Positive Teacher-Student Relationships Lead to Less Cyberbullying Perpetration: A Within-Person Perspective

Adolescence is usually the beginning of externalizing problems. At the same time, as adolescents mature it drives changes in teacher-student relationships. Even though bidirectional associations between teacher-student relationships and cyberbullying perpetration exist, studies examining this link at the within-person level are lacking. This longitudinal study tested the process of influence between teacher-student relationships and cyberbullying perpetration and examined whether teacher-student relationships predicted cyberbullying perpetration by using the random-intercept cross-lagged model. Participants included 2,407 Chinese adolescents (50.23% girl, M age = 12.75, SD = 0.58 at baseline) from seven schools at three-time points with one-year intervals. Results showed that initial levels and changes of teacher-student relationships significantly predicted cyberbullying perpetration. The relation between teacher-student relationships and cyberbullying perpetration was stable over time at the within-person level, but not at the between-person level. Furthermore, self-esteem significantly predicted cyberbullying perpetration at the between-person level, but not at the within-person level. The results indicate that adolescents with higher teacher-student relationships compared to their own average, tended to be those who later experienced lower cyberbullying perpetration and vice versa. Low self-esteem is not a risk factor for cyberbullying perpetration at the within-person level.