The hidden link under gender differences: How violence exposure fuels adolescents' cyber aggression through negative...

Cyber aggression among adolescents is an increasing concern with significant psychological and social consequences. Although previous research has linked violence exposure to cyber aggression, the cognitive-emotional mechanisms and gender-specific pathways underlying this relationship remain unclear.

A three-wave longitudinal study was conducted with 2394 middle school students (49.8 % male; M age = 15.70, SD = 2.63) from eight schools in Jiangxi Province, China. Participants completed self-report measures of violence exposure, negative rumination, and cyber aggression (both overt and relational) across three time points. Random intercept cross-lagged panel models (RI-CLPM) were employed to disentangle within- and between-person processes, and multi-group comparisons were used to examine gender differences.

The results revealed bidirectional longitudinal associations between violence exposure and cyber aggression. Negative rumination significantly mediated the forward pathway, whereby violence exposure predicted subsequent cyber aggression. However, the reverse mediating pathway-from cyber aggression to later violence exposure via rumination-was not consistently supported. Multi-group analyses indicated that the mediating pathway from negative rumination to cyber overt aggression was stronger for boys than for girls, while no gender differences emerged for relational aggression.

These findings build upon prior cross-sectional studies by elucidating the longitudinal mechanisms that link violence exposure, rumination, and cyber aggression. The results highlight the importance of addressing rumination as a cognitive-emotional mechanism in interventions, with particular emphasis on gender-specific risk patterns in overt aggression.