Inhibition Difficulties and Cyberbullying Perpetration in Alpha Generation Elementary School Students: The Moderating Role of Moderate-to-Vigorous Physical Activity and Gender

Objectives: This study investigated whether moderate-to-vigorous physical activity (MVPA) moderates the association between inhibition difficulties and cyberbullying perpetration among elementary students, and whether this moderating effect is further conditioned by gender. Cyberbullying has emerged as a distinct and pervasive social problem in the digital era, and identifying both individual risk factors and protective behaviors is critical for developing effective preventive strategies.Methods: This study analyzed data from 161 fifth-grade elementary school children (78 boys, 83 girls) drawn from the Alpha Generation Digital Daily Survey, wave 2 collected in 2023. Descriptive statistics, Pearson’s correlation analyses, and t-tests for independent samples were performed using SPSS 25.0. In addition, the PROCESS Macro Model 3 was used to examine the direct and moderated moderation effects of MVPA and gender, controlling for age, parental household income, and parental education level.Results: A significant three-way interaction emerged between inhibition difficulties, MVPA, and gender (B = .05, p 〈 .05). Simple slope analyses showed that for boys, inhibition difficulties predicted higher cyberbullying when MVPA was low (B = .08, p 〈 .001) or average (B = .04, p 〈 .01), but this effect was not significant when MVPA was high. MVPA did not have a significant moderating effect in girls.Conclusion: The findings indicate that MVPA can buffer the risk of cyberbullying associated with inhibition difficulties in boys but not in girls. These results highlight the importance of gender-specific prevention strategies: promoting regular MVPA may be effective for boys, whereas interventions for girls may need to focus more on social–emotional skills and relational contexts.