On Cybervictimization and Cyberbullying Among Chinese Adolescents: The Moderating Role of the Dark Triad Traits and...

Cybervictimization has been identified as a predictor of cyberbullying among adolescents, yet the conditions under which this association varies remain underexplored. The Dark Triad traits and parental psychological control have been theorized to influence how victims respond to online aggression, but empirical evidence on their moderating roles is mixed.

A two-wave longitudinal sample of 1100 Chinese adolescents (M_age = 14.77, 57.8% boys) was recruited from three secondary schools in Hubei Province, China. At T1, participants completed measures of traditional bullying victimization, cybervictimization, cyberbullying, Dark Triad traits, and parental psychological control. Six months later (T2), they reported their frequency of cyberbullying. Hierarchical linear regression analyses tested the direct and moderating effects. Given the low base rate and floor effects in cyberbullying scores, we conducted methodological sensitivity analyses using logistic regression as a robustness check.

Controlling for gender, traditional bullying victimization, and baseline cyberbullying, T1 cybervictimization predicted higher T2 cyberbullying. This association was stronger among adolescents higher in Dark Triad traits. Parental psychological control showed no reliable main effect or two-way moderation, but a significant three-way interaction indicated the strongest association when both Dark Triad and parental psychological control were high. Logistic regression models replicated the cybervictimization effect and Dark Triad traits moderation, whereas the three-way interaction was marginally significant in Machiavellianism.

These findings suggest that cybervictimization predicts subsequent cyberbullying in adolescence, particularly among adolescents with high Dark Triad traits. Parental psychological control appears to exacerbate the link between cybervictimization and later cyberbullying primarily when adolescents also report high Dark Triad traits. This pattern was more evident when predicting differences in the frequency of cyberbullying than when predicting whether adolescents engaged in any cyberbullying at all.