Emotion regulation and empathy as mediators of self-esteem and friendship quality in predicting cyberbullying tendency in Javanese-Indonesian adolescents

Many things play a role in the tendency to engage in cyberbullying. This study aimed to identify the determinant factors of the tendency to engage in cyberbullying by adolescents in Java. A sample of 1038 teenagers aged between 12 and 18 who used internet-connected electronic information and technology equipment. The measuring instruments used in this study included a cyberbullying tendency scale, an empathy scale, a self-esteem scale, a friendship quality scale, and an emotion regulation scale. Path analysis was used to process the data. The data showed that self-esteem served as a predictor of cyberbullying tendency whose relationship was negative only when it was mediated by emotion regulation. Friendship quality was a predictor of cyberbullying tendency both in a direct fashion and mediated by empathy.