Fun over conscience: Fun-seeking tendencies in cyberbullying perpetration

The current study aimed to examine the uniqueness of cyberbullying as a bullying type using newly developed self-report measures to demonstrate the importance of fun-seeking tendencies (over normative beliefs about aggression) in explaining bullying behaviors online. The final sample consisted of 750 7th and 8th grade (aged 11-15) students from Hong Kong. A construct of fun-seeking tendencies in cyber-aggression (FSCA) was tested as a new predictor of cyberbullying perpetration beyond normative beliefs about cyber-aggression (NBCA). Using multiple-regression analyses, we found that fun-seeking tendencies explained unique variance in cyberbullying perpetration beyond grade and NBCA. Furthermore, the correlation between FSCA and cyberbullying perpetration was significantly stronger than that between NBCA and cyberbullying perpetration. Our findings underscore the importance of distinguishing between traditional bullying and cyberbullying and of looking beyond normative beliefs in cyberbullying research due to the unique properties of the online environment.