Relational and cyber aggression among adolescents: Personality and emotion regulation as moderators

The present study aimed to investigate the role of certain personality traits, such as callous-unemotional traits, behavioral activation system (BAS), and emotion regulation in the associations between proactive and reactive relational aggression (RA) and Cyberbullying (CB). Participants were 347 Greek adolescents who completed a self-report questionnaire. Based on prior evidence the present study examined personality characteristics both as predictors of relational and cyber aggression, as well as moderators in bidirectional models between these aggressive forms. Results showed that high callous and uncaring traits as well as low BAS moderated the pathway from CB to proactive and reactive RA. Further, proactive and reactive RA were positively associated with CB at high levels of callous and uncaring traits and low levels of BAS. Low cognitive reappraisal moderated the links between both RA functions (i.e. proactive and reactive) to CB. Finally, adolescents who engage in proactive and reactive RA and use high cognitive reappraisal to regulate their emotions are more likely to use CB. Overall, these results indicate that relational and cyber aggression share some common ground and aggressors do not significantly differ in terms of their personality traits.