clinical Psychology at the University of Tokyo and their team
investigated protective factors for the adverse effects of cyberbullying victimization. They analyzed data from 6,403 adolescents aged 12 to 18
(1,925 male, 4,478 female) for their study.

"We chose users of a social networking app as participants of the study, because they were likely to experience more online interactions than
others," said Urano. "The surveys explored instances of cyberbullying victimization and a cross section of other personal and social
information. These allowed us to investigate whether the ability to handle emotions, called emotional competence, correlated with the severity of
the repercussions of cyberbullying." What the researchers found may at
first seem counterintuitive, but after careful analysis, their results
showed that higher emotional skills were not always associated with
better mental health; they may actually make things worse depending on
the social context. It depends on the individual's specific emotional competence, defined as the ability to identify, understand, express,
regulate and use emotions. There is intrapersonal emotional competence,
the ability to handle one's own emotions, and interpersonal emotional competence, the ability to handle others' emotions.

"We thought that intrapersonal emotional competence showed buffering
effects against cyberbullying, because the ability to handle one's own
emotions is known to have a positive impact on our mental health,"
said Urano. "On the other hand, we thought interpersonal emotional
competence showed the opposite effect. Because the ability to understand emotional states in others may encourage individuals to dwell on the
bully's intentions." The researchers hope this study could pave the
way to investigations about the different roles of intrapersonal and interpersonal emotional competence, both the positive and negative effects
they may have. However, given the inherent complexity of the topic in
question, they suggest that in order to correctly determine the causal relationships behind their results, more longitudinal studies should be conducted in the future.


========================================================================== Story Source: Materials provided by University_of_Tokyo. Note: Content
may be edited for style and length.


========================================================================== Journal Reference:
1. Yuhei Urano, Ryu Takizawa, Mai Ohka, Hisanori Yamasaki, Haruhiko
Shimoyama. Cyber bullying victimization and adolescent mental
health: The differential moderating effects of intrapersonal and
interpersonal emotional competence. Journal of Adolescence, 2020;
80: 182 DOI: 10.1016/ j.adolescence.2020.02.009 ==========================================================================

Link to news story: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/06/200629120145.htm

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