Socio-psychological determinants of cyberaggression: empirical substantiation of the theoretical model

Introduction. The issue of teenage cyber aggression is getting a special acuteness nowadays. Cyberaggression means any destructive actions committed on the Internet. Researchers actively study the peculiarities of the spread of cyber aggression and the consequences of cyber victimisation. At the same time, the question of the causes of such behaviour remains poorly studied. The lack of a single theoretical construct does not allow to comprehensively study this phenomenon. Thus, the aim of the study was to empirically substantiate the previously proposed theoretical model of socio-psychological determinants of cyber aggression in adolescents. Methods. 325 adolescents, students of 5th-10th grades of general education schools in St. Petersburg took part in the study. The study was conducted using reliable, valid and modern socio-psychological techniques. The tendency to cyberaggression was studied using the questionnaire “Typology of cyberaggression”. Results. Aggressiveness, empathy, styles of behavior in conflict situations, communicative characteristics and social intelligence are presented as the main socio-psychological determinants of cyberaggression. Gender, age and time spent by a teenager on the Internet were marked as conditions affecting cyberaggression. The model was tested using the structural equation method (SEM). During testing, the model proved the influence of all the proposed determinants on cyber aggression in adolescents. The data obtained in the course of the study will serve as a basis for further, more detailed analyses of the phenomenon of cyber aggression in adolescents. They can also be used to create preventive and corrective programmes adapted to different age groups and taking into account the differences in the manifestations of cyber aggressive behaviour in boys and girls.