Peer Influence, Internet use and Cyberbullying: A Comparison of Different Context Effects among German Adolescents

The influence of social reference groups such as family members, classmates and friends on adolescents' attitudes and behavior has been acknowledged in research for many decades. With the increasing use of online media, cyberbullying has become a major issue in adolescence research. In this paper, we compare various forms of peer influence on cyberbullying behavior among high school students in Germany. Specifically, the impact of close friends and more distant peers in the school class on perpetrator and victim roles is compared. The results indicate that the class context is highly relevant for cyberbullying. For both processes—perpetration and victimization—the number of cyberbullies within a school class plays an important role in predicting individual behavior. Looking at individual risk factors, the results show that cyberbullying is strongly related to the use of social networking sites, and the risk of victimization increases with the time spent online.